Study finds that prayer does not heal the sick

carlosMM said:
false, there's quite a bunch of 'christian' sects who claim that prayer should be the main force in healing. Go ask a JW, e.g., whether prayer is better than a blood transfusion.

Not false at all. Those christian "sects" you speak of are a vast, vast minority of christians out there. By far the vast majority of christians do not advocate prayer as an alternate to medical attention. To paint all christians in this light is extremely misleading and very unfair.

Check your facts before posting, willya?

Please check your own instead of citing small minority groups behavior as the norm.

Yes indeed - it is BS, utter BS, total BS. I feel it would be an arrogant aggressive intrusion into my life by someone I detest for his offensive missioning and typical born-again Christian hyposcisy (I may be wrong about you, having gotten a wrong impression through our debates here, so please read below).

Someone praying for someone else is not BS, but rather a very human expression of compassion. As a christian I have directly seen a lot of good come from prayer even if you would just chalk it up to "coincedence". Sorry, but I simply dont agree with you saying it is BS - I have seen too many peoples lives changed for the better.

You asked a straight question, you got a straight answer.

Fair enough. But I certainly wouldnt want to live in your cold uncompassionate world. No wonder liberals are very sad people.

I would - if I thought you a kind and willing-to-help person - be appreciative. I would still refuse the offer. But most people whom I have heard or seen (TV, radio) or whose statements on prayer healing I have read are arrogant, pushy about their beliefs and intolerant. So, no, and not even no thanks. There's nothing to thank for.

Well....one mans pushy is another mans compassion. Pushy, just like harassment, is relative to each person experiencing it.
 
MobBoss said:
Not false at all. Those christian "sects" you speak of are a vast, vast minority of christians out there. By far the vast majority of christians do not advocate prayer as an alternate to medical attention. To paint all christians in this light is extremely misleading and very unfair.

i never painted all of them as nuts, but you did claim there were none.

Please check your own instead of citing small minority groups behavior as the norm.

ah, the usual MobBoss-has-been-caught-posting-BS reply.


Someone praying for someone else is not BS, but rather a very human expression of compassion.

which, in this form, is totally besides the topic of this thread, as you have brians enough to know. here, we talk 'pray so he/she becomes healthy again', which has nothing to do with compassion and lots with medicine. So is this just anohter of you constant tries to divert from the topic when your christian methods, values and claims have been shown to be nonsense?
I think so.

As a christian I have directly seen a lot of good come from prayer even if you would just chalk it up to "coincedence".

THERE we go - you feel prayer does do something, God's waiting 24/7 for your groweling just tro fullfil your wishes, hu?

Listen, mobBoss, listen carefully: post one has a nice link showing there's no freakin' evidence whatsoever that htting your knees does anything but help YOUR BRAIN - actually, it DOES HARM to others. So much for your great religion.

Sorry, but I simply dont agree with you saying it is BS - I have seen too many peoples lives changed for the better.

ah, so you feel insulted as a nutcase by my first post in this thread?

Your tough luck.Iif you believe in stuff that's proven wrong you should expect people to doubt your mental capabilities. or do you expect me to believe in little green men from mars and giant green radioactive monekys from betelgeuse?[/sarcasm]


Fair enough. But I certainly wouldnt want to live in your cold uncompassionate world. No wonder liberals are very sad people.
tsk tsk tsk, believing in stuff that's proven wrong, but then throwing insults right and left?

You have no idea what compassion is, as the thing YOU clal compassion is self-serving nonsense. It bolsters your ego, that's all. 'oh, but I help him' :lol: Your religion makes up a ton of excuses and cop outs - God's will, paradise, and so on. it gives you a bunch of ways to be NONcompassionate, instead of letting you face 'evil'.

Well....one mans pushy is another mans compassion. Pushy, just like harassment, is relative to each person experiencing it.
thta may well be, but if all's relative (as you pretend here) then I should also be free to call for the murder of each and every christian, since after all, this may seem draconic and illegal to you but not to me.

nah, MB, that's too easy a way out - your constitution and my Grundgesetz give freedom of religion and from religion, privacy and freedom of thought to both of us. If you pressure yours on me, that's harassment.
 
I sense some hostility towards prayer here . . .

Let me reiterate what I think and what my religion teaches about prayer. First of all, it is never intended to be a replacement for competent medical care. It is rather intended to be a supplement, and usually the prayer includes a hope that the doctors will be able to do their job. Second of all, God is much much smarter than us. When He does something we don't understand, we can't proudly say that that makes Him evil - He has access to all the knowledge and thus can make an informed decision based on all factors, including the prayers of the person's loved ones and how much He is willing to interfere directly with the natural processes He started, as to whether the person will get better or not. I can understand why God would allow someone to die even though they prayed for recovery; God, who knows for sure of the existence of a life after this, does not fear death as much as we do. Third, I have said it several times already but no one seems to be paying attention - this study result does not surprise me at all. In fact, it is what I would have expected. God considers far more factors than the makers of this study could have, so they can't even have a real "control group". In fact, when I heard of a study that claimed to show that prayer did make a definite difference, I immediately suspected its methodology.
 
Eran,

who are the people who advocate the 'prayer for healing' - care to check?

All the vocal ones I have ever seen on TV, heard on the radio, or read about in the press belong in the oh-so-rare minority of nutcases.

Pray what, when, how and why you will - I do not care. But keep it to yourself. Out of schools, out of kindergarten, out of hospitals, and out of news. Especially, and I would advocate a lengthy prison term for perpetrators, out of science.

How much money did they throw down the drain for this cow dropping stuff again? how much??????

:rolleyes:
 
carlosMM said:
Eran,

who are the people who advocate the 'prayer for healing' - care to check?

All the vocal ones I have ever seen on TV, heard on the radio, or read about in the press belong in the oh-so-rare minority of nutcases.

Pray what, when, how and why you will - I do not care. But keep it to yourself. Out of schools, out of kindergarten, out of hospitals, and out of news. Especially, and I would advocate a lengthy prison term for perpetrators, out of science.

How much money did they throw down the drain for this cow dropping stuff again? how much??????

:rolleyes:

I will agree that "prayer for healing" the way they advocate it, is not so good. "Give us money instead of going to the hospital!" not such a good idea, and more prevalent than I would like. But I see no problem with going to the hospital at the request of a patient, laying hands on their head (that is how Mormons do it), saying the prayer, then seeing what happens. I can't justify prohibiting this free exercize of religion from hospitals. One should not solicit prayers, it is true (we can't do that, as prayer depends on the faith of the requester). Also, I can't see prohibiting prayer from schools. It should not be mandatory, or official, or done by the school, but no one should stop students from praying, in a non-disruptful manner.
 
carlosMM said:
i never painted all of them as nuts, but you did claim there were none.

No, I didnt claim there were none..of course their are wackos in the world on both sides of the aisle....however I did speak from a normative stance...and by far, your average christian in no way advocates prayer as an alternative to medical care.:rolleyes:

ah, the usual MobBoss-has-been-caught-posting-BS reply.

No..more like CarlosMM has been caught in another false anti-christian rant.:lol:

which, in this form, is totally besides the topic of this thread, as you have brians enough to know.

It is also totally besides the topic for you to show up and start the bigoted comments vs christians. Try discussing the topic on the merits instead of being insulting and tossing around the "religious nutcase" label.

THERE we go - you feel prayer does do something, God's waiting 24/7 for your groweling just tro fullfil your wishes, hu?

Well, I feel it does something...you feel that it doesnt. Me, I have my reasons...you have yours. Think you can handle that and not be nasty about it?

Listen, mobBoss, listen carefully: post one has a nice link showing there's no freakin' evidence whatsoever that htting your knees does anything but help YOUR BRAIN - actually, it DOES HARM to others. So much for your great religion.

Listen Mr. Scientist, listen carefully. How scientific is it for you to treat a SINGLE study as definitive? One would assume someone as allegedly smart as you would reserve judgement until corroborating studies could be completed. And here I thought you were an expert in your field...:rolleyes:

Or perhaps it is just convienient for you to bend the rules of clinical verification a bit where it comes to slamming christians? :rolleyes:

If you pressure yours on me, that's harassment.

You sit and redicule my religion and people like me and claim harassment? Oh brother.:rolleyes:
 
carlosMM said:
essentially, you say that God would let people suffer despite prayers he'd normally listen to just in order to spoil research on this topic?


if so, then your god is a vile and hateful person - no thank you!

I didn't say that. All I said was this is not the type of study that you can set up correctly and measure correctly. You cannot put God in a box, He is immeasureable. Neither can you completely know the mind of God. God performs miracles every day. He heals people every day. If you ask me to answer why He heals some and allows others to suffer, I can't do that other than the fact that we are all sinners and live in a cursed world.
 
bgast1 said:
I didn't say that. All I said was this is not the type of study that you can set up correctly and measure correctly. You cannot put God in a box, He is immeasureable. Neither can you completely know the mind of God. God performs miracles every day. He heals people every day. If you ask me to answer why He heals some and allows others to suffer, I can't do that other than the fact that we are all sinners and live in a cursed world.

That makes no sense. If it observable, it is measurable. Simple as that. You'd still be able to see how a person "miraculously" healed without any particular explanation. If you can't measure such a feat at all, directly or not, then why bother claiming that it happens? This si not claiming about whether god exists or not, but rather, if said diety actually influences the material universe.

When studies show that such an observable phenomenon has a null result, it doesn't mean that it is not measurable. It means that it is just magical thinking on the part of the believers.
 
Bill3000 said:
That makes no sense. If it observable, it is measurable. Simple as that. You'd still be able to see how a person "miraculously" healed without any particular explanation. If you can't measure such a feat at all, directly or not, then why bother claiming that it happens? This si not claiming about whether god exists or not, but rather, if said diety actually influences the material universe.

When studies show that such an observable phenomenon has a null result, it doesn't mean that it is not measurable. It means that it is just magical thinking on the part of the believers.

I still disagree. This statement does not take into account subjectivity. How do you control that? I at first thought that I would not respond to this thread, but then I changed my mind. You could not know that I would either respond or not respond. You could hope that I responded or didn't respond but you could not control what I did. Therefore a null result does not indicate anything in a test which all of the variables cannot be properly controlled. Therefore, you can neither prove nor disprove empirically answers to prayer or the existence of God.

As a side note though, at least for me, I tend to think that the more I learn, the more I believe. I tend to think the more we find out about the universe and the world around us, the more it tends to point to an intelligent creator.
 
Bill3000 said:
That makes no sense. If it observable, it is measurable. Simple as that. You'd still be able to see how a person "miraculously" healed without any particular explanation. If you can't measure such a feat at all, directly or not, then why bother claiming that it happens? This si not claiming about whether god exists or not, but rather, if said diety actually influences the material universe.

When studies show that such an observable phenomenon has a null result, it doesn't mean that it is not measurable. It means that it is just magical thinking on the part of the believers.

I also disagree. Whether, say, someone recovers from an illness depends on an awful lot of factors. And whether God answers a prayer in a certain way is also dependent on a lot of factors. It is impossible to determine exactly how much each factor matters. And anyways, all that the study proves is that prayer is not a predictable factor within the parameters of the study.
 
I'm not going to go through 5 pages to see if anyone else has said this yet, but...What a waste of $2.4 million.
 
If someone wants to pray for me, fine I won't refuse. It is after all a compassionate thing to do in most circumstances.

Don't try to bait me with a conversion however.
 
Eran of Arcadia said:
I will agree that "prayer for healing" the way they advocate it, is not so good. "Give us money instead of going to the hospital!" not such a good idea, and more prevalent than I would like. But I see no problem with going to the hospital at the request of a patient, laying hands on their head (that is how Mormons do it), saying the prayer, then seeing what happens. I can't justify prohibiting this free exercize of religion from hospitals. One should not solicit prayers, it is true (we can't do that, as prayer depends on the faith of the requester). Also, I can't see prohibiting prayer from schools. It should not be mandatory, or official, or done by the school, but no one should stop students from praying, in a non-disruptful manner.


well, why do you think I disagree with anything you say?

I won't keep students rom praying in school - but mandatory prayer or prayer led by the teachers is a :nono:
I won't keep religious people from praying for the sick or with the sick, be it at home or in hospital. Just do not force it on people, do not force others to participate, do not interfere with those who do not want it.

as you said AS THEY ADVOCATE IT[/b] it is wrong. There may be 'right' ways - I do not care. But those ways are not what this thread was about.
 
bgast1 said:
I didn't say that. All I said was this is not the type of study that you can set up correctly and measure correctly. You cannot put God in a box, He is immeasureable. Neither can you completely know the mind of God. God performs miracles every day. He heals people every day. If you ask me to answer why He heals some and allows others to suffer, I can't do that other than the fact that we are all sinners and live in a cursed world.


sorry, but you are just repeating what you said, which allows only one logical conclusion: God will let people suffer to avoid scientific tests.

let's go through the scenario:

there's patient group A, people whom God would help because someone prays for him.
there's also patient group B, people God would not help, because nobody prays for them.
this setup is the claim made by the advocates of 'praying heals'.

how do we test it?
We take patients with similar illnessess and split them into two groups - one gets prayed for, the other not. If the above claim is true, then we will have group A with much better results than group B. If the above claim is not true, there will not be a significant difference between our test groups, thus they do not corellate to the groups A and B.
Now we check whether there is a significant difference in the numbers of healed between the groups.

Easily measurable.

Now, how could God avoid this easy measuring? You said he was immeasurable.

I can only see one way: God starts doing things that are contrary to the above split of the two groups - he must not help some of the patients on group A or help some in group B in order to avoid the finding that praying helps. Since the study shows that there is no significant better healing in both groups than expected, God must be letting some members of A suffer just to spoil the test.

Sorry, but your god doesn't stand up to a critical review. If he exists (or she?), then he's cruel, callous and seriously hooked on a drug called power.
 
MobBoss said:
It is also totally besides the topic for you to show up and start the bigoted comments vs christians. Try discussing the topic on the merits instead of being insulting and tossing around the "religious nutcase" label.

I was in no way insulting chrsitians, I was insultiong at most people so stupid as to throw out solid scientific evidence in favor of religious claims. I know quite a number of christians, but none of them is demented enough to claim that the sun is green, just because his preacher says so.

Well, I feel it does something...you feel that it doesnt. Me, I have my reasons...you have yours. Think you can handle that and not be nasty about it?
It seems there's a fact you can't handle: the study proves me right and you wrong :p


Listen Mr. Scientist, listen carefully. How scientific is it for you to treat a SINGLE study as definitive? One would assume someone as allegedly smart as you would reserve judgement until corroborating studies could be completed. And here I thought you were an expert in your field...:rolleyes:
:lol:

you telling me about proper science? That's beyond ridiculous! Listen, Mr. 'I fell it so it must be true' - you bring evidence the study wasn't done correctly, show errors in it, bring proper studies that show it wrong and then we talk. before that, proof is proof.

]Or perhaps it is just convienient for you to bend the rules of clinical verification a bit where it comes to slamming christians? :rolleyes:
oh yeah, the favorite of yours: personal attack. Why don#t you go and bother to check whether the study was set up properly? Why don't you bother to find contradicting evidence? Why do you pretend that proper science requires multiple stuidies?
Come on, bring any proof or STFU.

]You sit and redicule my religion and people like me and claim harassment? Oh brother.:rolleyes:
Yes, I ridicule YOUR claims based on YOUR version of what you deem is christianity, as it leads you to make ridiculous claims. This has nothing to do with the religion, but with your personal views of medicine and science.


here's a :rolleyes: especially for your interpretation of science :lol:
 
Eran of Arcadia said:
, all that the study proves is that prayer is not a predictable factor within the parameters of the study.

it seems to me that the study shows that prayers may decrease the chance of healing. ;)
 
carlosMM said:
It seems there's a fact you can't handle: the study proves me right and you wrong :p

No...it only proves you right under the conditions tested. Once again, biblically, a common prayer practice is to "lay on hands" of those sick or ill when praying for them. Touch is often associated with healing prayer. This was not tested in any way in this study.

you telling me about proper science? That's beyond ridiculous! Listen, Mr. 'I fell it so it must be true' - you bring evidence the study wasn't done correctly, show errors in it, bring proper studies that show it wrong and then we talk. before that, proof is proof.

Just like that guy in Korea with the clone? Who was found out to be a fake much later? Yeah, proof is proof.

Its amazing as a scientist you are all about corroborating fact and evidence, then you seem to want to toss all that out and treat a single study, which didnt really go very far to study the phenomenon at all, as ultimate gospel. A single study is exactly that...a single and quite limited study into the issue. No more, no less.

oh yeah, the favorite of yours: personal attack. Why don#t you go and bother to check whether the study was set up properly? Why don't you bother to find contradicting evidence? Why do you pretend that proper science requires multiple stuidies?
Come on, bring any proof or STFU.

Why dont you Mr. Scientist? All you have read is the same linked story we all have.....this is neither in your field or even remotely associated with it, so get off your soapbox. Have you studied it to see if it was set up properly yourself? Nope. Do you know anything regarding the religious groups involved to pray for people...what denominations they were what they believe? No. In fact, you dont know anything about religion at all, so how are you qualified in any way to ascertain that they people praying for those heart patients were in any way gifted in that area? Answer: You dont.

What I suggest and any REASONABLE scientist would as well, is that more study needs to be done on the issue with more types of control groups and circumstances. As I have stated previously, people praying from afar, inpersonal and unseen, rarely have any effect regardless...most christians would tell you that...however, praying for someone in person, laying hands upon them is another matter, one not tested in any way in this study.

Yes, I ridicule YOUR claims based on YOUR version of what you deem is christianity, as it leads you to make ridiculous claims. This has nothing to do with the religion, but with your personal views of medicine and science.

Lets see....are you an expert on religion? Nope. What rediculous claim have I ever made? Please tell me. Please state my personal views on medicine and science...I have a daughter undergoing surgery on the 12th of April, so please let me know how wacko I am for letting her have surgery. Sheesh. For a scientist, your mind is about as closed as anyone I have ever seen. What ever happened to keeping an open mind about things you dont know about?

here's a :rolleyes: especially for your interpretation of science :lol:

Once again, my "interpretation" of science isnt any different than anyone elses. God gave us brains in order to figure stuff out - nothing wrong with that. People who ignore science are fools. But as of yet, science has not answered all the questions that there are in the universe. Not even close.
 
carlosMM said:
it seems to me that the study shows that prayers may decrease the chance of healing. ;)

And if you read closely, you would see the possible explanation of that in a form of anxiety - "am I so sick people have to pray for me". Probably not an uncommon response in the way the test was done.

Once again, none of the prayer was done in person, where people praying for an individual could comfort them personally addressing their needs.

This only shows that impersonal prayer from a distance is not effective in helping the sick. Most christians could have told you that to begin with.:rolleyes:

You see Carlos, what you dont understand it there are many different ways to pray for someone and many different gifts that god gives people.

You are just simply ignorant where it comes to religion and spiritual gifts. Not your fault really, your just a scientist.
 
@MobBoss,
Assuming this study is correct, it does show that prayer (by itself) isn't useful.

You would like to add a stipulation to prayer. That's fine, but that's another scenario. Especially since people often ask for prayers for people they cannot be in contact with. "Pray for my husband who's in the hospital." "Pray for this child with cancer." Etc. Assuming this study was done correctly, it shows that kind of prayer is ineffective.

For the type of prayer you mention, one has to test for the possible role of "comfort". Since we all know that correlation does not mean causation, we need one group where the person who prays comes in and informs the patient they're being prayed for and gives comfort. Another group where the prayerer does not give comfort. Another group where the prayerer lies and actually does not pray but only gives comfort. And finally, another group with no one else.

But how often do the people have to come? Once a day? Once a week? And do we assume that the sample will be large and random enough so that when family members come and give comfort, it won't influence the data?

Anyway, would that be a sufficient study for you?
 
kingjoshi said:
@MobBoss,
Assuming this study is correct, it does show that prayer (by itself) isn't useful.

You would like to add a stipulation to prayer. That's fine, but that's another scenario. Especially since people often ask for prayers for people they cannot be in contact with. "Pray for my husband who's in the hospital." "Pray for this child with cancer." Etc. Assuming this study was done correctly, it shows that kind of prayer is ineffective.

Once again, how was healing prayer performed in the bible? In just about every instance that I can recall right now, touch was involved. I dont see how initiating a study, but not using the forms of healing prayer found in the bible, verifies that prayer doesnt heal people. Seems rather disingenous to me.

For the type of prayer you mention, one has to test for the possible role of "comfort". Since we all know that correlation does not mean causation, we need one group where the person who prays comes in and informs the patient they're being prayed for and gives comfort. Another group where the prayerer does not give comfort. Another group where the prayerer lies and actually does not pray but only gives comfort. And finally, another group with no one else.

But how often do the people have to come? Once a day? Once a week? And do we assume that the sample will be large and random enough so that when family members come and give comfort, it won't influence the data?

Anyway, would that be a sufficient study for you?[/QUOTE]

Unknown. I am not completely confident such a thing can be tested. I will say that it should be studied further by all means. But it certainly needs to be effective and as true a testing as possible. Example, I wouldnt trust a test where CarlosMM prayed for someone and they didnt get better.:rolleyes: I hardly think he would be qualified. Heck, his bedside manner would probably kill them off.
 
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