[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

In my experience prayer works for what we need, not for what we want. Place oneself in dire straights until real needs arise and then pray. This would be a better experiment. "you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just may just may find, you get what you need" Stones.

This is a common explanation of the 'Power of Prayer' that unfortunately holds no water. It's sole purpose might be to empower the meme, if you subscribe to that hypothesis regarding religion.

Simply put, the 'things that we need' that are purportedly supplied by prayer, would be things that'll keep us alive. Things like food, shelter, clothing, etc.
These basic needs are then said to be supplied by prayer, and those that receive it are testament to their prayers being successful.

Where it falls apart, however, is when we consider the simple fact that those who didn't receive it, probably died from hunger or exposure and can't provide any evidence at all about their religious status or habits.

Those subscribing to this take on things will probably claim that the deceased most likely were sinners of the most heinous kind, and only got what was coming to them.

[cwes99_03]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

Results of a study of over 1800 participants with heart disease, randomly placed into one of three groups were released earlier this week. It is the largest study ever of it's kind. The groups into which heart disease patients were randomly placed are:

1) being told that people would pray for them and people actually praying
2) being told that people might pray for them and people actually praying
3) being told that people might pray for them and people didn't pray...

The study indicated that 59% of the people who were told that people would definitely pray died or their condition worsened, whereas groups 2 and 3 were about the same at just around 50%. So, this implies that people who knew others were praying for them and actually had those others praying for them did worse than those who weren't sure.


What do you make of this?


http://www.ahjonline.com/article/PII...06496/abstract (study)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5315333 (audio commentary on the study)

Since I am not going to listen to an audio commentary, I see at least three major problems off the bat.

1) I do not see a group of people that were told that they were being prayed for for sure and were not prayed for at all.

2) there is no data provided in that first website that describes the type of surgery undergone by each group. Now you might suppose that a random sampling of 600 people per group would be random enough to overlook that.

3) The abstract does not tell what theology the patients were. It does not seem that the theistic standpoints of the patients were considered. If some large percent of them were either atheistic or very religious then the results might be skewed.

From my little reading I don't think that the study holds any weight one way or another.

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by cwes99_03

1) I do not see a group of people that were told that they were being prayed for for sure and were not prayed for at all.

You are correct. This might be a way to improve future studies attempting to replicate these results.

2) there is no data provided in that first website that describes the type of surgery undergone by each group. Now you might suppose that a random sampling of 600 people per group would be random enough to overlook that.

The sample size (N) for this type of study is, in fact, very large and it is random enough, not to overlook something, but to cancel out those effects considered to be noise. However, by simply increasing N would further reduce outlier effects.

3) The abstract does not tell what theology the patients were. It does not seem that the theistic standpoints of the patients were considered. If some large percent of them were either atheistic or very religious then the results might be skewed.

The point is that if prayer works, it shouldn't matter what the religion of the object of said prayer chooses to practice. If a christian prays for a buddhist, should not the results be the same as if that christian prayed for a baptist, or even another christian? That's the point. You could be praying for a tree, it's just harder to test the effect of that prayer on the tree than on a human.

From my little reading I don't think that the study holds any weight one way or another.

Well, thanks for your input all the same.

[TheBigDog]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

Many people pray for others. Researching the effectiveness of this was the explicit intention of this study.


Things like:

...apparently do more harm than good.

Then I promise to pray for you to have a long suffering life and lonely death. Do you suppose reverse psychology prayer works the same way?

Bill (Dear Crom... )

[sanctus]

Originally Posted by Zythryn

Actually we don't know this, there is no information about if the people prayed or not.

We can make the assumption that because they were told other people will pray for them they didn't see the need. I think that is a fairly weak assumption to make though.

I don't think it is such a weak supposition, but I agree that it is a supposition. It's not so weak, because if you know that people are doing something for you then you tend to do less.

[ughaibu]

TheBigDog's remark about optimists is interesting, I would expect optimists to be less likely to pray than pessimists, so a study comparing those who voluntarily pray for themselves to recover with those who dont, might be interesting. Alternatively a study involving insurance commitments and results, might be interesting, as buying insurance amounts to betting things will go wrong.

[cwes99_03]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

You are correct. This might be a way to improve future studies attempting to replicate these results.

Thank you Infy.

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

The sample size (N) for this type of study is, in fact, very large and it is random enough, not to overlook something, but to cancel out those effects considered to be noise. However, by simply increasing N would further reduce outlier effects.

Yes, I agree. However we know that random sampling is very often not random. If they were to show the statistics of that random sampling, they would be furthering the idea that it was truly random. Always good to provide as much info as possible. Since this was only an abstract, could someone find the actual paper?

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

The point is that if prayer works, it shouldn't matter what the religion of the object of said prayer chooses to practice. If a christian prays for a buddhist, should not the results be the same as if that christian prayed for a baptist, or even another christian? That's the point. You could be praying for a tree, it's just harder to test the effect of that prayer on the tree than on a human.

This is an awfully bold statement that shows a serious lack of knowledge about theology.

First of all, do Budhists even believe in prayer? Prayer to whom?

Prayer in most people's minds will only work for those who truly believe in the value of that prayer.

"Prayer is an effort to communicate with God, or to some deity or deities, or another form of spiritual entity, or otherwise, either to offer praise, to make a request, or simply to express one's thoughts and emotions. "
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer

Thus one cannot separate theology from prayer. Of course, Christians also believe that God can read the hearts of his worshippers, that they can pray to God without uttering a word or even being able to form coherent thoughts on what you are trying to pray for and he will understand their condition and motivation.

To say that I can pray for someone and God (the Christian one anyway) will do it because I asked him to, is quite arrogant and without understanding of the scriptures.

BTW you might want to edit that part about christians and baptists (Baptists are part of Christendom.)

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by ughaibu

TheBigDog's remark about optimists is interesting, I would expect optimists to be less likely to pray than pessimists, so a study comparing those who voluntarily pray for themselves to recover with those who dont, might be interesting.

That would make an interesting study, as I'd actually argue the other way. I would think that pessimists wouldn't bother praying, figuring "what's the point?" Whereas an optimist will find other avenues...

I guess we'll need to wait until someone does a study like this before either of us can know for sure. You up for getting IRB approval on this one? I'll write up the methods section...

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by cwes99_03

Thank you Infy.

Hrmmm... Actually, Infy is on vacation.

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

The point is that if prayer works, it shouldn't matter what the religion of the object of said prayer chooses to practice. If a christian prays for a buddhist, should not the results be the same as if that christian prayed for a baptist, or even another christian? That's the point. You could be praying for a tree, it's just harder to test the effect of that prayer on the tree than on a human.

Originally Posted by cwes99_03

This is an awfully bold statement that shows a serious lack of knowledge about theology.

I'd argue that it shows a lack of knowledge on your part regarding the nature of the study. However, you've elaborated a bit below, so I'll hold judgement for a moment.

First of all, do Budhists even believe in prayer? Prayer to whom?

Prayer in most people's minds will only work for those who truly believe in the value of that prayer.

So, if your (hypothetical) daughter doesn't believe in the value of prayer, but she is diagnosed with Stage 4 liver cancer which has metastisized to her lungs and spine, you are trying to tell me that you wouldn't bother praying for her... you as someone who believes in the power of prayer... because she doesn't believe in it's power? Interesting. I would not have guessed that.

To say that I can pray for someone and God (the Christian one anyway) will do it because I asked him to, is quite arrogant and without understanding of the scriptures.

I do not believe the study nor my comments here indicated this would be the case, but, okay... thanks for the clarification.

BTW you might want to edit that part about christians and baptists (Baptists are part of Christendom.)

Nah... You all look the same to me.


Just kidding. Please don't take that poke in the ribs too seriously, but there is some truth in it as I was making a point. My point basically was that the practice of prayer is for the person praying, not the object of prayer. You choose to believe in GodType1A, and I believe in GodTypeA1 (it's great on steak, btw)...

Does our calling it something different, or interpreting how we feel this higher power wishes us to live our lives differently mean that you will not commune with the god in which you believe on my behalf... or that if you do it will be ineffective... simply because I call it something different?

That sounds pretty silly to me, but do does putting cheese on your broccoli, and lots of people do that, so whatever.

[cwes99_03]

I guess my point was that to make such a blanket statement was bold. Prayer means a whole lot of different things to different people. For this study to come out and make suppositions that the prayer in no way affected the patients is just ludicrous in my mind.

Now to specify that prayer had no effect on the physical health of those patients is a bit different. However, as 50 % of all groups did improve, what is to say that those who say prayer to their God and ask the he/she bless all humans who are suffering didn't have an affect on those 50%.

I'm simply pointing out the absurdity of such a study. To believe that you could make substantiated claims about whether prayer is beneficial or not is ludicrous.

Then again "scientists" around the world are saying that we absolutely are undergoing global warming and it's cause is CO2 production every day. To me this is also ludicrous as there simply is not enough data to substantiate all these claims when the trends take thousands of years to work through their cycles, data for which we cannot posses.)

Since their are so many beliefs it would be impossible to determine whether one particular belief here had an affect or not.
I am of the belief that only the God that I worship has the ultimate power to make things better and cares enough to want to. If I prayed to him I know he would hear me, but I do know that he will not do everything I ask of him according to my understanding of the scriptures. Some prayers go unanswered for a variety of reasons.

Good thing you put this in the theology forum instead of the medicine or biology forum.