Prayer Does Not Help Heart Patients

mu22le writes "A recent study conducted by the Duke University Medical Center on 700 patients, found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. Researchers emphasized their work does not address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf. This result seems to contradict a previous study by the same authors that reported "cardiac patients who received intercessory prayer in addition to coronary stenting appeared to have better clinical outcomes than those treated with standard stenting therapy alone"."

News flash!

[spaztik]

In other news... wishing upon a star will not make dreams come true. Details at 11.

Big surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's your Messiah now?

Job Security

[trongey]

Now that they have two conflicting results they'll need a new grant to conduct another study so they can conclude which of their first two studies was correct. Yay! 5 more years of research funding.

No wonder the prayers didn't help

[vertinox]

Cthulhu was displeased with the family's offerings.

Unfortunatley since they awoken the great Ancient one with their pleas for mercy, the heart patients and their family (and next of kin and family pets) will be eaten first and slowly.

Re:I am unreligious...but what harm is praying?

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

As a skeptic, I might have trouble with your conclusion that the King of the Potato People does not exist. You seem absolutely certain of this, as if we have more than some scattered anecdotal evidence that he does not.

Maybe it would be a good idea to turn down the control knob on your vehemence just a little. I'm far from what you would call some mystical, new age flake. And yet, I'd have a hard time refuting that there is something weird going on in the universe... and it's more than just a new exotic subatomic particle.

If the religious are delusional at all, it's that they somehow think that there is only one god. Why not five, or fifty? One is not a special number (though zero is *slightly* more special). And, if they could easily be so wrong about that one simple fact, then their own holy books end up being bunk. Funny, eh?

The Real Problem

[Eightyford]

Of course the real problem is that God is too busy helping rappers get their bling bling. This is obvious if you've ever watched a music awards show.

Re:Well of course not....

[Red Flayer]

"Prayer comes from the heart, and can't be done in a cold and scientific manner in the name of research." (emphasis mine)

Well, obviously then, the reason the prayer didn't work is that the patients all had defective hearts.

Even as a heartless bastard, though, I can attest that at least some of my prayers to The One Who Lies Dead but Dreaming have been answered. Though not all those prayers involved positive thoughts.

Miss Cleo

[dpilot]

A friend of ours has the ultimate rejoinder to telephone psychics:

"If they were really psychic, they'd call you!"

Several years back, when I knew this friend was coming over for dinner, I arranged with a female co-worker to call her at our house, and begin with, "Hello (name), I'm a psychic, and you're having a problem with..." (I filled the co-worker in with a not-too-personal problem.) Something came up, and the whole thing fell through. Darn.

Maybe the victims were evil?

[macz]

Perhaps the real reason is that the people studied were not worthy of divine intervention? Did anyone check their level of evil before praying for them?

Re:No point to this study

[Concerned Onlooker]

The issue is to debunk pseudoscience and other mystic entities.

Exactly. But I certainly hope you weren't referring to the Flying Spaghetti Monster and His noodly appendage, otherwise I'm going to have to ask you to step outside.

Re:I am unreligious...but what harm is praying?

[Micah]

Simple: God (as commonly understood) is a transcendant being who actively created the universe, and is fully capable of doing anything with it.

The King of the Potato People, if he existed .... well, unless you argue that he was Creator (and therefore, by definition, be God), what power would he have to heal?

For the record, I *have* seen a friend rapidly heal from attention deficit disorder not long after prayer and laying on of hands. For what it's worth ... yeah I know, just anecdotal ...

Re: No point to this study

[Black Parrot]

> They put the control group inside a Faraday cage.

And the test group in a Prayer-a-day cage?

Re:No point to this study

[uberjoe]

a boat that holds 2 of every kind of life

Now I don't buy into the whole story either, but as devils advocate I feel I must point out not every kind of life was included in the ark. God in his infinite wisdom did not see fit to include fish or other sea life in the ark.

Re:Queue Religion Flamewar

[pclminion]

Okay, it's been queued. Unfortunately, you'll have to wait for the other ten million flamewar topics to be dequeued and processed before we can get to you. You queue number is 11791855. Have a nice day.

Oh. You meant "CUE" the religious flamewar. Sorry, my bad.

Re:No point to this study

[Mister Whirly]

Oh, I see..The scientist were praying wrong ... Well that explains everything then...

Re:No point to this study

[forgotten_my_nick]

> none of the praying people were vested in the lives of those being prayed for

I am sure they thought they were. Most religous people pray for others they don't know.

>all this study does is confirm that either (1) there is no
>God or (2) God isn't amused by pseudoscientific studies.

Or God prefers to punish those who pray for him. Least thats what I read from the study.

Re:I am unreligious...but what harm is praying?

[mugnyte]

  You insensitive clod. The King will be very upset at this.

spud

Other uncontrolled variables - they were EVIL?

[spineboy]

May be all the people who had heart disease in the study were evil/Satanists, and their hearts were stained with the evilness of their actions. So any prayer to this group may have been redirected to A: to saving their soul first, or B, since they wee evil, praying to God was the wrong choice, since Satan may have helped them in this group.

What about religious choice - was that also cotrolled? Did they have Christians praying for Jews, Buddhists praying for Born agains?

Maybe it was a bandwidth problem - i.e. God only has allocated 50 PPS (prayers per second) for cardiac patients, and God got Slashdotted by the study.

Fatal flaw

[J.R. Random]

"The prayer groups for the study were located throughout the world and included Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish and multiple Christianity-based denominations."

Obviously the One True God got pissed off that the researchers couldn't even decide which one of them He was, so He sat this one out.

Re:No point to this study

[thatguywhoiam]

I'm not religious, but at the same time I don't get why science always has to have something to prove.

Wow. Just.. wow. I can't believe I just read those words. Can I sig that?

This has to be one of the funnest statements ever made on Slashdot. Your logic is completely impenetrable. Kudos!

Re:Do not test the Lord your God.

[ylikone]

Do not est the Lord your God.... for then ye shall now I'm a sham.

Re:No point to this study

[Huggs]

Greetings slashdot Christians! I have to say, that I'm not in the least bit surprised that God declined this opportunity to be used as a drug. However, "carefully examining the role of the human spirit in healthcare does not diminish its mystery, but it separates the mystery from the question of utility in healthcare practice," Krucoff said. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. James 5:16 I would like to remind the world that the reason prayer even works in the first place is because the Almighty God who is listening to the prayer decides to contiually look upon us with His grace and mercy. It works because GOD chooses, not because man chooses. It wrenches my heart to think that God may choose to decline the prayers of so many based on the faults of a few men. Ultimatly though, He is a jealous God, and a force NOT to be reckoned with. I might also add, while His grace reaches to all men, saved and unsaved, His promises to never leave nor forsake, to answer when we call, and to take us home to heaven are made explicitly for those who believe and follow Him.

Re:No point to this study

[Comboman]

a boat that holds 2 of every kind of life

To believe that all land animals are decended from a few hundred individual animals on a boat is preposterous. On the other hand, to believe that all life everywhere decended from a single cell in a primordial soup is perfectly logical.

Bash

[christian.elliott]

This reminds me of a great bash.org quote [bash.org] that I'd like to share with you all:

Gear Grinder X: once, we had these total freak seventh day advenist (or whatever) freak ass neighbors

Gear Grinder X: and this girl Lanna was a little younger than me

Gear Grinder X: she was a bitch, and they were all totally religious

Gear Grinder X: she threw rocks at me once on my bike, and so I turned around, and went to run over here

Gear Grinder X: I was hauling ASS, and you know what she did?

Gear Grinder X: put her hands on her hips, and stood there and said "The lord will protect me"

Gear Grinder X: well.... he didn't

Re:No love from God.

[Cat_Byte]

thus the whole "72 virgins" controversy with islamist sects

No it's 72 Virginians waiting to beat the crap out of them. Virgins is just a misinterpretation due to speech barriers.

After getting nailed by a Daisy Cutter, Osama made his way to the pearly gates. There, he is greeted by George Washington. "How dare you attack the nation I helped conceive!" yells Mr. Washington, slapping Osama in the face.
Patrick Henry comes up from behind. "You wanted to end the Americans' liberty, so they gave you death!" Henry punches Osama on the nose.

James Madison comes up next, and says "This is why I allowed the Federal government to provide for the common defense!" He drops a large weight on Osama's knee.

Osama is subject to similar beatings from John Randolph of Roanoke, James Monroe, and 65 other people who have the same love for liberty and America.

As he writhes on the ground, Thomas Jefferson picks him up to hurl him back toward the gate where he is to be judged.

As Osama awaits his journey to his final very hot destination, he screams "This is not what I was promised!"

An angel replies "I told you there would be 72 Virginians waiting for you, idiot. What did you think I said?"

Re:No love from God.

[cubicledrone]

leaving humanity a base creature

Made in God's image. Religion is not perfect. God does not devalue humanity. People do.

The FSM is smarter than they thought!

[Java Ape]

This is not surprising. The Flying Spaghetti Monster who created all things has thus far deigned to appear to only a handful of people, from which me may infer that He desires to remain hidden from the masses so that we can develop faith.. We know that, while he created the world, he included fossils and geologic clues to amuse the scientists and encourage creative thought among humans. Now, had he reached out with his noodely appendage and healed a high percentage of the prayerful in this study, with all those statisticians standing by, it would have destroyed faith for all would soon have known of his existance.

Silly people -- did they really believe the Flying Spaghetti Monster would allow his plans to be unraveled by such a blatent manipulation? Hasn't he said, "Thou shalt not tempt thy FSM, except it be with grated cheese?" These silly mortals have no idea who they're messing with. Beware the noodly appendage filled with wrath!

Re:No point to this study

[koreaman]

s/talented //

Re:Queue Religion Flamewar

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

See? God wins!