Prayer Does Not Help Heart Patients 1156
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"."
No point to this study (Score:4, Insightful)
And the people who scientifically minded already think that this fact is just plain obvious.
So while a study like this may be a amuzing anecdote, in the end its completely pointless.
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
Miss Cleo (Score:3, Funny)
"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.
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
If it actually takes a funded scientific study to finally convince people,
Article said:
This result seems to contradict a previous study by the same authors
So, question to the original poster. Did the original study "convince" you that prayer was effective? If not, why would this study hold any more water than the previous (other than the obvious point that its outcome matched your particular views)?
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Informative)
The first thought that comes to mind on this is the Christian attempt to prove the world was indeed round [home-school.com]
Most people try to spin this the other way around though.
In 1492, every educated man knew that the world was round. So did every ocean-going sailor. The "bigoted church leaders of Spain" did not oppose Columbus. Columbus had in fact been housed, supported, advised, and greatly aided by Spanish monks who encouraged him to present his proposal to the King and Queen. A Dominican priest, later Archbishop of Seville was one of his greatest supporters at the court. There was a University Commission which concluded that plans for his voyage were impractical. But the Commission agreed with Columbus that the world was round and gave no indication that they believed the Bible taught that the world was flat.
The "hogwash" most atheists use to describe religion these days is usually fact based on fiction such as Washington Irving's novel about Columbus that stated the Christians (not the scientists) were the ones saying the world was flat.
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Funny)
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:No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
all this study does is confirm that either (1) there is no God or (2) God isn't amused by pseudoscientific studies. so the results support both the Atheist and orthodox Christian worldviews, and are only troubling to wishy-washy new agey-types that believe thinking happy thoughts should magically help other people. wee.
Re:No point to this study (Score:4, Funny)
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.
No love from God. (Score:4, Insightful)
This study does at least show that, if whatever pertinent deity exists, it cares more about its ego than the needs of people who may die as the result of an illness. (Which, because the fact of existence remains hidden, ensures that more people will suffer eternal damnation.) In otherwords, “God” cares les about human life and than about being worshipped by those with superstition. (Which is ironic because if we were created, we were created with logical, thinking minds which drive us to discover cause and effect rather than pursue blind faith.) So whether or not such a supernatural entity exists, we must find ways to advance and rely upon our science rather begging for help from invisible men in the sky.
Re:No love from God. (Score:3, Insightful)
who *may* die? frankly, i will bet you a great deal of money that *all* people *will* die. yes, our science can buy us longer lives, and, possibly, more pleasant deaths (though wasting away to cancer hardly counts as more pleasant than saber-toothed-tigers to me), but when it comes to "not dying," religion tends to be more concerned with the (permanent) afterlife than the (curiously impermanent) mortal
Re:No love from God. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think his point was that God appears to care more about his own ego than the needs of suffering people. You're just picking at his wording of it.
Also, the point you make raises one of the problems I have with mainstream religion; it's that it often devalues humanity and life (this life). All that is good and virtuous and extricated from humanity and placed in the symbol of "God," leaving humanity a base creature whose only salvation is in groveling at the feet of this perfect and vastly superior being. People glorify the afterlife and in return devalue the life they are living now, which is also earthly and "impermanent," as you say.
So why persue science and medicine at all? why make discoveries? why create art? why listen to music? why start a family? Why not just spend our entire lives cloistered and worshipping this divine being who gives our life its only true meaning?
Re:No love from God. (Score:3, Funny)
Made in God's image. Religion is not perfect. God does not devalue humanity. People do.
Re:No love from God. (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not, indeed. It appears that neither God (if He/She exists) nor Ma Nature (aka the evolutionary process) really cares much what you do. Both refuse to hand you any information about themselves, saying in effect that you're on your own and free to live your life as you wish.
There is a widespread belief that God will punish you if you don't properly worship Him (or Her). But we have many conflicting claims on just how this worship is to be performed, and most of those claims include punishment if you pick the wrong style of worship. So the sensible approach might be to not worship at all, under what might be called a "reverse Pascal's Wager": It's better to suffer the mild punishment of being a noncommitted believer than to deal with the much greater punishment of having picked the wrong worship style.
And, of course, if Ma Nature (aka
Re:No love from God. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No love from God. (Score:3, Funny)
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!" Henr
Re:No love from God. (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah yes, once again, the ugly specter of poor wording and the Problem of Evil rears its head. (*)
You've got an implicit assumption going from this study to your conclusion: you're assuming that it was possible that these people would survive.
In fact, this is pretty common with prayer: we assume, implicitly, that the impossible is possible, and th
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
Except the difference between a prayer and a spell is that you actually have to BELIEVE in prayer. I don't know of any recognised religion where you can just say a prayer and it's supposed to be answered or considered. You actually have to BELIEVE in what you are praying about/for. They just measured
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure there is. We call it "gullibility." And there are psychological tests that measure it.
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Interesting)
The ability to maintain a belief despite outside influences (whether or not this is a good thing is left as an exercise for the reader) is not gullibility. I think that's what was meant by true belief. I'm not certain.
Gullibility, however, is a very testable question. In some ways it is more of a measure of how readily one accepts new beliefs or statements and has nothing to do with ones ability or propensity to maintain those beliefs. A person who is highly gullible may be just as likely to abandon their newfound 'truth' just as quickly as they found it. In fact, this is suggested by the definition of the construct.
I think the parent was correct--there is not a scientific measure of true belief. There is a measure of religiosity, however, and I think this may be fairly close.
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
So, because the person did a study that fails to demonstrate any efficacy from prayer, then he must have intended to bash God and religion?
First, what does that say about the faithful, if nobody with faith would be willing to conduct such a study?
Second, how does this notion of his anti-religious bigotry square with the fact (mentioned in the friggin' *summary*) that the same researcher did an earlier study that actually found a small statistical effect from prayer? Did God shoot his dog in the interim?
You don't like the message, so you're shooting the messenger.
To answer your "rhetorical" question: Because once the participants in the study know the people they're praying for, it becomes impossible to distinguish between effects stemming from the actual prayers, and the effects stemming from other involvements. For example, if you're praying daily for your neighbor Bob, you might also be more likely to visit him, take him a casserole, send flowers, or whatever. There's no anti-religious bias here; only anti-screwing-up bias.
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should I care if they don't seek medical treatment?
Yes, I know, "think of the children"... but we have to be careful here. Sure, some parents won't let their children go to the doctor because they think only prayer is an appropriate response to illness or injury. IMO, that's messed up, but...
What about people who think antiretroviral drugs don't extend the lifespan of HIV positive people? What about people who think nutrition and detoxification is a better treatment for cancer than chemo and radiation
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Funny)
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:No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody is making any attempts whatsoever to use the law against believers in any way.
to force gay marrige on a community,
This isn't happenning in any way. It turns out that the constitution doesn't allow this kind of discrimination and so a bunch of asshats jumped up to pass a bunch of discriminatory laws and are even attempting to amend the constitution because they are too cowardly to live in a free country.
to help assisted suicide?
A person's life is there own. It's again, as always, the other side trying to shove their morality on others. If I want to kill myself and want to get help doing it how could that possibly be any of your business? It isn't. Not in any way.
The only difference is which side you agree with.
Not at all. This is a blatantly false statement. The difference is that one side is consistently trying to limit other people's freedom because they are too cowardly to live in a free country.
If it's "your side" then it's good to force your ideas and beliefs on the community, if it's the "other side" then it's a bad thing.
There is a deep fundamental difference between choosing to live your life according to your own beliefs and forcing your beliefs on others. Every single example the OP gave was of cowards trying to shove their beliefs down other people's throats. Every nonsense counter example you made up is not happening in any way.
Nice try though.
If you want to believe some hokey retarded old nonsense, knock yourself out.
If you don't want to marry somebody of the same sex, don't.
If you want to uselessly suffer through a terminal illness draining your savings into the medical industry instead of leaving it to your family, that's your choice and nobody is saying otherwise.
Nobody is trying to force you into anything. They're only trying to prevent you from sticking your nose into their business. That's the only issue.
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Informative)
Would you like them listed alphabetically or chronologically?
but we could definitely get religion back in to the home or churche where it belongs and out of public life
That would be unconstitutional. Sorry.
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with the study, and Science is general, is that it takes one negative result to mean that the procedure is ineffective, when instead we should be looking at the anomaly of why there was a few cases of success in the first place! It's like trying to prove a negative by lack of success. You don't prove something is impossible by failing to demonstrate it!
i.e.
Just because one person fails to fly, doesn't mean flight is impossible.
~
Until you have been clinically dead, you have _no clue_ of what Life even is.
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with the study, and Science is general, is that it takes one negative result to mean that the procedure is ineffective
That's simply not true in general, or in this case. If you had read the article this certainly isn't the first study on the effects of prayer. It's also not true at all that science relies on ONE negative result to make conclusions. Scientists are constantly testing theories in new ways. To say that science relies on one single experiment for anything is simply blind.
Just bec
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Funny)
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Interesting)
This comic strip is a great illustration of the kind of people you mentioned:
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.hRe:No point to this study (Score:5, Informative)
About the OT, there's obviously a lot more research to be done. Thus far, there have been two studies on this topic, and the results contradicted each other, so unless you're just an antagonist who exists solely to rant against religion every time you get the chance, you'll suspend judgement for now. That's just the obvious conclusion of anyone with a good, scientific mindset.
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Informative)
As to what Creationists accept, that has changed over time. Ten years ago there were plenty of Creationists who went around saying "adaption only within kinds". When sufficient numbers of examples of speciation were thrown in their face, they suddenly started doing odd things like redefining "kinds" and producing their own private definitions of what micro- and macro-evolution are. In fact, some are now quite happy to accept any form of evolution providing it does not have humans in the tree.
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Informative)
has anyone ever found a single fossil record of any precursor?
I typed "platypus fossil record" into Google, and the first hit [talkorigins.org] discusses the fossil record of the platypuses. Dude, have you even tried to answer your own questions? Or is is easier to conclude that because you don't know, therefore we don't know?
Re:No point to this study (Score:4, Insightful)
I just don't know how to proceed with someone who has an almost cartoon understanding of biology. The platypus is not an unexplainable animal. That such an animal, with both reptilian and mammalian features exists is only surprising in that such an order found a niche that it could survive for tens of millions of years while more successful placentals managed to overtake their older cousins.
The platypus does not have a duck's bill. The eggs it lays are not at all like a bird's. It's tail is only superficially like a beaver's. You really do need to actually read, as opposed to repeating goofy nonsense that is either cribbed from some Creationist site, or from a six year old's reader.
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
Genes are just instructions, whether they get turned on or not (expressed) is a different matter. Our genes are full of what appears to be junk, it could be unexpressed genes, or viral debris, historical baggage, who knows so far. Birds retain the genes for teeth, they are just not expressed. Some scientists
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of it as a psycology experiment (Score:3, Insightful)
They're praying for me? Oh, crap, I must be a goner.
Sure enough, those who were told they were being prayed for had more complications than those who weren't told.
On a more serious note, I think it's important to do this as a counter to the other "experiments" that showed that prayer helped people. Science is about reproducing results. If a scient
Re:Think of it as a psycology experiment (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly.
The mind is a powerful thing. Thought precedes all action.
I saw on TV the other night where health insurance companies are starting to give patients CDs with soothing positive thoughts and the amount of medication the patients needed was less, they stayed less in hospitals, etc.
Meditating people can do stuff like walk on fire and sleep outside in the freezing cold with only a thin sheet for cover.
Hell, some people's minds tell them that they are billionaires while others just bitch about not having any money. On average, the people whose brains tell them that they are poor are over stressed and less healthy too. Go figure.
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Informative)
Re: No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article: So how did they control for unauthorized prayers? Did they have little badges like radiation detectors, to ensure that the control group wasn't getting some unauthorized prayers?
Re: No point to this study (Score:5, Funny)
And the test group in a Prayer-a-day cage?
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, given that we are a social species, and given that for the last few 10's of millions of years of our history we have lived in groups, I would actually expect some kind of relationship between "good wishes from a group" and general health. I would actually expect this sort of thing to evolve as a way of encouraging social behaviour and group membership.
What is the problem that you have with trying to study it? I actually think that you are closing your mind to somethin
the "scientific" idiocy strikes again (Score:3, Insightful)
1 - Devoutly Religious and Also Scientific
Where's the big surprise here? Take a look at the Jesuits. In other surveys
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:the "scientific" idiocy strikes again (Score:3, Interesting)
That's very nice, but what you fail to comprehend is that EVERY SINGLE PERSON OF FAITH makes the same sort of judgement about people whose faith differs from their own. You think it's unacceptable for atheists to reject your view of religion but at the same time it's OK for you to reject other religious viewpoints.
You are self-inconsistent. Unfortunately for the human ra
Re:the "scientific" idiocy strikes again (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't believe in Santa Claus. I do believe that the earth is round. And in my opinion adults who believe the opposite are rather nutty. Not just because the beliefs are different from mine, but because those particular beliefs are SO unsupported by evidence and logic. (And unlike conventional religious views, the believers don't have the excuse that they are exposed an extremely high
Re:the "scientific" idiocy strikes again (Score:5, Informative)
No, you cant. Religion is the belief in in the supernatural.
Science only only concerns itself with demonstratable conjecture to describe a natural phenomenon.
Most people who construct the "Choose religion or science" frame do so (as I do) because I believe that once someone accepts that a supernatural world exists, they abandon their ability to pursue science. If your willing to accept the supernatural -- what purpose does reason and logic have in the pursuit of science (that which is natural)?
2 - Some "scientific" and anti-religious people are just as bigotted, and illogical as the religious nuts.
This is essentially the "science is a religion" argument, and I will have nothing to add beyond Richard Dawkins excellent article you can read here [thehumanist.org].
As for the anti-religious being 'bigotted', yes, I can assume some are. I will admit to it myself. I will not apologize that I agree with Denis Diderot when he said "Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."
Destroying religion as necessary to civilization as plumbing and not cohabitating with one's livestock.
Religion is (to put it mildly) a bother and a bore, and Im tired of a world populated by masses who believe their supernatural deity is The Most Great. Religion keeps us from taking ownership of Humanity's OUR OWN PROBLEMS. Keeps us from realizing that WE ALONE are responsible for the state of our community. Religion is a manner of absolving oneself of responsiblity ("I give myself to you oh lord").
This life is all we have. There is no second chance to get things right "next time", or reward in an afterlife. Please consign these fantasies to ancient history where they belong.
Re:the "scientific" idiocy strikes again (Score:3, Interesting)
No attempt to demonstrate the existence of God, inductive or deductive, has ever held up, despite the attempts of hundreds of thousands of
Re:the "scientific" idiocy strikes again (Score:3, Informative)
You haven't called them that specifically, and I know that you are trying to argue for balance and rationality, but what you did say was that
Prayer, like most spiritual things, is difficult to quantify or directly observe and so the proper scientific default position on prayer should be utter neutrality: neither f
There *is* a point, you just miss it (Score:5, Insightful)
The belief that prayer has beneficial medical effects is a widlely-held hypothesis that can be tested.
The results of such a test could improve treatment and life in general. Therefore, it's a worthwhile pursuit.
That *you* think it's silly doesn't change anything. Much sillier theories have been put to the test -- and gotten unexpected results.
Re:There *is* a point, you just miss it (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, there have been silly experiments where people's health improved after taking sugar pills.
Its called Placebo effect [wikipedia.org].
Other uncontrolled variables - they were EVIL? (Score:3, Funny)
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
Re:There *is* a point, you just miss it (Score:3, Insightful)
The belief that prayer has beneficial medical effects is a widlely-held hypothesis that can be tested.
The results of such a test could improve treatment and life in general. Therefore, it's a worthwhile pursuit.
That *you* think it's silly doesn't change anything. Much sillier theories have been put to the test -- and gotten unexpected results.
I agree that there is, scientifically, nothing wrong with testing silly hypotheses. And as you say, occasionally, you
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
It's worse than that. The bible has built-in defences against this kind of thing: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God (Matthew 4:7, according to bible-kjv). You're sunk either way - if God doesn't exist then prayer has no effect (except maybe the placebo effect). If he does exist he'll hide his hand so that you can't make him do stuff...
Also, you can't control for how-many-million Christians in the world praying for "all the sick and infirm of this world", some of them adding "particularly John Smith, member of our church". If you don't control for it, you're implicitly assuming it has no effect.
Note: I'm an atheist. I'm also a scientist. This experiment doesn't convince me...
I
Re:No point to this study (Score:4, Insightful)
If he does exist he'll hide his hand so that you can't make him do stuff...
Except for the fact that you CAN make him "do stuff"-- you can make him "hide his hand." Do some statistical analyses on things that happen to Christians vs non-christians, or religious vs non-religious, and find out that every time God "miraculously" does something for a Christian (cures a disease, etc.), he must also do the same for a random heathen, otherwise statisticcal evidence would reveal his influence...
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Funny)
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:No point to this study (Score:3, Funny)
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.
News flash! (Score:4, Funny)
And Cellphones do/dont cause cancer.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Giving people a reason to think good thoughts about others is what we should be doing, not shooting down another avenue for people to feel good.
Job Security (Score:5, Funny)
I am unreligious...but what harm is praying? (Score:4, Insightful)
btw, I dare ANY body who's watched a loved one suffer to deny that they said a few words to God 'Just in case'. It certainly can't hurt. I'm not religious, but I've been there.
Re:I am unreligious...but what harm is praying? (Score:5, Insightful)
Thought experiment: Replace 'God' with 'The King of the Potato People'. We'd call someone sending messages to the King of the Potato People to help their loved ones 'delusional', and put them on medication, and possibly in a padded cell.
Are you sure prayer is indicative of a healthy mental state? If so, explain how 'God' is different to 'The King of the Potato People', and why belief in one is delusional and psychiatrically treatable while the other is not.
Re:I am unreligious...but what harm is praying? (Score:3, Funny)
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 sub
Re:I am unreligious...but what harm is praying? (Score:3, Insightful)
We may only have low level control of our body systems by using spooky things like prayer. No religion need be involved but the only access is via non-rational, non-logical modes of thought and conciousness.
A lot of eastern knowledge is wrapped in many layers of mysticism. It may be that you can only understand that knowledge if you think about it mystically. The problem is that people start to think the mystical thinking -is- the knowledge and a high percentage of that mysticism is rea
Re:I am unreligious...but what harm is praying? (Score:3, Funny)
You insensitive clod. The King will be very upset at this.
spud
Re:I am unreligious...but what harm is praying? (Score:3, Interesting)
If someone said that they believed that the Earth was only a few thousand years old I couldn't disagree with them without 'disrespecting' their beliefs.
We shouldn't let people be stupid just so they don't feel bad about themselves.
If someone says "praying helps" then they are wrong. I'm sorry they're wrong, I'm not trying to be mean, but it's not true.
"I am unreligious...but what harm is praying?"
I am un-racist, but what harm
Re:I am unreligious...but what harm is praying? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That must be the 'new' math... (Score:3, Interesting)
In mathematics, this would be called "intuition", not "proof". (And in anthropology, I suppose, "intuition" - or an extension thereof - would be called "religion".) What the GP was probably implying - as an analogy, obviously - was that to "prove" that 2 + 2 = 4 you need to make deductions that are ultimately based on axioms [wikipedia.org]. Without these, things as basic as "equality" are u
Re:That must be the 'new' math... (Score:3, Informative)
The King of the Potato People was an entity born of Arnold J. Rimmer's feverish delusions, in the episode 'Quarantine' from the fifth series of Red Dwarf. The rest of the crew are in quarantine enforced by Rimmer, ostensibly to avoid infecting the ship with a dangerous insanity virus, but really out of spite. Rimmer himself has managed to contract the virus anyway. The crew are trying to talk Rimmer into letting them out, and it becomes increasingly clear that he is
Re:I am unreligious...but what harm is praying? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I am unreligious...but what harm is praying? (Score:3, Interesting)
And if a "miracle" happens, it demonstrates only one of two causes:
1. God's love is a popularlity contest, and those who get the most prayers get the most miracles, which seems to the be logic of those who ask others to pray for them and anyone who uses religion as a means to power.
2. God's love is fickle, distributed in a way you
Re:I am unreligious...but what harm is praying? (Score:4, Interesting)
OK, I'll take you up on that dare. My father underwent heart surgery a couple of years ago to get a new valve, and while it wasn't life-threatening (it's pretty much a routine thing these days), I still was very worried indeed.
But I didn't pray or say "a few words to [g]od", simply because no gods exist. There is nothing in the universe like that, and to me, the idea is just as silly as the notion that there are - say - invisible pink unicorns secretly running the world. (And given that at least judaism, christianity and islam are ultimately based on the delusions of a late Stone/early Bronze Age shepherd, that's probably not surprising, either.)
If somebody prays because it personally makes them feel better and takes away their sorrows... great, let them pray! But there are also many others who realise that praying isn't actually gonna change anything about the facts and that there's noone "listening" and who thus don't pray even when in distress. Maybe you're somewhere in between, but that doesn't mean everyone else is, too.
Re:But to whom? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't forget Cthulhu!!
Hmm.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Optimism and Placebo (Score:5, Insightful)
The prayer portion of the randomization was double-blinded, meaning that patients and their care team did not know which patients were receiving intercessory prayer. Per Institutional Review Board policies governing clinical research, all patients were aware that they might be prayed for by people they did not know, from a variety of faiths.
While double-blind tests are generally a good idea, perhaps another study should be carried out in which the patients themselves know whether people are praying for them (perhaps including people they know, as well as people of the faith they request). The increased optimism and placebo effect may produce something desireable (not saying it will, but it might be worth a study by the same people who expended their resources on this one).
Prayer and medicine (Score:5, Insightful)
Well of course not.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well of course not.... (Score:4, Insightful)
So prayer is just a placebo that only works when one is praying for one's self?
Re:Well of course not.... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Marshall Brain's "Why Won't God Heal Amputees?" (Score:4, Interesting)
Chapter Five [whydoesgod...putees.com] deals with the title question and is especially pertinent to this discussion. There are some minor flaws with the conclusions drawn, but I have written the author about these and he intends to address them; they don't really detract from the conclusion.
A highly recommended read. A little wordy at times, but that is because it is trying to be conversational with a potentially hostile audience (I think).
Prayer may not be for the patient (Score:5, Insightful)
We instead decided to take our prayers to the Wester Wall (HaKotell), as jews have done for thousands of years. It's one incedent, and no basis for a conclusive "Prayer Works" post. But it did at least let us do something, other than sit and worry.
What is the alternative of a loved one to prayer? Nothing, nadda, zilch. Prayer may help, it may not. But if it's a choice between possibly useless prayer and definetly useless worrying, prayer makes more sense. (Pascals wager) If nothing else it makes you feel better.
I would be curriuos to know if there is a difference in stress related illnesses between people who pray (in one form or another) and those who dont. I know for me the worst source of stress is to have a problem and no pragmatic way to affect it.
Expectations (Score:5, Insightful)
No wonder the prayers didn't help (Score:5, Funny)
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.
The Real Problem (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe the victims were evil? (Score:5, Funny)
Prayer and the Sovereignty of God (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that no Christian who is not completely theologically naive is going to suppose that their prayer can make God do something. God does what God chooses to do, according to his own logic. That's why the Lord's prayer opens with (my translation):
There is, right from the start, a recognition that the answer to prayer is at God's will (or whim if you prefer).In other words, prayer is not a deterministic process. You don't push a "pray" button and reliably expect a certain action from God. God's will is much more important than the will of the person praying. Because of this, prayer is not really susceptible to statistical analysis: God knows not just what you're praying, but why, and he has his own agenda that's perhaps rather different from yours. Worse, this sort of analysis generally cannot distinguish between "impossible" and "rare". Perhaps God only answers prayers for Anabaptists, or Pentecostals, or that truly dedicated fraction of the church that actually has better morals, lower divorce rates, and is what really keeps the church going. This sort of "fringe" reaction is going to be quite difficult to detect in the sort of study done.
Why pray then? Perhaps for the same reason that death row inmates keep petitioning the governor, even though clemency is rare indeed: ultimately, there are circumstances in which only God has the power to do something, and once in a great while he does, for reasons that we find inscrutable. More importantly, for we Christians, Jesus told us to. Of course, just like that death row inmate, we don't /only/ pray. We pray and pursue every other option that we believe can help. But neither do we give up prayer just because it rarely "works" according to our agenda.
One effect, incidentally, is that of maintaining hope. When a person loses hope, they've lost everything.
Now this, of course, leads to a much more complicated problem (viz. theodicy, the study of why God allows suffering and evil.) But I'm certainly not going to tackle that in a slashdot post.
Won't help the patent, but maybe his relatives (Score:3, Interesting)
It helps the patient's friend and relatives, though. They feel useless. Helpless. Unable to help their friend/relative. Hell, how do YOU, ordinary person, want to help a human in a serious medical condition when trained specialists, i.e. docs, can't do much? So praying might not help the patient, but it sure as hell helps his peers, giving them a way to deal with it and feel less helpless. Whether God exists or not doesn't even matter. It's something they can do to feel less useless and helpless.
Fatal flaw (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Impossible to test conclusively (Score:3, Interesting)
Practically speaking, it's impossible to do a scientific test that would clear up this issue for everyone. You're never going to convince loved-ones to *not* pray for the patient, so double-blind studies are out. And post-analysis of outcomes for religious vs. non-religious patients/families would be contaminated by the differences in the patients' own beliefs and attitudes.
In the words of Robert Ingersoll... (Score:5, Insightful)
"The hands that help are better than the lips that pray."
A sentiment that remains unaffected by the outcome of such a study, IMO...
Bash (Score:4, Funny)
This reminds me of a great bash.org quote [bash.org] that I'd like to share with you all:
The FSM is smarter than they thought! (Score:4, Funny)
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:Queue Religion Flamewar (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Queue Religion Flamewar (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Queue Religion Flamewar (Score:3, Funny)
Oh. You meant "CUE" the religious flamewar. Sorry, my bad.