Prayer does not heal the sick, study finds

[Richelieu]

Prayer does not heal the sick.

Praying for the health of strangers who have undergone heart surgery has no effect, according to the largest scienfic study ever commissioned to calculate the healing power of prayer.

In fact, patients who know they are being prayed for suffer a noticeably higher rate of complications, according to the study, which monitored the recovery of 1,800 patients after heart bypass surgery in the US.

The findings of the decade-long study were due to be published in the American Heart Journal next week, but the journal published the report on its website yesterday as anticipation grew.

The power of intercessory prayer has been studied by doctors for years in America, but with no conclusive results. This $2.4 million study, funded in large part by the John Templeton Foundation, which seeks "insights at the boundary between theology and science", was intended to cast some clear light on the matter.

You just got to keep chipping away at the building and it'll all come crumbling down in time...

[Jon Miller]

How so?

I wouldn't expect anything different....

JM
(and I pray daily)

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
How so?

I wouldn't expect anything different....

JM
(and I pray daily)

Praying may have other purposes. If it's doing you some good to pray, then i see no problems with it.
But this particular study is aimed at the result that prayers aimed at healing someone actually have in the healing process. Apparently there are none.
I'm saying that it's one example that that particular type of magic doesn't work and the belief that it does should not go unchallenged.

[Jon Miller]

I think that prayer can do something also....

Just not that it always does...

There is a big difference between science and the supernatural.

These people are trying to limit God. By saying that He has to work in the way they wish whenever they pray.

A big to those who thought the result would be conclusively otherwise.

Basically this was an attempt to make God under the realm of science, to probe Him with a microscope. And it failed, like it should.

JM

[lord of the mark]

Jon Miller

[Gibsie]

All I can say is lol religionists You stick to prayer, I'll take my drugs thanks!

[joncha]

Terry Schaivo would disagree with you, Richelieu!



...oh wait, nevermind.

[Japher]

[Spec]

Prayer does not heal the sick, study finds

And they needed a study to prove that?

They could've asked me, I would have told them...

Spec.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
These people are trying to limit God. By saying that He has to work in the way they wish whenever they pray.

[...]

Basically this was an attempt to make God under the realm of science, to probe Him with a microscope. And it failed, like it should.

No. these people are analysing the effect of human behaviour (praying; more accurately, the knowledge that you are being prayed for) on a concrete reality (the health of patients after a heart bypass).

God isn't taken into account by the scientists, because God isn't a concept that's scientifically useable. A specific pattern of human behaviour, however, is.

[SlowwHand]

A prayer is a petition of sorts. What you wish would happen. It comes true if it fits His plan.

[Japher]

It is gods will that I make this post.

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by Japher
It is gods will that I make this post.

Maybe it was Satan's will and God is just busy doing something else?

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Spiffor

No. these people are analysing the effect of human behaviour (praying; more accurately, the knowledge that you are being prayed for) on a concrete reality (the health of patients after a heart bypass).

God isn't taken into account by the scientists, because God isn't a concept that's scientifically useable. A specific pattern of human behaviour, however, is.

That was my point, this doesn't place any measurement on God's activity. It doesn't place any measurement on God's activity in human affairs. It does place a limit on the power of 'positive thinking'. Although I do mislike how it was worded, they should have said something to the effect that there was a negative correlation between those who knew they were being prayed for, and a successful operation, to within xx deviations.

The wish, however, was to do so. (as well as how it is understood by the OP)

Jon Miller

[Japher]

Maybe it was Satan's will and God is just busy doing something else?

That would make more sense... is it hot in here?