Guess what?

[LSD]

Originally posted by The Boston Globe
WASHINGTON -- Praying for other people to recover from an illness is ineffective, according to the largest, best-designed study to try to examine the power of prayer to heal strangers at a distance.

The study of more than 1,800 heart bypass surgery patients found that those who had other people praying for them had as many complications as those who did not. In fact, one group of patients who knew they were the subject of prayers fared worse.

...

Surprisingly, however, 59 percent of the patients who knew they were the targets of prayer experienced complications.

Because the most common complication was an irregular heartbeat, the researchers speculated that knowing they were chosen to receive prayers may have put them under increased stress.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles..._after_surgery/ (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/03/31/no_benefit_of_prayer_found_after_surgery/)

So, it looks like praying for someone actually increases their chances of death.

I guess that puts the whole Presidential Prayer Team into a new light! :lol:

[VonClausewitz]

I always thought that this kind of scientific study was fairly irrelevant to the metaphysical, after all, these people are trying to use numbers to prove something that had no physical form, it's beyond even theoretical physics. This test LSD, simply proves the effect on the human brain telling someone something can have.

At best, it's a bad piece of psychology posing as science. Praying for people did nothing, telling someone that a complete stranger was praying for them certainly put something else into their brain to think about.

(and No, I don't consider myself religious, so put away the pitch-forks, I just think that this and many other 'experiments' are fatally flawed in what they try to achieve)

[Lord Testicles]

lol when I started to read this


Praying for other people to recover from an illness is ineffective, according to the largest, best-designed study to try to examine the power of prayer to heal strangers at a distance.

I thought I was reading something from theonion.com :lol:

It’s so bloody obvious. :rolleyes:

[Eleutherios]

Well, duh! Of course prayer doesn't work. The proof: millions of Jews died in the Holocaust. How many of them do you suppose tried praying for their survival?

"PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy." —Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

[redstar2000]

Clearly there is more research necessary. :lol:

It's not just a matter of prayer in general; one must pray to the "True God" and one must use the "proper words and rituals". In fact, praying to a "false god" or a mistake in wording or ritual might actually make things worse; the "True God" gets pissed off and kills you even faster! :o

What we need is a really massive study with millions of godsuckers of all different kinds...and discover which are living longer by virtue of praying to the "True God" with the "correct words and rituals".

You see, if there were such a thing as a "true religion" then it would show! :lol:

By the way, this $2.4 million study was funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

Read more about this gang of hustlers here...

A Glimpse into the Godracket (http://www.redstar2000papers.com/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1114361146&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/223.gif

[bezdomni]

If heaven is so great, why don't they pray for their death and the end of their suffering?

It seems like the "compassionate christian" thing to do.

Hell, I'd rather somebody just off me than let me suffer on a hospital bed!

[Eleutherios]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2006, 12:28 AM
If heaven is so great, why don't they pray for their death and the end of their suffering?

It seems like the "compassionate christian" thing to do.

Hell, I'd rather somebody just off me than let me suffer on a hospital bed!
Yeah, especially since the Pope said that babies don't go to limbo anymore. Now that pretty much all Christians agree that babies go to heaven, the compassionate Christian thing to do would be to let all babies die so they don't have the chance to sin and go to hell.

[AnnieAngel]

Were the people being prayed for believers? I think having faith that there was someone who loved them not only praying for them but listening to the prayers would be relevant to the response of the patient.

Also, the mental state of the patient, if they believed in hell and had unrepented sins or felt bad about how they lived their lives, reminders of the judgement to come could be very stressful.

Benny Hinn heals people every day if they have faith. I mean, if a Muslim was praying for me, I'd be worried and stressed. I don't need any strange moon god knowing my name.

Annie

[Eleutherios]

Why would you feel worried and stressed if you know the "moon god" doesn't exist? I don't care if people pray for me, since I know they're only talking to themselves.

[TC]

Its not the fact that prayer doesn't work thats funny, thats self evident.

Whats funny and somewhat interesting is that prayer *does* have a statistically significant effect on surgical outcome: a negative one!

Clearly either:

1. God doesn't like evangelical christians (these were american evangelical churchs doing the praying) and He wants to hurt people they pray for, to spite them (possibly in line with God's policy on abortion: allowing it to continue).

2. God didn't go to med school. As a result, praying to God to help someone through surgery is a bad idea as he's more likely to screw stuff up than if he left them well enough alone.

3. He prefers to be addressed as Allah and gets annoyed when people think that His prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) was His son when they were really just drinking buddies.

4. Maybe a bunch of creepy-ass Christian fundies telling you (or worse your surgeon) that they're gonna be praying for you is a more than a little bit unnerving.

[Lord Testicles]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2006, 05:57 AM
I mean, if a Muslim was praying for me, I'd be worried and stressed. I don't need any strange moon god knowing my name.

Annie
The Muslim god and the Christian god are one in the same, for a christian you have a very weak grasp of your religion.

EDIT: Spelling.

[TC]

really thats like suggesting that christians pray to a weird cross or possibly fish god.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2006, 12:39 PM
I always thought that this kind of scientific study was fairly irrelevant to the metaphysical, after all, these people are trying to use numbers to prove something that had no physical form, it's beyond even theoretical physics. This test LSD, simply proves the effect on the human brain telling someone something can have.

At best, it's a bad piece of psychology posing as science. Praying for people did nothing, telling someone that a complete stranger was praying for them certainly put something else into their brain to think about.
No, it's a medical study. Testing the effectiveness of a proposed treatment, in the same way any other treatment is tested.

This is part of the ongoing debate over various "alternative" therapies - "prayer therapy" is one. Along with homeopathy, aromatherapy, therapeutic touch, acupuncture, and so forth.

A therapy cannot work in any "alternative" way - either it can be scientifically shown to work just as every any new pill is. Or it can't, in which case it's quack medicine.

The study was not intended to prove anything "metaphysical". As the Boston Globe article says: "The researchers cautioned that the study was not designed to test the existence of God".

It did prove that "prayer therapy" is quack medicine. Some early, flawed studies had claimed to show some therapeutic effect. But now we have a large study - sponsored by a foundation which attempts to find scientific support for religion, and which often funds people on the political right.

And that study says: prayer therapy is quack medicine. Snake oil.

***

Ordinarily in medical studies people don't know if they're getting the treatment or not - to control for the placebo effect. This study had a control group and a group that didn't know, just as in most studies. No difference was observed.

Then there was the group a bunch of people have been talking about, where they knew they were being prayed for and they did worse.

A "reverse placebo" effect. Wacky. The placebo effect could probably stand more study - how to maximize its positive effect.

[Zingu]

There turns out to be some evidence that thoughts alone can infulence material reality around us. Its been observed that water molecules in bottles have formed into very specific geometrical shapes when words written on paper slips were taped to them. I heard of an other event where they lowered the crime rate in D.C by just mass meditation (these were controlled experiments too, multiple trials and aimed percentage decreases).

So...I guess praying to God about things is rather harmful. :lol:

[Severian]

No, those experiments were bogus. Crime rates actually rose in D.C., for example; the Maharishi just claimed they would have risen even more.

[Eleutherios]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2006, 10:05 PM
There turns out to be some evidence that thoughts alone can infulence material reality around us. Its been observed that water molecules in bottles have formed into very specific geometrical shapes when words written on paper slips were taped to them.
Really? Where did you hear this?

It seems like a real easy experiment to do. If you can replicate it, consider youself a millionaire!
http://www.randi.org/research/index.html