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Xian
Joined: 08 Jan 2006
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 Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 5:46 pm Post subject: Re: Study: Prayer doesn't affect heart patients |
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| RACETRAITOR wrote: |
Let me start by reminding you I'm a hardcore atheist.
Science and religion may not overlap, but that's just because science isn't powerful enough yet. If there is a real God then science will one day prove it. If God doesn't exist then we'll never know. A true Christian (or any other religious person) should be confident that prayer will work under laboratory conditions. |
It is madness to really think that science can prove God. It is dependent on human study and discovery, which is finite. God is infinite. Discovering scientific facts is only discovering aspects of God's created order. Though science has more chance of proving aspects of God and His creation than it does of disproving God.
Laboratory conditions are innapropriate for such a test. I think it would be more suitable to do the survey within a denomination or religion, something that occurs through the natural course of events and receiving feedback from people who have had people pray for them in the past and what the results were. I wouldn't participate or recommend participating in such a survey. Prayer is communication, which comes out of relationship with God. Relationships and things that happen in relationships are not forced.
To do such a survey in this way sounds more like trying to prove that a formula works. God isn't a formula. |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 7:11 pm Post subject: Re: Study: Prayer doesn't affect heart patients |
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| Xian wrote: |
| RACETRAITOR wrote: |
Let me start by reminding you I'm a hardcore atheist.
Science and religion may not overlap, but that's just because science isn't powerful enough yet. If there is a real God then science will one day prove it. If God doesn't exist then we'll never know. A true Christian (or any other religious person) should be confident that prayer will work under laboratory conditions. |
It is madness to really think that science can prove God. It is dependent on human study and discovery, which is finite. |
Mind proving that. Or does it say that in the Bible?
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God is infinite. Discovering scientific facts is only discovering aspects of God's created order. Though science has more chance of proving aspects of God and His creation than it does of disproving God.
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You can't disprove something that hasn't been proven yet. You can only prove that it doesn't exist.
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Laboratory conditions are innapropriate for such a test. I think it would be more suitable to do the survey within a denomination or religion, something that occurs through the natural course of events and receiving feedback from people who have had people pray for them in the past and what the results were. I wouldn't participate or recommend participating in such a survey. Prayer is communication, which comes out of relationship with God. Relationships and things that happen in relationships are not forced.
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You really have absolutely no idea how science works, do you? Your idea is called a "survey". We all know how useful surveys can be, don't we? That wouldn't prove anything. Also, I am not surprised you wouldn't recommend doing it. I am quite sure you also would not have recommended going against the Church back when it said the sun revolved around the Earth.
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To do such a survey in this way sounds more like trying to prove that a formula works. God isn't a formula. |
??? Stick to quoting bible verses. While that is useless, this post was even more useless. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 7:34 pm Post subject: Re: Study: Prayer doesn't affect heart patients |
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| Xian wrote: |
It is madness to really think that science can prove God. It is dependent on human study and discovery, which is finite. God is infinite. Discovering scientific facts is only discovering aspects of God's created order. Though science has more chance of proving aspects of God and His creation than it does of disproving God. |
I don't think anyone was trying to prove god. Some people make a claim that prayer has measurable health effects on the people prayed for. The experiment tested that claim. What is apparently a well organized study with a large sample and a methodology that seemed to satisfy critics on both sides found no such effect. So, you're free to believe god works in mysterious ways but one might also say a rigorous study indicates there's no evidence prayer has a necessary effect. So make any claim you want but one has to footnote it with "there's no solid evidence to support this belief".
Further, even if an effect was found, one still wouldn't be able to claim it was proof of a god. It might strengthen your personal beliefs but one could also legitimately hypothesize there is some previously undetected response in the human system to ramp up the healing process if some quantum blah blah is directed the person's way. Once there is good evidence for some effect, then the next question for science is how? |
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Xian
Joined: 08 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 9:02 pm Post subject: Re: Study: Prayer doesn't affect heart patients |
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| laogaiguk wrote: |
??? Stick to quoting bible verses. While that is useless, this post was even more useless. |
Yes, I admit, I am not strong on scientific surveys.
A useless post? I guess it is up there with the original post which really lacks a lot of important details that need to be prefaced before such a thread in order for a correct understanding and interpretation of the article.
You will not understand much of my post because you do not understand spirituality and the foundations of living Christianity. We have important foundations that affect our interpretation of things which are totally different and if you understood where I was coming from and just a little bit about Biblical Christianity, you wouldn't anti everything I say, even if I am off the mark or misinterpreting things.
Maybe you don't believe in having a relationship with God, but if you did, it wouldn't be hard to see why the survey looks impersonal. Whether you agree or not, that type of survey (practical tests or whatever you want to call it) is useless and any Christian Should be able to recognise that. While the facts of the survey might be true, they really don't prove anything.
I just think a natural survey of people is more appropriate. One which isn't purposefully set up, but asking people after the fact about if they asked for prayer, by whom and what resulted. It is more natural. No doubt that anyone test could come up with a variety results.
Mindmetoo,
I mentioned about proving and disproving God in my post because RACETRAITOR said that science will eventually prove or disprove God. |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 11:49 pm Post subject: Re: Study: Prayer doesn't affect heart patients |
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| Xian wrote: |
| laogaiguk wrote: |
??? Stick to quoting bible verses. While that is useless, this post was even more useless. |
Yes, I admit, I am not strong on scientific surveys.
A useless post? I guess it is up there with the original post which really lacks a lot of important details that need to be prefaced before such a thread in order for a correct understanding and interpretation of the article.
You will not understand much of my post because you do not understand spirituality and the foundations of living Christianity. We have important foundations that affect our interpretation of things which are totally different and if you understood where I was coming from and just a little bit about Biblical Christianity, you wouldn't anti everything I say, even if I am off the mark or misinterpreting things.
Maybe you don't believe in having a relationship with God, but if you did, it wouldn't be hard to see why the survey looks impersonal. Whether you agree or not, that type of survey (practical tests or whatever you want to call it) is useless and any Christian Should be able to recognise that. While the facts of the survey might be true, they really don't prove anything.
I just think a natural survey of people is more appropriate. One which isn't purposefully set up, but asking people after the fact about if they asked for prayer, by whom and what resulted. It is more natural. No doubt that anyone test could come up with a variety results.
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Look your arguing the shape of an apple by calling it red. This is a scientific study and hence your post was one of the worse attempts at an argument I have seen on this board. I don't mean that harshly, but I do mean it. If you don't have experience or can't argue it, don't. I would never get involved in an interpretation of a quote in the Bible as I haven't read it and would be seriously ignorant on it (as I might not know the context, history, etc...). Again, your survey would be useless to anyone who actually wanted to know the answer to the question.
I'll put this bluntly. Some people like me shouldn't argue art, as my artistic sense is (really) horrible and I know nothing about it. I believe the same with you and science. Again I don't mean it harshly, but between your "understanding" of the scientific method and your beliefs, it's just not your thing |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 4:34 pm Post subject: |
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I just want to get a god believer's opinion on the implications of this experiment:
A loving, compassionate god went out of his way to prolong the suffering of the people prayed for in this experiment by a bunch of very sweet earnest nuns? |
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spike.matt
Joined: 16 Feb 2006
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 1:17 am Post subject: |
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I think I missed the part where this showed that a "loveing, compassionate god went out of his way to prolong the suffering of the people.."
are you using the logic that if God could heal these people, he would? because loving and compassionate means that he'll want people to be healthy? and the fact that "sweet" nuns were praying for the people makes it even more likely that god "should" step in?
I guess I could say that no one can understand God's "plan" and play it all mysterious like that, but I don't want to. I only want to say that the bible never says that God will always heal physically sick people if some nice people are praying for them. the bibles not a "nice, pretty" book. bad things happen to good people all the time.
I am a "god believer" and it's alright that people die. even if they suffer, that doesnt mean that God made them suffer. If i wanted to argue the philisophical aspect of this, I guess I could say that free will is a reason why god lets bad things happen, but geez, i dont want to get into that either.
oh, and about people who don't know about something arguing about it, well that's just silly. The fact is people always argue about things they know basically nothing about. This is an internet forum, it isnt an elite gathering of the top minds.
Christians reading this, remember what our goal is, dont get caught up in the drama of "being right". all things to all men |
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kermo
Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Location: Eating eggs, with a comb, out of a shoe.
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 2:38 am Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
I just want to get a god believer's opinion on the implications of this experiment:
A loving, compassionate god went out of his way to prolong the suffering of the people prayed for in this experiment by a bunch of very sweet earnest nuns? |
I wrote a response to this earlier, but my computer fell asleep and forgot it.
I'm a God-believer, and I'll give you my opinion, for what it's worth.
I've mentioned some of my concerns about the design of the study, i.e., letting patients know that they might be prayed for seems to be unnecessarily confounding. Also, the article reminds us that the experiment didn't prevent friends or relatives from praying for anyone, regardless of group, so it's not as if the patients with lower complications would have had no one praying for them at all. I'd like to see the "statistical significance" of the difference between the two groups, but that info doesn't seem to be available.
Anyway, it's not a perfect study, but what are the theological implications if it was? What if you could find a formula and track God's movements as predictably as a comet? You might say that the prayers of "this particular group of Christians" on "this particular group of heart patients" were ineffective, but that doesn't mean that prayer is never effective. Nor does it mean that no one in the prayed-for group received healing-- it just didn't happen en masse.
We can't be sure of what was going on there, but there are a few things I think I can be sure of, based on my experience and what I've read in the Bible:
-suffering sometimes has a purpose
-God continues to heal some people, some of the time
-God has interesting timing
The study is interesting, but it hasn't rocked my world. It raises some interesting questions, both on how a study could be designed better, and how our prayers/faith could work better. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 4:48 am Post subject: |
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| spike.matt wrote: |
| I think I missed the part where this showed that a "loving, compassionate god went out of his way to prolong the suffering of the people.." |
"The study looked for any complications within 30 days of the surgery. Results showed no effect of prayer on complication-free recovery. But 59 percent of the patients who knew they were being prayed for developed a complication, versus 52 percent of those who were told it was just a possibility."
| spike.matt wrote: |
| are you using the logic that if God could heal these people, he would? because loving and compassionate means that he'll want people to be healthy? and the fact that "sweet" nuns were praying for the people makes it even more likely that god "should" step in? |
Absolutely. He seemed to ignore their prayers.
| spike.matt wrote: |
| I am a "god believer" and it's alright that people die. even if they suffer, that doesn't mean that God made them suffer. If i wanted to argue the philosophical aspect of this, I guess I could say that free will is a reason why god lets bad things happen, but geez, i don't want to get into that either. |
Yes. But god people claim, in no uncertain terms, that god answers prayers. He didn't in this large sample. Why? Either a) he doesn't exist b) he chose not to. Ergo, he prolonged their suffering. I mean how many people who win the lottery or the super bowl and thank god. God seems to have a hand in lottery ticket wins and chooses the winner of the super bowl. If Pat Robertson is any spokesman for god, he seems to hit politicians with strokes for political decisions. But like I say, a bunch of sweet old nuns he chooses to ignore. Hrm. |
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inthewild
Joined: 28 Mar 2004
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 4:58 am Post subject: |
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| And I wanted to believe everything I heard on the Sopranos. |
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kermo
Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Location: Eating eggs, with a comb, out of a shoe.
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 4:59 am Post subject: |
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Hi!
Speaking of ignoring...
MMT, you're going on about the sweet old nuns, but that's a bit facetious. You've also said that the prayers were ignored... not everybody got worse, and those who had complications could have become dramatically better afterwards... the facts don't really reflect your assertions here. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 4:14 pm Post subject: |
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| kermo wrote: |
Hi!
Speaking of ignoring...
MMT, you're going on about the sweet old nuns, but that's a bit facetious. You've also said that the prayers were ignored... not everybody got worse, and those who had complications could have become dramatically better afterwards... the facts don't really reflect your assertions here. |
C'mon. In a world where people claim god answers prayers, it's just very strange god would help some people get better but not enough to make a statistical difference. |
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spike.matt
Joined: 16 Feb 2006
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
"The study looked for any complications within 30 days of the surgery. Results showed no effect of prayer on complication-free recovery. But 59 percent of the patients who knew they were being prayed for developed a complication, versus 52 percent of those who were told it was just a possibility."
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I would argue that a more simple answer would be that people who are told added information, such as "you'll be prayed for" can possibly lead to more stress, which can hinder the bodies ability to defend itself. to argue that this is evidence against the existence of God is a stretch IMO.
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| Absolutely. He seemed to ignore their prayers. |
I do agree with you that it seems that modern Christians agree that God answers prayers. What they don't agree on, in my experience, is whether or not he will answer in the form of a "yep, you'll be healed" or "thankyou for bringing this to me, im not going to heal them, but you were right to bring it to me". the second response goes against most people's fundamental belief that God is a loving, compassionate God, who would heal someone if he could.
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| Yes. But god people claim, in no uncertain terms, that god answers prayers. He didn't in this large sample. Why? Either a) he doesn't exist b) he chose not to. Ergo, he prolonged their suffering. I mean how many people who win the lottery or the super bowl and thank god. God seems to have a hand in lottery ticket wins and chooses the winner of the super bowl. If Pat Robertson is any spokesman for god, he seems to hit politicians with strokes for political decisions. But like I say, a bunch of sweet old nuns he chooses to ignore. Hrm. |
Why does God have to be a "good" God? Im not understand that part where just because humans say God is like this, that he's like that. "If" God exists, I would assume he's who he is regardless of who we think he is. If people thank God for winning the lottery, that doesnt mean that God made them win the lottery. If someone cries out to God during a scientific study, and God hears them, but chooses not to answer, who are we to say, well, Christians say God answers prayer? what happened? The fact is Christians say a lot of things, and not all of it coincides with what the bible says.
ps. not to change the subject or lose the nice conversation, but how does one make the groovy quotes with the person's name? |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 5:47 pm Post subject: |
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Here you go spike.matt
[quote="WHATEVER YOU WANT TO PUT"] Blah Blah Blah [/quote] |
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kermo
Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Location: Eating eggs, with a comb, out of a shoe.
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 7:05 pm Post subject: |
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I'm not sure that lottery and Super Bowl wins are always blessings, but people have some weird notions of what would be "good" for them.
Having said that, my friend is dying right now, and it's a frightening, denerative disease where the last thing to go will be her mind. She is leaving behind two daughters, a husband, a sister, parents and a life unfinished. This, to me, seems "bad."
People are praying for her, but she may not get well. Would she get better if more people prayed for her? Interesting question. Has God answered prayers for strength for the family, for comfort of my friend as she fades away? I'd say so.
God's response to prayers tend to misunderstood, i.e.,
a) He's gonna do what He's gonna do. Prayer changes us, and it doesn't change God.
b) God is like Santa Claus. Write a wish list, be a good boy or girl, and blessings will arrive.
I think the answer is somewhere in between. I have quoted Renee Descartes many many times as saying "God gives us the dignity of causality." We ask, sometimes He says yes. If He said yes all the time, we'd think of Him as a divine vending machine. If He said no all the time, we'd assume He doesn't care.
These are heavy, heavy theological issues that probably not qualified to speak to, but there's a starting point, anyway. |
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