Posted by Hemant Mehta in I was reading an article in Christianity Today and one of the paragraphs made me do a double-take. I couldn’t believe anyone was actually writing it… it was incredible how much fact-twisting was going on.
First, a bit of background.
It’s no surprise that prayer can have a positive effect on those who believe in it. If you pray, it can relax you and make you feel better. If you know others are praying for you — that others care about you — you feel better and your body might actually respond to that positivity. None of this has anything to do with a god answering (or even listening to) the prayers. It functions more like meditation. Prayer can have a calming, healing effect for those who buy into it.
But what happens when others pray for you and you are unaware of it? To no atheist’s surprise, this has never been shown to work.
This idea has been tested repeatedly — usually, the studies have flaws. And even when the results show that the intercessory prayer has no effect on anyone, those who believe in it will look at the hits and ignore (or rationalize) the misses.
Three years ago, a multi-million-dollar, controlled, double-blind study was conducted to test intercessory prayer.
The Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) found two major results:
1) “Intercessory prayer had no effect on recovery from surgery without complications.”
2) “Patients who knew they were receiving intercessory prayer fared worse.”
Fared worse?! Even I was surprised by that. So were many Christians — this didn’t sit well with them.
This new article from Christianity Today, though, offers a rationalization I’ve never heard before. You can tell they’re really straining to find a silver lining…
Ironically, STEP actually supports the Christian worldview. Our prayers are nothing at all like magical incantations. Our God bears no resemblance to a vending machine. The real scandal of the study is not that the prayed-for group did worse, but that the not-prayed-for group received just as much, if not more, of God’s blessings. In other words, God seems to have granted favor without regard to either the quantity or even the quality of the prayers. By instinct, we might selfishly prefer that God give preferential treatment to those who are especially, deliberately, and correctly prayed for, but he seems to act otherwise.
True to his character, God appears inclined to heal and bless as many as possible.
So the fact that the prayers had no effect on the sick? Don’t think about that, say Gregory Fung and Christopher Fung, the authors of the article. Instead, they want you to consider that prayer works because the un-prayed-for people didn’t die a horrible death.
That’s one way of ignoring the evidence when it’s staring you in the face.
There’s gotta be a perfect analogy for this somewhere. What comes to mind?
But shouldn’t it be possible for a god to heal them all?
Sheesh. Faith-based intellectual dishonesty knows no bounds.
~David D.G.
I don’t think you need an analogy. This is a typical apologist stance; Steal/apply credit to god.
This is a twist on that, finding credit where there is none, but still not new or surprising.
How about this analogy:
Christianity Today is like a really stupid person who is the bane of humanity’s existence.
: )
I am not an atheist.
That IP can’t be validated is also no surprise to (reasonable) theists, and I agree with you that CT’s rationalization fails. However, I’m a bit disappointed that so many people who claim to be scientifically minded still believe a scientifically-credible prayer study is even possible. Prayer is request, not compulsion – so by its very nature, prayer can be either granted, denied, or postponed. Contrast those cold and stark difficulties to the inviting warmth of empirical investigation into natural processes – which is the thrust of science, by the way.
Prayer is related to faith. How do we quantify faith? How do we know one or more of these “Christian” intercessors weren’t among the many whom the Bible describes as saying, “Lord, Lord” but are without faith, or anti-Christians attempting to purposely skew the results? How can we know that any positive results in the prayer group were the result of the intercessors as opposed to other people praying in other places around the world that may or may not be focusing specifically on subject(s) in the prayer group? Do all prayer studies accurately control for the fact that every instance of a prayer study increases the likelihood of positive results by chance? For these and many other reasons we’ve only begun to touch upon, I believe so-called “prayer studies” are not scientifically credible. Anyone who has evidence otherwise is welcomed to share it. I submit the following link for those who would like to know my position more thoroughly:
On Atheists & Blind Faith, Or, False Arguments 27, 28 & 29: Why Prayer Studies Are Not Credible
For those interested in a book-length argument that agrees with mine – written within the last ten years and by a credible, skeptical physician – I suggest Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine, Richard P. Sloan, Ph.D.
(St. Martin’s Press, 978-0-31234-881-6)
It reminds me of a Family Guy scene: Brian is sitting in a bar, depressed and drinking his face off. A beautiful woman is sitting next to him.
Brian: Woah. Tho..Those are some HUGE boobs!! ‘N, ‘n you know what’s great about them? That you don’t have that blue vein that some of the bigger ones get.
*woman splashes drink in his face and storms off*
Brian: WHAT?? I said you DON’T have that!!
cl:
If this and other prayer studies showed a small but statistically significant improvement among the prayed-for compared against the control group, would you be saying “Prayer studies don’t work”?
So, let’s see if I understand the logic:
whether you are prayed for or not makes no difference in the outcome, and that is further proof of god?
SO, the fact that my fundamentalist family prays for me every day to see things their way will have no effect whatsoever, and that is further proof of god?
What exactly is the point then? I am so confused.
Not surprised that they would twist results like that. Anything to make prayer seem functional. Maybe all those who weren’t prayed for were, but they didn’t know? How about that?! LOL!
Or perhaps, they were praying to the wrong god, or wrong version of someone else’s god. The Flying Spaghetti Monster works in mysterious ways. Oh crap, now, I’m going to be punished by The Invisible Pink Unicorn for saying that…uh oh…
Of course not, chancelikely.
Although they’re not discussed here (that I’m aware of), other prayer studies have shown “small but statistically significant improvement among the prayed-for compared against the control group,” and I equally deny the scientific credibility of these published, peer-reviewed studies. This is all discussed in the linked post.
I wonder if the ones who knew they were being prayed for got worse because they felt pressured to get better and it stressed them out thus making them worse.
Or maybe god just likes messing with people. After all, it’s FAR more important for those cursed atheist scientists to look like goobers than for sick people to actually be healed. Amirite?
These problems are present in ANY scientific study done in the real world. How do we know that drug X caused symptom Y to disappear, and not something else the subject did? We don’t keep people in a bubble, their behavior varies wildly. That’s why scientists use large samples and statistical methods to show how likely it is that positive results are just a coincidence.
cl shows the exact thinking I have seen from most theists:
a) if something good happens, it is proof of god’s glory
b) if something bad happens, it is never god’s fault (or there is some good underneath it… someone dies a horrible death and “god called them home”)
It is foreign to me to never be able to look at any event skeptically.
Okay cl, let’s say this is flawed thinking. How exactly would one scientifically test prayer? How would one test the difference between a request to god and a request to the invisible blue snake that lives behind the clothes in my closet?
Surely you can agree that the invisible snake in my closet is fiction and surely there is a way to test my requests towards it.
“…its very nature, prayer can be either granted, denied, or postponed.”
Great cop-out, used for centuries when prayer doesn’t give the answer one wanted from God. Jesus said ask and you WILL receive, not ask and you may or may not receive, depending upon how you respond to the stipulations (as I was recently told). If you tell that mountain to jump in the ocean, it will do it…or not, or postponed, etc., etc., etc.
I have always believed that the reason that the group that knew they were being prayed for fared worse is because they got cocky (knowing God was looking out for them) and were lax in following doctors orders.
The study was could have been done better, though. They should have had a group of people not being prayed for and taken care of by a doctor, and another group of people being prayed for and not given any medical attention at all. It would give their god something to do and take out any and all scientific possibilities as to their condition.
cl said:
This is not relevant. The Bible verse you are quoting says that not all who cry “Lord, Lord” will be saved, not “have their prayers answered”.
There is, in fact, a set of verses which do indicate that God is compelled to comply with all requests made in prayer.
You’re right, though. The studies are not scientifically credible. This is because “prayer” is an ill-defined concept which creates no observable phenomenon differentiable from that produced by non-supernaturalistic practices, such as meditation. There is no indication that there is a phenomenon there to study at all.
cl also said:
And thus, the target of the prayer is entirely irrelevant and claims that this study or any other (or any faith) supports the idea of prayers being answered by a specific agent are nonsensical.
Ugh. Several problems with this, but the biggest IMO is that this study came out THREE YEARS ago, and CT is just now getting around to talking about it. In three years, this is the best they could do? Sad.
cl:
Intercessory prayer (IP) should be able to be validated or rejected in a scientific study. You can frame it in the form of a scientific question. “Does intercessory prayer show a demonstrable effect in patient outcome?”
You then determine what outcomes you are going to measure, then you create a control group and an intervention group. Ideally the participants and investigators are blinded to the intervention or lack thereof. This sort of thing is done with drug studies all the time, and STEP attempted to duplicate this.
The fact that the STEP study doesn’t demonstrate causality does not weaken it’s true conclusion (regardless of how the authors spun it) that IP does not work. Causality is next to impossible to prove in ANY scenario. The best we can hope for are associations, risk ratios, correlations and probabilities.
I don’t subscribe to the non-overlapping magisteria school of thought. Either saying magic words to invisible sky-daddy has a measurable effect, or it does not. We can measure the effect, or lack thereof, even if we can’t detect the undetectable sky-daddy. STEP shows, there is essentially NO effect, thus making the case AGAINST IP stronger.
For me, holding an opinion or belief that is unfalsifiable (e.g. I have a magic friend who can answer my prayers) is irrational and untenable.
Also, Dan Barker has a great analysis in his book, godless.
At least, I think it was Barker. It may have been Hitchen’s “god is not great,” or Dawkins “the god delusion.” Hell, I can’t remember now. Better read ‘em all, just to make sure.
I agree with cl that proper prayer should be about things that cannot be falsified. Then the smarty-pants scientists won’t be able to show that it doesn’t work.
Pray for things like the following:
1. That your grandmother will get into heaven.
2. That you will get into heaven.
3. That your own faith will increase over time.
5. That the demons that haunt you won’t be able to take over your soul.
Avoid praying for such things that wouldn’t happen if the atheist world-view were correct.
1. Don’t pray for amputated limbs to grow back.
2. Don’t pray for water to turn into wine.
3. Don’t pray that you can walk on water.
God simply doesn’t do these kinds of things.
It is OK to pray for little favors as long as you don’t participate in a statistical study and as long as you don’t keep records of the things you prayed about that didn’t come true. Make sure that the little favors are things that could happen in the normal scheme of things. Whenever one of these prayers eventually does comes true, view it as evidence of God. A simple example would be to pray for “heads” when flipping coins. Ignore the “tails”. When “heads” comes up, say “God be praised”.
If the world goes on as if God had not “intervened” by either healing according to or ignoring intercessory prayers, then what is the point of God?
The reason why they do prayer studies is because the Bible tells Christians that they will be able to heal in Jesus’ name. These studies show that either 1) that promise has passed or 2) even the most faithful do not have enough faith.
As an extraordinary God, it is not out of line for observers who are not believers to require extraordinary evidence. If the world is “business as usual” with or without him, he is not an extraordinary God, and he either does not exist or does not concern himself with our world.
That’s pretty standard fare for most ‘mainstream’ media. I was learning about studies in my textbooks at college* that the mainstream media would trot out between a semester and a couple years after that as “new”. [And they'd usually get something wrong, or make a big deal about the wrong part of the study. . . but that's a discussion in itself.]
*Granted, college texts keep up better than public school ones, but there’s still significant lag.
If I’m ever hospitalized, please pray for the person in the bed next to mine.
Following on Spork’s comment about the invisible blue snake, it seems to me that there are other protocols you could use to test the efficacy of prayer.
Why not enlist people to pray to various specific entities and compare the results? I’d suggest prayers to Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Neptune, Ra, the moon, the teapot circling the sun, and the color purple. Do you think we’d seen any statistically significant differences? No, neither do I.
Do you think it would convince anyone? No, neither do I.
I think George Carlin pinned it down best: God already knows what you need, and God already knows whether or not he is going to give you what you need, whether you ask for it or not. God’s will is already set. So what the fuck is the point of praying?
will do, epistaxis!
>There’s gotta be a perfect analogy for this somewhere. What comes to mind?
It’s like a doctor in the 1700s who decides to try treating human patients by applying the bloodletting procedure to a cow. After discovering how much better it works than bloodletting the patient, he concludes that people are sick due to the bad blood in a nearby animal.
Bristol Palin as the poster-girl for how well abstinence-only sex education works.
Great post!
Forgive me for laughing my butt off. The Google-placed ad at the top of this post is for OurPrayer.org, saying “We’ll pray for you by name and need”. There’s great ad targeting for ya!
“My magic tiger-repelling rock must be incredibly powerful, since there are no wild tigers in the entirety of North America! Even in the places where I didn’t specifically want there to not be tigers, there are in fact no tigers!”
“The recent study showing no positive effect of homeopathic treatment actually supports the idea that homeopathy works. It’s safe to say that, during the patients’ recovery, they will have drunk water regularly. Since water has memory of what it has touched, there *must* be homeopathic remedy laced into that water, in concentrations comparable to those distributed by homeopathic doctors. Thus, the group taking an extra remedy may well have conflicted with the treatment they were already taking, whereas the ‘control’ group were actually receiving an appropriate dosage.”
This post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 5/16/2009, at The Unreligious Right
Or in yet other words, prayer has no effect.
cl wrote:
- then what’s the point of praying?
What would be a “scientifically credible” way of doing a prayer study?
I wrote about the weaknesses of Byrd and Harris four years ago in my post Prayer still useless
If prayer really works, where all those healed amputees? Or are all those healed amputees false Christians? And presuming God exists, how do you know why he did or did not answer the prayers? Are you some sort of prophet that knows the mind of God? What happened to judge not lest ye be judged?
I like how supposedly “reasonable” theists still go by the “God works in mysterious ways” hedge.
cl –
Still trying to drive readers to your blog with promises of enlightenment? Is the ad revenue that important to you?
Information to others: I (personal opinion only) have not found better information at cl’s blog, though I have been driven there several times on the promise he would clarify his positions, they being too complex to state in the current discussion.
Your mileage may vary, and if so inclined, then visit. I only mention this because I find the strategy of always forcing others to look elsewhere an interesting one, a clever way of never actually having to concede a point. I commend cl for the ingenuity involved.
Most of people’s criticisms are addressed in the link. Good additions, Vic and Sarah. It seems the closer we look, the fuzzier this gets.
Jeff Satterly,
Would you call the three to seven “Christians” in the Byrd study a “large sample?”
Spork,
Way to look before you leap, make assumptions, and speak for others. That something “good” happens is not proof of God’s glory. One can’t scientifically test prayer.
CC,
If you think basic deduction is a “cop-out” I don’t know what to tell you. If you ask the ice-cream man for a popsicle and you don’t get one, is that proof asking people for things doesn’t work?
MikeTheInfidel,
It is relevant. According to the Bible, one cannot be saved without faith, and faith is a crucial component of prayer. I completely agree with the rest of your comment it seems, save for a small quibble here:
Yet, one of Jesus’ final prayers went unanswered, so I say either the Bible is wrong or you need to consider the whole picture. Surely you’re not suggesting that if God were real, we could pray that God would kill Himself and such would succeed?
ATL-Apostate,
We can frame any question we want in scientific jargon, and I disagree with you that STEP delivered a “true” conclusion.
While formally valid, I fully respect your right to make oversimplified arguments, and that you declare God unfalsifiable on one hand – then argue that prayer studies are credible on the other – seems contradictory. I’m familiar with the popular books you’ve mentioned, save for Barker’s.
magdalune,
Either/or fallacy. Other reasonable options exist.
Skeptico,
I don’t think there is a scientifically credible way to do a prayer study. I’ll check out your post on Harris and Byrd. I agree their studies weren’t sound.
R.C.,
Nobody’s forcing anyone to do anything. Quit letting your emotions get in your way, as it adds nothing to rational discussion. OTOH, you’re free to assume you know why I included the link when such is neither rational nor possible. Of course you jump to conclusions and overlook the fact that including the link just might have been in the interest of cutting to the chase and avoiding redundancy.
Lastly, there’s nothing to clarify – prayer studies are neither credible nor scientific. What point do you suggest I’m evading concession of?
Lastly, there’s nothing to clarify – prayer studies are neither credible nor scientific. What point do you suggest I’m evading concession of?
The STEP study is credible and scientific. It meets all criteria for results that are the same to all observers using the same protocol within a predetermined statistical variation.
That is about as unemotional as you can get.
You have offered no scientific evidence to the otherwise. You merely point off into cyberspace, dismissing all with a gut reaction based on your dislike for reality that conflicts with your own.
Now that is an emotional response!
[...] it on FriendlyAtheist This entry is filed under New Testament. You can follow any responses to this entry through the [...]
Wow. The comments on CT are truly pathetic. I especially likes the one where “Satan did it!”
R.C.,
Tell the truth, though: Posting summarized arguments with links to expanded analysis is polite, scholarly and customary in blogging, right? Think Hemant wants the whole argument posted here? I don’t.
Simply proclaiming STEP credible does not entail that you’ve reasonably addressed all or even any of my criticisms about prayer studies in general. If I hear anything new, I’ll gladly address it, but I don’t care who can piss farther and frankly, it’s a beautiful day.
Of curiosity, do you extend your criticisms to Sloan’s work as well? Or is this another case like the Revelation thing where you’re arguing about something you haven’t really looked fully into? Now there’s an emotional comment for ya
cl said:
So a prayer for faith would be fruitless? (Can you point me to a verse that supports the statement that “faith is a crucial component of prayer”?)
cl also said:
John 14:13-14.
Yes. If God exists, and the Bible is his word, and he doesn’t lie, the conundrum you mentioned would be possible. So one of the three must be false. The most parsimonious option is that he doesn’t exist, since it makes the other two a non-issue.
cl wrote:
If that was all you did, then no. But if you compared a random number of people who didn’t ask with another group who did ask, and found there was no difference between the groups with regards to the number of popsicles obtained, then I would have to say “what’s the point in asking”.
Which leads me to the question you didn’t answer, namely, what’s the point of praying?
“Patients who knew they were receiving intercessory prayer fared worse.” an effect known as nocebo, the opposite (or complementary side) of placebo. The New Scientist has an article on it this week.
cl
Prayer is only unfalsifiable if you continually make up excuses for it to remain so. STEP all but falsifies intercessory prayer.
God is unfalsifiable, just like undetectable gremlins and invisible purple snakes. We can however, draw reasonable conclusions about the probability of his/her existence based on the available evidence.
Forget the issue of answered / unanswered prayer. The sheer absurdity of a god praying to himself to intervene and stop these humans (whom he has complete dominion over) from killing him is breathtaking. It’s like arguing with your own schizophrenic hallucination.
And yes, if god is omnipotent, he should be able to kill himself (I know of several humans who were neither omnipotent nor omniscient, yet they were able to successfully commit suicide), unless he was full of shit to begin with… or he doesn’t exist at all.
Thanks hoverFrog for your interesting contribution.
MikeTheInfidel,
Not to embed scripture on an atheist site or anything, but you asked: “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” -Matthew 21:22 That verse directly supports the statement that faith is a crucial component of prayer.
That’s one opinion. I’d say no.
You suggest it’s logically possible for a God that allegedly cannot cease to exist to cease existing should we simply ask. I disagree, and I think you offer an either/or fallacy because you omit a valid option: Perhaps the reader is being overly rigid and literal in their interpretation of the verse? Generally, don’t read the Bible in Boolean and you’ll be alright.
Skeptico,
Although the question is certainly subjective, there is more than one point in asking, and one point would be that sometimes you’d get a popsicle.
ATL-Apostate,
Incorrect. Prayer is only unfalsifiable if it cannot be falsified. I have not heard a convincing argument from you or anyone that it can, nor have I heard you explain how unfalsifiable Agency entails falsifiable action. If you can convince me with a reasoned argument I’ll gladly change my position.
Omit the word probability and I’d say of course. Why wouldn’t I?
Your subsequent comment consisted mostly of personal opinions. You apparently feel omnipotence entails the ability to do that which seems logically impossible, and I disagree.
cl: On Atheists & Blind Faith, Or, False Arguments 27, 28 & 29: Why Prayer Studies Are Not Credible
Except that many prayer studies are carried out not by atheists, but by theists, who actually believe they are going to work.
The hardest part is finding someone who is willing to carry out such a study because they think it will work, and finding someone who understands how to plan and run a good clinical study. This can be either one person who is both, or collaborators who are willing to work together. The faith-based generally are not big on the scientific method.
For example, one recent well-publicised study had one group of patients who were told they were being prayed for, and they were. They had another group of patients who were told they may or may not be prayed for, but were prayed for anyway. It would make perfect sense to have a third group, a control group who was told they would be prayed for, but actually weren’t. But it didn’t happen because the folks who organized the study felt it would be unethical to tell someone you were going to pray for them, then not do it – even though every major credible study ever done has shown no effect of intercessory prayer.
There are many more prayer studies on the books. The Mayo Clinic, for example, ran a very well-designed and well-administered study several years before the STEP study. It showed no effect.
Only two major studies have shown positive results:
One by Elisabeth Targ
and one by Columbia University.
Both were fraudulent.
They’re all essentially fraudulent.
cl:
Not if if you compared a random number of people who didn’t ask with another group who did ask, and found there was no difference between the groups with regards to the number of popsicles obtained – which was the premise of my question. So dodge noticed. With prayer you don’t get the popsicle – you don’t any more times than if you didn’t ask.
Which brings me back to the question that you have ignored twice now, namely, what’s the point of praying? Be intellectually honest – answer the question.
cl
How is a person/being/god killing himself a logical impossibility? Like I said, if a person can do it, why can’t a god?
It’s hard not to have issues with the efficacy of prayer when your argument is that it can be granted, denied or postponed. That’s just silly. All outcomes indicate success. It’s like giving an award to every participant in a race. No one does that except the special olympics.
I was just trying to differentiate the difference between your god and my invisible blue snake.
In your response, you have effectively made the argument that praying to an invisible blue snake in my closet is a worthwhile endeavor. Thank you for making my point.
Skeptico,
If mine was a dodge, yours a Ram van. You say, “What’s the point of prayer?” That prayer even has a point is subjective, but one point of prayer is that they if God is real, prayers might be answered. Other people pray because it comforts them, and that’s the point for them. Etc. I’m already aware you think God is not real and hence there’s no point to prayer. I can’t change that. That’s about as intellectually honest as it gets. For you, there is no point in prayer. Others see points in praying. Life goes on, or does it?
ATL-Apostate,
Take biological death out of the picture. I don’t see how it’s logically possible for something that is purportedly eternal to cease existing. Can you explain that to me?
Spork,
If such is silly, do you suggest then that prayer is something else besides a request to God? Or that a request can be something other than granted, denied, or postponed?
I’m not saying all outcomes indicate success, I’m saying no outcomes indicate anything reliable.
Praying to an invisible blue in your closet may or may not be a worthwhile endeavor. It’s none of my business what you do in your closet.
cl wrote:
Yes, they might be. Or they might not be. (As you wrote, “so by its very nature, prayer can be either granted, denied, or postponed.”) So I ask, do people who pray for things get these things on average more often than people who do not pray for them?
Yes, no or don’t know?
[...] power of this meme is that it can be used to justify ANYTHING that happens as God’s will. Hemant wrote this week about the study that concluded intercessory prayer (prayer for others) has no positive effect (and [...]
I’m still waiting for cl to explain why doesn’t God heal amputees if prayer works, but as usual the question goes ignored.
cl
I don’t define your god, you do. If he can’t kill himself, then he’s not omnipotent. If he possesses two qualities that are logically impossible, as you have suggested (omnipotence and “eternal presence”) then your god is also logically impossible (or a big liar). Which is my point, exactly.
There’s also the possibility that your god exists, but is either not omnipotent or not “eternally present,” or both. But then you’d have to re-define what/who god is.
Furthermore, you say, “take biological death out of the picture.” Are you suggesting that your god is not a biological life form? Is he/she alive at all? What IS your god, exactly? If he/she is “alive” (a famous hymn comes to mind, “He Lives!” – but I digress) then it must be at least theoretically possible to die.
cl said:
First of all, the claim was that faith is required for prayer to be answered.
Second, that verse says nothing at all about what happens if you pray and you don’t believe.
You haven’t done anything to support the claim of the necessity of faith for prayer to be answered.
cl also said:
If you’re going to assert that it not be taken literally, you’re going to have to justify your decisions regarding what is and is not literal and metaphorical.
If the claim is that absolutely crucial components of your god’s nature – that he is omnipotent, that he never lies, and that he answers prayer – are not to be literally accepted in conjunction with each other, I can only assume that you don’t believe them all.
On the subject of not taking it too literally, I would also suggest that you not infer meanings that aren’t written there at all, such as that Matthew 21:22 supports the idea of faith being required for prayer to work, when it says nothing about nonbelief. Otherwise you’ll have to justify the addition of the information.
How you can claim to know the accuracy of the bible’s descriptions of your god’s character, I don’t know. Unless you’re god, I can’t see a way you would know for sure, other than accepting the book as true in every instance, which is unjustifiable.
One last thing…
In response to Skeptico, cl said:
Which entirely misses the point. To say that God answers prayers means one of two things:
1. God changed his mind to grant the prayer.
2. God didn’t change his mind; our prayer just went along with his plan.
The obvious problems:
1. The bible says god doesn’t change. Is this to be taken metaphorically – yet another essential component of the character of your god?
2. If he was going to do what he did regardless of our prayer, the prayer was a meaningless gesture with no effect.
@MiketheInfidel,
Although I don’t believe there is a god of any kind, I think I can answer your comment:
God might be waiting for his followers to ask for his help before he helps them. Either to get them to exercise their faith, or so that he will be sure to get “glory” out of it.
After all, if he were to just heal everything in everyone willy-nilly ASAP, nobody’d notice him – so the reasoning might go. There’s be no testimony.
I think the study clearly refutes this idea, but believers don’t pray based on the latest studies.
I got sort of excited when I saw cl trying to answer some points on this page.
Sadly, his responses have been the same intellectually dishonest rationalizations that drove me away from the church to begin with.
And I’m still waiting for God to heal an amputee.
Skeptico,
I have no idea. My point was that prayer claims are not falsifiable and prayer studies are not scientifically credible.
Brooks,
I’m not ignoring anything. I’ve never seen God heal an amputee.
ATL-Apostate,
I don’t see how omnipotence and eternal presence are incompatible. You apparently define omnipotence as the ability to do the logically impossible. I do not. How any of that relates to the credibility of prayer studies is also beyond me.
I’m suggesting that God > biological life.
MikeTheInfidel,
Correct. Do you dispute that receive is categorically synonymous with have answered? “If you believe, you will receive…” That can be reasonably translated to, “if we have faith, our prayers will be answered.” Yes? No? If not, why not?
That’s correct. Other verses cover this quite well. I have to ask, though – How does any of this relate to whether or not prayer studies are credible? That was my original argument.
There’s nothing else I can do if you deny that Matthew 21:22 supports my claim. It’s now on you to show how receive differs significantly from have answered.
That’s correct, and we bear the same burden with most any historical work.
I’ve not claimed that.
I don’t. But it doesn’t take much to claim the logically impossible is logically impossible.
As far as your comments on my discussion with Skeptico, that God answers prayers does not necessarily entail that God has changed his mind. Your conclusion doesn’t flow from your premise. As for 2, perhaps people’s prayers do sometimes go along with God’s plan. Even if we grant that for sake of discussion, that doesn’t support your conclusion that the prayer was a meaningless gesture, or that it has no effect.
AJ,
Thanks for judging me. I submit that the whole world is pink through rose-colored glasses.
In reply to the question, “do people who pray for things get these things on average more often than people who do not pray for them?” cl wrote:
Thank you. If you pray, there is no reason to think you are more likely to get the thing you prayed for than if you didn’t pray. Apart from any psychological effects then, praying does nothing.
Skeptico,
Be intellectually honest. You don’t know, so don’t pretend to.
cl wrote:
I’m not pretending to. You agreed there was no reason to suppose praying did anything – “I have no idea” you wrote. If there is no reason to suppose it does anything,why would anyone insist it might?
I didn’t have the time to read all responses, but isn’t it possible that God doesn’t respond when being tested? If we pray (even sincere prayers) knowing that it is offered in the spirit of a clinical trial to prove or disprove the efficacy of God’s intercession, its very possible God is unmoved. Jesus is recorded as saying (Matt 4:7), “it is written that you shall not tempt the Lord your God”. IOW, we should not put God to a test. No surprise to me that these studies fail to prove God’s existence. So to imagine that they disprove His existence is equally fallacious.
The reason prayer did not work in that case is because they are not praying to God but to a human being, dead more than 2000 years ago, who never claimed to be God, nor was he worshiped in his time.
Jesus (whatever his real and proper name, was) was a human being. Historical facts have now established that the concept of Jesus as a God and Trinity were established much later and came into Vogue during the time of Constantin.
See this documentary aired on BBC and History Channel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3D28Ys-dp4
Interesting. Catholics believe if THEY pray, prayers will be answered. But most fundamentalist catholics also believe that faiths other then christians who pray, their prayers go unanswered, or their prayers don’t work.
John 14:14 Pray for anything you want, if you ask for anything in my name I will do it……ya right!
We all know that doesn’t work but christians keep on praying. Its done out of discipline and fear.
We all know praying is a selfish act of wanting something. I never pray, so if there is a God I am sure he would be proud of me for rolling up my sleeves and figuring lifes problems out myself rather then mumbling scripted church words selfishly wanting something to happen.
Come on people break those religious fears and enjoy your life as it unfolds everyday.
If I pray faster will I get more grace then someone who prays slowly? If I pay people to pray will more prayers be answered? If Donald Trump paid 10,000 people to pray for him sincerely, can you imagine how perfect his life would be. (LOL)