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The Amazing Power of Prayer ... (pg. 5)
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| Subey |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ory
Oh, and I think that study is ing bull, too. It's human science, therefore it's bound to be flawed. |
Yes the return of Golden Why. I wonder what this could mean... I will pontificate...
X = Why Z |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by ierxium
:haha:
Taking advantage of the ill just for a study? That's cruel. Again, assuming god/s exist/s, humans will never be at the same level as him/her/it/them. People pray hoping that someone somewhere will make something happen. It's based on hope. Science can't measure praying or hoping.
How does refusing to participate in a study proves that a god is at our mercy? I don't understand. And you can't do studies on every single prayer and god, not all would want to participate, except for those seeking something in return, like sex or money.
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So this or these gods refuse to grant the prayers to help people simply because these prayers are being observed? Isn't that, how did you put it, cruel? And by refusing to grant miraculous recoveries to prayers does put god at our mercy. Are they not influenced by our actions to escape discovery by us? You're hypothesizing that they would have granted some of the prayers except it was a study therefore, the gods refuse to participate ... for whatever reason, even if they had wanted to. So in effect we can influence who the Gods can and cannot help by effectively conducting more of the same study, by picking random people, and having others pray for them.
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How can you know that it would not work in my presence? Wouldn't a study be necessary to prove this? I hope you're not spending a lot on tea.
Now, if the group of believers have seen the results of the power of your member, then perhaps you are right. What if one day one of those witnesses comes and asks you to move a chair in a picture. Would you do it if you knew it was part of an experiment? And what if other people also went to another guy with a powerful penis asking for the same thing? There are other people out there just like you, powerful penis. And these people have followers too. But they don't believe in you or your story about the tea and the easter bunny.
You're right about the penis. There's no way of proving the power of it, specially for me since you said it doesn't work in my presence.
It's all about speculation. So because I'll never know the truth about your powers I can say that... there isn't a penis at all. And that also is a reasonable speculation, right?
Wait, a speculation is not enough. I will do an experiment. I'm going to pray that your penis moves my mp3 player from my bed to the top of my speaker. And to be fair with your penis, which might be occupied doing other stuff, the study will last 2 days. Mp3 player is not heavy and the distance it needs to travel is not a lot. Good luck. |
Ah now we’re getting somewhere. It is all speculation right? If I’m to accept your baseless conjecture as to why the Gods did not tangibly aid the sick in those prayers, than you are just as obligated to accept my claims of an omnipotent penis. Or my claims that I don’t have a penis. Or any claim for that matter. And this is why the burden of proof rests upon the individual making the claim. Prove that the easter bunny exists. Prove that your penis has supernatural powers. Prove that there is a god, that prayer works, etc. Without any tangible evidence to demonstrate otherwise, prayer seems to be quite worthless. If you disagree, do a study that would make your case. Actually that would be quite simple to do, and it could be done retroactively. If prayer has a tangible effect on the welfare and health of individuals, than one can most certainly expect statistical differences between atheist families and individuals over religious ones. I’ve seen no studies indicating this to date … |
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| RapidFire |
| science pwns religion once more. :stongue: |
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| XoxidE |
I wonder which religion is right...or if there really is a god...
Things/questions like these really make me crazy, makes me wanna kill myself to find out, but if I do suicide, if there is a god, i would go to hell..., but if there isnt a god, and I suicide, I just waste my life and i go puff...never to exist ever again....
mind boggling.:) :( :( :( :) :( |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by XoxidE
I wonder which religion is right...or if there really is a god...
Things/questions like these really make me crazy, makes me wanna kill myself to find out, but if I do suicide, if there is a god, i would go to hell..., but if there isnt a god, and I suicide, I just waste my life and i go puff...never to exist ever again....
mind boggling.:) :( :( :( :) :( |
How do you know God doesn't want you to kill yourself? Maybe the only people going to "heaven" are those who committed suicide. This is kind of similar to pascal's wager.
The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history. |
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| ierxium |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
So this or these gods refuse to grant the prayers to help people simply because these prayers are being observed? Isn't that, how did you put it, cruel? And by refusing to grant miraculous recoveries to prayers does put god at our mercy. Are they not influenced by our actions to escape discovery by us? You're hypothesizing that they would have granted some of the prayers except it was a study therefore, the gods refuse to participate ... for whatever reason, even if they had wanted to. So in effect we can influence who the Gods can and cannot help by effectively conducting more of the same study, by picking random people, and having others pray for them.
Ah now we’re getting somewhere. It is all speculation right? If I’m to accept your baseless conjecture as to why the Gods did not tangibly aid the sick in those prayers, than you are just as obligated to accept my claims of an omnipotent penis. Or my claims that I don’t have a penis. Or any claim for that matter. And this is why the burden of proof rests upon the individual making the claim. Prove that the easter bunny exists. Prove that your penis has supernatural powers. Prove that there is a god, that prayer works, etc. Without any tangible evidence to demonstrate otherwise, prayer seems to be quite worthless. If you disagree, do a study that would make your case. Actually that would be quite simple to do, and it could be done retroactively. If prayer has a tangible effect on the welfare and health of individuals, than one can most certainly expect statistical differences between atheist families and individuals over religious ones. I’ve seen no studies indicating this to date … |
Gods are free of doing what they please. You're putting the gods and humans face to face, at the same level. That's not possible. We're inferior. Gods know and do it all. Humans can barely walk straight, sober.
I can give myself the luxury of speculating. No fear of being wrong. But scientists need decent proof when they expose results. What the cardiologist and company did was waste their time.
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by ierxium
Gods are free of doing what they please. You're putting the gods and humans face to face, at the same level. That's not possible. We're inferior. Gods know and do it all. Humans can barely walk straight, sober.
I can give myself the luxury of speculating. No fear of being wrong. But scientists need decent proof when they expose results. What the cardiologist and company did was waste their time.
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Please, I can put God at the same level as man because neither you nor I are capable of knowing anything about them. For all you or I know, God is a sadistic drunk who spends his day having sex with conjured sheep in an outhouse … or, more probable, he doesn’t exist unless you have concrete evidence to the contrary.
You’re free to speculate to the contrary all you want. However, pardon my rejection of your characterization of this study as a “waste of time” based on your voluminous understanding of divine beings that is supported by absolutely nothing at all. The facts of this study are that prayer within the context of invoking divine intervention to aid in the health of individuals accomplished no tangible medical benefits at all.
Now you can say that God knew it was a study and decided not to participate (on no evidence whatsoever), however it logically follows then that God is influenced by our actions: the fact that we conducted a study which influenced his decision to listen to the prayers.
Now you can say that the prayers the study analyzed weren’t of sufficient quality (with no evidence whatsoever that sets the standards of prayer), however, it then logically follows that God never listens to any prayers of similar type, because it doesn’t follow this standard of quality that you set.
And of course you can say that I can’t say anything at all because I can’t even comprehend God, which is the most bizarre rebuttal yet (not to mention the biggest copout in any religious discussion), because you’ve been hypothesizing about the inner workings of God/s (with no evidence whatsoever) this entire discussion. And similarly you have no grounds to reject any kind of supernatural claims I endow upon myself because I can reject any attempt on your part to prove me wrong through a million caveats that are impossible to prove/disprove.
So, if you want to criticize the study based upon your baseless assumptions about God, by all means I can’t argue with what you don’t know. But if you want to argue about the statistical methodology … by all means:
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...669103/fulltext |
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| Psy-T |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Please, I can put God at the same level as man because neither you nor I are capable of knowing anything about them..... |
very well put occrider
i've avoided the debate itself ever since i found out the research "is not credible" because frankly, i can't debate someone who disqualifies the only part of the debate that is essential for it's existence.
changing ground every other post didn't help his case either.
if your latest post here wasn't enough.. i don't know what will be enough. |
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| Subey |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
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OC, why does your tag say "Junior Tranceaddict"? A minor subterfuge.
You can change your appearance in order to affect how you are preceived in a limited way.
Clearly billions of people perceive that God exists. Based on these numbers, is a possible explanation for this that the divine can reveal itself in a manner that you are unable to detect?
And that the best way people can codify this awareness of the divine is to use the word "faith".
In other words, you are surrounded by billions of people who believe in God, so you wail at the naivité of the world, how simple they are to believe in such foolish things etc. etc. etc. When the proper interpretation might simply be to imagine that it might not be them, it might be YOU.
How foolish is a deaf man to claim that those who hear music are experiencing hallucinations...
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As for the actual study. Suppose I am playing hide and seek with my 3 year old nephew. And I see him coming, so I change locations in order to avoid being found. Has my nephew influenced my actions? Certainly. But its entirely my choice on wether or not he finds me.
As I've stated previously elsewhere, to quote Alan Watts. "If we knew absolutely that God existed then it would rot our brains". Might it not be in *our* best interests to not be able to detect god absolutely? |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Subey
OC, why does your tag say "Junior Tranceaddict"? A minor subterfuge.
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No reason at all. A whimsical decision made several years ago that perhaps conveys my oblivousness to matters of little import.
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Clearly billions of people perceive that God exists. Based on these numbers, is a possible explanation for this that the divine can reveal itself in a manner that you are unable to detect?
And that the best way people can codify this awareness of the divine is to use the word "faith".
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Odd, if God has revealed his divine presence to billions of people around the world (naturally I'm one of those left out of such a blessed event), you would expect that at least one of these billion revelations would cast aside all doubts about his existence. But no ... instead in case after case, we find that this "awareness" of his existence is codified by nothing other than simple, unsupported belief. Now as much as I would love to entertain the thought that simply believing in something were to make it true, I'm afraid that that theory has been an abysmal failure in ... well in pretty much all of history.
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In other words, you are surrounded by billions of people who believe in God, so you wail at the naivité of the world, how simple they are to believe in such foolish things etc. etc. etc. When the proper interpretation might simply be to imagine that it might not be them, it might be YOU.
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Now why would I wail at the naivite of the world and lament at how stupid they are? What possible reason would I have to care about whatever crazy beliefs everyone would like to believe in unless it has some tangible effect on myself? While I certainly enjoy spirited debates on religion and politics, at the end of the day, I care about what the religious folk believe in as much I care about what that nut job who hangs out by the subway with a UFO sigh or the "end is nigh" sign believes in. Feel free to sell crazy as much as you want, just don't come to my doorstop expecting conciliatory silence.
As for making the "proper" interpretation that I am wrong because everyone else thinks otherwise, that's simply an argumentum ad populum: the fallacy of attempting to prove a conclusion on the grounds that all or most people think or believe it is true.
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How foolish is a deaf man to claim that those who hear music are experiencing hallucinations...
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Cute. Sage words applicable to many in history ... Coperinicus, Gallileo, Darwin, etc., etc., etc.
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***
As for the actual study. Suppose I am playing hide and seek with my 3 year old nephew. And I see him coming, so I change locations in order to avoid being found. Has my nephew influenced my actions? Certainly. But its entirely my choice on wether or not he finds me.
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It's not really your choice if you've played this game hundreds and hundreds of times and every single time you've opted to run and hide as opposed to revealing your presence. Especially when it comes at the expense of doing something that you wanted to do. Did God want or not want to grant those prayers if it weren't a study? Or was it simple coincidence that God didn't want to grant those prayers at the same time the study was commissioned? Or better yet, maybe he arranged it! Oh you great wily God, how may appeals to ignorance can we bounce off of you!
| quote: |
As I've stated previously elsewhere, to quote Alan Watts. "If we knew absolutely that God existed then it would rot our brains". Might it not be in *our* best interests to not be able to detect god absolutely? |
Yes, because it would be an immense travesty if people knew that their actions in this world would have lasting implications in the next. By all means, continue with the suffering, torture, and misery. |
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| ierxium |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Please, I can put God at the same level as man because neither you nor I are capable of knowing anything about them. For all you or I know, God is a sadistic drunk who spends his day having sex with conjured sheep in an outhouse … or, more probable, he doesn’t exist unless you have concrete evidence to the contrary.
You’re free to speculate to the contrary all you want. However, pardon my rejection of your characterization of this study as a “waste of time” based on your voluminous understanding of divine beings that is supported by absolutely nothing at all. The facts of this study are that prayer within the context of invoking divine intervention to aid in the health of individuals accomplished no tangible medical benefits at all.
Now you can say that God knew it was a study and decided not to participate (on no evidence whatsoever), however it logically follows then that God is influenced by our actions: the fact that we conducted a study which influenced his decision to listen to the prayers.
Now you can say that the prayers the study analyzed weren’t of sufficient quality (with no evidence whatsoever that sets the standards of prayer), however, it then logically follows that God never listens to any prayers of similar type, because it doesn’t follow this standard of quality that you set.
And of course you can say that I can’t say anything at all because I can’t even comprehend God, which is the most bizarre rebuttal yet (not to mention the biggest copout in any religious discussion), because you’ve been hypothesizing about the inner workings of God/s (with no evidence whatsoever) this entire discussion. And similarly you have no grounds to reject any kind of supernatural claims I endow upon myself because I can reject any attempt on your part to prove me wrong through a million caveats that are impossible to prove/disprove.
So, if you want to criticize the study based upon your baseless assumptions about God, by all means I can’t argue with what you don’t know. But if you want to argue about the statistical methodology … by all means:
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...669103/fulltext |
Fine. Let's leave all that science hasn't proved false yet out of this.
| quote: | From your link:
During the first 2 years of the study, the name, age, and illness of each patient assigned prayer therapy were provided to each of the 12 primary-tier prayer groups. All prayer groups were notified directly through the prayer-therapy coordinator at the randomisation centre within 30 min of randomisation. Timing and content of prayers were defined by the routine practices of each prayer group, with durations ranging from 5 days to 30 days after enrolment. Prayer groups were all established congregations. Documentation of prayer-group adherence to the protocol was not mandated. Primary-tier prayer groups included Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist groups (webtable).
In the final year of enrolment, for the two-tiered prayer therapy, an additional 12 prayer groups were added in emulation of methods previously published.10 The second-tier groups were given details of the MANTRA II study design and a list of the primary-tier prayer congregations. When a patient was assigned prayer therapy, the second-tier groups were not given information on the name, age, or illness but were simply notified that a patient had been enrolled and asked to pray for the prayers of the primary-tier congregations.
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-So the primary-tier prayer groups are given what those in control consider necessary: Age/Name/pic/illness check!
-Documentation of prayer was not mandated. That's okay.
-Two-tiered prayer in the final year of enrolment. These groups were asked to pray for the prayers of the primary-tier congregations. I guess that's necessary. To be honest, I think they should've used third- and fourth-tier groups.
| quote: | | Questionnaires completed by the patients at enrolment showed that 613 (89%) of 688 responding were aware of prayer on their behalf outside of the protocol. Questionnaires completed before discharge showed that 186 (64%) of 292 who were not assigned prayer treatment believed that they were, whereas 98 (35%) of 278 who were assigned prayer according to the protocol believed that they were not. |
-Questionnaires, fair. Why does it matter if a patient is aware or not of prayer in their behalf?
Notice that 89% were aware of the prayer on their behalf though. And 64% of the patients that did not get any prayer believed they were. How dumb are they? I should stop echoing the quote.
| quote: | | The mechanisms through which distant intercessory prayer might convey healing benefit are unknown. Physiological effects seen in individuals who are actively meditating or praying themselves6,16 might not relate to effects of double-blind administration to others at a distance. |
I saw unknown somewhere in the quote above. So you see, even the experts admit it. If you don't know how a certain mechanism works, then what are you doing? How exactly does prayer work?
| quote: | | The issues of whether the number of intercessors praying, whether prayers from individuals differ from those from congregations, or whether prayers from different religions have different effects remain unresolved. |
Unre-what?
| quote: | | The MANTRA study project represents a continuing effort to collect systematic, scientifically structured information on widely practised, intangible therapeutic approaches for which we have essentially no mechanistic understanding. |
inta-who?
| quote: | | *1=attends church at least once a week (social); 2=prays at least once a day (personal practice); 3=definitely experiences presence of the Divine, definitely feels that religious/spiritual beliefs are behind his or her whole approach to life, and religion definitely carries over into all other dealings in his or her life. |
Look at the Duke religiosity survey. I love surveys! Interesting numbers.
How come I have to do all the work? Registering for the site, then reading, then getting decent quotes(which weren't many). I'm not a donkey!
Have it your way. Prayer has no power. The study, which was nicely done, says so. According to them, there was no improvement. Good. I can't dispute the results.
And I do not change ground. It is the ground that is moving.
And I still think they waisted their time. You can't move me from there just as you can't be moved from the idea, oh sorry, from the scientifically proven fact, that praying has no power. |
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| Aquarian |
| quote: | | In other words, you are surrounded by billions of people who believe in God, so you wail at the naivité of the world, how simple they are to believe in such foolish things etc. etc. etc. When the proper interpretation might simply be to imagine that it might not be them, it might be YOU. |
Considering that humans are more or less "programmed" by nurture, and the irrationality of religious belief itself, the only proper interpretation of those numbers is that they're all brainwashed. The flaw in your argument is that you assume that everyone chooses their beliefs out of logical and intelligent deduction, which isn't the case. Statistics are a vague way of expressing things, but it doesn't take a genius to see that incident of birth is an undeniable fact - and possibly the only one in the whole field of psychology. |
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