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God doesn't care.
An interesting study:
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Maybe God just decided to screw with the survey results. |
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You see, this study is a failure because it mixes up the happy good loving funtimes of Jesus with the sad frowny face of scientificness! Whenever people think about science, they get real sad inside, and of course they can't heal up properly! It's impossible to ever get accurate study results about religious matters because religion shrieks and crawls back into its coffin when it encounters rigorous study.
The real depressing part of the article is the phrase "1,800 heart bypass surgery patients". |
Here's the problem:
God isn't a supreme being you can order around with prayer and promises. There's an intellect so alien to us that the scientific method isn't quite... shall we say "broad" enough to encompass the will and/or methods of God. Attempting to define Him in scientific terms, therefore, is flawed from the beginning. Heck, attempting to define Him in LINGUISTIC terms is flawed, as evidenced by my need to use masculine pronouns to refer to Him. |
Was this study done before or after the Xbox 360 launch? Perhaps God was just busy.
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Prayers I believe are supposed to maintain some kind of faith, not make wishes come true.
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure miraculous healings are much more rare than a 1 in 1800 occurrence. It'd be like conducting a survey with 10,000 people asking how many of them have won the lottery, and then saying that the lottery doesn't exist because nobody has won it.
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No really, nothing like science helping to shoot down the notion that a God might actually have active involvement in our crazy little world. I think I'll go fap, right now. |
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Well, okay, maybe "divinely-assisted recovery" would have been a better description. But I still think the chances are pretty low.
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*DISCLAIMER: OPINION*
Praying is just a piece of mind for the person doing the praying. It's a way of getting through hard times, like much of the religious traditions. Some people use lucky charms while playing Bingo. Some people use numbers. Some people chose God. Its all a matter of perspective. If it helps you cope, go for it. But dont expect god to make your wishes come true. |
I agree with Sass and would add that if we had many, many cases of people suddenly getting better, then everyone would be praying greedily nonstop for this and that!
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This reminded me of the Da Vinci Code.
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I wonder if the study took the prayers' religion into account when they gathered all of their data?
Perhaps, in prayer, one religion is shunned while the other is not? |
I must say, I used to think prayer was mildly effective through the voluntary telepathic power of a collective will. Now I don't think that, either.
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God's away message: OBLIVION. GTFO.
Anyway, there have also been studies linking increased lifespans with those who lead more spiritual lives namely simple churchgoing, or just the attending of religious services. So the prayers are doing shit, but how many of the people that actually underwent surgery were "holy." I'd like that stat. Quote:
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They should teach this during sermons: Prayer != Wish Granting.
Ahh well... at least they're studying important matters, and not wasting time on frivilious studies... O WAIT. Quote:
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So...if I want to hope the people to die, I should pray for them? Sweet!
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Wait, I bet you studied too right? Why didn't you pray for God to fry your professor with a Thunderbolt? |
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You're praying to the wrong god. Try Zeus. I'm sure he's more than willing to use his lightning bolts in anger. |
I'm inclined to believe that God has given up on the world because his influence has little to no effect on the growing horrible status of today's society. On the other hand though, Satan sure does care about doing what he does best. I think it's apparent where I'm going with this opinion. And it is part of why I'm angry with God. (Yea I'm a believer who is having doubts about my savior).
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What growing horrible status? Would you prefer to have lived during the dark ages?
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Minion - one could consider this era the new dark age :o.
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If one were completely unaware of history, sure.
Society has always been fucked up. And it's not because God doesn't care. It's because we have the ability to make our own choices. Even if that means doing horrible things. If God steps in even once, He compromises that completely. Not only does that take away our free will, but it also proves the existence of God, thereby eliminating the concept of faith and basically scaring everyone into believing in God, which defeats the whole purpose of our existence. |
The will to be destructive. That's you know who's catogory there and it amazes me how much more active he has been allowed to become.
Realistically speaking though I understand what you're saying. |
Seriously, if you're feeling like society is just getting worse and worse, read some history. You will be very glad that you're living in today's society.
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Praise Hell Hail Satan! |
I would also think that praying for someone you don't even know, a semi-anonymous individual with no face, known history or mutual experiences to reflect upon, greatly detracts from the sincerity of the prayer. There is very little vested interest, and surely some Catholics may not be truly earnest in their well-wishes when the possibility exists that "Walter P." isn't a fellow Catholic, or worse, isn't a believer in God at all.
There are far more esoteric issues at hand as well but, like Minion, I will refrain from addressing them at large. It would open up a lot of unnecessary debate and I don't mean to force my own beliefs upon others. |
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sinner. |
I know how much people hate it when I mention CS Lewis, but he wrote an essay entitled "On the Efficacy of Prayer" which addresses this issue very well, if anyone is interested.
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I agree with Crash in that these people didn't even know the people they were praying for. The article doesn't make it sound like they even went in to meet these people they were supposed to pray for.
Edit: Ok, so I didn't realize until just now that the article was linked. My bad. It does say in there that they were given a list with first names and last initial. I don't really know how effective I think prayer is, but I'd really imagine that if it were to have any power you need to have some sort of connection with the person you're praying for. |
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Then again, why should mass prayer affect God's decisions? If God truly loves all His children equally, why would he be more likely to help the people who can gather the most prayers? "Sorry, Steve, but you don't have any friends that care about you, so you're not worth saving." |
Well, prayer doesn't really affect his decisions.
Would it help if I told you that prayer is more for the one praying than it is for the one being prayed about? |
As previously mentioned, the prayers didn't personally know the persons undergoing treatment. They weren't associated with them outside of this project, so whether praying proved to be inefficient or not is quite irrelevant.
About as relevant as somebody seeing something traumatic, and saying to the family "I'll pray for you." yet they really won't, or it won't do any benefit. It's a kind thought, but it won't stop catholics from getting sleep. As insensitive as that sounds, it's quite logical. The only thing associated with catholics and christians which I don't agree with, is the rubbish about priests being able to heal people of cancer, illness, aids and the rest. It doesn't work like that, it's merely for morale, and it just doesn't make sense. If it was logical, we wouldn't need hospitals. And you don't see people with insert illness here hiking off to priests for a cure. |
Interesting, although I suspect that if the results had gone the other way to show that prayer was beneficial in the recovery of surgery, I'd bet the true believers would be the first to claim that science had vindicated their faith.
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Yeah, damn that logical impossiblity of proving a negative even though it's fairly simple to prove a positive!
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People never put GOD first on anything, and thats why people have problems.
But what do i know, i am nobody, right? |
Of course god doesn't care. Praying - pffft! Seems like a pretty unscientific study to waste so much of an effort on - they should have been researching the effects of positive thinking, or the effects of support (or the illusion of support).
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Could you clarify your stance on this for me? |
Why do you always ask me questions that tie together two things that have nothing in common?
I said, somewhere, sometime, in SOME thread that has nothing to do with this, that the only way to have a fair society is to let the majority make decisions. They may be flat wrong about their decisions, but it's the best possible way to run a society. What this has to do with history (throughout which, we have been mostly undemocratic) or the fact that we probably live in the least fucked up time in history, I have no idea. |
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Sometimes, you're on about GOD SOCIETY IS SMARTER THAN YOU THINK, SASS - sometimes, you're telling us how STUPID people are. I agree with the latter. I am pretty consistent about it. Quote:
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Do you think people are stupid or intelligent when it comes to making decisions for themselves (as a societal whole)? |
I think people are mostly bad at making decisions. That doesn't change the fact that it is only fair to give the majority what it wants.
Now can we go back to talking about whether or not praying works? =/ |
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It only works in your head. Much like self-medication and holistic healing. If you can tell your body it works, you can only convince yourself. |
People who believe praying does anything at all is stupid. First off, why are they praying for ONE certain particular time at that point of the day?
"Oh, I need to get a 80% or higher on my exam, PLEASE HELP ME GOD! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!" -End prayer, resume regular life. If I were God, and I saw this ignorant use of my services, wouldn't I be pissed off that a decendant of my creation thinks I'm their "do-everything" person? Sure I would naturally love them and care for them, if I were God. But to have some idea that God even exists and assume he's the only gleaming ray of light to help you in a time of need..... that's down right ignorant. It's like saying you know he's there, but you don't really love him. Just thank him for your existance and be off with your day. This is my first time taking a whack at this perspective of religion and the existance of God, but it just further motivates me to not undertake any religion that exists today. If you've seen the Anime, it's just as Lord Illpalazzo(?) says in the Excel(Excell?) Anime: "Ignorant Masses" Anime: World = on potential verge of conquest, people continue with their lives. Real-life: Some of the World = succumb to some repetitively ephemeral, ethereal being. |
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According to the Bible, you were created in God's image. What that actually means is that you have some quailities in common with God. The reason for this, I think, is basically so that you can understand Him better. Would you want robots to worship you or real, thinking people who could make their own decisions about whether they want to be with you or not? |
I think the real issue at hand here is why anyone would want to spend a good $2.4 million dollars on a moot study like this when they could, I don't know, be spending that money on something that actually benefits the world in some way. I'm sure there's a continent load of hungry children out there who wouldn't mind having some dinner tonight.
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if that was your first time "taking a whack at this perspective of religion", you may want to wait a while before the next time, develop your skill to actually argue a point without sounding like you're just arguing because you can, and then maybe try again. |
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