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God doesn't care.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Washington Post

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

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

The new $2.4 million study, funded primarily by the John Templeton Foundation, was designed to overcome some of those shortcomings. Dusek and his colleagues divided 1,802 bypass patients at six hospitals into three groups. Two groups were uncertain whether they would be the subject of prayers. The third was told they would definitely be prayed for.

The researchers recruited two Catholic groups and one Protestant group to pray "for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications" for 14 days for each patient, beginning the night before the surgery, using the patient's first name and the first initial of the last name.

Over the next month, patients in the two groups that were uncertain of whether they were the subject of prayers fared virtually the same, with about 52 percent experiencing complications regardless of whether they were the subject of prayers. Surprisingly, however, 59 percent of the patients who knew they were the targets of prayer experienced complications.

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

"Did the patients think, 'I am so sick they had to call in the prayer team?' " said Charles Bethea of the Inegris Baptist Heart Hospital in Oklahoma City, who helped conduct the study.

All kidding aside, the findings are depressing if you're a believer. I would have assumed the placebo effect alone would make people feel better, but apparantly not.

Maybe God just decided to screw with the survey results.

Quote:

the findings are depressing if you're a believer

Not really. Prayer is never meant to treat God like some kind of genie. Although an explanation of prayer and why this study is stupid would just bore half of you and annoy the other half, so...

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.

Prayers I believe are supposed to maintain some kind of faith, not make wishes come true.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terminus

Prayers I believe are supposed to maintain some kind of faith, not make wishes come true.

Exactly. It doesn't matter whether God exists and/or takes an interest in the goings on of his creations, what matters is that the sick person believes that prayer will help.

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nuttyturnip

All kidding aside, the findings are depressing if you're a believer.

Hilarious for an atheist.

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dhsu

The study wasn't examining people who needed a miraculous healing. It's not like they had terminal cancer; there's a decent chance that a heart bypass patient would get well without any divine intervention.

Well, okay, maybe "divinely-assisted recovery" would have been a better description. But I still think the chances are pretty low.

*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!

This reminded me of the Da Vinci Code.

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.

Quote:

Posted by Matt
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?

For this to be true, God would have to be a massive dick, so if you're at all religious you should hope this is not the case.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TubeRacer

Was this study done before or after the Xbox 360 launch? Perhaps God was just busy.

That my friend... made me cry. That is the funniest thing I have EVER heard in my entire life.

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:

Originally Posted by Monkey King

For this to be true, God would have to be a massive dick, so if you're at all religious you should hope this is not the case.

I'm Catholic, but I do think God is a massive dick. That jejune bastard hasn't answered any of my prayers for the last couple years. "Gimme an A in class! What? C?! SON OF A BITCH!" Even Jesus was a morose mother fucker at times.

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:

Originally Posted by nazpyro

God's away message: OBLIVION. GTFO.

Hahaha, how true.

So...if I want to hope the people to die, I should pray for them? Sweet!

Quote:

Originally Posted by nazpyro

Aw man, you know God. Least we follow is that phrase of "God has compassion, Man has action".

Wait, I bet you studied too right? Why didn't you pray for God to fry your professor with a Thunderbolt?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terminus

Aw man, you know God. Least we follow is that phrase of "God has compassion, Man has action".

Wait, I bet you studied too right? Why didn't you pray for God to fry your professor with a Thunderbolt?

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).

What growing horrible status? Would you prefer to have lived during the dark ages?