Does pray work?

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by Semon, Mar 15, 2006.

  1. Semon Howdy, hi and hello. Registered Senior Member

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    sometimes it works, sometimes don't, why?
     
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  3. KennyJC Registered Senior Member

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    It doesn't work at all. If someone gets cancer, obviously loved ones will pray, if that person then beats cancer, it's suddenly a "miracle" and because that person prayed it's thought that is what saved them.

    It's just a simple law of probability. Every person on Earth could pray for me to get over a terminal illness, and it won't improve my chances at all.
     
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  5. Semon Howdy, hi and hello. Registered Senior Member

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    Then why people pray?
     
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  7. Oxygen One Hissy Kitty Registered Senior Member

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    It's their last hope, or they just don't know what else to do. They feel powerless, but they want to do something. It makes them feel better knwoing that they didn't just sit by and worry.
     
  8. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    17,455
    prayer does work
    the power of the believing mind is awesome
    and definitly a force to be rekoned with
     
  9. Varda The Bug Lady Valued Senior Member

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    6,184
    if the prayers were answered it was because god is so great, if not it was because it was god's will


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  10. Agitprop Registered Senior Member

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    Every time I pray it works. I make damned sure I qualify my requests with the understanding that often we're meant to go through something difficult to learn some kind of valuable lesson. I ask for the strength to endure it and the keeness of mind to learn as much as possible from the pain. I pray to a higher power or powers to change my mind. If I can't love someone, or respect them due to some fault of my own, I pray to angelic forces to work some kind of neuronal or emotional magic on me to allow love to flow. These forces work on mind and spirit, and are subtle but will be felt if allowed to work as they are intended to work.

    Think of someone you are involved with in some kind of intractable hopeless situation and pray for some kind of resolution, and pray for understanding of their situation, and a commensurate understanding of your situation, by them.
     
  11. Oxygen One Hissy Kitty Registered Senior Member

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    2,478
    So if a child is being beaten to death by his parent, does god mean for this child to be beaten to death? I often think of this when I hear things pertaining to suffering that is meant to be gone through. I also think of my husband and what he went through as a child, and I would like to see anyone, even a god, justify it to him. He used to be a practicing christian, but a child can only pray for relief for so long until he gets the idea that god isn't listening.

    In particular, however, I'm thinking of friend of mine who told me about her sister who had guests drop by unexpectedly and she prayed for enough food in her relatively bare cupboards to feed them all. Lo and behold, there was more than enough food, something they attributed to a miracle since it had been a couple of weeks since she had gone to the store and had already seen that she barely had enough for a meal for herself. That same day, a little girl was raped and strangled by her stepfather. So god answered the prayers for someone who wanted to entertain guests and ignored the death of a little girl. Can we assume that god wanted the little girl to die?

    And please don't say "It's God's will" or any such thing. I'm not trying to be hostile, but I see it as a cop-out.
     
  12. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    6,585
    the Great Crime doe to the pople...and i mean ALL people, includin he ones who propigated this myth is tat there is tis SEPARATE 'God'

    cause what i hear all te time, especially at frums , is two campms. rthe believers in this 'God' and the ons that DON't believe in this 'God'.....notice someting??? BOTH sides pre-sume A 'God' as described by the patriarchy....this 'up.in-the-sky' 'nobodaddy'--as William Blake called 'him'

    so the great crime is giving people the premise that there is a vast gulf between them and deeper sources of BEING

    when you explore this...then praying will mean different. frmimagining you are praying TO some ever-so-bleedin-perfect creator

    what REALLy counts is not that. it is your feeling and meaning when you pray. and payin comes in different forms. there is the stance of popular prayer with hamnds togther type stuff, but in many Indigenousforms it can be chantin, and drumming, an dancing......etc. but its the meaing one puts into it, the love that is the crucia thing. and also not the mechanical need for 'result' neither
     
  13. Lerxst I love Natalie Portman Registered Senior Member

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    314
    All I know is, I wish every Christian would take Matthew 6:6 seriously. That would solve a number of problems.

     
  14. Theoryofrelativity Banned Banned

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    quoted from above link:

    What do atheists think about prayer?

    Noted atheist Dan Barker, a spokesperson for the Freedom from Religion Foundation says the findings of the above research are no big surprise. Prayer and religious beliefs can have a placebo effect, just like a sugar pill. Barker, who was once a Christian Fundamentalist preacher before developing serious doubts about his religion, states that one of the strongest factors in recovery from an illness is a sense of connectedness with a community and people who care about you. Even if we mumble our prayers only when we are ill or if there is no God to hear them, the new research indicated that religious thoughts could help to heal.

    Dr. Larry Dossey writes about the placebo effect mentioned earlier by Dan Barker and physicians who have looked at the tremendous amount of scientific studies on prayer. As Dr. Dossey states: "That is difficult to do considering that bacteria, fungi, and germinating seeds are not generally considered to be susceptible to suggestion."

    Does prayer effect plant seeds?

    In a study on germinating seeds done by Dr. Franklin Loehr, a Presbyterian minister and scientist, the objective was to see in a controlled experiment what effect prayer had over living and seemingly non-living matter. In one experiment they took three pans of various types of seeds. One was the control pan. One pan received positive prayer, and the other received negative prayer. Time after time, the results indicated that prayer helped speed germination and produced more vigorous plants. Prayers of negation actually halted germination in some plants and suppressed growth in others.

    In another experiment two bottles of spring water were purchased. One container was used as a control, receiving no prayer; a group prayed for the second. The water was then used on pans of corn seeds layered in cotton, with one pan receiving the prayer water and the other receiving the control water. The pan receiving the prayer water sprouted a day earlier than seeds in the other pan. The prayer seeds had a higher germination and growth rate. The experiment was repeated with the same result each time.

    What effect does prayer have on microorganisms?

    Dr. Dossey, in his book, Be Careful What You Pray For, looks closely at experiments with microorganisms. He states, "Skeptics who do not believe in the effects of distant intentions say that any observed result must be due to the expectation of the subject- or the power of belief and thought." Dossey argues that if bacteria respond to outside intentions by growing more slowly when prayed over, than control groups not receiving prayer, then one cannot dismiss this result by attributing it to negative suggestion.

    Bacteria presumably do not think positively or negatively. Another major advantage of microorganisms in studies of distant mental intentions has to do with the control group. If the effects of intercessory prayer, for example, are being assessed in a group of humans who have a particular illness, it is difficult to establish a pure control group that does not receive prayer. The reason is that sick human beings generally pray for themselves; or outsiders pray for them, thus contaminating the control group, which by definition should not receive the treatment being evaluated.

    In studies involving microbes, this notorious "Problem of Extraneous Prayer" is totally overcome because one can be reasonably certain that the bacteria, fungi, or yeast in a control group will not pray for themselves. And that their fellow microbes will not pray for them.

    If the study involved negative intentions instead of positives, the advantages remain the same. The thoughts of microorganisms do not influence its outcome.

    Jean Barry, a physician-researcher in Bordeaux, France, chooses to work with a destructive fungus, Rhizoctonia Solani. He asked 10 people to try to inhibit its growth merely through their intentions at a distance of 1.5 meter.

    The experiment involved control Petri dishes with fungi that were not influenced in addition to those that were. The laboratory conditions were carefully controlled regarding the genetic purity of the fungi and the composition of the culture medium, the relative humidity, and the conditions of temperature and lighting.

    The control petri dishes and the influenced dishes were treated identically, except for the negative intentions directed toward the latter. A person who was blind to the details of the experiment handled various manipulations. The influences simply took their stations at the 1.5 meters and were free to act as they saw fit for their own concentration. For 15 minutes each subject was assigned five experimental and five control dishes. Of the ten subjects three to six subjects worked during a session, and there were nine sessions.

    Measurement of the fungi colony on the Petri dish was obtained by outlining the boundary of the colony on a sheet of thin paper. Again, someone who did not know the aim of the experiment or the identity of the Petri dishes did this. The outlines were then cut out and weighed under condition of constant temperature and humidity. When the growth in 195 experimental dishes was compared to their corresponding controls, it was significantly retarded in 151 dishes. The possibility that these results could be explained by chance was less than one in a thousand.

    Dr. Daniel I. Benor, who has evaluated all the known experiments in the field of distant healing in his landmark work healing research, calls this study "Highly significant."
     
  15. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    24,066
    Give a reference to where this research was published.
     
  16. Theoryofrelativity Banned Banned

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    5,595
    The details can be gleemed from above link which i googled and pasted real quick, meanwhile the data relates to various studies as shown here also:

    Was a scientific study of prayer and its effect on heart patients done?

    One of the most quoted scientific studies of prayer was done between August of 1982 and May of 1983. 393 patients in the San Francisco General Hospital’s Coronary Care Unit participated in a double blind study to assess the therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer. Patients were randomly selected by computer to either receive or not receive intercessory prayer. All participants in the study, including patients, doctors, and the conductor of the study himself remained blind throughout the study, To guard against biasing the study, the patients were not contacted again after it was decided which group would be prayed for, and which group would not.

    It was assumed that although the patients in the control group would not be prayed for by the participants in the study, that others-family members, friends etc., would likely pray for the health of at least some of the members of the control group. There was no control over this factor. Meanwhile all of the members of the group that received prayer would be prayed for by not only those associated with the study, but by others as well.

    The results of the study are not surprising to those of us who believe in the power of prayer. The patients who had received prayer as a part of the study were healthier than those who had not. The prayed for group had less need of having CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) performed and less need for the use of mechanical ventilators. They had a diminished necessity for diuretics and antibiotics, less occurrences of pulmonary edema, and fewer deaths. Taking all factors into consideration, these results can only be attributed to the power of prayer.

    Did prayer lower blood pressure?

    The August 31, 1998 issue of Jet Magazine questioned whether prayer could lower blood pressure in high blood pressure sufferers, Again the obvious conclusion was reached. The magazine reported of a study conducted by Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC. This study had over 4,000 participants over the age of 65. The study found that those who pray and attend religious services on a weekly basis, especially those between the ages of 65 and 74, had lower blood pressure than their counterparts who did not pray or attend religious services. They found that the more religious the person, particularly those who prayed or studied the Bible weekly, the lower the blood pressure. According to the study these people were forty percent less likely to have high diastolic pressure or diastolic hypertension than these were who did not attend religious services, pray, or study the Bible.

    Dr. David B. Larson, president of the National Institute for Health Care Research in Rockville, MD, who co-authored the study, also says that prayer can lower high blood pressure. "The at-risk population of people with illnesses, such as the elderly seem to be helped if they have faith and religious commitment." Dr. Larson states: "Faith brings a calming state which helps decrease nervousness and anxiety with coping with day to day stress."

    How does prayer effect people who lack health care?

    In the Essence Magazine May 1997 issue, Allison Abner writes that African-Americans have historically turned to faith in times of illness and other crises. She cited Luisah Teish who states: "Because of limited access to quality health care and our distrust of the medical establishment we have occasionally relied on spiritual healing through such practices as prayer and the laying on of hands, Most of us, at some time have used prayer chanting or proverbs as ways to guide, direct, and heal ourselves." "Now," states Allison, "Our beliefs are being backed by medical research," Science is setting out to prove what most of the faithful already know--prayer does work.

    Has a prayer study been done on the life of twins?

    The December 1998 issue of Mc Call’s Magazine raised the question: How does prayer heal? The article notes a study done at the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, which studied 1,902 twins. They found that those who were committed to their spiritual lives tended to have less severe depression and a lower risk of addiction to cigarettes or alcohol. The healthful lifestyles of the spiritually rich and faithful clearly contribute to their well being, They tend not to smoke or drink or not do either excessively. Their marriages are more stable and their spiritual communities form a network that can catch and support people when they are ill.
     
    Last edited: Mar 16, 2006
  17. Theoryofrelativity Banned Banned

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    5,595
    I have seen details of this on TV hence I googled it, but this link is by no means the best link, just first I came across, if you google (I don't have time just now) 'power of prayer experiments' you may find official site and paper publication etc details.
     
    Last edited: Mar 16, 2006
  18. Theoryofrelativity Banned Banned

    Messages:
    5,595
    Here's more:

    from web:
    Dr Elizabeth Targ must be doing some very important work. The National Institutes of Health has already awarded her grants of $611,516 for one study, $823,346 for another. Even greater Federal largesse may be forthcoming before her studies are completed.

    Targ is studying the therapeutic effects of prayer on AIDS and cancer patients. That sounds reasonable enough. The presence of a compassionate person reciting soothing prayers has apparently helped some patients, if by nothing more than a placebo effect. Measuring that effect might be useful, but Targ goes a step further. She is investigating what she calls "distance healing," in which those offering the prayers are far removed from the patients, who themselves are not even aware that incantations are being recited on their behalf.

    It's an effect that would seem to defy reason — yet Targ reports striking results. In a 1998 study, after selecting practicing healers from a number of traditions — Christians, Buddhists, Jews, Indian shamans — she supplied them with the first names, blood counts and photographs of 20 patients with advanced AIDS. For an hour a day, over a ten-week period, the healers concentrated their thoughts on the pictures of these patients, but not on those of a control group of 20 other AIDS patients.

    According to Targ, the prayed-for patients had fewer and less severe new illnesses, fewer doctor visits, fewer hospitalizations and were generally in better moods than those in the control group. The technique, she believes, can even work on nonhuman species. In a speech, she described an experiment performed by another group in which remote healing was used to shrink tumors in mice. And, she reported, the greater the distance between healer and mouse in that experiment, the greater the effect! The connection, Targ suggests, "could be actuated through the agency of God, consciousness, love, electrons or a combination."

    Mayo Clinic researchers have found no such connection. They reported last month that in their trials of distant prayer on 750 coronary patients, they found no significant effect. Why the difference?

    Skeptics suggest that subconsciously, or perhaps consciously, Targ is emulating practitioners of the paranormal. With preconceived notions about the outcome of an experiment, they generate reams of data from tests that are not rigidly controlled and then sift through the data to find numbers supporting their original thesis, while ignoring anything to the contrary.

    Then, there's the circumstantial evidence. Writing in the journal Skeptical Inquirer, columnist Martin Gardner noted that Elizabeth Targ is the daughter of Russell Targ, best known for collaborating with physicist Harold Puthoff at the former Stanford Research Institute, where the duo was duped into believing that Israeli magician Uri Geller had paranormal powers. While a teenager, Elizabeth immersed herself in psychic experiments and developed what she claimed were powers of remote viewing — the ability to visualize events and objects at distances far beyond the range of vision. In a 1984 book co-authored by her father, she is credited with correctly predicting winners of horse races, as well as the 1980 Presidential victory of Ronald Reagan-feats that I modestly admit to having performed myself.

    This might all be amusing if Targ's research were not being funded at taxpayer expense by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a controversial branch of the NIH. The least we can demand in a time of growing budget deficits is that NCCAM appoint rational, qualified observers from outside the paranormal and quack communities to monitor the work of some of the eccentrics it so generously endows. Past experience suggests that under such safeguards miracles do not occur.

    http://www.time.com/time/columnist/jaroff/article/0,9565,193084,00.html

    Again there'll be better stuff out there just no tiome to find best link! But its widely known.
     
  19. Theoryofrelativity Banned Banned

    Messages:
    5,595
    Here's more:

    from web:
    Dr Elizabeth Targ must be doing some very important work. The National Institutes of Health has already awarded her grants of $611,516 for one study, $823,346 for another. Even greater Federal largesse may be forthcoming before her studies are completed.

    Targ is studying the therapeutic effects of prayer on AIDS and cancer patients. That sounds reasonable enough. The presence of a compassionate person reciting soothing prayers has apparently helped some patients, if by nothing more than a placebo effect. Measuring that effect might be useful, but Targ goes a step further. She is investigating what she calls "distance healing," in which those offering the prayers are far removed from the patients, who themselves are not even aware that incantations are being recited on their behalf.

    It's an effect that would seem to defy reason — yet Targ reports striking results. In a 1998 study, after selecting practicing healers from a number of traditions — Christians, Buddhists, Jews, Indian shamans — she supplied them with the first names, blood counts and photographs of 20 patients with advanced AIDS. For an hour a day, over a ten-week period, the healers concentrated their thoughts on the pictures of these patients, but not on those of a control group of 20 other AIDS patients.

    According to Targ, the prayed-for patients had fewer and less severe new illnesses, fewer doctor visits, fewer hospitalizations and were generally in better moods than those in the control group. The technique, she believes, can even work on nonhuman species. In a speech, she described an experiment performed by another group in which remote healing was used to shrink tumors in mice. And, she reported, the greater the distance between healer and mouse in that experiment, the greater the effect! The connection, Targ suggests, "could be actuated through the agency of God, consciousness, love, electrons or a combination."

    Mayo Clinic researchers have found no such connection. They reported last month that in their trials of distant prayer on 750 coronary patients, they found no significant effect. Why the difference?

    Skeptics suggest that subconsciously, or perhaps consciously, Targ is emulating practitioners of the paranormal. With preconceived notions about the outcome of an experiment, they generate reams of data from tests that are not rigidly controlled and then sift through the data to find numbers supporting their original thesis, while ignoring anything to the contrary.

    Then, there's the circumstantial evidence. Writing in the journal Skeptical Inquirer, columnist Martin Gardner noted that Elizabeth Targ is the daughter of Russell Targ, best known for collaborating with physicist Harold Puthoff at the former Stanford Research Institute, where the duo was duped into believing that Israeli magician Uri Geller had paranormal powers. While a teenager, Elizabeth immersed herself in psychic experiments and developed what she claimed were powers of remote viewing — the ability to visualize events and objects at distances far beyond the range of vision. In a 1984 book co-authored by her father, she is credited with correctly predicting winners of horse races, as well as the 1980 Presidential victory of Ronald Reagan-feats that I modestly admit to having performed myself.

    This might all be amusing if Targ's research were not being funded at taxpayer expense by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a controversial branch of the NIH. The least we can demand in a time of growing budget deficits is that NCCAM appoint rational, qualified observers from outside the paranormal and quack communities to monitor the work of some of the eccentrics it so generously endows. Past experience suggests that under such safeguards miracles do not occur.

    http://www.time.com/time/columnist/jaroff/article/0,9565,193084,00.html

    Again there'll be better stuff out there just no time to find best link! But its widely known.
     
  20. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

    Messages:
    24,066
    You give now a quote saying prayer doesn't work.


    Shall we conclude then that it doesn't work.

    oh, before I forget. I don't care it something is all over the net. So if evidence for aliens.

    I want to see peer-reviewed papers.
     
  21. Theoryofrelativity Banned Banned

    Messages:
    5,595
    lol, so you see evidence it does work, you see evidence it doesn't, so you conclude it doesn't based on what?

    The above link is to show that there will always be opposition just as strong for as against, it also shows that while they can always create some 'evidence' as to why it doesn't work on humans, how do they explain the results they found on plants and other non human subjects? They can't and this is what annoys me about science, it just chooses to ignore the bits it doesn't like and can't explain away.

    quoted from 1st link:

    "Does prayer effect plant seeds?

    In a study on germinating seeds done by Dr. Franklin Loehr, a Presbyterian minister and scientist, the objective was to see in a controlled experiment what effect prayer had over living and seemingly non-living matter. In one experiment they took three pans of various types of seeds. One was the control pan. One pan received positive prayer, and the other received negative prayer. Time after time, the results indicated that prayer helped speed germination and produced more vigorous plants. Prayers of negation actually halted germination in some plants and suppressed growth in others.

    In another experiment two bottles of spring water were purchased. One container was used as a control, receiving no prayer; a group prayed for the second. The water was then used on pans of corn seeds layered in cotton, with one pan receiving the prayer water and the other receiving the control water. The pan receiving the prayer water sprouted a day earlier than seeds in the other pan. The prayer seeds had a higher germination and growth rate. The experiment was repeated with the same result each time."
     
  22. Theoryofrelativity Banned Banned

    Messages:
    5,595
    There has been scientific study done has there not on atoms when observed behaving diffrently to normal? Now YOU Know I know zippo about science so feel free to correct this, but if so, what is the diffrence between observing and praying? Maybe its just the process of concentrated thought? Not praying neccessarily but concentrated thought?
     
  23. Theoryofrelativity Banned Banned

    Messages:
    5,595
    Meanwhile I've found this link...I don't know yet if its pro or against or has some other explanation as just vocied above, but it is 'published' work, peer reviewed, so maybe worth a glance!

    http://www.arthursmithphd.com/writings.htm

    quoted from above link:

    "The apparent mystery of mental healing, as well as the presumption that it must somehow be supernatural, are both attributed to modern philosophy's attempt to understand efficient causation and the mind-body relationship in terms of substance-and-attribute thinking. To understand either efficient causation in general, or mind-body interaction in particular, we must change the context of the discussion from one of substance and attribute to one of process and creativity. Whitehead's philosophical model, in that it addresses this point directly, is therefore an excellent starting point in unraveling the mystery of psychosomatic healing."
     

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