#279080 - 04/04/2006 17:48
From Journal of Experimental Faith
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
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Nature has an article about a large study on effects of intercessory prayer on heart patients. See also some thoughts of one of the authors of the study near the end of this article. Doesn't this strike you as slightly blasphemous? 
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Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Q#5196
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#279081 - 04/04/2006 18:59
Re: From Journal of Experimental Faith
[Re: bonzi]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5549
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
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Doesn't this strike you as slightly blasphemous?
No.
But I question the methodology of the study.
They randomly assigned them to one of three groups: about 600 were told that they might be prayed for but were not; 600 were told that they might be prayed for and were; and another 600 were prayed for and knew about it.
Where is the reference sample, i.e., the people for whom no prayer nor mention of prayer was made?
Where is the group that was prayed for but no mention of prayer was made?
Prayer is highly valued by many people, says Sloan, and there is no need for scientists to empirically prove whether or not it works. "It's demeaning of the religious experience."
In other words, "My mind is made up, don't confuse me with facts."
tanstaafl.
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"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"
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#279082 - 04/04/2006 19:02
Re: From Journal of Experimental Faith
[Re: bonzi]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Blasphemous how?
Or, to answer your question, no.
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Bitt Faulk
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#279083 - 04/04/2006 21:31
Re: From Journal of Experimental Faith
[Re: bonzi]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
Loc: Atlanta, GA
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Quote:
Doesn't this strike you as slightly blasphemous?
I don't think so- though I do find it kind of a strange study.
It seems to me that the notion of prayer affecting the outcome of an event assums that God can intervene in the natural order of things and "break the rules". If this is the case, how could such a thing possibly be studied scientifically?
Not to say that faith is out of bounds when it comes to science, but it seems that it would be hard to confirm/deny any theory related to God's supernatural invovlement in our lives.
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
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#279084 - 04/04/2006 21:46
Re: From Journal of Experimental Faith
[Re: JeffS]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
Loc: Atlanta, GA
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Upon further reflection, there is one aspect of this which makes me a little bit uncomfortable- though the word "blasphemous" is probably a little strong.
The way I view prayer is a communion with God, and that is its primary (even the intercessory kind) purpose. So asking someone to pray in a study who isn't really trying to commune with God kind of misses the point and kind of abuses (though that might be a strong word) the wonderful invitation God gave us to commune with him. So that aspect makes me a little uncomfortable.
Of course, not everyone views prayer in the way I do. Some definitly approach it like the "God vending machine"- plop in a prayer and get something good. But this just serves to muddle the study, as it would seem you likely have people participating with different motivations, really even different definitions of what prayer IS.
But that's just re-iterating my original point. My point in this post is that it does make me a little uncomfortable, but only because my personal belief is that prayer is not a means by which we "get stuff" from God, which is how this study seems to treat it.
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
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#279085 - 04/04/2006 22:26
Re: From Journal of Experimental Faith
[Re: JeffS]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Well, the thing that they were trying to study was "do prayers of strangers affect the outcome of an illness". Groups already exist that pray for strangers regardless of this study, and, as I read it, they just gave the names of sick people to those groups.
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Bitt Faulk
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#279086 - 04/04/2006 22:35
Re: From Journal of Experimental Faith
[Re: JeffS]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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The study's goal is to see if they can objectively measure the effects of prayer. Since it's commonly believed that prayer can help heal the sick, they chose that as the basis of their experiment. Everything else appears to have been designed using the usual sorts of scientific controls. If the "God vending machine" delivered the goods more often than random chance, then they'd be able to measure it.
Of course, the absense of any measureable response says nothing about the ability of a sentient supernatural being to cause measurable effects. Maybe God doesn't much like being measured. (Striking down the scientists with lightning or aflicting them with locusts or something might also be measurable, thus the apparently lack of any observable supernatural effect.)
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#279087 - 05/04/2006 02:43
Re: From Journal of Experimental Faith
[Re: DWallach]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
Loc: Atlanta, GA
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Quote:
The study's goal is to see if they can objectively measure the effects of prayer. Since it's commonly believed that prayer can help heal the sick, they chose that as the basis of their experiment. Everything else appears to have been designed using the usual sorts of scientific controls. If the "God vending machine" delivered the goods more often than random chance, then they'd be able to measure it.
Yeah, I understand it- but the implication here is that prayers work like a vending machine, and that's the part I don't like. It reinforces a belief that shouldn't be reinforced. You have all kinds of people praying things and then expecting them to happen because they follow a formula or say the right incantation. Certainly if that were so then it'd be measurable, but at least from a Biblical perspective I don't think prayer is presented that way.
To put this in a little more personal perspective- I had a close friend in High School die because she was diabetic and her parents took her to the church rather than the hospital. They believed if they prayed hard enough they could bend God to their will, and that just didn't happen. She could have been fine, however, if they'd just taken her to the doctor like they should have.
This experience really shook me up, but it didn't make me doubt the value of prayer- it did serve as a powerful example of what prayer is NOT, and that is a holy vending machine that we can avail ourselves to in times of need (or want, as seems more typical today). I believe God does answer prayer (sometimes with a firm "no"), but if He intervens then it is by His grace, not because He must.
It also should be noted that even in the Bible, where we think of the miraculous as kind of typical, there are really only three different time periods in which God was in the "Big showy miracles" business. A large portion of the Bible has absolutely no obviously supernatural stuff at all. Yet we expect it every day in this culture. Rather the point is to experience the relational aspect of God more than the miraculous side of HIm- that's what prayer is for.
That's not to say we shouldn't pray for the sick. I have and I do. I pray believing that God has the power to change events if they are in His will. And I believe that He has and I've witnessed it (a friend of mine was healed from a life threatening condition without any sign it had ever been there). But I've also prayed for many people that never got physically better.
So I do believe in the power of prayer- the power to meet and know God. Prayer always "works" from that perspective- it's the miraculous that we can't expect or measure.
Ugh- I'm ranting and I'm off topic. Sorry- didn't mean to. Probably should have just stayed out of this thread. Just a hot button with me I guess.
Anyway, all that to say that you're right. The study makes sense from the perspective they're approaching. And it's a popular perspective. It just rubs me the wrong way. I'm also not suprised that the findings were inconclusive. It just doesn't work that way.
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
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#279088 - 05/04/2006 14:32
Re: From Journal of Experimental Faith
[Re: JeffS]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Okay, now we're really off on a tangent. Sorry.
While I would have agreed with you completely when I still had some vestige of religion left in me about your attitude towards prayer, as an outsider it makes me consider what that all means.
What I'm getting at is, if your prayers aren't going to bend God's will, why bother praying for the sick at all? Surely He already knows about them. (Note that I am not asking about any other element of prayer -- only the "praying for the sick" part.)
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Bitt Faulk
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#279089 - 05/04/2006 15:42
Re: From Journal of Experimental Faith
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
Loc: Atlanta, GA
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Quote:
Okay, now we're really off on a tangent. Sorry.
Yeah, I got over excitable. I'm sorry to have gotten so off track 
Quote:
What I'm getting at is, if your prayers aren't going to bend God's will, why bother praying for the sick at all?
It's more like I believe our prayers don't CONTROL God's will- His will is not dependent on our prayers. Yet it IS clear (in scripture) that He hears our prayers and responds to them. That isn't to say that a prayer for healing results in healing- the response might be something quite different.
Just like a request by a son to a father for a ride to the mall might not result in a trip to the mall- but perhaps it leads to something else- going to the movies later, playing catch, who knows? The point is the access the son has to his father and that his father hears and responds, even if the father doesn't do exactly what the son asks.
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Surely He already knows about them.
Agreed. The point of prayer (as I see it) is that access we have to God, which may result in His intervention in the world, but might not. What it will always result in is a deeper relationship with Him. In my opinion, THAT is the answer to "what it all means".
Which goes back to the issue I take with trying to evaluate prayer's effectiveness on the basis of God's granting of our petitions. Since I don't see that as the primary goal of prayer, I don't see it as a reasonable way to evaluate it either.
Of course, you could take the results of the study to give strength to my point of view. It appears that if prayers are successful, then this successfullness is not measured in how often we recieve that for which we ask. And obviously, the other alternative is that prayers aren't successful at all. Not my opinion, but I figured I'd state it or someone else would! 
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
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#279090 - 05/04/2006 15:52
Re: From Journal of Experimental Faith
[Re: JeffS]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Actually, this all reminds me of the contemptible, reprehensible "Prayer of Jabez" fad that happened a few years back. You know the one: all the little books in the bookstore telling you that you, to use your term, should use God as a vending machine for worldly possessions, and that all you needed to know was how to pray properly. All based on a single verse of the Bible, crammed in amongst a huge line of "begot"s, the only place Jabez is mentioned, 1 Chronicles 4:10, which says:
Quote:
Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." And God granted his request.
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Bitt Faulk
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#279091 - 05/04/2006 16:04
Re: From Journal of Experimental Faith
[Re: wfaulk]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
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Quote:
Blasphemous how?
Or, to answer your question, no.
I had in mind Jeff's 'divine vending machine', more or less. It is not my impression that Christians should expect (according to their dogma) their God to behave in consistent way, as understood by humans.
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Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Q#5196
MkII #080000376, 18GB green
MkIIa #040103247, 60GB blue
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#279092 - 05/04/2006 16:15
Re: From Journal of Experimental Faith
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
Loc: Atlanta, GA
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Yes, that particular "movement" was in my mind as I wrote some of those comments. How people have abused that prayer (and book) is one of the glaring offences of what I’ve been talking about. As a defense to Wilkinson, the book was written based off a sermon of a well-respected professor at Dallas Theological Seminary after he passed away. It was a single sermon taken from that passage, and in context it (apparently) was very insightful, if not quite the all-encompassing theological powerhouse people came to regard it as. I never read it, as it quickly became obvious to me that the whole thing had gotten out of hand. I have been assured by someone who knew the original professor well, that he never had any intention of people reciting the Prayer of Jabez over and over again in expectation that God would "increase their territory". I don’t think that Wilkinson’s intention was to have the book be regarded as it was, though I understand he did get kind of swept up in the whole movement. Most of it, though, seemed to be about people finding something to latch onto and reading into it what they wanted. One insightful, if somewhat tacky, response to this book was Hank Hannegraf's The Prayer of Jesus, that looks very similar, but is rather a more reasonable exploration of "The Lord's Prayer". Since it is Jesus’ response to the question “how shall we pray?” that does make a pretty obvious choice for a book on prayer. I like the concept, though the marketing of directly competing it against the Jabez book turned me off- I haven’t read that one either.
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
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#279093 - 05/04/2006 16:24
Re: From Journal of Experimental Faith
[Re: bonzi]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
Loc: Atlanta, GA
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Quote:
It is not my impression that Christians should expect (according to their dogma) their God to behave in consistent way, as understood by humans.
Depends on the Christian, I'm afraid. Certainly conservative evangelical type Christians would agree with your statement. But there is a whole branch of Christiandom called the “Word of Faith” movement that regards anything we say as having the power to bind God’s will. And they are VERY serious about this assertion. When I was a worship leader in Houston one of my worship team members was into this (though it was contrary to the teachings of my church) and he was completely committed to the notion, despite his scripture references not really tracking very well. People in this movement will warn you not to say, “I think I’m catching a cold”, because you just might make it happen.
But if you know of the “Prayer of Jabez” movement that Bitt referenced, you know that even mainstream evangelical Christianity can get swept up in it, depending on the response. People used “Jabez” different ways, but certainly there were those who took it to mean they could increase their possessions by reciting the prayer over and over again.
And once again, personally, I experienced the death of a friend because her parents chose prayer over medical council. Perhaps they didn’t actually believe they were “bending God’s will”, but putting their daughter’s life on the line that’s exactly what they were attempting.
So despite my personal beliefs, with the prevalence of such notions about prayer and God I guess it makes all the sense in the world that people would do a study about it.
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
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#279095 - 05/04/2006 16:36
Re: From Journal of Experimental Faith
[Re: bonzi]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
Loc: Atlanta, GA
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Quote:
Yes, but all the study has shown (to believers) is that God has chosen to behave as He did in that particular occasion, for reasons humans cannot fathom, by definition.
Well, yes- which is what I'd have expected given my personal beliefs!
Quote:
Perhaps He did this just to fool us (the same motivation that guided Him when he buried all those fossils)
*sigh*
_________________________
-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
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#279096 - 05/04/2006 16:36
Re: From Journal of Experimental Faith
[Re: JeffS]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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**EDIT** Nevermind, you basically answered my question as I was posting it.
Quote:
Just like a request by a son to a father for a ride to the mall might not result in a trip to the mall- but perhaps it leads to something else- going to the movies later, playing catch, who knows? The point is the access the son has to his father and that his father hears and responds, even if the father doesn't do exactly what the son asks.
This kind of explanation still seems to be working backwards from the notion that prayer does actually affect the outcome of whatever is being prayed for, but maybe not directly. Is this something universally believed by Christians?
My only experience in this realm was my 12 or so years as a church-going Catholic. I always remember being asked during mass to pray for various groups of people. At the time, I felt like I was being asked to do so in the hopes that it would change the plight of (the elderly | the poor | insert downtrodden group here).
Is this a uniquely Catholic notion, or is it espoused by other Christian denominations?
Edited by tonyc (05/04/2006 16:37)
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#279098 - 05/04/2006 18:15
Re: From Journal of Experimental Faith
[Re: JeffS]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Quote:
the “Word of Faith” movement that regards anything we say as having the power to bind God’s will
This is kind of interesting in an anthropological way when you compare it against the atheist philosophers who believe that man created (the concept of) God. If man did create God, then who's to say that what we say doesn't bend His will?
"Discuss amongst yourselves."
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Bitt Faulk
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#279099 - 06/04/2006 17:16
Re: From Journal of Experimental Faith
[Re: JeffS]
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veteran
Registered: 01/10/2001
Posts: 1307
Loc: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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Quote:
And once again, personally, I experienced the death of a friend because her parents chose prayer over medical council. Perhaps they didn’t actually believe they were “bending God’s will”, but putting their daughter’s life on the line that’s exactly what they were attempting.
Ouch! 
But that is pretty much why I always worry about any belief system that thinks they *know* what is "right" - I always want to ask "have you really considered all the implications of the scenario of you, maybe, perhaps, not being 100.00% right? Especially considering how easy it is for humans to delude themselves?"
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