Prayer Fails

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Please take care to read the article more closely:

But the study "did not move us forward or backward" in understanding the effects of prayer, admitted Dr Charles Bethea, one of the co-authors and a cardiologist at the Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City. "Intercessory prayer under our restricted format had a neutral effect," he said.
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There was also a failure by the designers of the experiment to account for the nervousness patients who KNEW they were being prayed for might feel--that was also mentioned in the article.

Frankly, it doesn't seem to me like this was a very well-designed study...but I don't think even the best study would be conclusive. Science simply cannot prove OR deny spiritual things like prayer or the existence of God.
 
Rose Immortal said:
There was also a failure by the designers of the experiment to account for the nervousness patients who KNEW they were being prayed for might feel--that was also mentioned in the article.

Frankly, it doesn't seem to me like this was a very well-designed study...but I don't think even the best study would be conclusive. Science simply cannot prove OR deny spiritual things like prayer or the existence of God.
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They're just being PC.

Science has already proven over and over - supernatural is bogus. It's all in your mind. The study is actually one of the best studies ever done yet the researchers are so afraid to get angry responses from religious nuts.

There is NO study proving that prayer works. If prayer works, it would have showed the results. It hasn't. Never did. Never will.
 
netrox said:
Science has already proven over and over - supernatural is bogus.
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Science, by its very nature, has no concern over the supernatural, and therefore makes no efforts to prove or disprove it. Science only concerns itself with what can be objectively determined or measured about the natural world. Science has many times proven that meditaion, self-hypnosis, happiness, laughter and positive attitude have an effect on health - objective properties that can be measured objectively. Subjective properties, such as the mysteries of prayer, cannot be measured, nor would I want them to be.

The act of prayer has been enormously effective in my life - mentally and physically. What the prayerful know is something that science can never prove or disprove.
 
Netrox-

I have two proofs to you.

My 5 older siblings, my mother and I prayed for my Dad when he was very sick with brain cancer from smoking. We really wanted him to spend one more Christmas with us. He was supposed to die in early of November but we couldn't believe that he was able to eat, talk, walk, etc because of our prayers. The doctors couldn't believe it. So, we all enjoyed spending time with him on Christmas day. And then, he died on my 21st birthday in January in the evening!!! Amazing!! Thanks to God!!

Then, 13 years later, my 5 siblings and I prayed to God that we wanted my mother to spend one more time with us for Christmas. She was supposed to die in July of lung cancer from smoking. We all were holding our hands in a circle and prayed. The doctor said that my mother will die in 1 or 2 days. We kept praying very hard. And then 2 days passed, my mother started to get up and walked and ate more food and more alert. The doctors couldn't believe it. She became more active daily. Amazing!!!! She enjoyed herself so much in end of July, August, Sept., Oct, Nov., and Dec. In the 3rd week of December, she got worse but she was ok but fragile. And she spent a wonderful Christmas day with us all and then on Dec. 26th, she got so, so much worse and then she died on Dec. 27th! Thanks to God.

Prayers are so important. God is so wonderful!!!!!! I love Him so much!! God is our father. God is your father. That's why we all are children of God's.

Opps, I forgot to add....when we prayed with my mother while she was in the hospital bed, my mother was aware of our prayers and she prayed with us, too. My Dad knew that we prayed for him while he was in the operation room in the spring.

Momoftwo
 
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Prayer fails ? Hmm ... very interestin'. Well, it is all about faith and THAT faith MUST work with prayers and, God will answer -- dependin' on person's heart how serious this person really want to have a relationship with God personally. Without faith, prayers will not work. It also involves with patience.... no matter how long it takes for God to answer. :)
 
CyberRed said:
Prayer fails ? Hmm ... very interestin'. Well, it is all about faith and THAT faith MUST work with prayers and, God will answer -- dependin' on person's heart how serious this person really want to have a relationship with God personally. Without faith, prayers will not work. It also involves with patience.... no matter how long it takes for God to answer. :)
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No wonder!!!! Yes!! All of my family and I have a huge faith in God. But before when my parents died, I didn't understand about God. But I still prayed to God no matter what. All of them knew about God, knew the history of Jesus, history of God who created this earth and so forth.

We all went to church every Sundays and my siblings and I went to Sunday school every Sundays in all of our life. Now, my children go to Sunday school every Sundays.

So, yes it is based on your faith.
 
CyberRed said:
Prayer fails ? Hmm ... very interestin'. Well, it is all about faith and THAT faith MUST work with prayers and, God will answer -- dependin' on person's heart how serious this person really want to have a relationship with God personally. Without faith, prayers will not work. It also involves with patience.... no matter how long it takes for God to answer. :)
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:gpost: I concur! Furthermore, if you read the first line, "Praying for the health of strangers who have undergone heart surgery has no effect, according to the largest scientific study ever commissioned to calculate the healing power of prayer," you would have noted that it said "praying for the health of strangers . . ." which is, in itself, self-explanitory.

Only a moron would say the prayer doesn't work, as there have been and continues to be countless ions of people to dispute 100 percent of what "science" says.

The God I serve, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, my cyberfriend, is in the Miracle Working Business!! :thumb:
 
netrox said:
They're just being PC.

Science has already proven over and over - supernatural is bogus. It's all in your mind. The study is actually one of the best studies ever done yet the researchers are so afraid to get angry responses from religious nuts.

There is NO study proving that prayer works. If prayer works, it would have showed the results. It hasn't. Never did. Never will.
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A kind atheist and I once had a discussion about the kind of experimental conditions that would be necessary for a conclusive proof of prayer--and while we disagreed about its efficacy, we both came to the conclusion that it simply would not be possible to design such an experiment.

Let me take you through the logic we arrived at, as to why a scientific proof or disproof of prayer is impossible.

First, let us set up the following hypotheses (I am not asking you to agree--I am setting these up as the conditions for this experiement):

H1: God exists. (Theism.)

H2: God takes an active and continuing interest in humanity's welfare. (Rules out deism, as well as any "evil God" ideas.)

H3: God listens to prayers. (This does not mean God ANSWERS all prayers. If we are praying for something He knows is not the "optimal" solution for our life, He may not answer the prayer as we have framed it, because His intention is to provide something else as good or better--even if it is delayed or does not seem the best to us in the moment.)

H4: God may act through "supernatural" events, that is, a temporary suspension of the laws of nature. (Example: miraculous healings)

H5: God may act through "ordinary" events, that is, ordinary processes in the nature He has designed (Example: Healing powers with which He has imbued the ordinary human body, the wisdom of doctors, the kind words of a person who inspires the patient, or even the actions of the patient).

I could add other hypotheses, but these are enough for the purposes of explanation.

Many people, when they think of prayer, think of only the overtly "miraculous" sorts of events as responses. This is one problem--if, for instance, the patient heals in an ordinary way, there would be no way to test for the presence of God in this process.

Another main problem is the artificiality of a controlled experiment. If one proposes that God can use any method ranging from the supernatural to the ordinary, then by the very virtue of setting up an experiment, there may be human interference on the processes He would use. The anxiety problem we see in this particular experiment may be an example of such human interference.

The third problem comes from our inability to know what the "optimal solution" for a person's life, let alone the universe, is. What I mean by this is, it could be that it is better for a person to pass on at this time rather than to live longer. If one is experimenting on the premise that it is the Judeo-Christian God we may be dealing with, then we see many instances of this in the Bible, of God having a particular lifespan He wishes a person to live. In one case, He even promises a king of Israel (or Judah...this was the time of the divided kingdom, so pardon me for not remembering which) that he will die before his kingdom is conquered and terrible miseries befall his people...in other words, death is a mercy and the optimal solution is that this king's life will be a bit shorter than it could've been otherwise. To summarize, if it is that person's time to die, and He knows it would be better for them to do so, then He would call that person to Heaven regardless of any person's prayers that they stay alive.

For that matter, science cannot test Hypotheses 1-3 either. We can't get an interview with God in a lab. ;)

All three of these problems confound any human experiment on prayer beyond recognition, making it impossible to test scientifically. Deciding on the efficacy of prayer therefore becomes strictly a matter of faith--you choose whether you believe or you don't. No experiment will ever tell you one way or the other.

As I said, this is logic that both I (Christian) and an atheist arrived at together and agreed upon. This is not a reaction from fanatics on either side.
 
"Science, by its very nature, has no concern over the supernatural, and therefore makes no efforts to prove or disprove it. "

Technically, you're right, science doesn't deal with supernatural. That's only if you're talking about the technical definition but when people make supernatural claims like that they can predict, channel spirits, heal, etc - they are making supernatural claims and science finds no evidence to support their claims and there is absolutely NOTHING true about their claims. They lie and decieve (to themselves and to others). They ALWAYS fail to prove that they're real and geniune. Do you want to delude yourself into that kind of stuff?

"I have two proofs to you."

And what makes you think it's your prayer being answered? If you didn't pray, your "proofs" would STILL have happened! There are millions of atheists experiecing those kind of "miracles" too and they don't pray!

Note that answered prayers" are always selective memories. People who pray and when their prayers are not answered, they just forget or make excuses saying "It's God's will, not me." and move on. If their prayers are answered, they make it as "proof that prayer works!" It just doesn't.

Many people grossly underestimate their OWN power of mind over body yet they credit them to "supernatural!"
 
netrox said:
Science has already proven over and over - supernatural is bogus. It's all in your mind. The study is actually one of the best studies ever done yet the researchers are so afraid to get angry responses from religious nuts.
Click to expand...
How can science test or measure the "supernatural"? "Supernatural" means the events are beyond "natural" measurement or explanation. That's why they are called "super" natural.


There is NO study proving that prayer works. If prayer works, it would have showed the results. It hasn't. Never did. Never will.
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How can you prove or disprove prayer "working"? They only way you can know that is to know what God's best answer is to each prayer. Whenever we pray, the bottom line is, "Thy will be done." God decides the best way to answer each prayer.

Also, God has taught us thru His Word that not all prayers will be heard or answered they way we want because we sometimes ask for the wrong things, or ask with the wrong motivations, or with a lack of full knowledge of a situation.

For every scientific "proof" that prayer doesn't "work", I have heard many personal testimonies how prayer DID work, on a weekly basis.

I think some people are confused about prayer. Prayer is not a "magic" chant to "make" things happen.

It's interesting that the same people who complain about spiritual people butting into science don't mind scientists butting into spiritual areas.
 
netrox said:
If you didn't pray, your "proofs" would STILL have happened!
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How do you know that? How do you know that the results would be the same without prayer? How do you prove that?

You can't.


There are millions of atheists experiecing those kind of "miracles" too and they don't pray!
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Maybe they don't, but how do you know other people aren't praying for them? Christians pray for the needs of atheists all the time.


Note that answered prayers" are always selective memories. People who pray and when their prayers are not answered, they just forget or make excuses saying "It's God's will, not me." and move on.
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Prayers are always answered; they answered by God, in the way He decides is best. "No" and "wait" are answers equally valid with "yes".
 
Netrox-

I have two proofs to you.

My 5 older siblings, my mother and I prayed for my Dad when he was very sick with brain cancer from smoking. We really wanted him to spend one more Christmas with us. He was supposed to die in early of November but we couldn't believe that he was able to eat, talk, walk, etc because of our prayers. The doctors couldn't believe it. So, we all enjoyed spending time with him on Christmas day. And then, he died on my 21st birthday in January in the evening!!! Amazing!! Thanks to God!!

Then, 13 years later, my 5 siblings and I prayed to God that we wanted my mother to spend one more time with us for Christmas. She was supposed to die in July of lung cancer from smoking. We all were holding our hands in a circle and prayed. The doctor said that my mother will die in 1 or 2 days. We kept praying very hard. And then 2 days passed, my mother started to get up and walked and ate more food and more alert. The doctors couldn't believe it. She became more active daily. Amazing!!!! She enjoyed herself so much in end of July, August, Sept., Oct, Nov., and Dec. In the 3rd week of December, she got worse but she was ok but fragile. And she spent a wonderful Christmas day with us all and then on Dec. 26th, she got so, so much worse and then she died on Dec. 27th! Thanks to God.

Prayers are so important. God is so wonderful!!!!!! I love Him so much!! God is our father. God is your father. That's why we all are children of God's.

Opps, I forgot to add....when we prayed with my mother while she was in the hospital bed, my mother was aware of our prayers and she prayed with us, too. My Dad knew that we prayed for him while he was in the operation room in the spring.

Momoftwo
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the 2 miracles you could have used were your parents not getting cancer.
 
Prayer is a beautiful experience in many ways. Prayer has to be a relational devotion to our Living Lord. Many think wrongly about prayers. Bec prayer is not just healing or wanting. Its more than that. Its a deep devotion to know God. There are many godly people as we are saying God didn't answer or don't have enough faith and etc. That's wrong perspective. The old time pastor named Charles Spurgeon as I use his devotional book as his experience for a believers to hang on. We expect everything go well on this earth. Yes, God wants us enjoying this life. But why hardship, temptations, pain and death occur? God want us to look at Him thru and thru. He is loving God. Sometimes we can be selfish by keeping them. But not always tho. Its based on circumstances. I have seen how God works thru all kind and learned new everyday. For instance, look at Job, going thru devatating experience. Look at King David prayed, Lord, why wicked prosper and godly suffered? The Lord answer, wait and see. Godly will be blessed in the end and the wicked will be banished. Now, understand, God still waiting for each one turn to Him no matter how deep ur sins are, He's still an open arms of love who comes to Him. All are varies of ways about prayers. If someone died for which we pray for healing. Be content, tho is painful loss, but knowing that person suffer no more and is healed, that is for those who are in Christ alone. Prayer is like husband and wife communications how they devoted to each other. Same as christians, when we take a moment in prayer with loving Lord, its beautiful and refreshing. Problem many expect "microwave prayer", that I want now, now now. Numerous time, saying wait on the Lord. His timing is better than ours. Don't epect u get rich all of sudden, or if died, mean no answer or anything like that. God has answered all ur prayer, be yes, no or not now. As prov 3:5 and 6, trust Him every step of the way, don't depend on ur understanding, He wil guide u evry step and be with u during dark times. Remember prayer is not just verbally, but its deeper. Cease the moment and have a great fellowship with the Lord
 
Ariakkas said:
the 2 miracles you could have used were your parents not getting cancer.
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Who knows? No one knows why. We did pray for removing their cancers but it didn't. We don't know why. Only God knows. But at least, we did see this miracle for a very short time. Maybe God can not allow do what we wanted like to remove their cancers. Who knows? But it's really great to know that He answered to our prayers what we really wanted for them to spend the holidays with us once more.

Maybe God wants us to learn the hard way that maybe God needs my parents to teach others not to smoke. Yes, that was NOT God's plans. It was my parents' fault for smoking. That was their free will (their choice).
 
Netrox, I'm a cyncial skeptical person, but you know.....the article does not go into detail over the population being studied. Were these the sickest heart patients? I don't believe in supernatural Benny Hinn faith healing, but prayer DOES help. My first girlfriend prayed for me when I had my ear surgery. Guess what? Not only did my hearing improve in my ear that had the surgery, it improved in the ear that DIDN"T have the surgery! My ENT was literally the BEST pediatric ENT out there....he said he never saw something like that before!
 
netrox said:
"Science, by its very nature, has no concern over the supernatural, and therefore makes no efforts to prove or disprove it. "

Technically, you're right, science doesn't deal with supernatural. That's only if you're talking about the technical definition but when people make supernatural claims like that they can predict, channel spirits, heal, etc - they are making supernatural claims and science finds no evidence to support their claims and there is absolutely NOTHING true about their claims. They lie and decieve (to themselves and to others). They ALWAYS fail to prove that they're real and geniune. Do you want to delude yourself into that kind of stuff?
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Using words like "ALWAYS" and "NOTHING" or accusing them of making things up, are red flags that you do not know what you are talking about. Yeah, there are a lot of bogus claims made, but you dismiss all claims out of hand. That's a sure sign you don't really know.
 
Netrox,true. My mother's prayer had not been answered to God when she asked God to take me home after my doctor told her there was no hope for me to surivive. God changed His mind and keep me here. I remember golden light come into me and healed me except leave me with deafness.
 
Using words like "ALWAYS" and "NOTHING" or accusing them of making things up, are red flags that you do not know what you are talking about. Yeah, there are a lot of bogus claims made, but you dismiss all claims out of hand. That's a sure sign you don't really know.
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Just because I said "ALWAYS" or "NOTHING" does not make me wrong. I am still correct. The burden of proof rests on religious people. NO SINGLE CLAIM HAS BEEN PROVEN TO BE TRUE. I repeat, NO SINGLE CLAIM. Everyone has a *personal* experience and may make a conclusion (often misleading) but it does not make it a scientific fact. It has to be proven by repeating the experiment or demonstrating the claim. So far, no supernatural claim is ever proven true. Nada.

All the "prayers work because of my experiences" are just anecdotal and they don't consitute as "proof." Christians have been pretty inventive with trying to prove that prayer works by saying, "It could be someone praying for athiests" or similiar ridiculous explanation.
 
Reba said:
Prayers are always answered; they answered by God, in the way He decides is best. "No" and "wait" are answers equally valid with "yes".
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:werd:
 
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