Power of prayer flunks an unusual test

[sasha031]

Large study had Christians pray for heart-surgery patients

NEW YORK - In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.Researchers emphasized that their work can't address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf. The study can only look for an effect from prayers offered as part of the research, they said.

They also said they had no explanation for the higher complication rate in patients who knew they were being prayed for, in comparison to patients who only knew it was possible prayers were being said for them.The work, which followed about 1,800 patients at six medical centers, was financed by the Templeton Foundation, which supports research into science and religion. It will appear in the American Heart Journal.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12082681/

[nuxvomica]

1. It's not clear whether health care workers knew the patient status

If health care workers knew certain patients were being prayed for, they, or the patients themselves, may have been slightly less careful and that resulted in the slightly higher rate of complications. I think praying for the ill is important and probably useful but it's better to have a connection with the person doing the praying. Beliefs aside, it's a good thing to know that folks care about you and are willing to take a little time to express it formally.

[originalpckelly]

2. Science: 1, Religion: 0

[grytpype]

3. Maybe they just prayed to the wrong God.

Here are some alternatives:

[momster]

4. Rah, Rah, Rah!

Whose your favorite Sun God?

Actually, thanks for the picture of Thoth...god of Writing. My kind of god.

[sasha031]

6. Apollo

[sasha031]

5. agreed

I use Isis, Zeus and Bast myself.

and when you want a strong Goddes of Justice Hecate is the one.

[Matariki]

11. That and most Christians don't know how to pray. n/t

[formercia]

7. Ramen.

K&R

[sasha031]

9. Gee and I thought you were more the

Spaghetti Monster type

[Wilber_Stool]

10. Love his noodles.

[formercia]

17. A prayer has no substance

lasagna, you can sink you teeth into.

[KG]

8. it's so obvious; these patients need to read 'the secret' and use the law of attraction!

:eyes:

[MonkeyFunk]

12. I thought this was a new study...

but I see the article is a year old. I thought the methodology sounded familiar.

[RedCappedBandit]

13. Prayer will only be useful

if the subject of the prayer believes it will be.

[InvisibleTouch]

15. That's the key element right there.

I had someone tell me once that voodoo curses absolutely worked, and I agreed with him - as long as the target believed it would work.

[InvisibleTouch]

14. Studies like this always seem to come up with different results.

The one I found interesting, done years ago, showed that patients who thought they were being "prayed for" did better, even if in fact they were in the "non-prayer" group. By contrast, patients who thought they weren't being prayed for (even if they were!) did worse. It wasn't the "power of prayer" itself that had an effect, but the belief of the patient. That pretty much coincides with my own experience and worldview: "We do it to ourselves," for good or ill, and nobody has as much power over us as we do over ourselves.

Of course there are so many confounding factors in a study like this, that it's hard to draw conclusions. Still, it's interesting stuff.

[MonkeyFunk]

20. No, not really

the issue being studied wasn't whether being prayed for has a positive placebo effect - it was to study whether intercessory prayer works. I don't know of any reputable study that has shown the answer to be yes.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

16. This Is The Most Stupid Study I've Ever Heard Of.

It's mind boggling in fact.

Furthermore, one wise in the ways of prayer would also understand that prayer itself is not to help change fate or outcome, but to offer strength, wisdom and guidance. People pray wrong all of the time. But the prayer is to help one be strong enough to handle the outcome. Strong enough to make it through. Wise enough to learn the lessons required. The prayer can help one who is sick have the strength to heal or the strength to overcome. It can help them have the strength to maintain focus and happiness in spite of injury or circumstance.

Prayer is not intended to save life or alter physical reality. It is a spiritual ideal. In the cases of above, the people should've prayed that they will have the strength to handle whatever comes, or that the person undergoing treatment will have the strength to overcome. Prayer done wrong; i.e. wishing that everything will just be ok; would never be effective in changing physical outcome as that is not its intention. The act of praying that way, when broken down, is not really to change the physical reality anyway. It is a way of helping the person praying to be strong themselves; through prayer. Those praying above did so because that is their way of feeling strong and empowered through crisis and their way of being able to get through it. I'd bet my bottom dollar that those saying the prayers did emotionally feel stronger than if those same people had not prayed. That is their avenue of choice for maintaining sanity and strength and there is nothing wrong with it.

But the study itself that just minimized the deep spiritual aspect of prayer into a physical yes no outcome has to be one of the silliest, narrow minded and futile studies I have ever come across.

[Leopolds Ghost]

18. Agreed

Anyone who thinks that prayer is to change outcome is anti-prayer to begin with.

That's like doing a study on pacifism which determines that pacifism makes one vulnerable to attack and is therefore wrong, or that someone always loses at professional sports and is therefore pointless.

There is no reason to believe all outcomes aren't fixed, a metaphysical
issue with ethical implications that these particular researchers
are too dull to get their heads around.

[MonkeyFunk]

19. but the Bible says otherwise

James 5:16
Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

Exodus 23:25
"So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you."

Exodus 15:26
"If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you."

Luke 9:11
But when the multitudes knew it, they followed Him; and He received them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who had need of healing.

Psalm 103:3
Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases,

Acts 19:11-12
Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them.

[Erika]

21. The Christian God must be awful selective

or it's just a myth and total BS.