Dear God, please help these people be not so stupid
In a stunning breakthrough in pointless science, researchers (I'll let the "so-called" be implied) found that prayer doesn't have a bearing on recovery from illness.
I don't know what the agenda of the people funding this study is, but either way, it's ridiculous. If it's people wanting to show that there's no point in praying, then they've missed the entire positive point of faith in times of crisis. It doesn't matter that prayer and belief in God actually brings a positive outcome; it's importance is in making people believe that it will. That's what gets people through tough times.
Secondly, the article never says who was doing the praying; just that some patients were told that some shmoes were praying for them. "Um, great," would be my reaction, and then I'd go back to being sick. But if I was told that some long-lost friend had found out that I was ill and was thinking about me and praying to their object of faith that I get better...well, it wouldn't automatically heal me, of course. But it would mean a good deal to me, and having that hope is massive in those unsure and troubled times.
But if this study was funded by people whose agenda was to show that prayer does help, then it's just as ridiculous. Plenty of religious people have happily thrown science out the window to believe in the scripture of their choosing, so why turn to science to try and prove something whose value has nothing to do with measurable results?
There is a value to studies like this, though, and that's that it gives us plenty to talk about. And by "us", I mean "me".
3 comments:
yeah, that story was on the front page of our paper today - you can tell what constitutes as "BIG NEWS" around here. I thought the funniest part of the whole thing was that the study found that in some cases, those who were told they were being prayed for by strangers actually got sicker - which they said might be due to anxiety. Man, the pressure! First you're sick, now you HAVE to get better in order to not let down that dude you DON'T EVEN KNOW who is praying for you - ack!
Also, the study cost like 2.5 million dollars. Wait, that's not really all that funny...
Well the jokes on them...I prayed that this study would yield unvalid results! So considering that (ie, the unbounded power of my prayers), take this study for the grain of salt it's worth.
Doug, were they sure the strangers were praying for them to get *better*? Maybe they were praying for them to get sicker, in which case it worked.
That's the other ridiculous part of these studies. How are they ensuring that people are praying "correctly"? Maybe prayer actually does work, but the dolts in the study aren't doing it properly. Or some smartass in the group is praying for the opposite result, so the effects offset, making it look like it doesn't work. Not to mention that someone who's paid to pray (can't imagine how else they would blow $2.5 MM on this), and is doing it simply for the money, probably doesn't pray as well as someone who actually likes/wants to pray. Do they have some sort of mind reading tool to validate the prayer quality?
They also disregard the fact that if you're sick, it's because God doesn't like you. He's probably not going to change his mind just because other people ask nicely.
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