Is prayer testable?

[GrayAngel]

Is prayer testable? Specifically, prayer requests: is it possible to devise an experiment that could provide hard evidence that God really does actively answer at least some prayers, above what we would statistically expect by pure chance alone?

People have tried this before, but there are inherent problems with running said experiments.

People can be assigned to pray, and they're told to pray for a specific thing for which researchers look out for. Problem? The participants don't care. They're not emotionally invested in their prayers, they're just doing what they're told. And God listens to the heart, not outward religious expressions. I wouldn't expect Him to respond to a dishonest request.

Also, if God wanted to prove He existed beyond a shadow of a doubt, He would have done so already. He's not sitting up in Heaven saying, "Gee, I really wish these humans would give me an opportunity to show that I'm real. I'm limited here with all these rules that I've imposed on myself with this 'freedom of choice' business. If only someone would try to conduct a scientific test for my existence somehow..."

What might work better would be a retrospective study, since people could pray for something genuinely and then report on their experiences after the fact. I'm not entirely sure how that would work, but I would expect this approach would have some problems as well. For one, retrospective studies are far from ideal, and their findings are less reliable. It leaves a lot of room for reasonable doubt.

PS: Why are there two poll options for no?

 

[Tolerant Skeptic]

It has been tested before. Scientists observed three groups of hospitals patients. The control group simply were provided regular hospital treatment with no spiritual consolation. The secondary group was prayed for, but not informed that others were praying for them. The third group was prayed for and informed. The prayers were offered by volunteers who were only given the first name of the one to receive them, allowing them to say it in their prayers but assuming an omniscient diet would understand precisely who they were referring to. They found no correlation between prayer and recovery. The only correlation they did find was being informed of the actions. Belief that they were in a bad enough state to necessitate prayer frightened the third group, with the added stress and anxiety worsening their conditions. I suppose though that really anyone can disprove prayer. I prayed for someone with cancer to get better. He died the next day. I prayed for genii de to stop. Genocide continues. Whether we will ever be able to prove or disprove the existence of a deity is something we may never know, but I believe it is fair to say that it is a proven fact that prayer does nothing.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

People have tried this before, but there are inherent problems with running said experiments.

People can be assigned to pray, and they're told to pray for a specific thing for which researchers look out for. Problem? The participants don't care. They're not emotionally invested in their prayers, they're just doing what they're told. And God listens to the heart, not outward religious expressions. I wouldn't expect Him to respond to a dishonest request.

A peculiar criterion - are you saying such people don't care about their fellow man? That seems overly pessimistic.

But, nonetheless, that's a hurdle that can be overcome, not a fundamental problem with the nature of the experiment. If you need to be emotionally invested to be able to utter a Valid Prayer, then simply find people who are emotionally invested in their prayers. It shouldn't be hard to find people who are praying for their loved ones' speedy recovery.

Also, if God wanted to prove He existed beyond a shadow of a doubt, He would have done so already. He's not sitting up in Heaven saying, "Gee, I really wish these humans would give me an opportunity to show that I'm real. I'm limited here with all these rules that I've imposed on myself with this 'freedom of choice' business. If only someone would try to conduct a scientific test for my existence somehow..."

What might work better would be a retrospective study, since people could pray for something genuinely and then report on their experiences after the fact. I'm not entirely sure how that would work, but I would expect this approach would have some problems as well. For one, retrospective studies are far from ideal, and their findings are less reliable. It leaves a lot of room for reasonable doubt.

To account for that, the experiment can focus on things which can be independently verified, such as terminal illness - if you die, that's rather a definitive 'no'.

PS: Why are there two poll options for no?

To quote Sheldon Cooper, what's life without whimsy? It's also a nod to how fervently some people insist prayer can't be tested.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

I see several problems with this approach. First, similar to what I already noted, if there were a group of sons whose mothers prayed fervently for them and a group whose sons did not pray fervently for them, God might choose to effect healings among both groups.

He might well do. However, that is a valid outcome to the experiment, not a flaw in it. Remember, the experiment is designed to see if God preferentially heals or otherwise intervenes in reponse to prayer. If he dolls out healing miracles to both those who pray and those who don't, then so be it.

In a scientific experiment to determine the effects of X, one must have a group that is treated with X and a control group that is not. This is true regardless of whether X is drug, a fertilizer, a therapy regimen, or anything else. To test whether God has an effect, we'd need a control group that is not affected by God, but God can affect anything at times and places of his choosing. Hence there can never be a control group in an experiment that tests God, so there can never be an experiment that tests God.

I disagree. We're not testing to see if there's something unaffected by God, but to see if prayer has any effect in affecting change. That is, the claim being tested is "ask, and you shall receive", or, at least, how that phrase is commonly interpreted - pray for healing and God shall heal. Come to our church and jiggle on the floor and God will heal your broken bones. From televangelists to housewives and house-husbands, people really do believe that praying for healing (or something else) will, however indirectly, cause something to happen. They may well defer to God's will and say God could answer with a yes, no, or 'wait', but they still believe that, occasionally, however infrequently, God answers with a 'yes'.

It's those peoples' claim the hypothetical experiment is designed to test.

Also, if the thousand mothers in your example were true Christians, they couldn't fail to desire the healing of everybody who is sick. They would have to feel that desire in their hearts, even if to an outsider it seemed their prayers of each one was focused on her son. Add to that the billions of people, Christian and otherwise, who pray for the healing of all sick people everywhere all the time, and there's no way to produce a group of people who aren't prayed for.

Then, logically, prayer is moot. It's like the fallacy of advertising, and the paradox of how banning tobacco adverts helps the tobacco industry: if everyone prays, then God's attention is split evenly. But what if there's one lonely individual who no one prays for? If he, in all the world, receives no prayers, then is God going to ignore him? If not, then what does prayer do?

 

[AtheistAlan]

I see several problems with this approach. First, similar to what I already noted, if there were a group of sons whose mothers prayed fervently for them and a group whose sons did not pray fervently for them, God might choose to effect healings among both groups. In a scientific experiment to determine the effects of X, one must have a group that is treated with X and a control group that is not. This is true regardless of whether X is drug, a fertilizer, a therapy regimen, or anything else. To test whether God has an effect, we'd need a control group that is not affected by God, but God can affect anything at times and places of his choosing. Hence there can never be a control group in an experiment that tests God, so there can never be an experiment that tests God.

You seem to misunderstand. You wouldn't need a control group that isn't being affected by God, you need a control group not involving prayer. That is what is in question in this proposed experiment. The experiment would also require a double blind study, in order to negate the placebo effect.

-Atheist Alan

 

[AlexBP]

He might well do. However, that is a valid outcome to the experiment, not a flaw in it. Remember, the experiment is designed to see if God preferentially heals or otherwise intervenes in reponse to prayer. If he dolls out healing miracles to both those who pray and those who don't, then so be it.

Perhaps I'm not communicating my objection clearly enough. Imagine we have two groups of children, group A and group B. We assign a thousand people to pray for the children in group A and nobody to pray for the children in group B. God responds to the prayers of the thousand people by offering healing to members of both group A and group B. In that case, prayers would have lead to healing, but your experiment would lead to the incorrect conclusion that prayers do not lead to healing.

Then, logically, prayer is moot. It's like the fallacy of advertising, and the paradox of how banning tobacco adverts helps the tobacco industry: if everyone prays, then God's attention is split evenly.

This is projecting human understanding of attention onto God. Humans have a finite amount of ability, energy, time, and effort. Hence, if a human must split those things among multiple tasks, he or she gives each task less ability, energy, time, and effort than if it was all focused on one task. The same is not true for God, who has infinite amounts of ability, energy, time, and effort. If you divide an infinite set in half, each half is an infinite set of exactly the same size as the original set. Likewise, when God divides His attention between two human beings, each human being can receive as much attention as if it were not divided. Even if God must divide his attention among seven billion human beings, none will receive less attention than if God focused the same attention on one human being.

This also continues to miss another key point. If you do an experiment asking how God will respond to different prayers for groups A and B, the results can only at most tell you how God responds to those specific prayers for those specific groups of people. They cannot tell you anything about the topic of God's response to prayer universally, since God's response to every prayer ever offered may be different.

 

[disciple2011]

Prayer, like wishing, is a 50/50 gamble.

But IF it makes you feel better and you don't harm others in the doing of it. Go all out.

"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
If turnips were watches, I would wear one by my side.
And if if's and an's were pots and pans, The tinker would never work."

 

[GrayAngel]

A peculiar criterion - are you saying such people don't care about their fellow man? That seems overly pessimistic.

But, nonetheless, that's a hurdle that can be overcome, not a fundamental problem with the nature of the experiment. If you need to be emotionally invested to be able to utter a Valid Prayer, then simply find people who are emotionally invested in their prayers. It shouldn't be hard to find people who are praying for their loved ones' speedy recovery.

Leading a group to pray for someone is leading, and it's not genuine. It's not just a matter or whether or not they care, but whether they're praying because they want to or because they were instructed to.

Even if you observe people who would be praying for loved ones, in which case their prayers would be genuine, there would still be a variety of possible problems. First, are they Christian? According to the Bible, God loves His chosen people, His elect, so Christians are more likely to have their prayers answered with a yes. Still, not every Christian is part of the elect. Even Billy Graham said that he expected only a small portion of believers to make it to Heaven.

This is assuming, of course, you're testing for prayer to the Christian God. Testing for prayer to a general God would only skew the results, as many people would be praying to the wrong god.

Second, even if you could find a group of only Christians who were part of the elect, God still might answer with a no if His foreknowledge says His way is better. A no is still an answer, but you can't tell the difference between an answered no and an unheard prayer.

It might also be possible that one might offend God, and He'll refuse to give them what they ask for until they get their lives straightened out. This is another difficult thing to account for.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Perhaps I'm not communicating my objection clearly enough. Imagine we have two groups of children, group A and group B. We assign a thousand people to pray for the children in group A and nobody to pray for the children in group B. God responds to the prayers of the thousand people by offering healing to members of both group A and group B. In that case, prayers would have lead to healing, but your experiment would lead to the incorrect conclusion that prayers do not lead to healing.

Indeed, however, that is not the purpose of the experiment. Simplistically, it's to determine if prayer works. More specifically, it's to see if praying for something makes it more (or less) likely to happen, to see if it ever does convince God to do something that otherwise wouldn't happen. If God heals everyone, prayer or not, then it doesn't matter if you pray for someone. If God heals everyone, but only if at least one person is prayed for, then we can still see the who group's survival rate go up above the background average.

This is where the terminally ill come in. They offer the opportunity to exclude the 'wait' answer, giving us only 'yes' and 'no'.

This is projecting human understanding of attention onto God. Humans have a finite amount of ability, energy, time, and effort. Hence, if a human must split those things among multiple tasks, he or she gives each task less ability, energy, time, and effort than if it was all focused on one task. The same is not true for God, who has infinite amounts of ability, energy, time, and effort. If you divide an infinite set in half, each half is an infinite set of exactly the same size as the original set. Likewise, when God divides His attention between two human beings, each human being can receive as much attention as if it were not divided. Even if God must divide his attention among seven billion human beings, none will receive less attention than if God focused the same attention on one human being.

Ah, I think you're reading too much into what I said.

This also continues to miss another key point. If you do an experiment asking how God will respond to different prayers for groups A and B, the results can only at most tell you how God responds to those specific prayers for those specific groups of people. They cannot tell you anything about the topic of God's response to prayer universally, since God's response to every prayer ever offered may be different.

True, but that's why we have the field of statistics. And remember, we're only trying to see if God ever answers prayers with a 'yes'. The hows and whys aren't important, so much as the if.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Leading a group to pray for someone is leading, and it's not genuine. It's not just a matter or whether or not they care, but whether they're praying because they want to or because they were instructed to.

Even if you observe people who would be praying for loved ones, in which case their prayers would be genuine, there would still be a variety of possible problems. First, are they Christian? According to the Bible, God loves His chosen people, His elect, so Christians are more likely to have their prayers answered with a yes. Still, not every Christian is part of the elect. Even Billy Graham said that he expected only a small portion of believers to make it to Heaven.

This is assuming, of course, you're testing for prayer to the Christian God. Testing for prayer to a general God would only skew the results, as many people would be praying to the wrong god.

Second, even if you could find a group of only Christians who were part of the elect, God still might answer with a no if His foreknowledge says His way is better. A no is still an answer, but you can't tell the difference between an answered no and an unheard prayer.

Nonetheless, the experiment is only interested in if there's a 'yes', at all, ever. If God responds to prayers for healing with a 'yes', no matter how many times he otherwise says 'no', I believe that can be empirically tested for. You're right that a 'no' is indistinguishable from an unheard prayer, but a 'yes' is distinguishable.

It might also be possible that one might offend God, and He'll refuse to give them what they ask for until they get their lives straightened out. This is another difficult thing to account for.

Not really: you just get a larger sample. If God answers prayers at all, he presumably isn't going to withhold all healing just because someone has a clipboard. The criteria by which God deigns to heal the starving and the sick are his business; all the experimented is interested in is if he deigns to heal anyone (or, more generally, answer any prayers with a 'yes') as a result of prayer.

 

[Diane_Windsor]

Is prayer testable? Specifically, prayer requests: is it possible to devise an experiment that could provide hard evidence that God really does actively answer at least some prayers, above what we would statistically expect by pure chance alone?

Scientifically speaking no because by definition God is supernatural. Science can only answer questions regarding the natural world around us.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Scientifically speaking no because by definition God is supernatural. Science can only answer questions regarding the natural world around us.

Thank you for answering. I have a couple of questions, though. First: Why?

I mean, why is science thus restricted? If it's the pursuit of truth, demonstrating or disproving claims by accumulating evidence, it doesn't matter if the claim in question regards nature or 'supernature'. Take ghosts: they are arguably supernatural beings. Yet, if they exist as usually depicted in fantasy media, that are absolutely within the purview of science. These ghosts off light, lower temperature, move objects, divulge information. We can measure their emission spectra - just what light do they give off? Purely visible, or infra-red, or what? These are questions science can answer, if ghosts exist. Yet ghosts are supernatural.

So something has to give: either the supernatural isn't a meaningful category, or science isn't restricted to just the natural.

Second, if God intervenes in the world at all, what's to stop us from deducing that a particular occurrence is, in fact, divine? If the Pope, and only the Pope, gets a 100% success rate when he prays for someone's healing, that would point to some divine influence - and, thus God.

 

[Gadarene]

I think it can be to some degree.
The influence of god invoked in prayer could be something empirically quantifiable, e.g recovery from disease.

Compare the distribution of outcomes with and without prayer, contrast with various deities prayed to etc. could certainly get a strong correlation at least. Don't think we see that though.

 

[AlexBP]

Indeed, however, that is not the purpose of the experiment. Simplistically, it's to determine if prayer works. More specifically, it's to see if praying for something makes it more (or less) likely to happen, to see if it ever does convince God to do something that otherwise wouldn't happen.

Perhaps we're still miscommunicating. You keep discussing a comparison between what happens when a prayer is made of what "otherwise wouldn't happen", between a group after prayer and the "background average".

If we wish to test a new fertilizer scientifically, we compare a group of plants that get the fertilizer to a group of plants that don't get the fertilizer. If we wish to test a new drug scientifically, we compare a group of patients receiving the drug to a group not receiving the drug. If we wish to test prayer scientifically, we would need to compare a group of persons affected by prayer to a group of persons not affected by prayer. Since there are no persons who are certainly not affected by prayer, we cannot do such an experiment. Period. In the case of prayer, there is no "background average", no way of knowing what "otherwise wouldn't happen". God's power and sovereignty exist at all places and times in human existence.

If God heals everyone, prayer or not, then it doesn't matter if you pray for someone.

Depends how you define "matter". Clearly many people have concluded that it matters a great deal.

 

[Diane_Windsor]

I mean, why is science thus restricted?

Because in my understanding that is the definition of science ~ the study of the natural world around us. God, prayers, etc. are in the supernatural world, and thus theologians and philosphers study such matters.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Because in my understanding that is the definition of science ~ the study of the natural world around us. God, prayers, etc. are in the supernatural world, and thus theologians and philosphers study such matters.

But my point is that the distinction between the 'natural' and 'supernatural' makes no sense, especially when you say that science can only discuss the natural. Ghosts are supernatural, yet fall within the purview of science, so either 'natural' has to be broadened to encompass ghosts, or science has to be broadened to encompass the supernatural. One or the other has to give.

If you believe that there is some fundamental, philosophical barrier that prevents scientists from studying the efficacy of prayer... what is it?

Suppose I have 1000 people who are terminally ill - statistically speaking, they're likely 99% likely to die within the next month. If someone says they can pray for someone's healing, and God occasionally comes down and heals that person as a result of that prayer, then we should see an improved rate of survival, no? If not, why not?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Perhaps we're still miscommunicating. You keep discussing a comparison between what happens when a prayer is made of what "otherwise wouldn't happen", between a group after prayer and the "background average".

If we wish to test a new fertilizer scientifically, we compare a group of plants that get the fertilizer to a group of plants that don't get the fertilizer. If we wish to test a new drug scientifically, we compare a group of patients receiving the drug to a group not receiving the drug. If we wish to test prayer scientifically, we would need to compare a group of persons affected by prayer to a group of persons not affected by prayer. Since there are no persons who are certainly not affected by prayer, we cannot do such an experiment. Period. In the case of prayer, there is no "background average", no way of knowing what "otherwise wouldn't happen". God's power and sovereignty exist at all places and times in human existence.

OK, but that therefore negates the claim being tested. As I said, it means that praying for someone's healing is irrelevant, inasmuch as they're not more likely to get better.

It's like saying that a die is weighted, but all sides are weighted equally. That may well be the case, but it rather defeats the point.

Depends how you define "matter". Clearly many people have concluded that it matters a great deal.

'Matter' with regard to the claim that "we should pray for someone's healing in the hopes that God will indeed heal them".

 

[drjean]

So many proofs...and still some refuse to believe.

I Kings 18

24 And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.
25 And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your agods, but put no fire under.
26 And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made.
27 And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is apursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.
28 And they cried aloud, and acut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them.
29 And it came to pass, when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded.
30 And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me. And all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down.
31 And Elijah took atwelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the Lord came, saying, bIsrael shall be thy name:
32 And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord: and he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two measures of seed.
33 And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the wood, and said, Fill four abarrels with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood.
34 And he said, Do it the second time. And they did it the second time. And he said, Do it the third time. And they did it the third time.
35 And the water ran round about the altar; and he filled the trench also with water.
36 And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the aevening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word.
37 Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know athat thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their bheart back again.
38 Then the afire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.
39 And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God.

​

 

[Wiccan_Child]

So many proofs...and still some refuse to believe.

What does 1 Kings 18:24-39 have to do with anything?

 

[Davian]

Leading a group to pray for someone is leading, and it's not genuine. It's not just a matter or whether or not they care, but whether they're praying because they want to or because they were instructed to.

Even if you observe people who would be praying for loved ones, in which case their prayers would be genuine, there would still be a variety of possible problems. First, are they Christian? According to the Bible, God loves His chosen people, His elect, so Christians are more likely to have their prayers answered with a yes. Still, not every Christian is part of the elect. Even Billy Graham said that he expected only a small portion of believers to make it to Heaven.

This is assuming, of course, you're testing for prayer to the Christian God. Testing for prayer to a general God would only skew the results, as many people would be praying to the wrong god.

Second, even if you could find a group of only Christians who were part of the elect, God still might answer with a no if His foreknowledge says His way is better. A no is still an answer, but you can't tell the difference between an answered no and an unheard prayer.

It might also be possible that one might offend God, and He'll refuse to give them what they ask for until they get their lives straightened out. This is another difficult thing to account for.

How do you think the world would be if God did not answer *any* prayers? What would be different to how things happen now?