Is prayer testable?

[juvenissun]

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

Is there a god who does not answer prayers?

 

[juvenissun]

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?

Even the rate improved due to prayer, atheist will not give the credit to God but to some other reasons. The rising rate of survival is not a new feature. What is your interpretation?

Science can always give a model to something or some feature, natural or supernatural. They are all models anyway. It is cheap. What is your "scientific" model to the feature called the sixth sense, if you care to give one?

 

[juvenissun]

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

It is an example on the power of prayer. Is that what the OP is asking?

I suggest you quit this thread. You are tired.

 

[drjean]

Prayer and Faith Healing, Proof that prayer works

A 1993 Israeli survey following 10,000 civil servants for 26 years found that Orthodox Jews were less likely to die of cardiovascular problems than "nonbelievers." And a 1995 study from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., monitoring 250 people after open-heart surgery concluded that those who had religious connections and social support were 12 times less likely to die than those who had none.
In an attempt to understand the depression that often accompanies hospitalization, Duke University researchers assessed 1,000 hospital patients from 1987 to 1989; patients who drew on religious practices, including prayer, were found to cope far better than those who didn't.


...In the most widely publicized studies of the effect of intercessory prayer, cardiologist Randolph Byrd studied 393 patients admitted to the coronary-care unit at San Francisco General Hospital. Some were prayed for by home-prayer groups, others were not. All the men and women got medical care. In this randomized, double-blind study, neither the doctors and nurses nor the patients knew who would be the object of prayer.
The results were dramatic and surprised many scientists.The men and women whose medical care was supplemented with prayer needed fewer drugs and spent less time on ventilators. They also fared better overall than their counterparts who received medical care but nothing more. The prayed-for patients were:

• Significantly less likely to require antibiotics (3 patients versus 16)

• Significantly less likely to develop pulmonary edema-a condition in which the lungs fill with fluid because the heart cannot pump properly (6 versus 18).

• Significantly less likely to require insertion of a tube into the throat to assist breathing (0 versus 12).

• Less likely to die (but this difference was not statistically significant).

 

[Davian]

Is there a god who does not answer prayers?

Are there any gods?

 

[Davian]

Prayer and Faith Healing, Proof that prayer works

A critique of the San Francisco hospital study on intercessory prayer and healing - Gary P. Posner, M.D.

God in the CCU?

"Byrd obviously believes that his study has succeeded where others have failed. But are the data obtained in his study--in which prayer was admittedly "not controlled for"--sufficient to suggest the existence of the omniscient, omnipotent Judeo-Christian God, and the efficacy of intercessory prayer on CCU patients? Or is it much more likely that what we have here is akin to the findings of the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP), in which scientists blinded by faith concluded, erroneously, that the shroud was authentic? In his report, Byrd notes that "How God acted in this situation is unknown." But I suspect it was with smoke and mirrors."

 

[Gadarene]

I'm sure prayer is not without positive effects, but that doesn't mean God is behind it.

I view it as somewhat like the button at certain pedestrian crossings. They're generally not wired into the traffic light circuit so they don't actually do anything, but they give the impression that your impatience to cross the road is "being dealt with", and makes you less likely to stride out into busy traffic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo_button

I'm sure the notion that people care enough about you to wish you well and that some supernatural being will help you out will have a reassuring effect on some. Effects beyond that though will need to have causation explicitly established.

(With respect to this study, sample sizes seem pretty small - meta-analyses would be interesting to see.)

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Even the rate improved due to prayer, atheist will not give the credit to God but to some other reasons. The rising rate of survival is not a new feature. What is your interpretation?

If prayer-at-a-distance can be positvely correlated to survival, or the sponteanous regrowing of amputated limbs, or the immediate and miraculous remission of cancer, that would be good evidence that a deity is indeed interfering in the world. You're just making excuses - can you give any real reason why the experiment would fail? If God does indeed answer the occasional prayer with a 'yes', and intervenes in the world to heal someone who, had they not been prayed for, wouldn't be healed... if this common claim of intercessory prayer is true, why wouldn't the test result in a positive correlation? What physical, mechanical, statistical, etc, reason do you believe would prevent the test from working?

"God can't be tested" isn't a reason. "God kills anyone who tries to test him" is a reason. Go fish.

Science can always give a model to something or some feature, natural or supernatural. They are all models anyway. It is cheap. What is your "scientific" model to the feature called the sixth sense, if you care to give one?

If the sixth sense is some sort of psychic remote viewing, place a piece of paper in a sealed box and get the purported psychic to tell us what's written on it.

If the sixth sense is NDEs, place a code on top of a cabinet in the operating theatre, which the disembodied individual can tell us.

If the sixth sense is the ability to see dead people (as per the titular film), get the psychic to retrieve information that can be independently corroborated.

If the sixth sense is a sort of early warning system (akin to Spiderman's spidey-sense), set up a series of trials where they are preternaturally aware of some event that hasn't happened yet. Crudely, we could pelt them with BB bullets from one of two guns, and they get to press one of two buttons which would jam one gun or the other. If they can consistently jam the gun that's about to fire each time, that shows they can indeed react with psychic powers.

In general, if you purport to have the psychic ability to acquire information that would otherwise not be attainable, the test is quite simple: get them to acquire the information. Such things aren't untestable, not at all, it's just that people don't want them to be tested, because they know, in their heart of hearts, that rigours scientific trials would reveal their heartfelt beliefs to be wrong. Dowsing, homoeopathy, astrology, remote viewing, mediumship, seances, ouija boards, all can be easily disproven, and whenever a psychic offers herself to be tested, she is always disproven.

It is an example on the power of prayer. Is that what the OP is asking?

Indeed, but unless you purport that repeating Elijah's actions would cause the spontaneous combustion of such an altar, I don't see the relevance. Recall also that drjean implied this was proof of some sort - proof of what? That the Bible makes claims about God?

 

[juvenissun]

Are there any gods?

So, no prayer, doesn't change a thing.

 

[juvenissun]

If prayer-at-a-distance can be positvely correlated to survival, or the sponteanous regrowing of amputated limbs, or the immediate and miraculous remission of cancer, that would be good evidence that a deity is indeed interfering in the world. You're just making excuses - can you give any real reason why the experiment would fail? If God does indeed answer the occasional prayer with a 'yes', and intervenes in the world to heal someone who, had they not been prayed for, wouldn't be healed... if this common claim of intercessory prayer is true, why wouldn't the test result in a positive correlation? What physical, mechanical, statistical, etc, reason do you believe would prevent the test from working?

"God can't be tested" isn't a reason. "God kills anyone who tries to test him" is a reason. Go fish.


If the sixth sense is some sort of psychic remote viewing, place a piece of paper in a sealed box and get the purported psychic to tell us what's written on it.

If the sixth sense is NDEs, place a code on top of a cabinet in the operating theatre, which the disembodied individual can tell us.

If the sixth sense is the ability to see dead people (as per the titular film), get the psychic to retrieve information that can be independently corroborated.

If the sixth sense is a sort of early warning system (akin to Spiderman's spidey-sense), set up a series of trials where they are preternaturally aware of some event that hasn't happened yet. Crudely, we could pelt them with BB bullets from one of two guns, and they get to press one of two buttons which would jam one gun or the other. If they can consistently jam the gun that's about to fire each time, that shows they can indeed react with psychic powers.

In general, if you purport to have the psychic ability to acquire information that would otherwise not be attainable, the test is quite simple: get them to acquire the information. Such things aren't untestable, not at all, it's just that people don't want them to be tested, because they know, in their heart of hearts, that rigours scientific trials would reveal their heartfelt beliefs to be wrong. Dowsing, homoeopathy, astrology, remote viewing, mediumship, seances, ouija boards, all can be easily disproven, and whenever a psychic offers herself to be tested, she is always disproven.


Indeed, but unless you purport that repeating Elijah's actions would cause the spontaneous combustion of such an altar, I don't see the relevance. Recall also that drjean implied this was proof of some sort - proof of what? That the Bible makes claims about God?

As I said, if prayer really changed the correlation, atheist won't see the true reason and will not be convinced. This is simple and clear.

Don't mix things up and know the nature of your question. The reason to pray is because the faith to God, not because the faith to science. You want scientific proof or statistical confidence, then do not ask the question like the OP. For a prayer which is based on faith, even the successful rate is 1%, it should be taken as true. The effect is shown on individual person, not statistics.

When you go to a church and make a survey on the rate of answered prayer. You will get a high rate. Outside the church, low to very low rate. It is still a faith problem.

 

[Trogool]

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?

Yeah, there have been studies where some hospital patients get prayed for and others don't. There was no statistically significant observed effects.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Yeah, there have been studies where some hospital patients get prayed for and others don't. There was no statistically significant observed effects.

OK. Do you thus believe that praying for someone's healing won't result in anything that otherwise wouldn't happen, that God doesn't heal people in response to prayer? What do you make of those who do believe that, who say, "I'll pray for you/him/her"?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

As I said, if prayer really changed the correlation, atheist won't see the true reason and will not be convinced. This is simple and clear.

Irrelevant. The OP asks whether the correlation exists at all. If you want to make broad statements about atheism, that's your business, but it has no relevance to the OP.

Don't mix things up and know the nature of your question. The reason to pray is because the faith to God, not because the faith to science. You want scientific proof or statistical confidence, then do not ask the question like the OP. For a prayer which is based on faith, even the successful rate is 1%, it should be taken as true. The effect is shown on individual person, not statistics.

You contradict yourself. If God heals, then that's a measurable effect. If he heals in response to prayer, then that's a measurable effect. You haven't really offered any compelling reason why efficacious prayer can't be statistically measured.

Does, or does not, God heal people in response to prayer? He may not response all the time, and he may heal outside of prayer, but does prayer do anything to convince God to sometimes, maybe, occasionally, heal people? Or, do you believe that praying to God for the healing or survival of someone won't change anything - whether or not they live or die, whether or not God heals them, doesn't change if you pray. God's soverign will, and all that.

The driving point is whether it's worth getting our hopes up when we pray for someone's miraculous healing.

When you go to a church and make a survey on the rate of answered prayer. You will get a high rate. Outside the church, low to very low rate. It is still a faith problem.

Which is a measurable phenomenon, whether you like it or not. We can go out and confirm these instances of answered prayers by focussing on medical issues: did the terminally ill child live or die? Sometimes terminally ill children live longer than expected, or even live full lives, but is this more likely to happen when someone prays for them? If so, then that will show up in the statistics (if you disagree, prove it). If not, then there seems to be no point in encouraging people to pray for the miraculous healing of others.

 

[juvenissun]

Irrelevant. The OP asks whether the correlation exists at all. If you want to make broad statements about atheism, that's your business, but it has no relevance to the OP.


You contradict yourself. If God heals, then that's a measurable effect.If he heals in response to prayer, then that's a measurable effect. You haven't really offered any compelling reason why efficacious prayer can't be statistically measured.

Does, or does not, God heal people in response to prayer? He may not response all the time, and he may heal outside of prayer, but does prayer do anything to convince God to sometimes, maybe, occasionally, heal people? Or, do you believe that praying to God for the healing or survival of someone won't change anything - whether or not they live or die, whether or not God heals them, doesn't change if you pray. God's soverign will, and all that.

The driving point is whether it's worth getting our hopes up when we pray for someone's miraculous healing.


Which is a measurable phenomenon, whether you like it or not. We can go out and confirm these instances of answered prayers by focussing on medical issues: did the terminally ill child live or die? Sometimes terminally ill children live longer than expected, or even live full lives, but is this more likely to happen when someone prays for them? If so, then that will show up in the statistics (if you disagree, prove it). If not, then there seems to be no point in encouraging people to pray for the miraculous healing of others.

No, in general, it is not. It is only measurable for those who believe.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

No, in general, it is not. It is only measurable for those who believe.

Then he doesn't heal people. If you pray for your cancer to be cured, and God cures your cancer because of that prayer, that is a measurable effect - we can physically measure that the cancer has gone. En masse, we should see this correlate with prayer. Belief or not, this is the necessary consequence of saying God physically interferes with the world.

 

[juvenissun]

Then he doesn't heal people. If you pray for your cancer to be cured, and God cures your cancer because of that prayer, that is a measurable effect - we can physically measure that the cancer has gone. En masse, we should see this correlate with prayer. Belief or not, this is the necessary consequence of saying God physically interferes with the world.

If I told you that, then it (the effect of prayer) is measurable if you believe it. It is not measurable if you do not believe it. A correlation is based on measurements. But don't forget the correlation also needs an interpretation. Is this correlation caused by prayers or not?

How many times do you need to be explained on this simple idea?

 

[drjean]

Yeah, there have been studies where some hospital patients get prayed for and others don't. There was no statistically significant observed effects.

Look into the links and research it...there have even been double blind studies/experiments to prove the power of prayer for surgery patients, etc.

Originally Posted by juvenissun

No, in general, it is not. It is only measurable for those who believe.
​

But not all doctors are believers, and yet have agreed the method (of praying) appears to have made the difference...

 

[AtheistAlan]

Look into the links and research it...there have even been double blind studies/experiments to prove the power of prayer for surgery patients, etc.



But not all doctors are believers, and yet have agreed the method (of praying) appears to have made the difference...

I suggest you review a 2006 "Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP)" led by Harvard professor Herbert Benson.

Questions do arise. One of which is if prayer is testable using today's understanding of science. The short answer is no.

-Atheist Alan

 

[AtheistAlan]

If I told you that, then it (the effect of prayer) is measurable if you believe it. It is not measurable if you do not believe it. A correlation is based on measurements. But don't forget the correlation also needs an interpretation. Is this correlation caused by prayers or not?

How many times do you need to be explained on this simple idea?

Your statement is very confusing. The idea you propose is not simple, nor rational.

Are you saying that if God heals a cancer patient, and they are free of cancer, that we can't measure the cancer of a non-believer?

-Atheist Alan

 

[juvenissun]

Your statement is very confusing. The idea you propose is not simple, nor rational.

Are you saying that if God heals a cancer patient, and they are free of cancer, that we can't measure the cancer of a non-believer?

-Atheist Alan

You can see the cancer is gone. But you do not see God, nor you know God does it.