Proposed Experiment to Prove God's Existence

[The Son of Him]

I would dare to say your prayer experiement has already been tried for thousands of years, and has failed miserably as evidenced by %50 mortality rate for children and all the countless diseases and plauges thruout history......
that is until the medical science came along and answered the prayers

God answer prayers in his time not ours.

If you need your prayers to be imposed to God those are not prayers those are orders.

 

[Crispie]

God could easily just say no to these because He knows the main reason why you are doing this, "to prove whether he exists or not". God isnt a slave to our prayer. Look even if the prayer is of the purest intention God may say no. He has his reasons. Look, gl with your expirement, but it will give 0 results most likely.

 

[lucaspa]

I know that it happened because I read about it in my Bible. We accept that by faith.

Then is it not "known" in the usual sense. You cannot point to supporting evidence that no rain fell for 3.5 years. And yet, there should be supporting evidence in this case, because the result would have been widespread famine. Other histories and texts written the time should have mentioned the consequences.

When discussing the physical universe, the Bible by itself is not enough to say "know". Since the physical universe is God's second book, you must get confirmation from that book.

 

[lucaspa]

True, I'm not directly testing the existence of God in this experiment, I am testing the power of prayer. However, I decided it would be good to take things one small step at a time - wouldn't proving the power of prayer be a good starting point for proving the existence of God? I thought that proving the power of prayer would make it necesary and worthwhile to go on to bigger experiments to prove the existence of God.

You still are not recognizing that you are not testing God. You are testing a mechanism you think God uses. If you get negative results, all you have shown is that God does not use this mechanism. This is what happened with creationism. Instead of falsifying God, falsifying creationism only showed God did not create that particular way.

You are coming at this from the POV of theism vs atheism. I'm coming at it from the POV of good science.

I forgot to mention that each experimenter should pray for rain in their local area, not for the world as a whole. The experimenter should perhaps even record the rainfall levels themselves, using their own equipment. Because it is now confined to a local area, this reduces the interference from people praying without knowledge of the experiment.

Doesn't change my point. If you have only 10 people praying, each in their own area, or even 10 in an area, you are still vastly outnumbered by the people in the region. Therefore, you have a vast amount of uncontrolled prayer and are looking for a large change due to a small percentage change in prayer. If the "prayer system" is functioning at maximum, adding a little more prayer isnt' going to change anything. Prayer is still working, but you can't detect the effect of your small additional prayer.

So my point stands: a negative result tells you nothing.

Also, the statistical average of people praying for or against rain, without nowledge of the study, should be fairly constant throughout the study. At the very least, it shouldn't vary in the same pattern as alternate months, swapped around every alternate year. Therefore, the affect of other people's prayers, whom are not aware of the study, has in fact been controlled-out of the experiment.

Not the way I am talking. What I am saying is that you have 10,000 people praying outside the study. 5,000 praying for rain and 5,000 praying against rain. Those 10,000 people are maxing out the system, either for or against rain. Adding 10 people on one side or the other so that you now have 5,010 vs 5,000 may not have any additional effect. Negative results won't mean anything.

I don't understand the logic behind this statement. Wouldn't I LEARN more about the fundamentals of hypothesis testing and experimental design THROUGH PURSUING a scientific career? I think I would.

Not if you stubbornly stick to your errors, which is what you are doing here.

On about line 3 or 4 of that document is says:

"Over ten months, 393 patients admitted to the CCU were randomized, after signing informed consent, to an intercessory prayer group (192 patients) or to a control group (201 patients)."

Now this statement is not specifically clear as to whether the patients knew which group they were assigned to or not. If the patients knew which group they were assigned to, this opens the door for interference in the experiment,

There is another line that says the study is a randomized, double-blind study. That "double-blind" means that neither the patients nor doctors knew which group the patients belonged to. In the Harris et al study, the patients were not even informed they were in a study.

However, this doesn't conclude that there is a God involved at all.

DUH! What have I been telling you above! You are testing prayer, not whether God is involved!

If fact, even-better controls would have been the patients not knowing that the experiment was even happening.

Congrats. That is what the Harris et al group thought too. Which is why they did their study that way!

No, by my criteria, God has not already been proved. Such an important and controversial topic is not proven by just one case of one experiment.

But you have several experiments, one a duplicate of another. The problem is that you set up the false criteria that IP would prove God. Remember, I argued that this was not the case. Presented with the evidence that IP does have an effect, you are trying to junk the science!

So, by your criteria, based on a duplicated experiment, and experiments in other areas with similar results, you should conclude God is "proved". Of course, it was your mistake to set up inappropriate criteria.

BTW, the relevant sentence in the Byrd paper comes right after the one you used: "The patient, the staff and doctors in the unit, and I remained "blinded" throughout the study." "Blinded" means they were not told who was in which group.

 

[lucaspa]

I would dare to say your prayer experiement has already been tried for thousands of years, and has failed miserably as evidenced by %50 mortality rate for children and all the countless diseases and plauges thruout history......
that is until the medical science came along and answered the prayers

Sorry, ReUsable, but this is not the case. Since prayer was always being used, you have no idea what the death rate was without it. It is an uncontrolled retrospective study. Besides, there is no doubt that material processes work here. So, even if prayer is effective, there are going to be cases so severe it can't work; the material damage is too great.

 

[lucaspa]

The links worked for me!

"Patients admitted to hospital with heart problems suffer fewer complications if someone prays for them, according to scientists in the US.


The study, carried out at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina, found that patients who received alternative therapy following angioplasty were 25% to 30% less likely to suffer complications. Actually, the link must have worked because you quoted Koenig from it!



So now you have three independent studies of IP in coronary care units. All with the same general results. Just how many times do you think a study has to be repeated to be "proved"?



"And those who received "intercessory prayer" had the greatest success rate.

The study, carried out between April 1997 and April 1998, involved 150 patients who had all undergone angioplasty - whereby a balloon is positioned in a hardened and narrowed artery and inflated to force it open.

This procedure was followed in all cases by coronary artery stenting - which involves a flexible mesh tube being inserted into the artery to keep it open.

Alternative therapy

Patients were chosen randomly to receive coronary stenting with standard care or coronary stenting plus one of four alternative therapies - guided imagery, stress relaxation, healing touch or intercessory prayer.

Intercessory prayer was provided by seven prayer groups of varying denominations around the world.

Neither the researchers nor the patients were aware who was being prayed for but the results showed that, of all the therapies, prayer appeared to have the greatest therapeutic benefits.

Suzanne Crater, a nurse practitioner and co-director of the study, said the clinical outcomes between treatment groups were not significantly different but those receiving alternative therapies "had lower absolute complication rates and a lower absolute incidence of post-procedural ischemia during hospitalisation." Complications after angioplasty include death, heart failure, post-procedural ischemia, repeat angioplasty or heart attack. "

 

[spiced]

As for Elias and the famine of 3.5 years internal evidence is valid as they come from two historical parchements of an "observed people group".
Elias or Elijah lived 875-848 BC and is recorded in the Jewish book of Kings.What is being said by James is a seperate narative from the New Testament written some 900 years later that re-tells the story of of Elias/Elijah.
So what we have is two manuscripts at this juncture sharing the same story with the latter verifying the former as a historical document 900 years previous.
What it shows is this, that the transmission of the book of Kings has been faithfully rendered down through the centuries. So the evidence is valid.

 

[lucaspa]

As for Elias and the famine of 3.5 years internal evidence is valid as they come from two historical parchements of an "observed people group".
Elias or Elijah lived 875-848 BC and is recorded in the Jewish book of Kings.What is being said by James is a seperate narative from the New Testament written some 900 years later that re-tells the story of of Elias/Elijah.
So what we have is two manuscripts at this juncture sharing the same story with the latter verifying the former as a historical document 900 years previous.

I'm sorry, but James does not "verify" Kings. All it does is repeat the story. For support, you would need Egyptian, Greek, and Babylonian records of a famine.

What it shows is this, that the transmission of the book of Kings has been faithfully rendered down through the centuries.

Yes, the transmission of the book of Kings was preserved. IOW, the book was around. It doesn't show that the event actually happened. I find it best to test these criteria by taking them out of religion and see if we accept them there.

In A Stillness at Appomattox, Bruce Catton faithfully repeats a regimental history of 110 years before. However, independent checking of other records of the time shows that the regimental record was inaccurate. Simply faithfully repeating an earlier book doesn't guarantee the original was accurate.

 

[spiced]

Hi Lucaspa,
here is a site which debates the reign of Anhetop III of Egypt and his consternation at getting robbed of grain from the surrounding countries because of drought during the time span indicated in my post re Elijah :
http://www.specialtyinterests.net/amarna.html

 

[lucaspa]

Hi Lucaspa,
here is a site which debates the reign of Anhetop III of Egypt and his consternation at getting robbed of grain from the surrounding countries because of drought during the time span indicated in my post re Elijah :
http://www.specialtyinterests.net/amarna.html

Thank you for the site. It's very interesting.

Unfortunately the site is circular reasoning for your position. The site is arguing that the reign of Amhotep III is 500 years later than conventional Egyptian history says. One of the arguments they use is that the mentions of grain raids in the history for Amhotep III might correspond to the drought of Elias.

For them, the Elias story is assumed to be true and becomes a test of their hypothesis that the reign of Amhotep III is 500 years later.

However, you have a different hypothesis: the story of Elias is true. We can't assume that is true because it is what we are trying to determine. So, for our purposes we can't say Amhotep III reigned then because it may mentions Elias' drought. We would have to first establish independently that Amhotep's reign was in that time period. And the site doesn't do that.

If we assume the reign is later and then use that assumed reign as evidence of Elias' drought, we now have circular logic! Elias' drought shows the truth of the date of Amhotep III and the date of Amhotep III shows the truth of Elias' drought!

Do you see the circle?

 

[ThePhoenix]

Why is it that all of these experiments seem to assume that God is some physical force that's about as intelligent as magnitism? Um, hi, God already knows what you're doing.

 

[Joe Atheist]

This has already been done.

James 5:17-18
Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. [18] And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.

What is your next request?

Woah, I'm convinced.