Comments on: Study Concludes Intercessory Prayer Doesn’t Work; Christians Twist the Results

By: Herp

Herp — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:51:00 +0000

Good job completely ignoring the content of the article. You would have the same success praying to a milk jug as you do praying to god — the milk jug sometimes answers your prayer the way you want to, sometimes not and sometimes the answer is delayed. See the problem here? If things turn out the way you want them to, you say it was because you prayed. If not, it’s because god knows what’s best and you didn’t pray for the right thing. Or, if it happens 10 years later you say god answered your prayer, it was just delayed. This is nonsense. You would have the exact same effect doing nothing.

Which is, coincidentally, what the study (that you for all intents and purposes ignored) shows.

By: Pie

Pie — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 01:03:00 +0000

It snows in Hawaii.

By: LJQT

LJQT — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 03:31:00 +0000

This is utterly disappointing. Christian or aethiest quit getting caught up in silly theological polls & check out the GOP polls or something beneficial. Wow, start looking into polls about our future leaders & economy then you might become a praying man. Haha! By the way, you atheists are so depressing…always griping. Bless your hearts, you are so missing out on one joyful life & afterlife with Christ.

By: Celephaith

Celephaith — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:42:00 +0000

I disagree that praying for others is a selfish act. I agree that it’s delusional, but I think that for the weak-minded, the idea that they’ve helped in some way is a comfort. People who believe in prayer don’t think they’re not doing anything…they actually think they’re helping. In the process, it gives them piece of mind and can help them cope through difficult situations, such as a loved one being sick. We atheists do not have such comforts, so we must be mentally and emotionally stronger than believers because of it. It is the price we pay for intellectual honesty, and most people simply find it too high a cost for what they consider little reward. But for those of us who value intellectualism and intelligence, it is more than worth it.

By: MWP

MWP — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 15:16:46 +0000

Praying for others is the ultimate self indulging. People pray for you as if they were actually doing something for you and then feel good about. It’s delusional. It’s about as helpful as worrying for you. I know plenty of people who have made an art form out of worrying as well. If people would spend as much time helping others as they do praying for them it would be a much nicer world. The problem is helping others requires you to actually do something.

By: Limetrees Park

Limetrees Park — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 16:26:42 +0000

I know this is an old topic; sorry if there’s a more recent/relevant place to post this. Anyway; I’ve been an Elementary Science Lab Teacher for 5 years and have had students tell me that “…science is against god…” and “science says that there is no god.” I have always tried to duck and cover with an answer like this: “Well, for me, I think that we’d have to perform an experiment that compares the presence of “God” vs the absence of “God.” Now, since (to my knowledge) there are no tools that measure “God” or “Divinity”, I really can’t establish two different groups or rooms or trials. I can’t say “God is in this room but not in that room,” I really can’t collect any meaningful data about that question. To say there IS a god would be invalid (no data to support that conclusion). To say there is NO god would be invalid (same problem). Thoughts? Comments?

Prayer would have to be incredibly well-defined in order to be certain that the same variable is being tested in all of the cases (perhaps a standardized prayer like the Lord’s Prayer [either with or without the extra part at the end]). If some participants were to use spontaneous prayers while others used the Lord’s Prayer, while still others used Catholic novenas or prayer chaplets, then the results would be based on multiple independent variables (which may or may not be a problem, depending on your desire to compare different prayer types-but a new hypothesis…). Perhaps a study of the effectiveness of prayer by particular denominations or even personality types (based on available personality tests) would be interesting. Maybe even the “effect” of prayer on different personality types would be interesting as well.

By: craig gosling

craig gosling — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 03:35:43 +0000

A more recent prayer study concerned proximal intercessory prayer, PIP. Conducted in Mozambique by Candy Brown, Ph.D., Indiana University, it supposedly indicated that the “hands on” technique, as practiced daily on TV, worked better than distant intercessory prayer, DIP. This study like the others, had numerous flaws and could not be taken seriously. Nevertheless, the faithful accepted this study as proof of prayerful healing and the existence of a deity. Skeptics rejected the study for its lack of scientific procedure. To date, no prayer study has shown that prayer works other than stimulate a placebo affect. A study with real undisputed proof would be to show prayer grows back amputated limbs. I’m still waiting for that, as are the faithful.

By: Robert

Robert — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 01:18:05 +0000

As one of the Christians who comments on this blog I thank you for your comments on prayer, however, comments on prayer from atheists who don’t believe in prayer are like someone who grew up in Hawaii trying to describe snow.

Why do Christians pray? One reason is that it helps us maintain a relationship with God. We are to have a relationship with God and just like someone in your family, that relationship is stronger when you think of them and converse with them. God doesn’t answer verbally, but he does answer. The more you pray the more you discover what God’s will is for you, just like the more you talk with a friend the better you know them. It builds that relationship.

We pray for God’s will to be done, we pray prayers of praise and thanksgiving, we pray for forgiveness, etc.. We don’t just pray for things.

God will answer all prayers. Sometimes that answer is what you asked for, sometimes it is not what you asked for and sometimes that answer is delayed. But we believe that God knows what is best for us and that he has a plan and will for us that we may not know or understand. he has a different viewpoint then we do. I can tell you from experience that some of the greatest things in my life were different then what I thought I wanted and prayed for. These prayers were answered differently then I would have expected but in a much better way.

If you don’t believe in God then you will not see the answers to prayers nor will you attribute the things that happen in your life to prayers being answered. It is simply a different world view.

But it is a illogical fallacy to say that if you prayed for a million dollars to be mailed to you and it didn’t arrive, then God doesn’t exist.

Mike the Infidel-

John 14:14 is being taken out of context. Jesus is talking to doubting Thomas and describing that he is one with the Father. He is not saying that using his name in prayer means that you will get everything you ask for.

Atl- Apostate- Saying that God is omnipotence and eternal are not inconsistent. To say that God is omnipotent is not saying that he can do all things. He cannot do things that are inconsistent with his nature. Because he is eternal he cannot destroy himself, but that doesn’t make him any less omnipotent. You are just asking him to do something that would not be logical and would go against his nature.

By: Richard Wade

Richard Wade — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 23:36:40 +0000

a.i.sanchez,
I’m genuinely glad that things got better for your family those two times when you or someone tried intercessory prayer.

What you may be overlooking are the two dozen or so other times in your family when things did not get better after intercessory prayers, or the hundreds of millions of times every year when the intercessory prayers of wonderful, faithful, good, loving families are not answered, and their terrible suffering, grief and loss either stay the same or get worse.

It’s called selection bias. We don’t remember the times our lucky charms don’t work; we remember only when we win. We don’t hear from or about families whose prayers didn’t work; we only hear about the rare times when there is a happy outcome. You’re never going to see a newspaper headline that says,
“Local Man Prays For Miraculous Cure and Dies Anyway!”

By: skwanderer

skwanderer — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 22:34:09 +0000

“You cannot be declared a saint unless there is hard, scientific evidence that two miracles have been done by God through intercessory prayer”

Link to “hard” scientific evidence?