Prayer Has No Effect on Heart Patients
CNN reports on the largest study of its kind thus far, one which looked at what happened with heart bypass patients who were being prayed for:
[P]atients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications [59% rather than 52%]. ... They ... said they had no explanation for the higher complication rate in patients who knew they were being prayed for, in comparison to patients who only knew it was possible prayers were being said for them.
The work, which followed about 1,800 patients at six medical centers, was financed by the Templeton Foundation, which supports research into science and religion. It will appear in the American Heart Journal.
The Templeton Foundation exists solely to find scientific support for religious beliefs. Thus far, their efforts have been a complete failure. Every year, they give a major prize to someone who writes about the connections between science and religion. Thus far, this prize has been nothing more than a waste of money.
Dr. Harold G. Koenig, director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at the Duke University Medical Center, who did not take part in the study, said the results did not surprise him.
“There are no scientific grounds to expect a result and there are no real theological grounds to expect a result either,” he said. Science, he said, “is not designed to study the supernatural.”
Of course, Koenig is assuming that there is such a category out there which merits the label "supernatural," as opposed to a category that exists solely to describe beliefs we have. Nevertheless, Koenig is making an important point: there are neither scientific nor theological reasons to expect anything other than the results that were obtained. So, why do people still expect that prayers will have positive results?
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Payer Has No Effect On Heart Patients.
The dictionary deines prayer as “Words used when speaking to God. As such prayer is a supplication to God for the grant of extension of the life of a person afflicted with a life threatening ailment.Does this not contradict the very beliefs of the theists. They believe that their God is all powerful, benign and the creator of this universe and everything in it. This imples that life threatening ailments too are His creations. They also believe that God has created heaven; an abode of eternal rest, peace and tranquality for the weary souls after after death. Thereore death is a prerequisite to enter heaven.
A human being afflicted with a life threatening ailment therefore should welcome it as an invitation to enter heaven. An opportunity they would have been looking forward to, from their young days.
But instead they pray, worship, seek medical attention and various other ruses, in an attempt to delay achieving this much looked forward to eternal life. Does this not pose an affront to the almighty God. God wants his creation back, but the patient and his or her loved ones are doing everything possible to thwart His efforts.
If there is a God he will definitely consider such acts as an affront to Him and obviously turn a deaf ear to prayer. Therefore, even if a God do exist prayer will- not have any effect.
Sadly religion isnt scientific smarty pants. So unless you can tell me what salt tastes like dont say anything.
That’s true, it isn’t — but the study didn’t study religion, it studied the real-world effects which religious believers claim exist. Practically speaking, we are dealing here with precisely the sort of situation where supernatural claims are scientifically testable.
Take a step back and note carefully what the study is looking at: whether heart surgery patients recover faster under particular conditions. It would be difficult to come up with a situation which is more amenable to scientific study, wouldn’t it? If we assume for the sake of argument that some sort of god exists, then perhaps the means by which this god detects prayers, decides on which prayers to answer, and then goes about answering prayers might all indeed be beyond scientific study.
None of that was part of the study, however — the study was focused narrowly on something unambiguously within the realm of scientific measurement. Saying that “religion isn’t scientific” for the purpose of denying that studies like this are irrelevant carries some technical truth, but sometimes it’s just used as a weak excuse to avoid taking seriously the empirical claims which religious theists make and putting those claims to the test. After all, if we do take a closer look at those claims, we might find out that they are completely wrong, and then where would religious theists be?
Actually, I can give you a description of what salt tastes like; however, this popular Mormon analogy misses the point because the taste of salt isn’t like religious beliefs. Indeed, salt is less like religion than religion is scientific. If you seriously didn’t know what salt tasted like, I could give you some and help you find out for yourself. Can provide the same sort of demonstration of the reasonability, logic, and justification for your religious beliefs?
Even worse, if you actually accepted this “analogy” as a valid argument, you’d also have to accept it working in the other directions and for other people like Osama bin Laden or Josef Stalin. Even I could say that I know your god doesn’t exist and that your religion is false just as surely as I know the taste of lemon. You can have no rebuttal to any of this because your own analogy has locked you in an untenable position: it allows anyone to say that they “just know” something and puts them beyond the reach of skeptical critique or probing questions.
No one can be asked to rationally justify their claims anymore and everyone becomes a solipsist in their unique little universe. The entire idea of debate, discussion, and mutual understanding is tossed out the window — and for what? What have you achieved? From here, it simply looks like you’re trying to preserve your religious beliefs against questioning and challenge. It looks like you want to have your beliefs, but not have to put in any of the work necessary to explain, justify, and support them.