Can prayer really work?

[Lifeisbeautiful3]

Is there empirical evidence that prayer effects an outcome? Does it matter if 3 people pray for something vs. 300 or 3,000?

e.g. If I pray for ‘Susie’ to nail an interview and get a given job while 50 people pray for ‘Ron’ to get the same job… or for someone to beat cancer.

Have there been attempts to evaluate the efficacy of prayer? I have heard anecdotally that prayer in conjunction with surgery yields a better outcome.

My priest suggested that, perhaps, payer changes the pray-er (the person praying) such that they learn to influence / effect the change for which they are praying.

Thoughts?

 

[Eric_Hyom]

I believe God has one purpose in mind when he answers prayers, will it help someone find eternal salvation? If Susie gets her job after praying, will she dedicate the rest of her working life to the job, or to God?

 

[Mtatum1958]

Is there empirical evidence that prayer effects an outcome? Does it matter if 3 people pray for something vs. 300 or 3,000?

Science has boundaries, as does our understanding of God and spirituality. They coexist,but are not necessarily dependent on one another.

Prayers are applied by God as only He determines. As in your example, what if 50 people pray for Ron, but ultimately that job is not in his best spiritual interest?

 

[Dan123]

Have there been attempts to evaluate the efficacy of prayer? I have heard anecdotally that prayer in conjunction with surgery yields a better outcome.

There have been several regarding medical outcomes, the ones that use larger sample sizes and do proper controls don’t show any particular change. That’s not to say there are no studies showing it helps, there are, but there’s also studies showing it actually produces worse results.