F
Faith1960
Guest
I dont really understand your last paragraph. Can you please explain further?
- Status
F
Faith1960
Guest
This was, according to everything I’ve read, was the most comprehensive double blind study of it’s kind, involving thousands of patients in a number of well respected hospitals.;
One group knew they were being prayed for and that group actually did worse than the groups that didnt know.
Are you familiar with the study? Results came out in 2006.
B
Bookcat
Guest
If I want to know what my blood type is - I go to a lab and have my blood drawn. That is an approach fitting to the matter in question.
If I want to know math -there are approaches that are fitting to Math -involving say numbers etc.
If I want to know about painting -there are approaches that are fitting to such - where as there are others that are not.
If one wanted to know a person one does not just take them to the lab and have blood drawn. Persons involve relationship. Conversation is one means to knowing the other person.
One does not approach math as if it were art or approach persons as if they were trees.
F
Faith1960
Guest
One more would be nice…
B
Bookcat
Guest
So would say everyone about their own study …or the study that supports *their *ideas…
I heard something of it.
But it is of no importance really.
It is like a chemist trying to study the beauty of the sun. Or test how much his wife loves him by drawing and examining her blood.
F
Faith1960
Guest
So in other words, experiments are wrong in testing prayer?
B
Bookcat
Guest
in other words it is like trying to test my wife’s love for me by that blood test…
or with a scale.
J
JimR-OCDS
Guest
I have a problem with the nuns who agreed to participate in this experiment. 
All I have to say about that.
Jim
All I have to say about that.
Jim
F
Faith1960
Guest
The intercessors were nuns from St. Paul Monastery, Carmelites, and a Protestant group, Silent Unity.I have a problem with the nuns who agreed to participate in this experiment.
All I have to say about that.
Jim
Also, meta studies often also show that prayer has no effect on patients outcomes. Why is that? Anyone have any other ideas?
F
Faith1960
Guest
In volume 2 of Craig S.Keener’s book Miracles, Keener says that 96% of the patients said they were being prayed for by friends, relatives etc. (You also have to take into account the praying patients themselves, of all the churches who pray for the ill in general, hospital staff and clergy and whoever else might be praying).
I mean, with all that praying going on and if God answers prayer… study intercessors or not, study or not, WHY are the results so low for recovery? WHY werent there higher rates of quick recovery?
Anyone else have some ideas?
I mean, with all that praying going on and if God answers prayer… study intercessors or not, study or not, WHY are the results so low for recovery? WHY werent there higher rates of quick recovery?
Anyone else have some ideas?
F
Faith1960
Guest
“Thy will be done.” If He blesses us with what His will is, whats the point of praying for good health, family relationships or whatever? I mean if He will do His will whats the point of asking in prayer?
P
Polycarp1
Guest
You can try but its meaningless. Kind of like dust mites putting us to the test and then exclaiming "Ah hah!
F
fred_conty
Guest
I find that rather repulsive and revolting…to put God under a micorscope to see if he will jump thru the hoop. Isn’t that a bit presumptive on their part? I’m not surprised at the bad results at all…in fact its a wonder that the results weren’t worse.
And just what would they do with such a study if it turned out to be positive…hire a bunch of people to pray like hiring extra nurses. Or make more clergy and less doctors.
This is highly insensitive to the senseablities of God. It reminds me of Simion who tried to buy the power of holy things so he could use that power himself…the sin of simony. So they will use the holy power of prayer for their own purposes?
I’m thinking suppose 98% of those prayed for got well, and suppose 98% of those not prayed for died. What next? Would they really have used that? Maybe that is why it failed…so they wouldn’t take it further.
I have seen some who measured their faith and loyalty by a prayer experiment. They prayed for something, health, and if it happened then they said they would continue in their faith. While some left their faith because their prayer experiment didn’t turn out the way they wanted. That is dangerous ground to walk on…tempting God.
We owe Jesus an apology for that one.
And just what would they do with such a study if it turned out to be positive…hire a bunch of people to pray like hiring extra nurses. Or make more clergy and less doctors.
This is highly insensitive to the senseablities of God. It reminds me of Simion who tried to buy the power of holy things so he could use that power himself…the sin of simony. So they will use the holy power of prayer for their own purposes?
I’m thinking suppose 98% of those prayed for got well, and suppose 98% of those not prayed for died. What next? Would they really have used that? Maybe that is why it failed…so they wouldn’t take it further.
I have seen some who measured their faith and loyalty by a prayer experiment. They prayed for something, health, and if it happened then they said they would continue in their faith. While some left their faith because their prayer experiment didn’t turn out the way they wanted. That is dangerous ground to walk on…tempting God.
We owe Jesus an apology for that one.
F
Faith1960
Guest
I just read an article about the difficulties with prayer studies. It said that out of 23 studies with high methodologies, “57% found significant results supporting distant prayers positive effect on health.”
- Again, assuming people are praying for themselves, the studies’ intercessors, chaplains, doctors, nurses, family members, friends, church parishoners etc are all praying, shouldnt the percentage be higher if God answers prayer?
- Even outside of prayer studies, people pray for their loved ones and some get well, some dont.
I dont think those being prayed for are having better outcomes, either. It seems like theres a 50/50 chance the patient will be restored to health. Shouldnt the numbers be higher if God hears and answers prayer? - We have a 30-something young woman in the nursing home i volunteer in and shes in a vegetative state, after an aneuryism or something similar. She’ll never recover. No amount of prayer will help her. Why?
J
JimR-OCDS
Guest
If all people were cured through prayer every time, no one would die.
But that’s not the way prayer works. Prayer gives us spiritual strength to endure the sufferings in this life, and both people of faith and non-believers suffer.
The times that miracles take place, it’s for the glory of God, not the glory of those praying.
Even Jesus said that it’s an evil age which asks for signs.
So it is with this experiment.
The bottom line is, we all die. What state our souls are in at the time of death is all that really matters.
Jim
B
Bookcat
Guest
God is not a vending machine…put in 50 prayers and get out one miracle.*
(And miracles by nature are just that - not something that happens every day.)
Miracles happen -yes (see for example Lourdes). Healings happen - yes. God answers prayers -yes. We are to pray and preserver in prayer - yes. God often does not answer the prayers the way we want- yes. God might answer no - yes. God often knows what the person needs more than physical healing- yes. This world here is a pilgrimage not the only life -or even the best life - yes. We will suffer in this world due to nature, man, our sins, original sin, the sins of others, accidents, sickness etc - yes. God can bring good out of such suffering - yes. This world is not meant to be the only life - it is a journey - yes. Can permitting a persons suffering be the only way - the last way that God can help the person open to his love and true life -so that that person suffers say for 5 years and then later will be in the joy of heaven and later know the resurrection of the just to life? - yes. Can prayer help in ways we do not know? - yes. Is each person and his life a mystery? -yes.
Prayer is not some “medication” or “treatment modality” to measure if it cures the illness or not. For that is not the nature of prayer. It is not a medication to be “used” to cure not a medication to take 2 and call me in the morning. But that does not make it not a reality. Anymore then the fact that my wifes love for me is not to be subjected to scientific measurement - makes it less a reality. It rather is related to it being more than such. It expands farther than mere medication. Embracing more than we will see here on our pilgrimage.
“Studies” are *not *the means really to approach the question of prayer with. As a blood test is not the way for me to know my wife’s love.
*Prayer is a reality *- but it is a reality that involves mystery, and persons, and knowledge of their true good and is not a reality that is subject to empirical science. It is not able to be measured by such.
B
Bookcat
Guest
For one thing it is the will of God that we do pray. It is good for us - it changes us - makes us more holy and good and loving etc. God wills that we be even a kind of “cause” here. The will of God is not some “fate” - but involves us.
We are “true secondary causes” here - even if in a mysterious way. . Some things are also contingent on if I pray…if I ask. If I do not ask - if I do not pray - I do not receive that which was contingent on my prayer. Even in other aspects of life - my health is contingent in part on what I eat -if I exercise etc. Prayer is even a sort of counter to the various evils in the world - a way we are included in opposing it - our good will opposing the evil will of others etc.
Much more could be said. I suggest reading the Prayer section of the Catechism.
Prayer is a reality -but like other great realities (such as the love of my wife and children) not something subject to measure of the instruments of empirical science.
B
Bookcat
Guest
Catechism:
scborromeo.org/ccc/p4s1c3a2.htm#I (read the whole section there)
(and one can read the entire section four - over time - of the CCC scborromeo.org/ccc/ccc_toc.htm_)
scborromeo.org/ccc/p4s1c3a2.htm#I (read the whole section there)
(and one can read the entire section four - over time - of the CCC scborromeo.org/ccc/ccc_toc.htm_)
B
Bookcat
Guest
“We cannot “do an experiment” in which God has to respond and show that he is God: we must believe in him! We should not make God “the substance” of “our experiment”.”
~ Pope Benedict XVI
(w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/angelus/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_ang_20100221.html)
~ Pope Benedict XVI
(w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/angelus/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_ang_20100221.html)
F
Faith1960
Guest
Thanks for all the links.
I still dont know why we dont see a higher number of positive outcomes after prayer, though.It seems like the odds of getting prayer answered is 50/50 whether we pray or not.
- Status