Study: Praying Won't Affect Heart Patients

D

Dark Virtue

New Member
This just came out today:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/wireStory?id=1788550&page=1

NEW YORK Mar 31, 2006 (AP)— Does praying for a sick person's recovery do any good? In the largest scientific test of its kind, heart surgery patients showed no benefit when strangers prayed for their recovery.
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Paul Kurtz, professor emeritus of philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, had a blunt response when asked why he thought the study found no effect of prayer.

"Because there is none," he said. "That would be one answer."

He added that while he tries to keep an open mind, he's seen no good evidence for such an effect in past studies. The new work, he said, "gives added emphasis to those who have been skeptical."
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I wonder how exactly they did this test. I don't find ABC to be exactly the greatest thing ever on most things.
 
Not that God can just be tested.... His ways are not the ways of our own. We can't just say "ok we are going to see if You will show up with this test."
 
ChickenSoup said:
I wonder how exactly they did this test. I don't find ABC to be exactly the greatest thing ever on most things.
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You may want to actually READ the article, it helps if you remove the plank from thine eye :)

Upon doing so you will notice that ABC reported the findings of the test, they didn't conduct it, it was done independantly.
 
ChickenSoup said:
Not that God can just be tested.... His ways are not the ways of our own. We can't just say "ok we are going to see if You will show up with this test."
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Correct, God, or more importantly, the supernatural, cannot be tested.

HOWEVER, the effects of God, or the supernatural, CAN be tested, which is what this is about.
 
Genesis1315 said:
I also thought previous tests were based on the sick person's faith, not the faith of others.

Gen
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You are correct, those previous tests were done to see if prayer done by an individual had any effect on the same individual. The problem with that study is the results are skewed because of the theory of self healing by positive thought, whether it be by a theist or a non-theist. That's why this study is far more telling.
 
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