Atheists Saying Prayer Is Stupid

[stevil]

[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1318935677' post='2323099'] Absolutely. Sadly, many people only go to prayer when in crisis. But that doesn't invalidate prayer. "measurable". There's the disconnect. Perhaps what you require for prayer to be measurable is not legitimate. Prayer is not a test for God.[/quote]
I'm merely trying to understand the qualities of prayer, not trying to prove or disprove god.
Unanswered prayer does not disprove god, answered prayer though, could prove god or would be very interesting.

[stevil]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1318934415' post='2323096'] but you are the skeptical child who has published in the Children's scientific journal: "asking father for cookies does not increase likelihood of getting cookies[/quote]
The skeptical child seems like he/she is on the right path to finding the truth, coming up with theories, testing them, measuring them, analysing them.
It is good as well that you are looking for flaws in the skeptical child's theories or tests or analysis. This is how the scientific method works. Some people try to find what they are looking for and others try to prove them wrong. When both sides are aligned then we have an answer.

In your hypothetical story, it would be interesting to see how the result of getting cookies without asking compared against the group that asked. If the results were consistently the same then we could deduce that asking for cookies is irrelevant to the outcome of whether the children got cookies or not. It would not disprove or prove whether Dad exists or not, but could be a useful study for children deciding whether they would go to the effort of asking for cookies or not, and potentially with an in depth study they might know which techniques of asking work better than other techniques and hence they can improve their chances of receiving cookies. Or maybe cookies are the wrong thing to ask for, maybe they should be asking for hugs instead.
Wouldn't it be good to know what to ask for, and how to ask for it?

[Papist]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1318960659' post='2323252']
I'm merely trying to understand the qualities of prayer, not trying to prove or disprove god.
Unanswered prayer does not disprove god, answered prayer though, could prove god or would be very interesting.
[/quote]
Still can be subjective b/c what I call an answered prayer, you might call it unanswered. The God's answer to your prayer may not be what you are hoping for.

[stevil]

[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1318961878' post='2323261']
Still can be subjective b/c what I call an answered prayer, you might call it unanswered. The God's answer to your prayer may not be what you are hoping for.
[/quote]
Why do I feel that it is only me in this thread that is trying to understand prayer? Only me that is coming up with questions.
Does everyone else fully understand prayer, what is a good prayer, what is a bad prayer, what are the types of prayer that are answered and what are the types that are not answered.
Are prayers requests? (e.g. I pray for ...)
or are they conversational (e.g Hey god, what's up?)
or are they a reflection of one's day or thoughts, like a dear diary entry
or are they to thank god for stuff (e.g. Thanks for creating Strawberries and Ice cream, yum, my favourite)
or something else...
How can one recognise if a prayer is answered?

[Laudate_Dominum]

Atheists saying prayers would be kind of stupid, maybe. [quote name='stevil' timestamp='1318963261' post='2323280']
Why do I feel that it is only me in this thread that is trying to understand prayer? Only me that is coming up with questions.
Does everyone else fully understand prayer, what is a good prayer, what is a bad prayer, what are the types of prayer that are answered and what are the types that are not answered.
Are prayers requests? (e.g. I pray for ...)
or are they conversational (e.g Hey god, what's up?)
or are they a reflection of one's day or thoughts, like a dear diary entry
or are they to thank god for stuff (e.g. Thanks for creating Strawberries and Ice cream, yum, my favourite)
or something else...
How can one recognise if a prayer is answered?
[/quote]
i've only read this post so I'm just guessing, but maybe other ppl are on the defensive or something. anyway, yay! prayer is lots of stuff. woot!

[kamiller42]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1318891323' post='2322909']
If the study exists it would need thorough scrutiny. The study needs to be repeatable with consistent results. It needs to be performed by many people from various world views. The method needs to be scrutinised and the results scrutinised. If the study meets all this and it shows clear benefits for people that are prayed for then how can an Atheist deny it?
[/quote]
Clearly, you have given yourself enough escape avenues to duck out of any study concluding prayer does help. It appears as one preparing for defense rather than open to a truth which may run contrary to existing conclusions.

Here is a multi-national study performed by academia analyzing the benefits of prayer. It was submitted to the Souther Medical Journal for scrutiny. "[url="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1300506/Prayers-really-heal-sick-finds-international-study.html#ixzz1bA7oD1DJ"]Prayers really can heal the sick, finds international study[/url]"

None of this is to say prayer is guaranteed recovery. God is not a slot machine; insert two prayers, pull handle, and score a jackpot. The positive effects of prayer are good for the pray-er, anyone being prayed for, and is measurable in certain cases.

[Aloysius]

the point is that there is no way to scientifically study when the father will give the child a cookie and when the father will not give the child the cookie. it is up to the father. your praise of and suggestions for the skeptical child show a very strange and distorted understanding of the actions of a free will... it's always worth it to ask for a cookie, even though asking for a cookie doesn't necessarily mean you'll get one. is the father really some statistical force to measure? you don't think the child should merely interact with the personal will of the father? expecting that the father follow some scientific rule and measurement is a sterile and ugly way to engage in a relationship. would you approach a dating relationship that way? a friendship?

a large sample size will produce statistical predictable data about the actions of free will. but with prayer, the sample size for the will is one, it's the will of God, so it's not statistically predictable any more than what decision a father will make when asked to give his child a cookie can be.

oh, and stevil, as to your questions about what prayer is, I think most people here are taking for granted what prayer is and simply arguing whether it has any merit. your list of questions can pretty much be answered by "yes". prayer is all of those things, it is supplication, it is meditation, it is conversation. I think the fact that your opposition is the ones who actually do pray is why you're not getting so much discussion about what prayer is, we all know what it is because we do it, we take it for granted. we know that sometimes we ask something from God, sometimes we simply converse with God, sometimes we do it for ourselves, sometimes we do it to offer God praise and worship out of love or duty, there are many different things that go on in prayer. I have been here examining the phenomenon of prayers of supplication/petition.

Edited October 18, 2011 by Aloysius

[stevil]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1318976068' post='2323370']
the point is that there is no way to scientifically study when the father will give the child a cookie and when the father will not give the child the cookie.
[/quote]
Statistically we can measure whether there is a trend based on historical events. We can then use this to predict future events. Unless something changes, we would expect future events to be similar.
I would not expect measurements to be the same for the case where cookies are asked for in comparison to when cookies are not asked for.
However there is only one way to find out if my expectations meet reality and that is to take measurement and perform an analysis.

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1318976068' post='2323370']
it is up to the father.
[/quote]
Yes it is, but I would expect this person to have certain personality traits, be it compassion, generosity, or stubbornness, contempt ...
We could measure the effects of children's pleas for cookies with regards to the way this person reacts, be it giving out or not giving out cookies.

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1318976068' post='2323370']
your praise of and suggestions for the skeptical child show a very strange and distorted understanding of the actions of a free will... it's always worth it to ask for a cookie,
[/quote]
Hmmm, I might just be strange. :-)

I would think that if studies show that the father is less likely to give out cookies if asked for then it would be best not to ask for them if in fact you want to increase your chances of receiving cookies.
You will find that most successful businesses perform market surveys and analysis to improve their chances of making a profit. Knowledge is a powerful thing, holding onto preconceptions is less likely to be successful (IMHO).
[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1318976068' post='2323370']
even though asking for a cookie doesn't necessarily mean you'll get one.
[/quote]
No, but a well executed study could give an indication as to whether it is bast to ask or not with this particular father

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1318976068' post='2323370']
you don't think the child should merely interact with the personal will of the father?
[/quote]
If the child wants to improve his chances, he would be best to take note the historical success or failure of asking his father for cookies.

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1318976068' post='2323370']
expecting that the father follow some scientific rule
[/quote]
There is no scientific rule that the father is following, he could perform/react differently in the future, however people tend to be creatures of habbit. Knowledge of historical events and trends can certainly give the child an advantage.

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1318976068' post='2323370']
measurement is a sterile and ugly way to engage in a relationship. would you approach a dating relationship that way? a friendship?
[/quote]
Absolutely, I always am conscious of what is happening and adapt my approach to gain a favorable outcome. If my date hasn't been in a happy mood after watching horror movies with me but gets quite affectionate after watching romantic comedies then I insist on going to see romantic comedies with her.


[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1318976068' post='2323370']
a large sample size will produce statistical predictable data about the actions of free will. but with prayer, the sample size for the will is one, it's the will of God, so it's not statistically predictable
[/quote]
We are looking for trends here, not isolated incidents.
If we presume that Christians pray for their life partner to recover from life threatening car accident related injuries but that Atheists do not perform such prayer then we would assume that if god grants some of the Christians prays for recovery that there would be a statistical difference with regards to the recovery rates based on this demographic. If there is no difference then god has not granted a benefit of recovery based on prayer, not even to a small percentage of those prayers. There must be millions of such incidents, we could measure this.

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1318976068' post='2323370']
oh, and stevil, as to your questions about what prayer is, I think most people here are taking for granted what prayer is.
[/quote]
From my participation on this forum I am not so sure that Catholics are aligned. Some have petitioned people to pray that "Pacman" the boxer would win his fight. Some have told me that praying for the outcome of a sporting event would not be an appropriate prayer, that it would be a sort of cheating. Does god cheat?
Some people say that you can pray for favorable events, some people have said that prayer is not a Santa list. So I feel there are some conflicting ideas.

Edited October 19, 2011 by stevil

[BigJon16]

I was once sent a message via Youtube that said that prayer was just someone talking to himself and that I should seek help, because I was crazy. He called me all sorts of things. I was like 12. It was pretty offensive. Caused a lot of "whats wrong with me"s. It had a fairly bad effect on my "preteen" years. I ended up reporting him, and justice was served.

Way to go, modern atheism. Ruining my childhood and all.











**sarcasm is heavily present in this post. But it's a true story....bro.

[Papist]

[quote]From my participation on this forum I am not so sure that Catholics are aligned. Some have petitioned people to pray that "Pacman" the boxer would win his fight. Some have told me that praying for the outcome of a sporting event would not be an appropriate prayer, that it would be a sort of cheating. Does god cheat?
Some people say that you can pray for favorable events, some people have said that prayer is not a Santa list. So I feel there are some conflicting ideas. [/quote]
Correct. Many people have a curious understanding[or perhaps no understanding] of prayer. There is a lady at work that has a license plate the states, "When all else fails...pray". I don't think she realizes the message is pray to God as your last resort. To me, that is backwards. We should always be praying, in good times and bad times and all times in between.

There are good prayers and bad prayers.

Good: Lord, please help my brother-in-law overcome his addiction and give strength to my sister to endure this tough times...but according to Your will. Amen.

Bad: Lord, please have my brother-in-law run over by a bus, so my sister can be free of this scumbag. Amen.

[Aloysius]

prayer is not a santa list, but it is okay to ask for things from God. sometimes the point is to talk to God about what you want, sometimes God might help you and sometimes it might just help yourself to converse with God about those wants. expecting that you'll get your petitions like a magic wish is bad.

as to your analysis of the father's will, I can see we're simply not going to agree. I continue to contend that God's answers to prayers will not necessarily trend one way or the other due to the fact that each individual prayer has individual unique circumstances. any study on prayer would not be repeatable, because each individual unique case is treated absolutely differently. this whole conversation has largely ignored the studies that have been cited, one study was cited where prayers were "standardized" by the researchers and no effect was discernible, while a few other studies were cited where prayed-for groups did significantly better than control groups. again, I would contend a hundred different studies would produce a hundred different results, because of the unique will of God for the particular situation of each individual patient in a study who is being prayed for, but the studies we've cited have actually largely indicated positive trends in healing for prayer.


here's a study that shows it trending towards "effective"

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/159/19/2273?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=prayer+coronary&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT

another in the "prayer is effective" category:
http://www.bmj.com/content/323/7327/1450.full.pdf

here's the study that showed prayer as ineffective, a study that appears to have required the "prayer group" to use standard written prayers to test their effectiveness, clearly treating prayer as if it is a magic formula, so it makes sense for the results to be that attempts to control God's power in the form of magic formulas would be ineffective:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16569567?dopt=Abstract

anyway, from most actual studies done on the matter, it appears there is a statistical advantage to prayer; despite that evidence, I still contend that this is not necessarily to be expected, and that I don't think those studies should be repeatable. but there it is for you, if you want, you demand stats, and most of the stats say prayer is effective

[prose]

Generally, I point out that I believe God doesn't work "on demand". There are plenty of miracles that are unexplained that I can indicate that have been thoroughly researched. God is not statistical. Talk to someone who can personally testify as to the power of prayer in their own life, or some miracle they have personally experienced.

Most atheists I know are reluctant to hear anything that isn't studied. Unfortunately, God isn't an on-demand kind of guy, and sometimes personal experiences are all we have to go on. Which is interesting because many "atheists" and "agnostics" spout on about the power of positivity from their personal experiences. And there are many other things that singular experiences are valid enough for them.

[stevil]

According to the first link that you provided

[quote]
[font="verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif"][size="2"]The purpose of the present[sup] [/sup]study was to attempt to replicate Byrd's findings by testing[sup] [/sup]the hypothesis that patients who are unknowingly and remotely[sup] [/sup]prayed for by blinded intercessors will experience fewer complications[sup] [/sup]and have a shorter hospital stay than patients not receiving[sup] [/sup]such [b][color="#CC0000"][color=#CC0000]prayer[/color][/color][/b].[/size][/font]
[font="verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif"][size="2"][/quote][/size][/font]

[font="verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif"][size="2"][quote][/size][/font]
[font="verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif"][size="2"]Lengths of CCU and[sup] [/sup]hospital stays were not different.[/size][/font]

[font="verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif"][size="2"]Mean lengths of stay in the CCU and in the hospital (after initiation[sup] [/sup]of [b][color="#CC0000"][color=#CC0000]prayer[/color][/color][/b]) were not different ([url="http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/159/19/2273?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=prayer+coronary&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT#TABLEIOI90043T4"]Table 4[/url]), and median hospital[sup] [/sup]stay was 4.0 days for both groups[/size][/font]

[font="verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif"][size="2"]There[sup] [/sup]was no significant difference between groups using Byrd's hospital[sup] [/sup]course score[/size][/font]
[font="verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif"][size="2"][/quote][/size][/font]

So although they found an 11% difference in CCU scores, the prayed for event of hospital stay length did not differ.

The following suggests that the sample size was not large enough
[quote]
[font="verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif"][size="2"]Without these 2 patients, length of hospital stay[sup] [/sup]for the [b][color="#CC0000"][color=#CC0000]prayer[/color][/color][/b] group dropped from 6.48±0.54 days to 5.84±0.31[sup] [/sup]days[/size][/font]. [font="verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif"][size="2"]Neither was significantly different from the length of[sup] [/sup]stay in the usual care group (5.97±0.29 days).[/size][/font]
[font="verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif"][size="2"][/quote][/size][/font]

[font="verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif"][size="2"]Although an 11% difference in CCU scores seems significant we do not know what the margin of error is (they have provided a margin of error based on the inaccuracy of their measurements but they have not provided a margin of error based on expected variance of average hospital length of similar sized samples, hence we do not know if this difference falls within the margin of error.[/size][/font] It is interesting that they state that the length of hospital stay for the prayer group including the two long stay patients is not significantly different from the usual care group.6.48-5.97 = 0.51 which is 8.57% difference. So they are stating that an 11% CCU score difference is significant but an 8.57% hospital length is not significant. BTW, the margin of error they provide in measuring the length of stay in hospital seems excessive as they have an error of + or - half a day which gives a whole day's uncertainty for a stay on average of 6 days.

Obviously to add more weight to the validity of this study different groups need to perform the exact same test on significantly sized samples to see if their results are consistent with these findings here.

[Aloysius]

indeed, we would need better studies if we thought we could study this issue. however, my belief is that such studies could go either way, because the circumstances of each individual with medical needs is different. two people could have the exact same circumstances of life from all human standards but one could be meant to die at a certain time and one could be meant to live longer; it would have to do with the unknowable state of their soul and the intricate and complicated plan God has involving each and every one of their loved ones.

as I keep saying, I would fully expect multiple studies to find different results. I think what you're failing to recognize in my position is the existence of factors that cannot be accounted for in any study. prayer is a cooperation with the will of God, such that some prayer might cooperate with God's will to heal through prayer, but God's will is sovereign over all prayers and God's will will take into account factors such as the state of the pray-er's soul, the state of the prayed-for's soul, the lessons the pray-er needs to learn, the lessons the prayed-for needs to learn, and the lessons that every single one of the prayed-for's loved ones, friends, neighbors, and enemies, needs to learn.

those are some of the [b]MAIN[/b] factors that will determine whether prayer will be effective, and NONE of them can be scientifically isolated.

Edited October 20, 2011 by Aloysius

[stevil]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1319128393' post='2324220']
indeed, we would need better studies if we thought we could study this issue. however, my belief is that such studies could go either way, because the circumstances of each individual with medical needs is different. two people could have the exact same circumstances of life from all human standards but one could be meant to die at a certain time and one could be meant to live longer; it would have to do with the unknowable state of their soul and the intricate and complicated plan God has involving each and every one of their loved ones.

as I keep saying, I would fully expect multiple studies to find different results. I think what you're failing to recognize in my position is the existence of factors that cannot be accounted for in any study. prayer is a cooperation with the will of God, such that some prayer might cooperate with God's will to heal through prayer, but God's will is sovereign over all prayers and God's will will take into account factors such as the state of the pray-er's soul, the state of the prayed-for's soul, the lessons the pray-er needs to learn, the lessons the prayed-for needs to learn, and the lessons that every single one of the prayed-for's loved ones, friends, neighbors, and enemies, needs to learn.

those are some of the [b]MAIN[/b] factors that will determine whether prayer will be effective, and NONE of them can be scientifically isolated.
[/quote]
I understand it is complex and that we can't know what the outcome of an isolated case would be, my argument is that if there is intelligence thought reacting on prayer then there would be some difference in comparison to the randomness of events without prayer, however we are not noticing any difference, so god's actions seem to me to be unchanged by prayer.

But anyway, we are getting nowhere here, you believe that your god answers prayer in a physical way even though you acknowledge that this cannot be observed or measured. So I guess that means you are free to believe any event was the result of a prayer, even if there is no evidence, but that is faith.
At least it means that I am not disadvantaged in any way, good things will happen to me and my loved ones at the same rate as you and your loved ones and I don't have to bother with prayer.

Edited October 20, 2011 by stevil