Power of prayer.....

[Bigmack]

Saw a short item on CNN Headline news yesterday.... a kid had a remission of her leukemia-like disease, and the parents credited prayer. I ranted at the TV for a short time and forgot about it.

Last evening my semi-fundie bro-in-law and his wife came over. She mentioned the story and how it showed the power of prayer.

I asked "What about the other kids?" She asked "What other kids?" I said "The thousands of other kids whose parents prayed, but their kids died anyway."
She said "Well, it's all part of God's plan." I said "Wow... that's some kinda weird, cruel plan.... thousands of innocent kids die in pain... with prayer, or without." She didn't answer.

How do theists deal with this?

I know some of the answers. The nuns liked the "It's all a mystery" and the priests liked the "We can't question the Plan."

I've come to accept that Life is a crapshoot... sometimes you shoot Snake-eyes, and sometimes you throw a natural. Seems more logical.

[KurtNYC]

1. Here is more ammo

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html?ei=5088&en=4acf338be4900000&ex=1301461200&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

snip:
Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers suggested.

[blonndee]

2. I can't adequately express the relief I found when I came to realize

that there is no "why." When I finally, really believed that, I found peace that I never found with prayer or "god" despite years of searching and hoping.

It sickens me to hear people blather about the "power of prayer." Especially in disasters like tornadoes and such: "Well, everyone else in my neighborhood got wiped out but the tornado didn't touch MY house! Praise God! He does answer prayer!" :puke:

[Union Thug]

15. My experience is similar...

I had no spiritual peace until I abandoned my belief in god, fate, supernatural meta-plans, etc. Now I feel like I understand my place in the universe much more than ever before.

[bryant69]

3. Hmmm. Why, if God is good and capable, is there suffering?

Yeah, that's not a question that believers have ever attempted to answer.

Why, if God is just, do good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people?

You'd think we'd get around to answering this question at some point or another, or at least trying to.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[LanternWaste]

4. This Theist looks at it this way...

This Mono-Theist looks at it this way...

We ask (pray). Sometimes the answer is 'yes'; sometimes it's 'no'; sometimes it's 'not right now'.

Much like a small child asking for permission from parents. The child can easily justify why the answer should be 'yes' despite that the parents may know better.

[Bigmack]

8. Like the fortune telling 8-ball! nt

nt

[Silent3]

10. Except there's absolutely no detectable difference...

...between "Sometimes the answer is 'yes'; sometimes it's 'no'; sometimes it's 'not right now'" and "shit happens".

Even if a child doesn't always get his or her way, the difference between asking for something and not asking is pretty damned clear, especially over time. And, except for the kinds of parents who are or should be locked up in jail, most kids don't need to ask "please don't kill me", and wouldn't be expected to be all that thankful if their murderous parents "only" killed a few siblings, but spared that one child.

Beyond the placebo effect, the effect of prayer appears to be absolutely zilch. This "God always answers prayers, just not always the way you want" crap is just a way of trying to dress up a null result and make it sound mystical.

[Bill McBlueState]

5. "God's plan"

If there really is an all-powerful, all-knowing God, then of course it has a plan. Then, who are we to say, "Hey there, all-powerful, all-knowing God, maybe you should abandon your plan and do what I say instead."

In other words, if the God of the monotheists exists, what's the point of praying to it? Surely it knows what it's doing without our input.

[stopbush]

13. Of course, the OT god was definitely NOT all powerful.

Don't forget about the chariots of iron. God can't defeat the chariots of iron.

[RethugAssKicker]

6. Prayer is a mild form of meditation... And as such it can seem

to work.... Meditation requires focus and inner strength,.. thus usually yielding positive fruits... Any form of meditation, whether prayer or simple affirmations is a positive thing.

[stopbush]

12. Except when it comes to medical conditions, that is.

Then, it actual HURTS the chances of recovery to pray for someone who's sick:

Power of Prayer to Heal Illness May Be Overrated

31 March, 2006 15:51 GMT

Praying for a sick cardiac patient may feel right to people of faith, but it doesn't appear to improve the patient's health, according to a new study that is the largest ever done on the healing powers of prayer.
In fact, the researchers from Harvard Medical School and five other U.S. medical centers found -- to their bewilderment -- that coronary bypass patients who knew strangers were praying for them fared significantly worse than people who got no prayers. The team speculated that telling the patients about the prayers may have caused "performance anxiety," or perhaps a fear that doctors expected the worst.

"Obviously, my colleagues were surprised by the unexpected and counterintuitive outcome," said Rev. Dean Marek, director of chaplain services at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a co-investigator for the project.

http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/2187/31/

[LisaLynne]

7. I think that "crapshoot" thing is what most people are the most ...

afraid of. Some people have to make sense of everything. Some times, things don't make sense and there is no reason. I think we, as individuals, can make good come of even the most tragic circumstances, but that doesn't mean that there was really a "reason" or a "purpose" in that tragedy happening in the first place. It just means that we made the best of a bad situation, which is all you can do. There is uncertainty in life. I think some people can not deal with that.

[SmokingJacket]

9. How about the power of modern medicine?

That's cured quite a few more. I'd love to see the CNN headline SCIENTIFIC ADVANCES CURE THOUSANDS!

Maybe I'll start my own church, the Church of Science. We can meditate on the beauty of the Periodic Table; tithe goes to fund research. I'm not being sarcastic -- science seems rather more worthy of worship than an unknowable God.

[xchrom]

11. there are millions of believers who don't pray like that.

i'm one.

it's very difficult to explain things like this to both non-believers and and conservative believers alike.

but there lots of us out there simply believe that -- well -- i don't know how to put it -- but -- god is enough.

we pray but don't pray for outcomes -- at least not in the way you have described.

[Redbear]

14. As a believer I see prayer in two ways. One for certain ...

and one theroretical.

For certain, I believe it is clear that prayer is more about the person praying than about "God."

Prayer is where we reach into the deepest part of our soul and seek communication with something beyond our physical world. When we pray to God, we acknowledge she is in control, but we voice our desires and somewhere in the cosmic mix it matters.

The theroretical is God may have already decided 99% of those kids will die or not. But the other one percent may relate to whether we seek God's help.

[cosmik debris]

16. I know this gets posted a lot

But it applies to the power of prayer I think. It is an excerpt from Mark Twain's short story "The War Prayer"

The short version is: I really hope prayer doesn't work!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

http://hackvan.com/pub/stig/spirit/the-war-prayer.htm The link will take you to the entire story if you want to read the whole thing.

[lvx35]

17. A Theist response...

You asked how theists deal with the fact that bad things happen and sometimes people die. This is addressed by pretty much every faith. The answer across the board is that bad things happen to our bodies, but that the self, or soul, is transcendant of the body. God does not care about our bodies.

Regarding prayer and meditation and health, I have found they have a positive effect. They help me deal with stress and create a calm focused mind and body state, and accelerate healing. On the contrary, being really stressed out often makes me come down with colds.