Does Prayer Really Work? Does God Even Care?

[Michael]

Brakeman. I think it's entirely appropriate to use praying people to help understand what is going when they pray. That study allows us to say that it is likely that there is more to prayer, for those that do pray, than simply thinking about someone. I'm not saying that the something must be 'God', but the study distinguishes prayer from just thought about a person (I would have thought the criticism would me more along the lines of 'duh, ain't that obvious', as prayer has an intentional benevolence to it).

And you may not like Arthur Brooks, but, like it or not, he has published widely on economics and philanthropy in academic peer-reviewed journals. I rather trust his information (which passed peer review) more than an opinion piece blog about the Wall Street Journal you offered as a counter-argument. Brooks published that work, while working as an academic, in a peer-review journal from a respected academic publisher, so I hope you'll excuse me for not taking a rebuttal from an internet blog, which offered no data to support its opprobrium, particularly seriously (and if political views matter, let me just admit to being a socialist and long term voter for the Labour Party in England, though I have now switched to 'Green').

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Anyway, I've had my say, and I try not to repeat myself too much, so I'll just sum up by saying that I don't think atheists need to think they can't acknowledge where there are benefits to prayer. I'm not a Buddhist, but I can still acknowledge the benefit of Buddhist-derived mindfulness without thinking that must mean I agree with everything in Buddhism. Likewise, I can tip my hat to how Richard Dawkins raises money for charity without thinking that I must agree with RD's philosophy. To dismiss prayer out of hand, I would say, is to not deal with real and well-established benefits of prayer. But the mechanism of those benefits is far less certain, and is open to considerable debate. But I've had my say now, so I shall climb down from my soap box and go and consider whether the blackberries I just cooked are OK to eat on my vegan diet as I know there were some bugs in with them. Ah, everyday real life ethical dilemmas for a vegan ;-)

[Tonus]

Brakeman. I think it's entirely appropriate to use praying people to help understand what is going when they pray. That study allows us to say that it is likely that there is more to prayer, for those that do pray, than simply thinking about someone.

That sounds a lot like the power of positive thinking. Psychologists are beginning to understand that how we perceive reality has a considerable effect on how we act and react. The person who has a great deal of self-confidence probably has much higher self-esteem than is warranted, but he carries himself in that manner anyway. And people react to his self-confidence by seeing him through the lens he presents himself with, which often provides him with opportunities from people who might otherwise have not given him the time of day.

Prayer is a form of affirmation, a phrase or phrases that create or strengthen a particular mindset. If you believe that god in on your side in your job search, you may be more confident and more proactive in your search and reach for opportunities that you might otherwise have skipped. There is the other side to this, in that a person may consider that prayer is sufficient, and uses it in lieu of action, which can be very harmful in the long run. Especially if it is paired with the sort of "every outcome is proof" rationalization that many believers subscribe to.

[Eel_LahjicK]

Prayer is a form of affirmation, a phrase or phrases that create or strengthen a particular mindset. If you believe that god in on your side in your job search, you may be more confident and more proactive in your search and reach for opportunities that you might otherwise have skipped. There is the other side to this, in that a person may consider that prayer is sufficient, and uses it in lieu of action, which can be very harmful in the long run. Especially if it is paired with the sort of "every outcome is proof" rationalization that many believers subscribe to.

Very well put. I agree with both sides of your argument. Unfortunately, I know the latter a bit better. I know some people who's marriages are failing right now, because of people relying too much on prayer and not enough common sense. Wake up world! Let's stop with the wishful thinking, and get up and do something with positive, proven results!

[robvalue]

I would call the benefit of prayer a placebo effect. But only if you know about the praying. If it's being done on your behalf against your knowledge, even this effect is lost.

And I certainly think prayer in place of positive action can be harmful.

[Zack]

That sounds a lot like the power of positive thinking. Psychologists are beginning to understand that how we perceive reality has a considerable effect on how we act and react. The person who has a great deal of self-confidence probably has much higher self-esteem than is warranted, but he carries himself in that manner anyway. And people react to his self-confidence by seeing him through the lens he presents himself with, which often provides him with opportunities from people who might otherwise have not given him the time of day.

Prayer is a form of affirmation, a phrase or phrases that create or strengthen a particular mindset. If you believe that god in on your side in your job search, you may be more confident and more proactive in your search and reach for opportunities that you might otherwise have skipped. There is the other side to this, in that a person may consider that prayer is sufficient, and uses it in lieu of action, which can be very harmful in the long run. Especially if it is paired with the sort of "every outcome is proof" rationalization that many believers subscribe to.

The Tony Robbins effect.

[Mudhammam]

I'm going to attempt to answer the OP'S two questions posed in the title, as concisely as I can, granted that the topic often invokes a great deal of debate in certain circles. In short, no. And nope.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Brakeman. I think it's entirely appropriate to use praying people to help understand what is going when they pray.

Without a control group, you can't logically assign any causal link to prayer. An experiment that doesn't isolate the phenomenon it purports to examine is poorly designed and of little value.

[Michael]

Thump, with respect I have to correct that. The control you pick depends on the question you are asking. For example, I'm a biomedical researcher, so I have frequently been involved in trials on the efficacy of medicines. If we're looking at whether a new asthma drug works or not, we take a group of asthmatics (and only asthmatics for efficacy trials; there is little sense in including healthy people in a test of efficacy against a particular condition) and we compare our new treatment with either another treatment (European authorities prefer comparisons against commonly used standard treatments) or with placebo (US authorities prefer placebo-controlled trials).

So a control is always specific to the question asked. In the study reported the control is a group who think about a person. The experiment then reports on the difference between test (prayer) and control (thinking about a person). We don't want to introduce different groups of people as that will confuse the results (just as we don't want to test an asthma drug in asthmatics vs a placebo in healthy people). We must then, of course, be very careful only to draw conclusion as far as the test allows. This study simply demonstrated a difference between general thought about a person and prayer. So long as we limit the conclusions to the remit if the experiment I think it's a useful experiment. Most experiments have tightly focussed aims like this. They may not seem to add much, but knowledge is often built from lots of little studies.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Yes, prayer works. It is exactly as helpful as 'hoping'. I've long been hoping that Taylor Momsen would show up at my house carrying a wrestling mat and a bucket of custard. The results have been disappointing (to say the least) and I don't imagine that formal prayer would have improved them any.

Boru

[Thumpalumpacus]

Thump, with respect I have to correct that. The control you pick depends on the question you are asking. For example, I'm a biomedical researcher, so I have frequently been involved in trials on the efficacy of medicines. If we're looking at whether a new asthma drug works or not, we take a group of asthmatics (and only asthmatics for efficacy trials; there is little sense in including healthy people in a test of efficacy against a particular condition) and we compare our new treatment with either another treatment (European authorities prefer comparisons against commonly used standard treatments) or with placebo (US authorities prefer placebo-controlled trials).

So a control is always specific to the question asked. In the study reported the control is a group who think about a person. The experiment then reports on the difference between test (prayer) and control (thinking about a person). We don't want to introduce different groups of people as that will confuse the results (just as we don't want to test an asthma drug in asthmatics vs a placebo in healthy people). We must then, of course, be very careful only to draw conclusion as far as the test allows. This study simply demonstrated a difference between general thought about a person and prayer. So long as we limit the conclusions to the remit if the experiment I think it's a useful experiment. Most experiments have tightly focussed aims like this. They may not seem to add much, but knowledge is often built from lots of little studies.

If you're testing for the efficacy of prayer, the control group should be a group that doesn't pray. That is the only way to isolate that variable.