Prayer does not work

[The Valkyrie]

This is an older article, but what it states still holds true.

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.

The study also found that more patients in the uninformed prayer group — 18 percent — suffered major complications, like heart attack or stroke, compared with 13 percent in the group that did not receive prayers. In their report, the researchers suggested that this finding might also be a result of chance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health...d=all&_r=0

When I was a student, working at a hospital to make ends meet, there was a really bad accident in which a teenage boy was seriously injured.

He was brought in in critical condition and around 14 doctors and nurses worked on him for nearly 6 hours to stabilise him.

I was nearby when his parents were interviewed by the local news station and they thanks god for their son's life, and said that their prayers had been answered.

Not a mention of the highly trained and dedicated staff who had spent so long stabilising him and saving his life. I still see him occasionally, coming in for therapy.

I guess god only heals people a certain amount. . . .