"I don't think its healthy to have an imaginary friend. If you have an imaginary friend, there is something wrong with you" - Jonathan Morris

Hmm. Ironic. Lol. Christianity is the belief in an imaginary friend.

He said something about a study found prayer to be helpful. In Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion," he talks about "The Great Prayer Experiment." There were three groups of patients having surgery. One group had people pray for them and didn't know it. A second had no one pray for them and didn't know it. The third had people pray for them and knew it.

The two groups who did not know about being prayed for had equal results. Their complication rate and whatnot was the same. The group who did know they were being prayed for had worse results. They had more complications and whatnot.

Hilarious.

I wouldn't be surprised if Prayer has the same effects as shit like meditation, stress relief has marginal effects regardless.

Depends on the school of meditation and the individual's notion of prayer. I don't pray, but I suspect most people's prayers are aimed at reinforcing one's willingness to accept the make belief. I have explored meditation. The meditation I am familiar with aims at detaching one's thought process from the influences and distractions of the streams of consciousness that often floods one's mind. When the mumbo jumbo is stripped away, I suspect there is nothing behind most people's prayer, but some form of meditation does enhance mental discipline.

Sorry, but I only got to a minute into the video before I realized that I liked not having my eyeballs melt out of my face.
What I can say about that first minute though is that this is an excellent example of why Jon Stewart frequently turns to clips of FOX and Friends to get everyone in the audience to point and laugh.

This is, of course, to say nothing of the actual 'content.'

(December 20, 2010 at 4:10 am)theVOID Wrote: I wouldn't be surprised if Prayer has the same effects as shit like meditation, stress relief has marginal effects regardless.

In meditation one is supposed to remove all thoughts, in prayer you are supposed to babble on about every little thing as if god really cares about say your desire to win the lotto. On the other hand I suppose prayer is like visiting a counselor that would mean some marginal effects on the mental wellbeing.

Does this Priest strike anyone else as a real perv?

I don't know why, I just look at him and see "Father" Ernie!

(December 20, 2010 at 7:59 am)ziggystardust Wrote:

(December 20, 2010 at 4:10 am)theVOID Wrote: I wouldn't be surprised if Prayer has the same effects as shit like meditation, stress relief has marginal effects regardless.

In meditation one is supposed to remove all thoughts, in prayer you are supposed to babble on about every little thing as if god really cares about say your desire to win the lotto. On the other hand I suppose prayer is like visiting a counselor that would mean some marginal effects on the mental wellbeing.

Clearing your mind of negative thoughts is a stress relief technique, sharing frustrations that have built up to someone you trust (be their existence actual or not) is a stress relief technique. I doubt there is another as yet undocumented mechanism in the brain that delivers a different but similar effect for one than the other, they are both likely hijacking off the brains same neural pathways.

I honestly doubt that the religious would pray if there was no effect what-so-ever, it only requires a placebo to convince people to maintain the practice of otherwise useless behaviour (homoeopathy for instance). Like most religious phenomenon I attribute them to a misattribution of natural phenomenon far more often that an actual delusion.

There is undoubtedly effect. I will offer what I consider a reasonable guess on what the effect might be: i suspect the brain normally use a subconscious curbing mechanisms to incorporate the benefit of processed experience into the act of assessing the possibilities and options available in a situation. I would also guess the brain is wired to give the user a feeling of frustration every time one such curb close off a possibility. I think the brain has override mechanism to enable some newly acquired information that has not yet been subconsciously processed to break the existing curb before the information could be processed and incorporated into the curbing mechanism. This override mechanism may have evolved to allow the brain to rapidly take advantage of unanticipated opportunities. I will propose the brain is wired to give the user a feeling of satisfaction or elation when the override mechanism is invoked. I suspect prayer trips the override mechanism, enables the user to avoid the feeling of frustration imposed by collision with reality, and gives the user the feeling of elation associated with encounter (in this case false) with unanticipated opportunity.

I'm not saying they do, I am saying that prayer and meditation work through the same mechanism regardless of the intention the person has for the prayer or meditation, they are both simply cases of stress relief - Clearing your head and sharing your burdens both work for the same reason - Stress relief.