(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.
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