Prayer Studies

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I'm not a big believer in the power of prayer for reasons that have nothing to do with the results of prayer studies. That being said, I often hear atheists claim that scientific studies of prayer show that it doesn't work. I cringe that people actually put faith in studies which are obviously fatally flawed. How do you test God? How do you control that variable?

Suppose I am a researcher looking for evidence for the "power of prayer". I ask my participants to pray for a certain group of heart patients. Does God actually consider those prayers to be prayers or merely elements in a "scientific" study? Maybe God has decided he will not be tested and ignores those prayers or maybe he decides to apply the "graces" from those "prayers" to people not under the scrutiny of the researcher.

There is a reason researchers will often keep the true purpose of a study away from the test subjects....they don't want the study to influence the actions of their subjects. With God that is impossible to do. A researcher studying the power of prayer has to hope that his subject, God, will cooperate in the study...he can't trick God into cooperating.

Second, Prayer studies will contain a control group of people for whom prayers are not offered. But the researchers cannot guarantee that prayers are not offered for this group. A patient who is part of the not prayed for control group.....may mention he has a heart problem to a friend not part of or privy to the study....the friend then says a prayer for the patient. It is simply impossible to have an untainted control group. Somebody, outside the study is always going to know the patients condition.....and might pray for them.

Can any atheists point to a prayer study that isn't flawed?

Seems like the result that would always come about is this. A have your cake and eat it scenario.

1. Study concludes that prayer is nothing more than placebo, with the effect that it is no more or less effective than doung nothing at all - decried as unfair due to impossiblity of quantifying personal thoughts/actions if either group(s).
2. Study concludes there is something to prayer and that, overall, the prayer group 'gained' relative to the control group (whatever that gain was is assumed here) - study is hailed as evidence of the efficacy of prayer.

Would you conclude that any study that shows prayer to be effective would also be defunct by virtue that you conclude point 1 is also true?