Does Prayer Really Work? Does God Even Care?

[FatAndFaithless]

My Comments were not denying a change, my comments were denying that a god conversation was going on. Once you cede that, you are simply stating that a psychotic delusional conversation is the best way that you know how to improve yourself.. how sad..

Yes, I understood that. But I didn't cede anything, other than the mechanism of prayer could be debated, but that the fact that prayer can have beneficial effects is pretty much indisputable, especially with someone who has experienced those benefits. As for 'sad', no drug-free benefits are ever sad, be they from prayer, meditation, mindfulness, etc. What is more sad, in my opinion, is closing oneself off to beneficial practices.

I can totally agree on the meditation/mindfulness/prayer being beneficial to the practictioner. I'm just not wired to be able to really 'clear my mind' or engage in meditation in any real way (just not my scene), and I don't pray for obvious reasons, but having positive thoughts and helpful ideas can certainly help out the folks that experience them. It's the mechanism of the experience that needs to be examined, and since you didn't claim "god did it" or anything, I'm in agreement with you.