Prayer does not work

[Jacob(smooth)]

Does wanking feel good to you wolf? I bet it does. I could ask a bunch of people and they'd tell me the same. I could also line up a bunch of Christians and they'd all tell you that prayer made them feel good. So does wanking "work". Can you provide evidence?

So you are comparing masturbating with prayer....Ok i'll give this one a shot!
It is conceivable that prayer does indeed make the individual feel better. It may release endorphines or whatever. If the purpose of the prayer was to make you feel better, then yes it did work. But it had nothing to do with god.
Does masturbating work? Simple answer: yes. The purpose of masturbation is primarily pleasure and most of the time, that is the outcome. I'm not sure on the exact science on how you would measure pleasure but i'm pretty sure endorphines are released in the brain and we can detect other cool stuff through brain waves.

I'll give that one a shot... Snigger...

Ahem. Sorry.
Agree with all of that.

They key bit of your post there was "if the purpose of prayer was".

Let's put it this way. Ask a rabid fundi if he could cure an amputation with prayer. Or raise the titanic. Unless completely batshit crazy he would have to admit that prayer does not work... For that.

Now let's go the other extreme and find a hardcore atheist (looks around in manner of meercat). Would you say that a prayer for comfort for a grieving widow, vulnerable and raised in the tradition, MIGHT achieve that purpose? Of making her feel a bit better?

It probably would.

So in between those extremes we have a bunch of people who agree that prayer CAN work, can have the desired effect DEPENDING ON THE PURPOSE OF THE PRAYER. As I said, it all depends on what the desired effect is.

The debate, I suggest, is on WHEN prayer works. Maybe HOW prayer works. But the statement that prayer does not work is as irrational as the statement that prayer always works.

The truth is almost always more complex than the slogan. That's why I'm always irritated by slogans.

[Bad Wolf]

Yea i agree with pretty much everything you said. I think the debate is how prayer works

[Jacob(smooth)]

Ah.

Then I'd say probably psychology more than anything else. I studied hypnotherapy to diploma level and the overlaps between that and prayer, especially in pentecostal and evangelical traditions is frankly alarming.

I can show you some very good science on hypnosis for all sorts of medical conditions and symptoms. In which sense, hypnotherapy also works. But not for curing cancer, or remote healing or applied kinesiology or any of that bullocks.

[max-greece]

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Jacob,

You are playing games with the word work. In the discussion "work" implies achieving something over and above the placebo effect.

Yes - prayer can have the same benefits as any placebo - but it can also make things worse - as in the case of the test described in the OP. People who knew they were being prayed for did worse than either of the other 2 groups.

If prayer has the same level of impact as a placebo, at best, then it does rather imply it is a pointless waste of time. Better to take a sugar pill and get on with things.

I'm not playing any games . I'm taking the dictionary definition of "work". Viz (in this context)

(of a plan or method) have the desired result or effect."the desperate ploy had worked"

In which case whether prayer "works" is entirely contingent on what the "desired Result" is.

Refrain the statement. "prayer never has the desired effect". Doesn't work does it. What if I pray for a dying man to give him comfort. It does. It worked. It had the desired Result.

I'm interpreting "work" per the dictionary. You've generated your own definition of "have an effect beyond the placebo". So which one of us is playing games ?

Tell you what. Find me a dictionary which defines" work" as you are interpreting it, which includes not only that something has an effect but also HOW something has an effect and I'll concede the point .

I'm commenting on what the thread title says. I can't comment on what you think it might infer because I don't know what that might be.

Oh And if you believe that placebos are a pointless waste of time, you've never worked in medicine!

How you got to me not believing in placebo's I don't know.

In the context of the OP we have a quest to discover whether prayer works in a medical environment. It is therefore being evaluated in as similar way as possible to any other treatment.

It is inherent in the testing (as it always is in medicine) that in order to evaluate whether a given treatment "works" it has to outperform a placebo. Anything that hasn't performed better (or as in the case of prayer actually worse) than the placebo has not worked.

So, for example, a pain tablet that produces the same results as a placebo is deemed to have failed - or not to have worked.

So again I repeat - you are playing with the definition of "work" to include the placebo effect.

[Walking Void]

Let's put it this way. Ask a rabid fundi if he could cure an amputation with prayer. Or raise the titanic. Unless completely batshit crazy he would have to admit that prayer does not work... For that.

Now let's go the other extreme and find a hardcore atheist (looks around in manner of meercat). Would you say that a prayer for comfort for a grieving widow, vulnerable and raised in the tradition, MIGHT achieve that purpose? Of making her feel a bit better?

It probably would.

Under which scenarios would prayer be applicable? When does prayer work? Not specifically, generally. I need something to play with here.

[Minimalist]

I disagree with the premise here. Prayer actually does what it is designed to do.

It is designed to make the pray-er feel really good about him or herself without actually doing a fucking thing for the problem at hand.

[Jacob(smooth)]

I disagree with the premise here. Prayer actually does what it is designed to do.

It is designed to make the pray-er feel really good about him or herself without actually doing a fucking thing for the problem at hand.

Yep!

Can be very useful when there actually isn't anything you can actually do about the problem at hand.

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Let's put it this way. Ask a rabid fundi if he could cure an amputation with prayer. Or raise the titanic. Unless completely batshit crazy he would have to admit that prayer does not work... For that.

Now let's go the other extreme and find a hardcore atheist (looks around in manner of meercat). Would you say that a prayer for comfort for a grieving widow, vulnerable and raised in the tradition, MIGHT achieve that purpose? Of making her feel a bit better?

It probably would.

Under which scenarios would prayer be applicable? When does prayer work? Not specifically, generally. I need something to play with here.

Just gave you one. Bereaved person.

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I'm not playing any games . I'm taking the dictionary definition of "work". Viz (in this context)

(of a plan or method) have the desired result or effect."the desperate ploy had worked"

In which case whether prayer "works" is entirely contingent on what the "desired Result" is.

Refrain the statement. "prayer never has the desired effect". Doesn't work does it. What if I pray for a dying man to give him comfort. It does. It worked. It had the desired Result.

I'm interpreting "work" per the dictionary. You've generated your own definition of "have an effect beyond the placebo". So which one of us is playing games ?

Tell you what. Find me a dictionary which defines" work" as you are interpreting it, which includes not only that something has an effect but also HOW something has an effect and I'll concede the point .

I'm commenting on what the thread title says. I can't comment on what you think it might infer because I don't know what that might be.

Oh And if you believe that placebos are a pointless waste of time, you've never worked in medicine!

How you got to me not believing in placebo's I don't know.

In the context of the OP we have a quest to discover whether prayer works in a medical environment. It is therefore being evaluated in as similar way as possible to any other treatment.

It is inherent in the testing (as it always is in medicine) that in order to evaluate whether a given treatment "works" it has to outperform a placebo. Anything that hasn't performed better (or as in the case of prayer actually worse) than the placebo has not worked.

So, for example, a pain tablet that produces the same results as a placebo is deemed to have failed - or not to have worked.

So again I repeat - you are playing with the definition of "work" to include the placebo effect.

And I repeat, give me the definition of "work" , from a dictionary which does NOT include the placebo effect.
And no, a tablet which performs the same as a placebo is not said to have "Not worked" in medical literature, it's said to "perform no better than placebo." because that's what it did. The peer review process comes down hard on sloppy use of Language.

[Walking Void]

Just gave you one. Bereaved person.

Well I was hoping for a category of cases instead of an individual case like You mentioned about the widow, but I will make do.

Would you say that a prayer for comfort for a grieving widow, vulnerable and raised in the tradition, MIGHT achieve that purpose? Of making her feel a bit better?

Breaking it down:

Z Prayer of intercession

Y Goal = comfort

X Target = Grieving widow

W State of X = "vulnerable", "traditional"

Structure = {Y for X
X is W
Z is the action plan for Y}

To start off, are We inferring that "traditional" implies that X is religious (christian, even)? If so, I call sample bias. Why not any old widow who is grieving? If not, We move on. Now see to the acts leading up to Y. That would be Z. Let us suggest that Z accomplishes Y. Success.

Now, these are my concerns:

1... Was Z the only possible action plan to accomplish Y?

2... Does W influence the success of Z?

[Brian37]

Actually, prayer DOES work - it's exactly as effective as hoping.

Boru

Not in the way believers think. There is no magic man handing out gifts. It works like a placebo. So does anything you might think about intensely that you like, like a spouse or your kid or pet or finding awe in nature.

But no, there is no invisible super hero going "I'll help this person out but not that one".

[Zazzy]

Would you say that a prayer for comfort for a grieving widow, vulnerable and raised in the tradition, MIGHT achieve that purpose? Of making her feel a bit better?

But prayer won't do a damned thing to actually help her. You could SAY you're going to pray for her and not do it, and it would have as much effect. Or you could say what I say, which is "you will be in my thoughts," which would probably comfort her as much. Or you could go get the old girl's groceries or mow her lawn or spend some time with her, which would actually be helpful to her in her bereavement.

If someone want to pray for someone, OK. That isn't offensive, to think and hope and wish for better times. Everyone does that. What is offensive is the idea that it can in and of itself do something useful. It sounds like Jacob doesn't really think prayer is a line to his god's ear (true, Jacob, or am I misreading?). If that's the case, then he's doing what we're ALL doing sometimes: hoping and wishing. If he wants to direct those hopes and wishes at his god, who can say that's a bad thing? Some people write it down and start it with "dear Diary." What matters about this distinction to an outside observer?