Nothing Fails Like Prayer - by Massimo Pigliucci

Chris OConnor

Nothing Fails Like Prayer - by Massimo Pigliucci

And now we have scientific evidence backing up the claim! The American Heart Journal has published the best (as in largest and methodologically most accurate) study so far of the effect of intercessory prayer, and it has shown – as any sensible person would have known before spending $2.4 million and a decade to actually do the study – prayer fails to make any difference whatsoever.

The study was conducted by a team led by Harvard Medical School cardiologist Herbert Benson, who is sympathetic to the idea that prayer has healing effects, and funded in large part by the Templeton Foundation, an organization devoted to the scientific improvement of our understanding of spirituality (whatever that latter phrase may mean).

Benson’s group studied 1,802 patients undergoing coronary bypass, divided into three groups: patients who were prayed for (by three different type of congregations) and knew it, people who were prayed for but did not know whether that was the case, and a group who was not prayed for. The results? 59% of the patients in the first group were affected by post-operative complications, as opposed to 51% of the second group; moreover, 18% of people prayed for suffered serious complications, against 13% of the non-prayed for group. Such differences were not statistically significant, and at any rate they would go against the hypothesis: if anything, being prayed for, or knowing you are being prayed for, makes things slightly worse! (As Jon Stewart pointed out, the real troublesome finding here is that more than half of the patients had complications, no matter what group they were assigned to...)

Other studies, conducted on smaller samples and for shorter time periods, have found conflicting results. However, the few cases were a statistically significant result was found detected a tiny effect of prayer (apparently, god ain’t that powerful), which disappeared once researchers took into account other variables that were a more likely explanation (for example, in a study on the effect of prayer on recovery from hip surgery, researchers forgot to correct for the age of the women involved!).

This is, of course, not only a waste of money and energy, but makes for really bad theology. A moment’s reflection immediately suggests so many theological complications as to make the whole “field” a hopeless mess: to whom exactly is the prayer being addressed? Why doesn’t s/he know that someone needs help regardless of prayer? Which religious groups are allowed intercessory prayer? If the effects are either null or tiny, are we justified in concluding that there is no god, or that she’s out to lunch?

As Kurt Vonnegut once wrote (in Hocus Pocus), “it is embarrassing to be human.” Faced by such desperate attempts to prove one’s fantasies about a big daddy in the sky one would have to agree.

MadArchitect

This is, of course, not only a waste of money and energy, but makes for really bad theology.

That's the most astute statement in the whole essay. These experiments prove nothing. The reason isn't theological, it's scientific. The application of scientific method requires a narrowing of the field of inquiry. For practical purposes, it probably is possible to narrow the meaning of prayer to something that is testable, but the chances that such a narrowed meaning would correspond to prayer as most religious believers understand and use it are practically nil. Scientists run into the same problems when attempting to find ways to quantify things like aesthetic response and emotional fidelity. The result is usually statistical in the most abstract sense. What have the researches demonstrated in this particular experiment? Apparantly, that intercessory prayer doesn't prevent complications. Were they praying specifically that no complications would arise? How do they know that more serious complications weren't avoided?

I'm not arguing for the efficacy of intercessory prayer. My point is merely that nothing about this experiment should lead anyone to believe that the scientists have actually pinpointed with any precision the sort of quantifiable meaning of prayer that would make it adequately narrow to serve as a factor in scientific research. There remain certain aspects of life -- and these are not limited to the purportedly supernatural -- that resist that sort of reduction.

Dissident Heart

She sits with the family in the waiting room of the Hospital ICU. Doctor tells them the injury is terminal, death is imminent and all they can do is attend to pain and comfort needs. The Nurse describes the next steps of daily care and basic needs after the ICU. The Social Worker explains resources for these intensly disruptive life transitions: insurance issues, legal concerns, psychological counseling, and continued medical care if needbe.

And there is a Chaplain. She asks the Family what it means that their Mother is dying, is preparing to die, will not be returing home- ever. How does Death matter in this Family? Who is leaving the family...her life, relationships, friends, loved ones, neighbors, fellow workers, her children...what will happen when she is gone? Why will she be missed? What is loss for this Family? Unleash memory and recall who she was, who she touched, her values, wishes, hopes for herself and the world. How did she Pray? Does the Family Pray? What does she think about God or Spirit or Higher Power or ? How did she love herself and the world? How do we love her and each other and our selves? Why grieve for her? What is grief?

One prayer might be:

"God of life and death, be with us now as we come to terms with Ariadne's dying. Remind us of our love for her, help us to recall her many blessings, comfort us as we grieve her loss. Stay near in these difficult times and help us to heal. Help us to rebuild our future without her. She is with you, and with all of us forever and in all places. Amen."

This prayer brings the Family together and they find comfort, peace and the promise of a new future. It elicits a healing process within the survivors, and protects the dignity of the one dying.

It affirms a love that embraces and honors death, and transcends it. Death doesn't have the last word. There is always new life.

How do we measure this?

Mr. Pessimistic

Wow I wish I had a family like this! Most of our funerals or times of people dying ended up in verbal combat and people not talking to each other any more!

And I grew up in a Catholic family...prayers abounded...and did nothing. I turned away from the insanity of prayer and belief and the little they do to actually bond people in a common pain and suffering. I do much better without prayer. It does nothing for me.

More power to those that feel the opposite though. Do not take this as a slight you two!

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

Once you perceive the irrevocable truth, you can no longer justify the irrational denial. - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

Dissident Heart · Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 1:00 pm Post subject: Prayer for Failures

Mr. P: Most of our funerals or times of people dying ended up in verbal combat and people not talking to each other any more!

Facing the death of loved ones or family members can be devastating. Literally, individuals and relationships can fall apart: steady, calm, reasonable, well intending people can be become rambling idiots, seething with venom and demanding payment. Angers and resentments from our past return: unfinished business, long held denial, confessions.

I think a Spiritual Practice can help these situations in taking seriously what is true about the past: celebrating the blessings and forgiving the traumas.

Discussions regarding the "After Life" and Death can help highlight what is important about Life here and now: what were the relationships, values, virtues, ideals, and hopes we cherish while alive? How well do we live up to them? What do we do with the mistakes and cruelties and damned foolish desruction?

People may explore notions of Hell or Heaven, Punishment and Blessing: some sort of tallying of their Life's tasks and duties. How will they be received in the next world? Will there be accountability: is there a moral and just conscience/will that demands we all be called to account for who we have been in our lives?

Edited by: Dissident Heart at: 4/26/06 2:33 pm

Frank 013 · Posted: Sun Apr 30, 2006 9:19 am Post subject: Re: Prayer for Failures

When someone close to me dies I recomend a big party, we can talk about the good times and the positive influences that the person had on our lives. A higher power doesn't need to be involved.

Beats quiet sulking.

Later

Dissident Heart · Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 3:09 pm Post subject: Re: Prayer for Failures

Frank: A higher power doesn't need to be involved.

Death, it seems, is more powerful than those gathered at the wake...especially more than the one for whom the wake is celebrated.

I think there is something higher than each individual and the total combination of all involved when it comes to death. Actually, as a Theist, there is always something higher in all contexts and settings...but it can also be deeper, integral, fundamental, etc.

Death is something to which we all submit. It is ultimately higher, in the end, and we are all subject to its domain.

Frank 013 · Posted: Sat May 06, 2006 8:29 am Post subject: Re: Prayer for Failures

Yes, everything dies, and their are powers that exceed that of man's createtivity. These two truths do not ligitimize prayer.

Besidies I was just saying that everything gained from prayer is attainable from other sources.

The biggest contributer to death on this planet is life.

Later

Chris OConnor · Posted: Sat May 06, 2006 10:06 am Post subject: Re: Prayer for Failures

Quote:
Death, it seems, is more powerful than those gathered at the wake...especially more than the one for whom the wake is celebrated.

It doesn't "seem" so to me. There is nothing powerful about death. A bunch of people sobbing and mourning the death of a loved one doesn't make death powerful. I know you mean something more flowery and poetic, but no matter how you twist the words around I don't see death as powerful. Living breathing humans wield the power.

Dissident Heart · Posted: Sat May 06, 2006 11:00 am Post subject: Re: Prayer for Failures

Chris: There is nothing powerful about death.

Except that element that ends life, takes the power and vitality of the living and turns it into decaying corpse or ash heap...I agree, death has no power.

Chris: A bunch of people sobbing and mourning the death of a loved one doesn't make death powerful.

Death brought that bunch of sobbing and mourning people together: demanded their presence and forced them to face the end of a loved one's life. In some cases, forced them to confront long lived estrangements, quarrels, animosities, even hatreds: pulled them back into relationships they had thought severed, abandoned and left behind. In other cases death tightened their bonds, bringing them even closer together, seeing sides they had never seen, falling deeper into love, caring more than they ever thought possible. Likewise, death can bring slow burning feuds to an outright brushfire: scarring and terrifying and destroying survivors.

Chris: I know you mean something more flowery and poetic, but no matter how you twist the words around I don't see death as powerful.

Flowers are usual witnesses to death and dying: hospital rooms, funeral homes, gravesides are full of examples. Some of our oldest archaeological remains of human burials contain evidence of flowers placed alongside and with the dead. Perhaps you missed this in all of your careful, critical, thoughtful analysis of death and dying?

Chris: Living breathing humans wield the power.

Until they die. Which is precisely my point. Still, I hesitate to use the word precision when discussing death and dying. There's a great deal none of us know about the matter...until we're dead.

Frank: Yes, everything dies, and their are powers that exceed that of man's createtivity. These two truths do not legitimize prayer.

For you, but not for others. Care to share the study and examination you've applied to the subject? You know, how many death beds, ICU rooms, hospice settings, actual prayer rituals you've participated in or researched? I'm interested how you've reached such a hard and fast conclusion about a subject you admit exceeds a great deal of what we can speak with certainty. I should hope you've done some substantial leg-work in the field before dismissing it out of hand.

Frank: Besidies I was just saying that everything gained from prayer is attainable from other sources.

Again, share your experience with Prayer and what is gained by it.

Frank 013 · Posted: Sat May 06, 2006 3:22 pm Post subject: Re: Prayer for Failures

DH

I am only speaking for myself, I have seen death, I have had close friends, relitives, pets die, I have seen people killed and I have even been the cause of death for some.

Grief of the loss of a loved one is there with or without prayer. the support of loved ones and friends, religous or not, is comforting.

I find it amazing that religous people can't seem to believe that without a god figure in our lives we can still be supportive and compationate.

Plenty of studies have been done on the subject of prayer. the results of the one above seem to be the general conclusion.

Meditation has the same stress reliving effects as prayer, and that is (from what I have read) the only true benifit of prayer.

Later.

Frank 013 · Posted: Sat May 06, 2006 5:33 pm Post subject: Re: Prayer for Failures

DH

I should not have to "show you". The fact that there are emotionally happy healthy athiests out here in the world is proof that Prayer is not needed.

Furthermore you have not shown how Prayer is any better than a simple hug and some supportive words from a close friend or loved one.

You keep listing a whole bunch of Prayer effects like healing, and bonding, but these are not prayer effects, these are the effects of people who care for one another. Prayer is not needed for careing.

Later

Edited by: Frank 013 at: 5/7/06 10:39 am

LanDroid · Posted: Sat May 06, 2006 6:53 pm Post subject: Prayer

Quote:
The congregations were told they could pray in their own ways, but were instructed to include the phrase, "for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications."

Analyzing complications in the 30 days after the operations, the researchers found no differences between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not.

www.iht.com/articles/2006...s/pray.php

The first paragraph addresses concerns that prayer was somehow limited for purposes of the study. The results of this study were anticipated for a long time because the leader of the study is a well known advocate of meditation and relaxation plus most of the money came from "the John Templeton Foundation, which supports research into spirituality. The government has spent more than $2.3 million on prayer research since 2000." I disagree this is a waste of money. There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence that prayer is effective - this should be examined. It appears the effect is too weak to be measured.

Dissident Heart · Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 10:49 am Post subject: Re: Prayer

Quote:
The congregations were told they could pray in their own ways, but were instructed to include the phrase, "for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications."

I think this points out a crucial flaw in the experiment, and that involves misunderstanding the larger context in which prayer takes place. Prayer is one part of a whole system of contact and care: a network of relationships that provide assitance and performs tasks. Prayer, in many cases, is the glue that holds it all together, providing focus and direction for all of the separate players within the network. Simply reducing prayer to asking God to take care of everything is misunderstanding prayer and God. As I see it, the bonding together of relationships as acts of solidarity and service through prayer is a key element of how God gets involved.

Likewise, many prayers are not about asking God to change things, but helping persons live with what can't be changed: to learn acceptance in the face of inescapable hardship. Folks in 12 Step programs have captured this essence in their Serenity Prayer:

Quote:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Thus, it's not simply resignation, but an active engagement with life on life's terms: seeking the best thinking possible, free of delusion and denial, and the will to do the right thing.

And, there is a faith that the force that continues to bring life out of death is a power that cares, listens, is willing to form relationships and bond with those who seek it out: Prayer is one way to engage that kind of seeking.

Edited by: Dissident Heart at: 5/8/06 12:28 pm


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