Does Prayer Work? Is There a God?

[pat]

[quote]forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
There were no controls in that idiotic experiment. All you had were some patients were prayed for by external groups. That did not take into account the prayers of the patients themselves, their families and friends, other churches and prayer groups.

Do you know what “statistical noise” is? Look it up.

Fraction of variance unexplained

The other variables you mention applied to all four experimental groups, and were statistically taken into account through being aggregated as random noise. Any effects observed over the random noise must have been due to the two variables in question, but NO EFFECTS WERE OBSERVED.[/quote]

b]Are you bolding to make your bad arguments seem more convincing?[/b]

Based on what you said, everybody in the whole study could have been prayed for by somebody including the patients themselves. so it is not studying the effects of prayer, it was studying the effects of intercessory prayer, for the sake of experiment, by three church groups, however it is possible and highly likely that most of the patients were being also prayed for by others, who actually give a shit about them and their out come. So in light of all the prayers said, additional prayers by a church group who don’t know the folks involved, showed no statistical evidence…Wow, how strong…That surely nails it

[forlife]

[quote]pat wrote:
Are you bolding to make your bad arguments seem more convincing?[/quote]

I’m bolding to reinforce what anyone would already know who has taken a basic course in statistics or experimental design.

[quote]Based on what you said, everybody in the whole study could have been prayed for by somebody including the patients themselves. so it is not studying the effects of prayer, it was studying the effects of intercessory prayer, for the sake of experiment, by three church groups, however it is possible and highly likely that most of the patients were being also prayed for by others, who actually give a shit about them and their out come. So in light of all the prayers said, additional prayers by a church group who don’t know the folks involved, showed no statistical evidence…Wow, how strong…That surely nails it
[/quote]

If everyone was being prayed over, and the prayers of the good Christian people in the study made no difference because god was already answering these other prayers, then by definition you are arguing for the efficacy of prayers.

Yet you just said that god won’t favor some people over others due to prayers.

Which is it? Does prayer make an iota of difference, or not?

[pat]

[quote]forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
Are you bolding to make your bad arguments seem more convincing?

I’m bolding to reinforce what anyone would already know who has taken a basic course in statistics or experimental design.

Based on what you said, everybody in the whole study could have been prayed for by somebody including the patients themselves. so it is not studying the effects of prayer, it was studying the effects of intercessory prayer, for the sake of experiment, by three church groups, however it is possible and highly likely that most of the patients were being also prayed for by others, who actually give a shit about them and their out come. So in light of all the prayers said, additional prayers by a church group who don’t know the folks involved, showed no statistical evidence…Wow, how strong…That surely nails it

If everyone was being prayed over, and the prayers of the good Christian people in the study made no difference because god was already answering these other prayers, then by definition you are arguing for the efficacy of prayers.

Yet you just said that god won’t favor some people over others due to prayers.

Which is it? Does prayer make an iota of difference, or not?[/quote]

If everyone is being prayed for, how could you tell that the prayers of some would have different effects of prayers by others?
That’s like saying there is no statistical difference between the wetness of people who jumped into a pool vs. those who were pushed.

[forlife]

You’re missing the point of the question, or are deliberately dodging it. Either way, can you please answer the question you posed earlier:

Will God favor some people over others because those people were prayed for by certain groups?

If the answer is YES, then you are stating prayer has an effect.

If the answer is NO, then you are stating prayer has no effect.

[pat]

[quote]forlife wrote:
You’re missing the point of the question, or are deliberately dodging it. Either way, can you please answer the question you posed earlier:

Will God favor some people over others because those people were prayed for by certain groups?

If the answer is YES, then you are stating prayer has an effect.

If the answer is NO, then you are stating prayer has no effect.
[/quote]

Asked in answered, several times, would you prefer I sing it to you?

First your Yes and no definitions are completely incorrect, again. If breaks down like this. The question asked is very pointed, and hence would not warrant a general answer of Yes, then prayer has an effect or no it does not.

The question asks “…God favor some people over others because those people were prayed for by certain groups?” So a “yes” in this case would mean that God favors some people over others, because they were prayed for by certain groups. A “No” would simply mean that God does not favor some people over others, because of prayers “by certain groups”. It cannot be generalized byond that. This short little argument ends up with two major fallacies in play. As it is in question form suffers from a fallacy of false alternatives Niether one of your potential answers follows from the question. Just because would favor certain people over others because they were prayed for by certain groups doesn’t mean that “prayer is effective”. It would simply mean, that the prayer of the “certain groups” had an effect of inspiring God to favor some people over others. That would only mean, their prayers effective, not that prayer in general is. Maybe God will never answer another prayer. Maybe he has an affinity for those “certain” groups and the people they prayed for. You cannot determine based on the question, that prayer works, only that the prayers of the “certain groups” were effective in convincing God to favor some over others.

Likewise, to answer “no” to the question does not mean that prayer does not work, it simply means that God does not favor some people over others simply because “certain groups” prayed that they be favored.
To formulate an argument out of the answered question it would look like this:
{P} “Certain Groups” pray that some people be favored over others
{P} God does not favor some people over others
{C} Prayer has no effect.

The is “non sequitur”. You cannot come to that conclusion based on the premises presented. All you can conclude is that God did not favor some people over others because “certain groups” prayed that he did.

So the correct answer is this, again, and since you dig bold I’ll make it so:

God will not favor some people over others simply because you, “certain groups” or anybody else prays that he would. If he favors some over others, it is because he wills to do so, not because somebody wants him to.
This has no meaning what so ever on the effectiveness of prayer, rather, that He is not going to succumb to our will just because we want him to.
Prayer is about relationship with God not trying to make him do stuff we want him to do.

I really, really hope this was clear this time.

[pat]

[quote]forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
No, he will not favor because you want him to. If he favors he will do so on his own accord, not because somebody asked him to do this.

How is that any different from saying he will favor who he wants to favor, regardless of whether you pray for it or not?
[/quote]

You shouldn’t be praying for God to favor for people discriminately in the first place.

[quidnunc]

[quote]pat wrote:
forlife wrote:

God will not favor some people over others simply because you, “certain groups” or anybody else prays that he would. If he favors some over others, it is because he wills to do so, not because somebody wants him to.
This has no meaning what so ever on the effectiveness of prayer, rather, that He is not going to succumb to our will just because we want him to.
Prayer is about relationship with God not trying to make him do stuff we want him to do.

I really, really hope this was clear this time.
[/quote]

That would be vaguely persuasive if the form of almost all prayers wasn’t basically “Yo God, you rock, give us some cool shit, peace.”

[mbm693]

[quote]pat wrote:
mbm693 wrote:
pat wrote:
mbm693 wrote:
pat wrote:
mbm693 wrote:
pat wrote:
It’s like trying to measure how much your love affects your wife or girl friend. If you take an event and try to ascertain how much your love would alter the outcome of that event that involves wife/gf could you measure that? Of course you cannot.

This study is specifically about the health of patients who were prayed for. Much research has been done on the relative health of married women (presumably in love) vs their single peers. Seems to me you can you measure how much love alters the outcome.

How do you they were loved? What is the measuring stick for that?

There are many ways. Ask their husbands, ask their friends about their husbands, give their husbands brain scans while you show them pictures of their wives, or measure their seretonin and dopamin responses while their wife talks about the weather, ect ect. Check these methods against each other and use a huge sample size and this should be a pretty easy study to design.

Oh brother, really? Give 'em brain scans? That might work on newly weds, but love is a lot more than a good feeling. Still, can increase dopamine levels equal love? So, if you walked up to me and shook my hand and your dopamine levels happened to jump, does that mean you love me? I guess coke heads are just a bunch of lovers then because there neurotransmitter levels jump like hell when they toot.

That’s a real perty straw man you’ve got there.

That’s not a strawman. I am attacking the premise that measurable neurotransmitter behavior can be link to emotion or feeling reliably. That is a huge problem for your presented scenario.[/quote]

It is a straw man in that you completely ignored most of the content of my post, as well as the context I mention dopamine. If you’re willing to actually address what I posted, I’ll continue debating, but you’re currently way off course.

[mbm693]

[quote]pat wrote:
mbm693 wrote:

First, if you cannot quantify the results of prayer, then prayer has no measurable results. If prayer has no measurable results, it doesn’t do anything.

Prayer is about relationship, not about generating measurable, statistically significant results. It does things, some may be measured some not, but praying and then taking out a ruler to see if it worked is missing the whole point entirely.

[/quote]

To you, prayer may not be about measurable results. But the fact of the matter is, that if prayer doesn’t produce any results, it doesn’t do anything. Women often consider sex to be just about the relationship, but that doesn’t change the fact that the relationship will change in a measurable way if she stops putting out.

[mbm693]

[quote]pat wrote:
mbm693 wrote:
Second, this study does not have to assume the existence of god. The study could just as easily have been about praying to Pookie’s Vacuum Cleaner or my yacht (which doesn’t exist) and the results would have been just as valid. They probably would have been the same too. I think you’re upset because the findings of this study suggest there either is no god, or that he doesn’t answer prayers. If he doesn’t answer prayers, he’s not the god Jesus told us about.

I addressed your third point in my previous post. God, if he existed, would always be aware of the entire situation with respect to any prayer. And anyone that has ever done any praying, has always checked the results. If god is going to do what he’s going to do, whether we ask him or not, and prayer doesn’t produce any quantifiable results, then praying is a waste of time.

Lastly, being a dad, who is human and has definite limitations is nothing like being god. This analogy is a red herring. That said, the effects of that request CAN be measured. It would be very easy to design this experiment. I’ll bet even money there would be a measurable effect.

I suggest you go over your logical fallacies, that was not a red herring. A red herring is an attempt to divert the argument. In no way did I do that, I merely presented an analogy to illustrate the point not deviate from it. Not being able to counter it, does not make it a logical fallacy. God is referred to as a father figure in the Judeo-Christian tradition. His interactions with humanity have been mostly paternal in nature. The point of the analogy is to show you why the “study” is bad science at best. Just like a dad would not favor a child over another, because he was asked to by others, God will not play favorites based on what people asked Him to do. ← Not a Red Herring.[/quote]

I did respond to your analogy, you just chose to ignore it.

The facts that god refers to himself paternally and the fact that he is considered paternal in the Judeo-Christian tradition are completely irrelevant to the point I made. Further, the fact that I had to write the previous sentence, is pretty good proof that your analogy is a red herring.

Lastly, as I said in my last post, the situation described in you analogy would likely produce measurable results.

[mbm693]

[quote]pat wrote:
forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
It is completely irrelevant because a) it’s not true.

Can you provide more content rather than just insisting over and over again that “it’s not true”? What is your logic in stating that all gods are the same? If someone prays to the god Ganesha, and has faith that Ganesha is a literal being with a curved trunk and big ears, how can you say that is identical to believing in the Christian god?

Hey mbm, ^ this is what a Red Herring looks like…A clear attempt to divert the topic…I’ll answer it to stop the circular silliness.
First, the Judeo-Christian-islamic traditions have a tracable, verifiable history dating back to Abraham. Look where you want, this is historical and all three traditions worship the same God as in the book of Genesis.
Now, as being the Creator, anybody who refers to this “person” as their God are worshiping the same thing as me and as anybody else. Since most religions have this sense at the core of their beliefs, they are all worshiping the same one God, the creator, not the many little mental God’s as you claim. As a matter of fact you have a completely indefensible position, in that, you claim people make up gods to worship, but you have nothing to back this notion up. It is simply how you feel.

[/quote]

I’ve been following your debate with forlife. The only reason he’s discussing this point is because you introduced a red herring several pages back regarding assumptions this study would have to have made regarding the existence of god. And for the record, he’s got you beat on this point. Ganesha is NOT Jesus, or the Holy Trinity, or Allah, or Yahweh, or Hera. I mean, one of those deity’s isn’t paternal by any interpretation. Claiming they are the same is an outright denial of very readily observable facts.

[mbm693]

[quote]pat wrote:
forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
Nope, I am saying God isn’t going to favor some folks over others because some people want him to.

Which means that praying to god is completely useless, since god would do the exact same thing regardless of whether or not you prayed.

Contrary to your own bible, by the way, but at least you admit that praying doesn’t make a difference.

Mbm ^ This is what a strawman looks like.

Strawman - A fallacy that occurs when someone attacks a less defensible position than the one actually being put forth. This occurs very often in politics, when one seeks to derive maximum approval for himself/herself or for a cause. Example: “Opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement amounts to nothing but opposition to free trade.” (Someone can believe in free and open trade and yet still oppose NAFTA.)

In this example, forlife is responding to my saying that God won’t favor certain people simply because some folks want him to, by saying praying is therefore completely useless because God would do the exact samething regardless. ← You cannot draw that conclusion based on what I said.
He is not addressing the fact that I said “…God isn’t going to favor some folks over others because some people want him to.”

The question put forth really is this; will God favor some people over others because those people were prayed for by certain groups?

This flew right past him…[/quote]

The question about favoritism is a question YOU put forth instead of admitting that prayer does not produce measurable results, and it is still a straw man argurment. The basic premise of this entire thread is whether or not prayer produces any real results. Forlife has been arguing the entire time that it doesn’t and you’ve been on the other side of the fence. Your statement, that god won’t favor certain people just because he was asked, actually bolster’s forlife’s position.

[pat]

[quote]mbm693 wrote:
pat wrote:
mbm693 wrote:
pat wrote:
mbm693 wrote:
pat wrote:
mbm693 wrote:
pat wrote:
It’s like trying to measure how much your love affects your wife or girl friend. If you take an event and try to ascertain how much your love would alter the outcome of that event that involves wife/gf could you measure that? Of course you cannot.

This study is specifically about the health of patients who were prayed for. Much research has been done on the relative health of married women (presumably in love) vs their single peers. Seems to me you can you measure how much love alters the outcome.

How do you they were loved? What is the measuring stick for that?

There are many ways. Ask their husbands, ask their friends about their husbands, give their husbands brain scans while you show them pictures of their wives, or measure their seretonin and dopamin responses while their wife talks about the weather, ect ect. Check these methods against each other and use a huge sample size and this should be a pretty easy study to design.

Oh brother, really? Give 'em brain scans? That might work on newly weds, but love is a lot more than a good feeling. Still, can increase dopamine levels equal love? So, if you walked up to me and shook my hand and your dopamine levels happened to jump, does that mean you love me? I guess coke heads are just a bunch of lovers then because there neurotransmitter levels jump like hell when they toot.

That’s a real perty straw man you’ve got there.

That’s not a strawman. I am attacking the premise that measurable neurotransmitter behavior can be link to emotion or feeling reliably. That is a huge problem for your presented scenario.

It is a straw man in that you completely ignored most of the content of my post, as well as the context I mention dopamine. If you’re willing to actually address what I posted, I’ll continue debating, but you’re currently way off course. [/quote]

That’s not what strawman is, btw. The bottom line is this, you first have to define what love is before you could measure, do you not? How can you measure something that, of the many facets it has, many are not physically tangible…You aren’t seriously going to argue that “love” is merely a series of electo-chemical reations are you? You can’t generate love in a petrie dish.

[pat]

[quote]mbm693 wrote:
pat wrote:
mbm693 wrote:

First, if you cannot quantify the results of prayer, then prayer has no measurable results. If prayer has no measurable results, it doesn’t do anything.

Prayer is about relationship, not about generating measurable, statistically significant results. It does things, some may be measured some not, but praying and then taking out a ruler to see if it worked is missing the whole point entirely.

To you, prayer may not be about measurable results. But the fact of the matter is, that if prayer doesn’t produce any results, it doesn’t do anything. Women often consider sex to be just about the relationship, but that doesn’t change the fact that the relationship will change in a measurable way if she stops putting out. [/quote]

It not about measurable results, though measurable results can and do happen. That’s the point. God’s is not a vending machine where you put in a prayer and a get a product or service, that’s not how it works.

[forlife]

[quote]pat wrote:
Just because would favor certain people over others because they were prayed for by certain groups doesn’t mean that “prayer is effective”. It would simply mean, that the prayer of the “certain groups” had an effect of inspiring God to favor some people over others. That would only mean, their prayers effective, not that prayer in general is.[/quote]

Maybe we’re actually making progress. We’ll see based on your response to my next question.

Do you believe that god has ever, even once, favored certain people over others based on prayer, and that god would not have done so if the prayer hadn’t been offered?

[pat]

[quote]mbm693 wrote:
pat wrote:
forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
It is completely irrelevant because a) it’s not true.

Can you provide more content rather than just insisting over and over again that “it’s not true”? What is your logic in stating that all gods are the same? If someone prays to the god Ganesha, and has faith that Ganesha is a literal being with a curved trunk and big ears, how can you say that is identical to believing in the Christian god?

Hey mbm, ^ this is what a Red Herring looks like…A clear attempt to divert the topic…I’ll answer it to stop the circular silliness.
First, the Judeo-Christian-islamic traditions have a tracable, verifiable history dating back to Abraham. Look where you want, this is historical and all three traditions worship the same God as in the book of Genesis.
Now, as being the Creator, anybody who refers to this “person” as their God are worshiping the same thing as me and as anybody else. Since most religions have this sense at the core of their beliefs, they are all worshiping the same one God, the creator, not the many little mental God’s as you claim. As a matter of fact you have a completely indefensible position, in that, you claim people make up gods to worship, but you have nothing to back this notion up. It is simply how you feel.

I’ve been following your debate with forlife. The only reason he’s discussing this point is because you introduced a red herring several pages back regarding assumptions this study would have to have made regarding the existence of god. And for the record, he’s got you beat on this point. Ganesha is NOT Jesus, or the Holy Trinity, or Allah, or Yahweh, or Hera. I mean, one of those deity’s isn’t paternal by any interpretation. Claiming they are the same is an outright denial of very readily observable facts.
[/quote]

You still don’t know what a red herring is. In no way did I try to divert the debate. This whole notion he dropped in the debate about the gods in our heads was a clear attempt to divert the topic from prayer, to God is made up…That is a diversion.
Now I have already answered this as clear as day. If you are worshiping the creator of all, the supreme being you are worshiping God, if the being you are worshiping does not match that definition, then you are not worshiping God.
Ganesha is one of hindu’s lesser “gods” and hence does not fit the definition, nor do hindus claim he does. Vishnu is God in Hiduism…It is our limitations in the english language that results us in calling hindu’s other deities as gods. They don’t see it that way, they see them selves as monotheistic…I talked to a hindu about it at great length about a decade ago. The details are fuzzy, but the basics are there.
Now what does this have to do with whether prayer works or not? That’s right it doesn’t, which is what made this a perfect example of what a red herring is. It was a diversion to another topic. If you want to discuss the existence of God or His nature those are different conversations.

[forlife]

[quote]pat wrote:
You shouldn’t be praying for God to favor for people discriminately in the first place. [/quote]

Are you saying that you have never asked god for anything, while not asking for the same thing for everyone else?

Is it wrong for a French soldier to pray for his life in a battle with a Nazi soldier? That would be favoring people discriminately, after all.

[forlife]

[quote]pat wrote:
It not about measurable results, though measurable results can and do happen. That’s the point. God’s is not a vending machine where you put in a prayer and a get a product or service, that’s not how it works.[/quote]

That’s what you’re not getting. It’s unnecessary for the effect to occur every single time in order to conclude that the effect exists. It only needs to occur more often than would be expected by chance alone. If there is an effect, even if it occurs very rarely, it is still measurable and observable.

[forlife]

[quote]pat wrote:
Ganesha is one of hindu’s lesser “gods” and hence does not fit the definition, nor do hindus claim he does. [/quote]

Hindus believe that Ganesha is a literal being who is a god. I’m glad you are now admitting that this being doesn’t exist. He was made up by the Hindu religion. Obviously, people can and do make up gods and pray to these gods and fervently have faith in these gods, even when they don’t actually exist.

Now maybe you can see why I view your god in the same light. The effects of your prayers are no different than the effects of a Hindu’s prayers to Ganesha.

[pat]

[quote]forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
Just because would favor certain people over others because they were prayed for by certain groups doesn’t mean that “prayer is effective”. It would simply mean, that the prayer of the “certain groups” had an effect of inspiring God to favor some people over others. That would only mean, their prayers effective, not that prayer in general is.

Maybe we’re actually making progress. We’ll see based on your response to my next question.

Do you believe that god has ever, even once, favored certain people over others based on prayer, and that god would not have done so if the prayer hadn’t been offered?[/quote]

No, I don’t believe he is going favor one person over another for any reason. I am not sure what that has to do with answering prayers though. I do believe if you ask for blessings, understanding, stuff, etc. You will get an answer to such things, but asking to be favored over another, that’s kind of a dick headed thing to ask for? That’s like one of your kids come up to you and asking you to like them more…