Zane wrote:Fascinating.
Does anyone fully understand the "power" of prayer? Or the exponential strength of the individual thoughts of many when gathered together either as a physical group or separately in spirit? I'm glad you say "Who knows?" because it's foolish to summarily reject the under-known and the mysterious.
I would never "summarily reject the under-known and the mysterious", Zane.
That would be pretending to know...and my signature line tells how I feel about that.
But as regards "the power of prayer"...I will say this:
Most of the stuff I've seen offered as evidence that prayer works is about as self-serving as anything I've ever seen.
People "pray" and are cured...and the cure is ascribed to a god.
But the "cure" may have been on the way all the time. We don't often get data on the people who pray and get worse rather than better. And even if the "cure" is the result of the prayer...that does not necessitate a god responding to prayer. Obviously, it is possible that the prayer works because the mind can do stuff like that.
In any case, to the people who have on occasion said to me: Prayer can move mountains...I say:
I'll let you pray for a mountain to move...and you can enlist the aid of every minister, Imam, rabbi, priest, bishop, cardinal, and the pope also. You can enlist the aid of every practicing religious individual in the world.
After a year of praying, I get to use one boy scout...armed with a teaspoon...for ten minutes.
MY BET: I get more of the mountain moved by the boy scout with the teaspoon in ten minutes than you do with all that prayer in a year.
Any takers?
