Study Shows Remote Prayer Ineffective, Even Harmful

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There are many people who believe that praying for people, even from a distance, will result in a more positive outcome for the prayed for patient.
A 2.4 million dollar study, showed otherwise. In fact, the study found that people who knew that they were being prayed for, fared worse than those who were not prayed for.

Quote:

Praying for other people to recover from an illness is ineffective, according to the largest, best-designed study to examine the power of prayer to heal strangers at a distance.

The study of more than 1,800 heart-bypass patients found that those who had people praying for them had as many complications as those who did not. In fact, one group of patients who knew they were the subject of prayers fared worse.

Quote:

The new $2.4 million study, funded primarily by the John Templeton Foundation, was designed to overcome some of those shortcomings. Dusek and his colleagues divided 1,802 bypass patients at six hospitals into three groups. Two groups were uncertain whether they would be the subject of prayers. The third was told they would definitely be prayed for.

The researchers recruited two Catholic groups and one Protestant group to pray "for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications" for 14 days for each patient, beginning the night before the surgery, using the patient's first name and the first initial of the last name.

Over the next month, the two groups that were uncertain whether they were the subject of prayers fared virtually the same, with about 52 percent of patients experiencing complications regardless of whether they were the subject of prayers.

Surprisingly, 59 percent of the patients who knew they were being prayed for experienced complications.

Because the most common complication was an irregular heartbeat, researchers speculated that knowing they were chosen to receive prayers may have inadvertently put the patients under increased stress

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/30/AR2006033000902.html

What is your "take" on these findings?

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http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=72065&start=0

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Nothing surprising. This has been done before. I remember citing once a list of studies that showed that prayer as a substitute for medicine is harmful and if done on children is tantamount to child abuse.

I remember, though, that one particular study proved that prayer could work retroactively, but that experiment was later shown to have achieved those results because of poor statistics.

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dlowan wrote:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=72065&start=0

Beat me out by 2 hours. Oh well, at least someone else thought that it was an interesting subject!

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I had an upper resiratory infection and two friends asked if they could pray for me. I let them and it (the infection) lasted like forever. LOL. I only let them bcause I would have felt bad telling them "no." Now I see that I should have started yelling at their first presence. LOL!

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I'd be sick longer because I'd be so irritated others thought they were helping me by praying.

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Don't pray, don't tell.

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Says the preacher. lol.

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ehBeth wrote:

Don't pray, don't tell.

really.

if you want to pray, go ahead...but as soon as you have to talk about it, it's not about the sick or suffering person, it's about how great you are.

kinda like a funeral, it's doesn't have a thing in the world to do with the dead person...it's either comforting the attendees or showing how wonderful you are for honoring them.

Just leave me out on the curb in a hefty bag on bulky trash day.

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I realize there's another thread on this in General News, but I'd like to explore the implications of the study in this forum.

Now, admittedly, I haven't looked at the study in detail (but intend to). However, as a Christian, I'm bothered that there was no perceivable impact in the long run, between those prayed for and those not (whether the prayee knew they were being prayed for or not).

Would be interesting if they broke out stats on whether a prayee was Christian or not and if they could see a difference between Christians who were prayed for and non-Christians who were prayed for. If no difference there, then the long-held belief in the psychosomatic healing gets called into question, I should think.

To extend the spiritual topic I wonder what implications this has for the thousands of prayers offered for others we do not know (e.g starving in Sudan; political leaders) or situations for which we have no immediate control (e.g. war in Iraq).

In the other thread, Walter Hinteler quoted

Quote:

Dr. Harold G. Koenig, director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at the Duke University Medical Center, who didn't take part in the study, said the results didn't surprise him.

"There are no scientific grounds to expect a result and there are no real theological grounds to expect a result either," he said. "There is no god in either the Christian, Jewish or Moslem scriptures that can be constrained to the point that they can be predicted."

Within the Christian tradition, God would be expected to be concerned with a person's eternal salvation, he said, and "why would God change his plans for a particular person just because they're in a research study?"

Science, he said, "is not designed to study the supernatural."
source: The Conservative Voice, Thursday, March 30, 2006

I originally liked the quote, until it occurred to me that the argument really negates any value to prayer at all. To paraphrase, "why would God change his plans for me just because I'm (insert any situation here)?"

Now I'm sure the godless folks will be more than happy to chime in here with applause and loud shouts of agreement, but I'm looking more for the Christian perspective.

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Not believing praying for a sick person makes them better does not equal godless.

Also, people who believe in God are not necessarily christian.

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Chai Tea wrote:

Not believing praying for a sick person makes them better does not equal godless.

true

Chai Tea wrote:

Also, people who believe in God are not necessarily christian.

well......depends on which God you're talking about. For example, I do not believe Allah (God of Muslims) and my God (Christian God) are the same. But I do NOT want to get on that tangent.

I believe in the Christian God, so, if I can, I'd like to focus on whether that particular God answers prayers we offer for strangers. In other words, offering me quotes or arguments from the Koran supporting the premise do nothing for me.

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so you believe that more than one God exists, and yours in the Christian God?

How do you feel about Muslims praying to a Muslim God for another sick Muslim....Does your Christian God allow you to pray for Muslims? What if a Muslim prayed to a Muslim God for a Christian.

Isn't the Christian God the same as the Jewish God.

I always thought Christians believed there was one God.

This is so confusing, I'm getting a headache....I need to take a powder.

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heeheeheeheeheeheeheehee . . .

She said take a powder . . .

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Setanta wrote:

heeheeheeheeheeheeheehee . . .

She said take a powder . . .

don't you dare say a prayer for me, I know you want to.

it'll only make the headache worse.

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Chai Tea wrote:

so you believe that more than one God exists, and yours in the Christian God?

way off topic, but no...I believe only one God exists, the Christian God.

Chai Tea wrote:

How do you feel about Muslims praying to a Muslim God for another sick Muslim....

That's fine...but in light of this study, if prayer specifically to the Muslim God was proven effective, this would surely give me food for thought. I was hoping to dispel my personal discomfort from the study. To do so requires a discussion on the Christian God, not another god that may or may not exist.

Chai Tea wrote:

Does your Christian God allow you to pray for Muslims? What if a Muslim prayed to a Muslim God for a Christian.

To first question, of course....but this study would seem to call the effectiveness of such prayers to be in doubt.

Chai Tea wrote:

Isn't the Christian God the same as the Jewish God.

yes and no. The Christian God is triune (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The Father God is jointly acknowledged by Jews and Christians. Jews do not acknowledge the divinity of the Son (I'm sure) or Holy Spirit (I think), so in that context, we do not believe in the same God. (I bet I'm going to regret starting down this path....so Chai...if you're still confused, I'd recommend a search against this forum for discussions on the Trinity, rather than distract this thread)

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Believe me slk, I'm far from confused.

And as far as going off topic....Phoenix, the starter of this thread hasn't expressed any disapproval, we're hardly anal retentive about keeping to subject here.

However, I don't believe any of this is off topic...if your thinking prayer works, then I need to clarify which God your talking about....seems as though you're the one experiencing some confusion, first speaking of different Gods, then backtracking and saying there's one.

Maybe others here would be more comfortable speaking about a non christian God. That's another thing about this forum, it tries to be open minded, rather than limiting.

I'm just sayin'

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From the Washington Post article at Phoenix's link

Quote:

Surprisingly, 59 percent of the patients who knew they were being prayed for experienced complications.

Because the most common complication was an irregular heartbeat, researchers speculated that knowing they were chosen to receive prayers may have inadvertently put the patients under increased stress.

"Did the patients think, 'I am so sick they had to call in the prayer team?' " said Charles Bethea of the Integris Heart Hospital at Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City, who helped conduct the study.

I don't find it surprising at all that the group who knew they were being prayed for faired worse than those who were uncertain. I disagree with the idea that it was because they felt they were too sick, but more likely that they put their care in the hands of the faithful and didn't put as much energy into their own recovery as those who weren't sure. This would give even greater credence to the findings that the prayers weren't helpful.

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slkshock7 wrote:

To do so requires a discussion on the Christian God, not another god that may or may not exist.

This is completely unwarranted. There is no mention of any particular god being prayed to--no one discussed "whose god" was the object of the prayer.

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er, that would be 'fared worse' in my post above...

Anyway, I've always thought that those who looked for prayer or wanted to pray for others couldn't possibly be doing any harm so, <shrug> what the heck, go for it.

The sponsor of the study is apparently someone who has a long history of advocating for prayer and is surprised by the outcome. The prayer groups were all Christian groups (as best I can tell), but there is no mention in the media reports about the faith practices of the patients. I'll see if I can get the study report and see how the data were broken out.

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Study Shows Remote Prayer Ineffective, Even Harmful

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