In Reply to: RE: Will the sun rise tomorrow? posted by josh358 on July 13, 2012 at 16:41:02:
"Somebody actually did a controlled study of the efficacy of prayer not long ago. Not surprisingly, they found none."
Hector Avalos notes that the problem with this and any so-called controlled experiment regarding prayer is that there can be no such thing as a controlled experiment concerning prayer. You can never divide people into groups that received prayer and those that did not. The main reason is that there is no way to know that someone did not receive prayer. How would anyone know that some distant relative was not praying for a member of the group that has been identified as having received no prayer? How does one control for prayers said on behalf of all the sick people in the world? How does one assess the degree of faith in patients that are too sick to be interviewed or in the persons performing the prayers? It’s naïve to assume that "pure groups" were attained in the study you cite or any other. Since control groups are not possible, such purported "scientific" experiments are not possible regardless of the outcome.
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Follow Ups
- RE: Will the sun rise tomorrow? - regmac 08:35:36 07/15/12 (4)
- RE: Will the sun rise tomorrow? - josh358 09:11:03 07/15/12 (3)
- RE: Will the sun rise tomorrow? - regmac 10:16:38 07/15/12 (2)
- RE: Will the sun rise tomorrow? - RGA 20:34:06 07/18/12 (0)
- RE: Will the sun rise tomorrow? - josh358 10:51:16 07/15/12 (0)