Prayer: How Effective Is It?

renie · 05-06-09 9:20 pm

All of your posts have added something comforting to my struggle with unanswered prayer. I have learned to just walk away from dealing with it. John's post saying that it is almost better to think there are NO miracles, than to be confronted with the unfairness of miracles for some but not all...probably sums it up well. There is another way to look at miracles. On Monday, a little 3 year old boy walks out of his house, and disappears. Hundreds of people are now out looking for him. People on horseback, on foot, on ATVs spending hours looking. Now THAT is a miracle. The doctors who will fight for the life of an old street person are miracles. People are miracles. Maybe that is what it's all about. Don, in your comforting post, you mentioned that I can be a support to others who are suffering . I know one thing. People who are dying desperately need hope. I will give them what they long for, hope. If that means prayer for recovery, I'll go there. There is comfort for a person in believing that he/she might be the one person that is healed through prayer. renie

elaine · 05-06-09 10:22 pm

Renie, I do not personally believe that we can pray to ask God to do his will, because we should accept that He will. To believe otherwise would imply that we can influence him to give us our desires. However, if someone believes in prayer and relates a "miracle" I will never dispute but accept his belief, which is always person and cannot be subjected to scientific evidence.

george · 05-07-09 8:48 am

Let's face it, if prayers were answered, no one would die. Well, only victums of suicide would.

renie · 05-07-09 1:28 pm

THEY FOUND THE LITTLE 3 YEAR OLD BOY. YEH!!!!! renie

john8verse32 · 05-07-09 4:08 pm

the thought that prayer works is an attractive picture..... <img src="http://www.atomorrow.net/discus/messages/89/1205.jpg" alt=""> but the history of man's inhumanity to man, often in the name of God ("Gott mit uns"), with names like Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, ... leaves us to wonder about how effective the prayer of 6 million of Gods alleged favorite tribe was: <img src="http://www.atomorrow.net/discus/messages/89/1206.jpg" alt=""> <img src="http://www.atomorrow.net/discus/messages/89/1207.jpg" alt=""> when we feel its not fair that our prayers are not answered, we should remember millions are/were in the same boat, or brausebade,(showers), or offen..(ovens).. and apparently these folks prayers were not answered either <a href="http://www.thirdreichruins.com/buchenwald.htm" target=_top>http://www.thirdreichruins.com/buchenwald.htm</a>

john8verse32 · 05-19-09 9:49 pm

a very touching "prayer" from Rabbi David Wolpe. after years of commenting on A&E's or the Discovery Channels programs on history and the Bible, he is lamenting how much time he may have left after coming down with a lymph cancer.... a must read: <a href="http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:CP7jDpRX2dsJ:www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-david-wolpe/my-last-cancer-treatment_b_182379.html+david+wolpe+cancer&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" target=_top>http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:CP7jDpRX2dsJ:w ww.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-david-wolpe/my-last-ca ncer-treatment_b_182379.html+david+wolpe+cancer&cd =4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us</a>

renie · 05-20-09 12:47 pm

That's a wonderful temtimony, John. Thanks for sharing. Once again, we all deserve a medal for just living on this earth. renie

john8verse32 · 05-20-09 1:51 pm

we all deserve a medal and that's all my dad got for flying over 25 missions during WWII, earning 2 Distinguished Flying Crosses,AND Oak leaf Clusters...saving the world for democracy...a bronze plaque in the ground and each memorial day a new flag (made in china).

john8verse32 · 05-20-09 2:18 pm

the Placebo effect: does it apply to religion??? via prayer? So much has been written and said about the placebo effect that we thought we should put our SkepDoc on the trail of finding out what is fact and what is myth about placebos and their effects. You will be surprised by some of Dr. Hall’s findings. Be sure to check out the relevant books and the Skeptic back issue that we‘ve highlighted in the article which are available at Shop Skeptic. The Placebo Effect by Harriet Hall, MD and presented in my weekly E-skeptic blast.... Based on Carroll’s website (skepdic.com), the Dictionary is the definitive short-answer debunking of nearly every thing skeptical. A must for every bookshelf. ORDER the book In a recent study in Denmark, 48% of doctors reported prescribing a placebo at least 10 times in the last year, including antibiotics for viral infections and vitamins for fatigue. Specialists and hospital-based physicians were less likely to prescribe them. A 2004 study of physicians in Israel found that 60% reported using placebos for reasons like “fending off” requests for unjustified medications or calming a patient. What if doctors were honest? If they told patients a treatment was a placebo, would that destroy the placebo effect? Maybe not. After clinical trials, patients who were told they’d been taking the placebo have asked if they could keep taking it. In one study patients were told one pill was inert and would only serve as a “dose extender” (i.e., a placebo that would allow a lower dose of the effective pill); patients accepted it and were able to lower their dose. What if a doctor tells a patient a treatment is not supported by any scientific evidence but some people believe it has helped them? Placebos raise ethical dilemmas on which doctors do not agree. In a recent court case, the proponents of a particular form of quackery known as Q-rays admitted their device was bogus, but argued that since the placebo effect was effective they were justified in selling it. The court disagreed. Is there any ethical way doctors can use the placebo effect to help their patients? Yes, of course. They already do. The placebo effect is an integral part of every doctor-patient interaction. Good doctors have always gained their patients’ trust and given them hope and reassurance. What’s effective is not the placebo, but the meaning of the treatment. We enter into a human relationship with a caring person who offers to help us. We may be given a token of that caring in the form of a prescription. We may have a conditioned response to expect improvement because we have been helped in the past. We get a story, a narrative that explains why we feel sick and what we can do to get better. We get hope, support, human warmth, touch. All these factors might lead to an actual physiological response in which our pulse rate drops, we relax, our stress hormones decrease, and other changes facilitate healing, or at least comfort. One study supposedly showed that patients recovered faster if their window looked out on trees rather than a brick wall; even if they didn’t recover faster, wasn’t it nice to give them a view? Even if we can’t document a quantifiable effect on patient outcome, the quality of life is important. Effective treatments have placebo effects too. A substantial percentage of the effects from antidepressants may be placebo effects. Morphine works even better if your doctor tells you it’s strong. We can’t isolate placebo effect from conventional medicine — it gets us thinking the wrong way. As the neurologist Robert Burton says, “Even given our advanced state of medical knowledge, much of routine medical care — from treating backaches to the common cold — relies primarily upon reassurance and hope, not disease- specific treatments … we need to reconsider how to facilitate the placebo effect with minimal risk and cost, and without deception.” my question: does the placebo effect work in religion? if a priest tells you to say 10 hail marys, and not sin anymore, does the belief that your sins are forgiven help you to "sin no more"? does the belief that not sinning will help you get to heaven actually help you stop sinning? so is belief more important than the actual practice used to implant the belief that you're OK, I'm OK? If washing somebody elses feet makes you feel like you have paid for your sins, is that wrong? effective? if killing an innocent lamb makes you wince at the pain and suffering you are causing helps you to try to not sin any more...does that help? if praying to some "heavenly father" somewhere up there in the sky, and asking for forgiveness and help with your problems, is that helpful? is it effective? as effective as getting to work and solving your own issues? maybe people NEED the placebo effect...the audio visual aid to belief that all our human ways of worship have been invented to accomplish. and maybe we can see a progression toward good in the worlds history of inventing and offering placebos? the ancients killed their own kids to appease the gods then they decided to keep the kids, invented goat sacrifice, and made boda bags, writing scrolls, and color coordinated shoes with the goatskins then somebody said that Jesus died, for our sins, so we dont need to kill goats or our own kids anymore. could some of the new ceremonies have been invented to celebrate the concept of placebo...? wash some guys feet and everything will be ok? pay your tithe, and God will build you a mansion 1600 light years away, the other side of the Egg White hole in Orion? Don't drink, smoke, swear or have sex, and maybe God will allow you into heaven where you still won't be allowed to do those things? If you're Mormon, learn your geneology, and pray your ancestors into heaven? If you're Islamo-Faschist, kill some Christians or Jews, and Allah will save 72 virgins for you? or maybe even a few doe eyed young boys? If you're catholic, and sin during the week, just go to confession on saturday night either before the bar, or at midnite, ask for forgiveness, sleep in sunday morning to work off the hangover, and its a go for the next week. could the placebo effect be what its really all about? to modify human behaviour with wonderful promises, beautiful ceremonies, and attractive pie in the sky? if you convinced most people that what scientists suggest is true... there is no dome, there was no flood, jesus was a nice guy, but there may not be any heaven or virgins later... ...would most people keep swallowing the pill's of dogma if they knew it was only a placebo? and not an everlasting cure? just askin.....

george · 05-20-09 10:39 pm

First, you would never convince everybody these things are placebos. Secondly, I think your right. All the ceremony and ritual involved in most religions is at least placebo and may even be a sort of hypnosis. If you really think about it, why would God, the creator of the universe, care if you washed someone's feet or not; or if you drank the grape juice and ate the cracker (or whatever).... It's not about DOING these things, except that people need to do them to place themselves in a certain frame of mind (relationship to God). People are unable to function without symbols. We use symbols (something concrete to represent ideas and feelings) in all aspects of our lives. Weddings, funerals, all kinds of celebrations are replete with symbols, as are the more mundane aspects of our lives - money itself, is a symbol as are diplomas and certificates; our clothing and our cars, and the list goes on. We, humans, are incapable of living only spiritually. We need the symbols.

neal · 05-26-09 9:04 am

I saw the story over the weekend that believing prayer has any results can get you thrown in jail like the mom (dad will be on trial next month) who is heading off to prison because she prayed for her diabetic daughter with the obvious result that the daughter died. A thought-provoking site is <a href="http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/" target=_top>http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/</a>

john8verse32 · 05-26-09 1:36 pm

Praying to God is like talking to a friend 12 April 2009 by Andy Coghlan <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227033.600-praying-to-god-is-like-talking-to-a-friend.html" target=_top>http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227033.600 -praying-to-god-is-like-talking-to-a-friend.html</a> begin quote: IS PRAYER just another kind of friendly conversation? Yes, says Uffe Schjødt, who used MRI to scan the brains of 20 devout Christians. "It's like talking to another human. We found no evidence of anything mystical." Schjødt, of the University of Aarhus, Denmark, and colleagues, asked volunteers to carry out two tasks involving both religious and "secular" activities. In the first task, they silently recited the Lord's Prayer, then a nursery rhyme. Identical brain areas, typically associated with rehearsal and repetition, were activated. In the second, they improvised personal prayers before making requests to Santa Claus. Improvised prayers triggered patterns that match those seen when people communicate with each other, and activated circuitry that is linked with the theory of mind - an awareness that other individuals have their own independent motivations and intentions (Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsn050). Two of the activated regions are thought to process desire and consider how another individual - in this case God - might react. Also activated were part of the prefrontal cortex linked to the consideration of another person's intentions, and an area thought to help access memories of previous encounters with that person. The prefrontal cortex is key to theory of mind. Crucially, this area was inactive during the Santa Claus task, suggesting volunteers viewed Santa as fictitious but God as a real individual. Previous studies have found that the prefrontal cortex is not activated when people interact with inanimate objects, such as a computer game. "The brain doesn't activate these areas because they don't expect reciprocity, nor find it necessary to think about the computer's intentions," says Schjødt. He says the results show people believe they are talking to someone when they pray, an outcome that pleased both atheists and Christians: "Atheists said it shows that it's all an illusion," says Schjødt, while Christians said it was evidence that God is real. Brain scans reveal that people believe they are talking to someone when they pray Robin Dunbar at the University of Oxford points out that the study proves neither: "This has nothing to do with whether God exists or not, only with subjects' beliefs about whether God exists." end quote

Elizza347 · 09-07-10 11:25 pm

Prayer is very helpful specially to a believer.
If you can see if a person who are in comma his/her family pray.
If your relatives are going to travel, we pray.
If we have problems, we pray.

this are only some of the many reasons why we pray to Go.
Prayer is one way to communicate with God.
We are asking for his guidance and assistant.
We pray because we want to thank him for the blessings that we have.

All things happen with God purpose, If we pray God will grants our prayer.
Prayer is the key to God. It is the only thing that we can do to communicate with Him.

hfsturges · 09-09-10 10:01 am

Elizza,
I appreciate your post and your interest in prayer.
There is interest in some medical circles about prayer for the sick. Too often they talk only about prayer as if in a vacuum -- not saying that it is prayer to God. And that the power comes from God, not from "prayer."

If God knows everything, and He loves us and wants the best for us, why pray? He already knows what we need. The answer comes in the scenario of the Great Controversy between Christ and Satan. It seems that when Adam sinned he gave over to Satan the dominion of this world. Christ on Calvary bought it back, but we need to decide to serve Christ. In prayer we "give permission" for God to work for us and do what He wills to do. It is in this way that we bring ourselves into the will of God.

hfsturges · 12-28-11 3:38 pm

Just a story:

A patient came to see me. He did not feel well. A little nauseated, not as strong as he used to be. I got some blood tests. He had liver function abnormalities in a pattern to suggest alcoholism.
What to do?
I have lost more than one patient when I told him that he drank too much. but with care I suggested that he might be drinking too much. Sitting behind him, his wife nodded her head "yes!" vigorously.

To his credit, the patient admitted that he did drink too much. I asked him if he wanted to stop drinking. Again he agreed. I suggested Alcoholics Anonymous. He did not like the idea. Private Alcoholic rehabilitation was too expensive. So...
What to do?
With some trepidation, I suggested prayer. Something that he needed to start doing at home. And I offered prayer for him there in the office.

After about a month, his wife called me at home. She was very happy. He had not touched alcohol for a month, and she thanked me for the prayer for him.
Now I know that the battle is not over, but it was a good start.

bob_2 · 12-28-11 8:04 pm

Hubb, drinking alcohol is usually thought of an all or nothing topic. However, then you have to destroy verses in the Bible that point to moderation. I am not of the school that say total abstinence. Even your patient's wife did not say he had totally quit, but that he wasn't drinking so much, correct? I'm not going so far to say the Communion is not Communion if fermented wine is in the cup. But either way grape juice or wine, the symbol is met, I believe. By the way, I have never been to a Communion that served wine, have you ?

Last edited by bob_2 (12-28-11 8:06 pm)

hfsturges · 12-29-11 6:27 pm

Bob_2
The Bible permitted polygamy, slavery, and war. What the Bible seems to permit does not mean that it is in the will of God.
We are now living in the anti-typical Day of Atonement when men are called to a higher spirituality.
It is in God's purpose to prepare a special people, the 144,000 who will demonstrate that grace is sufficient to change the life and to save in His kingdom.

Our society permits a number of "mind altering" drugs. These are not acceptable to God even in small amounts. These include alcohol, even "moderation;" caffeine drinks, smoking, all recreational drugs, excess sugar, and overeating. I'm sure there are additions to this list. The reason for avoiding these things is that we need to have brains that are fully functioning in order to differentiate right from wrong, to understand doctrine, and to avoid being deceived.

I accept that this view is not "politically correct" but I see that for a Christian, there is no other way to live.

bob_2 · 12-29-11 7:54 pm

Hubb, notice the 16th post in the thread " Covenants: Understanding of Covenants why SDAs not progressing!". Hope your faith doesn't stand on the 4th commandment alone. If so, be convinced in your own way, on debateable matters.

BTW, Hubb, where in the Bible is caffeine banned by God?? You may be able to state it's effect on man and whether medically it is best for man, but I have attended a Presbyterian church where most of the friendly, saintly conversation happens over that brew, coffee, leaded.

Last edited by bob_2 (12-29-11 7:57 pm)

hfsturges · 12-30-11 1:24 pm

The Bible does not say anything about smoking cigarettes or using recreational drugs either. In several places when God wanted a person or group to reach higher attainments in spirituality, he was told not to use alcohol. Such as Samson, the Rechabites, the Nazarenes, and the priests.

Caffeine is a "mind altering" drug. A person who wants to hear the still small voice of God will not drink caffeine, and he will be careful in other health matters also. I cannot say that it is a "salvation issue" but I can definitely say that your understanding of spiritual matters, especially your understanding of the atonement will be deeper if you follow these health rules.

bob_2 · 12-31-11 10:16 am

Hubb, lets stay on the salvific issues and soloscriptura. That way we don't be appearing to writing our own Bible, like the Clear Word version. Take the wedding at Cana, where He turned the water to wine and people said it was the best of the wine, better than the first:

John 2:7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.
8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”
They did so, 9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside 10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

If grape juice was used it would not be called "the best" wine. We cannot read the Bible the way a certain group of people read it. We have to read it in context, when society had no refrigeration, eh??

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