Miracles...

Dades

seamus wrote: »

I don't have links at the moment, but from what I remember, there was some distinct benefit for people who were kept in good spirits or who had a positive outlook on things -v- those who were prone to depression or skepticism.

Maybe with some ailments, but not the big ones it seems.
I'm all for a positive outlook so found this somewhat glum reading.

Zombrex

seamus wrote: »

Also known as the "placebo effect". To the best of my knowledge, there have been studies carried out to attempt to link a person's temperament/outlook on life with their ability to heal from operations - similar to the prayer one.

I don't have links at the moment, but from what I remember, there was some distinct benefit for people who were kept in good spirits or who had a positive outlook on things -v- those who were prone to depression or skepticism.

Whether this can be linked with prayer or not is another question. If someone is praying for you, would this put you in a better mood, or does it indicate to you that you're in some serious ****?
Do those who pray have a more skeptical outlook on life - feeling that they need help and support to get through things?

Well it is telling that any proper study into the benefits of prayer where the person didn't know others where praying for them, failed to show any significance of the prayer on them, even in minor ailments.

Which suggests that "prayer" only does something if the person is aware that people are praying for him, which in turn would support the idea that it is in fact the placebo effect.

Sangre

Dades wrote: »

Maybe with some ailments, but not the big ones it seems.
I'm all for a positive outlook so found this somewhat glum reading.

Having never suffered anything even close to a serious illness I always wondered how people 'beat their illness' or struggled through or used their willpower to stay ticking. I never could imagine someone willing their immune system or body to fight the problem. I guess maybe you can't do any of these things. It seems if the body can survive it will, regardless of whether you try to wish it or not.

PDN

niceonetom wrote: »

yep, so pick a team.

say you find a painful lump in your, um, scrotum. you give it a week. it's definitely growing. now, if you had to make a choice between a) going to the doctor, getting the best medical opinions and treatment in the biz etc or b) praying and relying on your faith in god to save. you, in this little thought experiment, are not allowed to do both. doctor + no prayer OR god + no medicine.

so, as a man of faith, which do you choose? do you have faith in your faith?

I wouldn't choose either, because the question is nonsensical. Why should it be an either/or situation? I believe that God works through prayer and through medical science.

However, if I was given a genuine dilemma between God and medicine, that might be different.
For example, if I was told "From now on doctors will only see patients if they renounce their faith" - then I would rely on prayer rather than accept medical treatment that was contingent on my rejection of God.

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote: »

I believe that God works through prayer and through medical science.

The Bible is arguably the most unscientific book ever written.

Sangre

I don't think any theist would take an either/or approach. Lets not me silly.

Moe: 'Oh no, I'm papralyzed! I only hope modern science can save me!'

robindch

PDN wrote: »

I believe that God works through prayer

So how do you explain the fact that god does not apparently respond to prayers in the case cited above?

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

Well it is telling that any proper study into the benefits of prayer where the person didn't know others where praying for them, failed to show any significance of the prayer on them, even in minor ailments.

Which suggests that "prayer" only does something if the person is aware that people are praying for him, which in turn would support the idea that it is in fact the placebo effect.

Alternatively, of course, it might simply demonstrate that, as the Bible says, faith is an important element in prayer. Most Christians would feel that prayer is at its most effective when the one being prayed for has faith.

A study that would be more likely to provide support for the idea of a placebo effect would be to tell 100 patients that you are praying for them, and then not to bother praying for 50 of them after all.

However, I have my doubts about the effectiveness of such studies.

Firstly, who is doing the praying? How are they praying? Who are they praying to? I could easily conduct a study that proves that taking medicine does not help cure sick patients. Let's say I take a group of 100 patients and I give them different medicines, chosen quite randomly out of a pharmacy, and administered in varying doses by a selection of witch doctors, homeopaths, and GPs. I imagine my 100 patients would fare no better (indeed, they would probably fare worse) than a control group who received no medicine whatsoever. Would that prove that medicine does not facilitate healing? Of course not! It would simply show that medicine, when administered improperly and by the wrong people, cannot achieve its intended purpose. The same, I would suggest, applies to prayer. A real study (rather than a headline-seeking pseudo-science bunch of horse manure) would examine the effectiveness of different kinds of prayer, offered by different varieties of faith, to different deities. Such a study would, of course, be hugely expensive and complex.

Secondly, when researchers are choosing subjects for the 'being prayed for' group and the the control group, it appears to me that it is impossible to stop outside factors from skewing any results. For example, if my Auntie Mary is chosen for the control group (no researchers praying for her) - how can they be sure that I have not asked 1000 Christians at Church on Sunday to fervently pray for Auntie Mary? This would be the equivalent of carrying out a drugs trial while being unable to prevent the subjects of your experiment from taking outside medication.

PDN

Tim Robbins wrote: »

The Bible is arguably the most unscientific book ever written.

More senseless hyperbole.

The Bible is certainly not intended to be a science text book, but I would think any rational person could actually think of other books that are less scientific. ("The Collected Poetry of Wordsworth" for starters).

PDN

robindch wrote: »

So how do you explain the fact that god does not apparently respond to prayers in the case cited above?

Which case? There are 67 posts 'above'. Do I have to read all of them again to guess which you are referring to? Some of them were bad enough to read once, let alone twice.

robindch

PDN wrote: »

Which case? There are 67 posts 'above'.

Fifteen posts back, in this post.

PDN wrote: »

Some of them were bad enough to read once, let alone twice.

While I sincerely hope my English causes you no pain, I do hold out a fond hope that my logic will make you think, an activity I suspect you rather enjoy.

Tim Robbins

PDN wrote: »

More senseless hyperbole.

Oh really.
I said:

Tim wrote:

The Bible is arguably the most unscientific book ever written.

You said:

PDN wrote:

The Bible is certainly not intended to be a science text book

Wordsworth literalists don't think the universe was made in six days.

seamus

PDN wrote: »

More senseless hyperbole.

The Bible is certainly not intended to be a science text book, but I would think any rational person could actually think of other books that are less scientific. ("The Collected Poetry of Wordsworth" for starters).

It's not intended as a scientific book, however it does attempt to make assertions about the scientific reality of the world and it also makes assertions and claims based on the scientific understanding of the world at the time. Onan, for example.

While you're right - the bible taken as an ordinary book is probably not the most unscientific thing ever written. It's the belief around the book - the belief that the Bible is the book which describes reality and what is right and wrong and how things are - that makes it an unscientific science book. If someone handed it to you without telling you what it is, you'd call it a book of fables. But religions hand it to you and call it, "The word of God", implying that it is a narrative on reality, i.e. a science book.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

Alternatively, of course, it might simply demonstrate that, as the Bible says, faith is an important element in prayer. Most Christians would feel that prayer is at its most effective when the one being prayed for has faith.

I'm pretty sure these studies included people from the same religious group as those praying for them. They just didn't know people where praying for them.

Of course you could argue that they didn't really have faith, but then you get into a situation of self fulfilling conclusion, that it didn't work because the person didn't have faith, not because it just didn't work.

PDN wrote: »

A study that would be more likely to provide support for the idea of a placebo effect would be to tell 100 patients that you are praying for them, and then not to bother praying for 50 of them after all.

That is actually exactly what they do do

American Heart Journal 2006 study wrote:

METHODS: Patients at 6 US hospitals were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups: 604 received intercessory prayer after being informed that they may or may not receive prayer; 597 did not receive intercessory prayer also after being informed that they may or may not receive prayer; and 601 received intercessory prayer after being informed they would receive prayer.

Interestingly according to that study in the American Heart Journal, those who knew they were being prayed for had no greater chance of healing but did have a slightly higher risk of complications, though obviously one cannot draw a link.

So possibly it is better if people don't pray for you, or at least that you don't know about it.

PDN wrote: »

However, I have my doubts about the effectiveness of such studies.

Firstly, who is doing the praying? How are they praying? Who are they praying to?

Well yes if one wants to they can always say that there studies will never work because such and such is not a member of the "correct" religion, that they don't have the "correct" faith, that they are doing it wrong, that they weren't wearing the "correct" clothes when praying, that they weren't facing the "correct" way etc etc

As you say testing very interpretation of "prayer" in human history would be impossible.

Which is why ultimately attempting to test superstitious beliefs like religious beliefs will never satisfy those who believe in the superstition, because with the supernatural there is always some way that is ultimately untestable. .

PDN wrote: »

For example, if my Auntie Mary is chosen for the control group (no researchers praying for her) - how can they be sure that I have not asked 1000 Christians at Church on Sunday to fervently pray for Auntie Mary?

I would imagine they background check the people they are doing the research on, and its why they use large sample groups, to see trends rather than individual results.

Andy-Pandy

I am an atheist, but Padre Pio is the one thing I can’t get my head around. A very close person to me (like a brother) had terminal cancer as a child. He was in a hospice, literally on his death bed. He remembers one night waking up to a smell of roses, and remembers an old man being with him, a man who he described as being very like padre pio. Needles to say he was a 6 year old, and dying so he would have not have known anything about him. His grandparents had been praying constantly to Padre Pio to save him, and miraculously within a few months his cancer regressed and he was cured. He is still alive to this day, although he does have to deal with the aftermath of being so severly sick as a child. I've never known what to think about this, and if didnt involve people I know and love so well i would dimiss it, but i beleive hime and them.

Kelly1, to awnser your original question, this miracle does not reinforce my beleif in God, but it does make me think, and was the thing i had to think most about when i was thinking about my views on God and religion.

mossieh

Padre Pio is alleged to have been a bit of a con-artist, read more here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/padre-pio-faked-his-stigmata-with-acid-397811.html

And another quote:
Correspondent John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter newspaper recently wrote, "The whispered consensus on Padre Pio in the halls of the Vatican was that he was at best a naive hysteric, at worst a con man."

robindch

Andy-Pandy wrote: »

miraculously within a few months his cancer regressed and he was cured. He is still alive to this day, although he does have to deal with the aftermath of being so severly sick as a child.

Back in the 19th century, it was believed that cancer was untreatable and contagious, so people were confined to sanitoriums to avoid spreading the uncurable disease. There was believed to be no treatment, so to a great extent, people were left to die. Nonetheless, between one and two percent of people survived the disease and returned to normal life. From this we can conclude that cancer does, very occasionally, subside and people do recover naturally. Or miraculously, if you choose to use that word.

I'm happy to hear that your friend recovered, but do bear in mind that there are other more plausible explanations than the intervention of an absent italian monk, or an invisible deity.

seamus

robindch wrote: »

I'm happy to hear that your friend recovered, but do bear in mind that there are other more plausible explanations than the intervention of an absent italian monk, or an invisible deity.

It's also very likely that having two relations praying to Pio beside him, there was some talk of Pio and what happens to people that he "comes to", which in the mind of a six-year-old on drugs could easily be conjured into a fairly lucid dream about an old man smelling of roses.

I once dreamt that Padre Pio was kneeling beside my bed. I wasn't sick, and it freaked the **** out of me. Turned out that in the poor light, the shape of my clothes hanging on the back of the chair looked like an old bearded man kneeling down.

Andy-Pandy

robindch wrote: »

I'm happy to hear that your friend recovered, but do bear in mind that there are other more plausible explanations than the intervention of an absent italian monk, or an invisible deity.

This is the conclusion that i came to myself. I dont really beleive it was Padre Pio, but i was at my mates wedding last year, and there was a large blessing made to Padre Pio by his family, who are not, bar the father, paticularyly religious. Its a story i have grown with my whole life, and is the one thing that made me think when i was examining my own religious beliefs.
I also have an Auntie who attributes Padre Pio to helping her get over her crippeling back pain, she was up and walking for a while, but was soon back to square one. She is very very religious, so i put her initial cure down to the power of faith. Its just that with my buddy, his cure went against all medical predictions and started imedialty after his 'vision'. It is the one and only thing that has made me question my belief in any sort of higher entity.

kelly1

Andy-Pandy wrote: »

I am an atheist, but Padre Pio is the one thing I can’t get my head around. A very close person to me (like a brother) had terminal cancer as a child. He was in a hospice, literally on his death bed. He remembers one night waking up to a smell of roses, and remembers an old man being with him, a man who he described as being very like padre pio. Needles to say he was a 6 year old, and dying so he would have not have known anything about him. His grandparents had been praying constantly to Padre Pio to save him, and miraculously within a few months his cancer regressed and he was cured. He is still alive to this day, although he does have to deal with the aftermath of being so severly sick as a child. I've never known what to think about this, and if didnt involve people I know and love so well i would dimiss it, but i beleive hime and them.

That's a very typical story. Padre Pio's presence is frequently associated with the smell of roses.

Andy-Pandy wrote: »

Kelly1, to awnser your original question, this miracle does not reinforce my beleif in God, but it does make me think, and was the thing i had to think most about when i was thinking about my views on God and religion.

So how do we view it? A freak occurence of nature, an abberation in the time-space continuum that just happened to change cancerous cells into healthy cells. You really have to wonder at these events!

mossieh wrote: »

Padre Pio is alleged to have been a bit of a con-artist, read more here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/padre-pio-faked-his-stigmata-with-acid-397811.html

And another quote:
Correspondent John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter newspaper recently wrote, "The whispered consensus on Padre Pio in the halls of the Vatican was that he was at best a naive hysteric, at worst a con man."

That's a crock along the same vein as the recent story that Jesus' tomb was found. It's true that rumours were spread by detractors and that he was banned from saying Mass in public but he was cleared of all charges. In order to be canonized, the life of the candidate is looked into very closely and any obvious adherence to sinful ways would rule that person out.

kelly1

robindch wrote: »

I'm happy to hear that your friend recovered, but do bear in mind that there are other more plausible explanations than the intervention of an absent italian monk, or an invisible deity.

I can understand that a cancer would regress gradually but can you really offer a plausible explantion for an instant cure?

Andy-Pandy wrote: »

This is the conclusion that i came to myself. I dont really beleive it was Padre Pio, but i was at my mates wedding last year, and there was a large blessing made to Padre Pio by his family, who are not, bar the father, paticularyly religious. Its a story i have grown with my whole life, and is the one thing that made me think when i was examining my own religious beliefs.
I also have an Auntie who attributes Padre Pio to helping her get over her crippeling back pain, she was up and walking for a while, but was soon back to square one. She is very very religious, so i put her initial cure down to the power of faith. Its just that with my buddy, his cure went against all medical predictions and started imedialty after his 'vision'. It is the one and only thing that has made me question my belief in any sort of higher entity.

I just hope that spark doesn't die!

eoin5

kelly1 wrote: »

I can understand that a cancer would regress gradually but can you really offer a plausible explantion for an instant cure?

I think a cosmic anomoly is more plausable than an invisible diety. Cosmic rays flip bits in computers so maybe theres another type of cosmic ray that destroys cancer cells.

Zombrex

kelly1 wrote: »

I can understand that a cancer would regress gradually but can you really offer a plausible explantion for an instant cure?

Define "instant cure".

In Andy's story his friend was clear within 6 months, which certainly isn't instant

Zillah

Does it occur to anyone else that a couple who were "praying constantly" to Padre Pio would most likely have an influence on their son's view of the world...?

Zombrex

Zillah wrote: »

Does it occur to anyone else that a couple who were "praying constantly" to Padre Pio would most likely have an influence on their son's view of the world...?

If you tell a 1000 people that God has told you something good will happen to them tomorrow, you only need the 3 who actually have really good news the next day to believe that therefore God exists. These 3 will then tell a 1000 more people, and so on and so on. All of a sudden you have a religion.

robindch

kelly1 wrote: »

I can understand that a cancer would regress gradually but can you really offer a plausible explantion for an instant cure?

Two simple and obvious things spring to mind, without considering anything further -- (a) the initial diagnosis was wrong and (b) "within a few months" (from here) does not constitute an "instant" cure.

And from this, two questions arise:

1. Why did you interpret "within a few months" as meaning "instant"? Bearing in mind that you attach life-and-death importance to the precise meaning of a language you do not understand, it seems peculiar to me that you make what seem basic comprehension errors in a language you do understand.

2. Why did you not comment to the much more reliable and properly-documented prayer study which collated the results of not one person, but almost two thousand, but which found nothing?

Ekancone

robindch wrote: »

2. Why did you not comment to the much more reliable and properly-documented prayer study which collated the results of not one person, but almost two thousand, but which found nothing?

Denial of reality is a HUGE part of faith, don't you know?

kelly1

eoin5 wrote: »

I think a cosmic anomoly is more plausable than an invisible diety. Cosmic rays flip bits in computers so maybe theres another type of cosmic ray that destroys cancer cells.

What are the chances of cosmic rays changing millions of bad cells into good ones and not changing good cells into bad ones at the same time that someone was being blessed with a relic? Zilch, wouldn't you say?

And I thought "theists" were supposed to be the illogical ones!

This belief that there must be some natural healing phenomena out there that we don't understand is very akin to belief in God.

Dades

I think most people would apply Occam's razor to the situation of an unexplained regression.

Is the cancer more likely to have regressed due to a statistically rare medical anomoly, or because of the laying of a dead priest's mittens on the sufferer?

Or as I refer to put it: when you hear hooves - do you think of zebras?

eoin5

kelly1 wrote: »

What are the chances of cosmic rays changing millions of bad cells into good ones and not changing good cells into bad ones at the same time that someone was being blessed with a relic? Zilch, wouldn't you say?

And I thought "theists" were supposed to be the illogical ones!

This belief that there must be some natural healing phenomena out there that we don't understand is very akin to belief in God.

Of course healing cosmic rays is complete rubbish but it IS more likely than a dead monk going around healing cancer. I'm just trying to show how silly it seems. So you say being blessed by a relic had some influence on the matter? Thats like me saying it was the person brushing their teeth in the morning or them picking their nose that cured them.

Dades wrote: »

when you hear hooves - do you think of zebras?

I hear unicorns