Does Praying Work?

Dee

@just_sayin


For the record, her doctor's have corroborated her testimony

Name her doctors? Post up her medical reports?

- see Miracles Today, by Craig Keener.

Craig Keener is professor of the new testament at a seminary why would  I belive a word from his mouth?

Show me from the book a copy of her medical reports , bet you or  Kenner can't.


  No doubt this game would continue on if her medical records were posted all over the internet. 

If Knoxx wasn't a fraud her claims could be easily proven but you nor no one else can 

 You would then find another desperate and pathetic excuse to cling to your faith belief that she wasn't healed

Faith is believing something without sufficient evidence to back it up that's you not me , prove she was healed post up her medical records , you can't nor can Kenner or anyone else, right?


. I say that because you already have done that. 

Done what? I've asked you repeatedly to post up the frauds medical records you cannot , whys that? Should be easy or is she an accomplished l-ar

  I have provided multiple examples of medical journals where the specific details from medical records are provided

Stop dodging. Where are the medical records for Koxx post them up.


 and you clung to your faith claim that there are no miracles (proving my point). 

Read what I said about faith your position is faith based mine is not. Its up to you to prove your faith claims you cannot do this which is why you're constantly dodging and swerving , post up Knoxxs medical records ( watch him deflect again folks) Knoxx is a  fraud and lying cow.

You cannot post up Knoxxs medical records and and you sign off by saying something only someone as st-pid as you could say

MayCaesar

@just_sayin

There was this "inventor" in Russia, Viktor Petrik. For many-many years the guy kept making a scientific breakthrough after a scientific breakthrough. He could find hundreds of people, including PhDs, who expressed sheer astonishment by the level of his genius. He had quite a few papers published in journals that, from the outside, seemed to have scientific names. He would routinely meet in person with the highest-level officials including the president, and even the speaker of the Duma (the Russian version of the Congress essentially) himself once praised his achievements in front of the whole legislature. The guy even managed to obtain two patents in the US.

The guy, however, was a complete fraud, and anyone with a scientific background could see through the nonsense. He was a very rich guy, so he had no trouble to find PhDs agreeing to give positive testimonies in exchange to hefty amounts of money - many of which, once the fraudster's reputation was shattered, hastily retracted their past claims. They now call the scandal "Petrikgate", and the guy is pretty much gone from the public scene where he used to be a rockstar. Not unlike all these "bishops" performing their magic tricks in churches and on stadiums, but, of course, never going to actual hospitals and working with actual patients, while being properly documented by impartial medical professionals.

The moral of this story is, it does not matter how many people make a particular claim about someone or something - the claim may be false. In the Soviet Union 99.99% of the population claimed that communism brings prosperity and is going to take over the world over the next few decades - 99.99% of the population did not know what they were talking about, and were proving wrong by reality that slapped them in the face hard.
The only thing that matters is solid evidence. Which does not come from verbal testimonies, but from hard documents, testable claims, and repeatable prescriptions. Plainly speaking, if the phenomenon someone describes cannot be replicated at will, then this phenomenon is nonsense, regardless of how many people have testified to its truthfulness.

just_sayin said:

No doubt this game would continue on if her medical records were posted all over the internet.

Yeah, and communism would really work if it was only implemented right... We are not dealing with hypotheticals here, my friend. We are dealing with a specific case in which the medical records have not been posted all over the Internet. Now you can cry about the unfairness of it and fantasize about a fairer world which works exactly the way you want it to work - or you can act like a mature adult, accept that this line of argumentation is not tenable, and look for a better one. You can make a much stronger case for prayer working the way you posit it to work. Heck, if you give me an hour, I can probably construct a strong enough defense of your position that would give even me myself a pause.

Your defense though is just weak. I once spent a day with a geisha who provided a defense of the Shinto religion that I to this day have not fully cracked - perhaps I should get you in touch with her so you can learn from the best.

just_sayin

@Dee

Name her doctors? Post up her medical reports?

I don't claim to have access to her medical reports.  Why would I have access?  Are you seriously suggesting that she was faking it for 22 1/2 years?  There are literally thousands of people, from her husband, mother, father, twin sister, church staff, pastor, news reporters, etc.  who have said she was paralyzed from the waist down and not able to move her legs.  There are lots of pictures and news stories which corroborate this.  There is literally video of her getting up out of her wheel chair and taking her first steps in 22 1/2 years. There is video of her going to see her mother and sister for the first time since being able to walk and there are tears of joy in their eyes (they must be in on the scam).  

You have asked to see medical records that you know I don't have access to.  That is just moving the goal posts.  You are suggesting she lied about how seriously injured she was.  That seems unlikely to me, as all eye witnesses have testified that she is telling the truth.  But I will point your hypocrisy out again - though you will probably just dodge it like you did in your post..  Why didn't you believe the medical journal articles I posted with all the doctor's records you could want regarding the blind woman being healed and the person with the gastric condition being healed?  See

Case report of instantaneous resolution of juvenile macular degeneration blindness after proximal intercessory prayer

and

Case Report of gastroparesis healing: 16 years of a chronic syndrome resolved after proximal intercessory prayer

How will you move the goal posts this time?  Not enough Tik Tok followers?  Too many Tik Tok followers.  To many medical records?  What will it be the new excuse?

Since I have having a blast piling on the evidence of miracles and healings, I'll give you another one with medical documentation, since that is your excuse this round for not believing in healings and miracles.  How about Dr Sean George who was clinically dead for 85 minutes and came back to life when his wife, a doctor also, prayed for him.  See his story here:

https://seangeorge.com.au/my-story/my-story/

And the documented evidence here:
https://seangeorge.com.au/my-story/medical-details/

I'm sure even more overwhelming evidence will not shake your faith without any basis that there are no miracles.  

And if you like detailed doctor's notes, you should see the story of Jeff Markin who had a massive heart attack and was declared dead.  Dr. Chauncey Crandall, a Yale educated cardiologist, had already filled out the paper work declaring the man dead, when he felt impressed to stop and pray for the man and then gave the guy one more shock against the wishes of the staff in the room.  Markin came back to life with no brain damage though his limbs had already shown signs of no oxygen.  This impacted the Dr so much that he recorded the story, with all the medical details you could ever want in a book: 

Raising the Dead: A Doctor Encounters the Miraculous

So what will your excuse be this time?  The Yale cardiologist was mistaken about the guy being dead?  He didn't attend  Comicon so he can't be trusted?  Where will the goal post move to next?

Craig Keener is professor of the new testament at a seminary why would  I belive a word from his mouth?

Because he literally is the most authoritative expert on miracles in the world.  He wrote the 2 volume set Miracles which details historical evidence for miracles from the time of Jesus till today.  Miracles Today is a newer book of his.  He got interested in miracles when, I think it is his mother-in-law, died and came back to life after having been dead for 3 hours.  

If Knoxx wasn't a fraud her claims could be easily proven but you nor no one else can 

You have not proven she is a fraud. In fact, every piece of evidence shows she is telling the truth.


Faith is believing something without sufficient evidence to back it up that's you not me , 

Sorry, but you are the one clinging to your faith claim, while I have provided video, medical journals, eye witness testimony, etc.  You are the one making conclusions based on no evidence for your position, while ignoring overwhelming evidence against your faith claim.

What excuse will you make to continue clinging to your anti-science view that there are no healings and miracles?

Dee

@just_sayin

I don't claim to have access to her medical reports.  Why would I have access?  Are you seriously suggesting that she was faking it for 22 1/2 years?  There are literally thousands of people, from her husband, mother, father, twin sister, church staff, pastor, news reporters, etc.  who have said she was paralyzed from the waist down and not able to move her legs.  There are lots of pictures and news stories which corroborate this.  There is literally video of her getting up out of her wheel chair and taking her first steps in 22 1/2 years. There is video of her going to see her mother and sister for the first time since being able to walk and there are tears of joy in their eyes (they must be in on the scam).  

Ah still no medical records to back the frauds claims up? Show me one quote where Knoxx mentions her spinal injuries? Show one medical person who attended her talking about her spinal injuries?

Show me on piece from Knoxx talking about her injuries?  You cannot address even one of these questions  because it's all utter bull which only the ignorant and gullible believe. 

You have asked to see medical records that you know I don't have access to.  That is just moving the goal posts. 

No it's not it's asking you to back your nonsense up.

You are suggesting she lied about how seriously injured she was.  That seems unlikely to me, as all eye witnesses have testified that she is telling the truth.  But I will point your hypocrisy out again - though you will probably just dodge it like you did in your post..  Why didn't you believe the medical journal ar
ticles I posted with all the doctor's records you could want regarding the blind woman being healed and the person with the gastric condition being healed? 
 
Show me her testimony in her own words? You cannot even do that , right.


Stop deflecting by posting up other nonsensical claims.


 See

Case report of instantaneous resolution of juvenile macular degeneration blindness after proximal intercessory prayer

and

Case Report of gastroparesis healing: 16 years of a chronic syndrome resolved after proximal intercessory prayer

How will you move the goal posts this time?  Not enough Tik Tok followers?  Too many Tik Tok followers.  To many medical records?  What will it be the new excuse?

There is zero scientific evidence for the efficiency of prayer , post up a peer reviewed paper by reputable scientists stating such?

You cannot as there's none.

Since I have having a blast piling on the evidence of miracles and healings, I'll give you another one with medical documentation, since that is your excuse this round for not believing in healings and miracles.  How about Dr Sean George who was clinically dead for 85 minutes and came back to life when his wife, a doctor also, prayed for him.  See his story here:

Still waiting on evidence for your original claims regards Knoxx and you're still running

Show me one quote where Knoxx mentions her spinal injuries? Show one medical person who attended her talking about her spinal injuries?

Show me on piece from Knoxx talking about her injuries?  You cannot address even one of these questions  because it's all utter bull which only the ignorant and gullible believe. 





.https://seangeorge.com.au/my-story/my-story/

And the documented evidence here:
https://seangeorge.com.au/my-story/medical-details/

I'm sure even more overwhelming evidence will not shake your faith without any basis that there are no miracles.  

Asking for evidence is not a faith based position , yours certainly is as your gullibility is staggering.

So stop running and answer........Show me one quote where Knoxx mentions her spinal injuries? Show one medical person who attended her talking about her spinal injuries?

Show me on piece from Knoxx talking about her injuries?  You cannot address even one of these questions  because it's all utter bull which only the ignorant and gullible believe. 

And if you like detailed doctor's notes, you should see the story of Jeff Markin who had a massive heart attack and was declared dead.  Dr. Chauncey Crandall, a Yale educated cardiologist, had already filled out the paper work declaring the man dead, when he felt impressed to stop and pray for the man and then gave the guy one more shock against the wishes of the staff in the room.  Markin came back to life with no brain damage though his limbs had already shown signs of no oxygen.  This impacted the Dr so much that he recorded the story, with all the medical details you could ever want in a book: 

Raising the Dead: A Doctor Encounters the Miraculous

Show me one quote where Knoxx mentions her spinal injuries? Show one medical person who attended her talking about her spinal injuries?

Show me on piece from Knoxx talking about her injuries?  You cannot address even one of these questions  because it's all utter bull which only the ignorant and gullible believe. 

So what will your excuse be this time?  The Yale cardiologist was mistaken about the guy being dead?  He didn't attend  Comicon so he can't be trusted?  Where will the goal post move to next?

Show me one quote where Knoxx mentions her spinal injuries? Show one medical person who attended her talking about her spinal injuries?

Show me on piece from Knoxx talking about her injuries?  You cannot address even one of these questions  because it's all utter bull which only the ignorant and gullible believe. 

Craig Keener is professor of the new testament at a seminary why would  I belive a word from his mouth?

Show me one quote where Knoxx mentions her spinal injuries? Show one medical person who attended her talking about her spinal injuries?

Show me on piece from Knoxx talking about her injuries?  You cannot address even one of these questions  because it's all utter bull which only the ignorant and gullible believe. 

Because he literally is the most authoritative expert on miracles in the world.  He wrote the 2 volume set Miracles which details historical evidence for miracles from the time of Jesus till today.  Miracles Today is a newer book of his.  He got interested in miracles when, I think it is his mother-in-law, died and came back to life after having been dead for 3 hours.  

Show me one quote where Knoxx mentions her spinal injuries? Show one medical person who attended her talking about her spinal injuries?

Show me on piece from Knoxx talking about her injuries?  You cannot address even one of these questions  because it's all utter bull which only the ignorant and gullible believe. 

If Knoxx wasn't a fraud her claims could be easily proven but you nor no one else can 



Show me one quote where Knoxx mentions her spinal injuries? Show one medical person who attended her talking about her spinal injuries?

Show me on piece from Knoxx talking about her injuries?  You cannot address even one of these questions  because it's all utter bull which only the ignorant and gullible believe. 


Faith is believing something without sufficient evidence to back it up that's you not me , 

Sorry, but you are the one clinging to your faith claim, while I have provided video, medical journals, eye witness testimony, etc.  You are the one making conclusions based on no evidence for your position, while ignoring overwhelming evidence against your faith claim.


Show me one quote where Knoxx mentions her spinal injuries? Show one medical person who attended her talking about her spinal injuries?

Show me on piece from Knoxx talking about her injuries?  You cannot address even one of these questions  because it's all utter bull which only the ignorant and gullible believe. 

What excuse will you make to continue clinging to your anti-science view that there are no healings and miracles?


Show me one quote where Knoxx mentions her spinal injuries? Show one medical person who attended her talking about her spinal injuries?

Show me on piece from Knoxx talking about her injuries?  You cannot address even one of these questions  because it's all utter bull which only the ignorant and gullible believe. 

Barnardot

@Dee ;Show me one quote

Thats being a bit rich I reckon.

Dee

@Barnardot


From you I agree it would be......you bible thumper are hilarious.

just_sayin

@Dee
Show me on piece from Knoxx talking about her injuries?  
Show me her testimony in her own words? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKHMc_Orn5I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qqONI5WMTs&t=1492s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrVIhcXHRNs - notice the paralyzed lady is walking the whole time

You are correct I don't have her medical reports.  I have seen her own words, evidence she was paralyzed for 22 1/2 years, the video where she walks again for the first time, the testimony of her husband, mother, sister, pastor, coworker, news reports verifying that she was paralyzed, etc.  The first video above says her doctors told her that she was not likely to ever walk again.  You are like Whitney Houston when confronted with getting drugs from drug dealers argued that she wasn't guilty because no one could show her the receipts.  You have assumed because they aren't public that she is a scam artist.  But that's your projection.  All evidence shows that her story is true.

Stop deflecting by posting up other nonsensical claims.

Just cause you hate documented facts and prefer your faith claim that there is no evidence of healings and miracles, doesn't make it true.  You keep running from the claim you made that if there was medical documentation you would believe.  That information that you say is a 'deflection' has been posted here for weeks:

See

Case report of instantaneous resolution of juvenile macular degeneration blindness after proximal intercessory prayer

and

Case Report of gastroparesis healing: 16 years of a chronic syndrome resolved after proximal intercessory prayer

I see you continue to run from evidence and deny the medical studies.  They have lots of doctor's reports in them.

You shifted the goal posts and said you just needed medical verification.  And even though I had already given some instances to you, I provided even more documented examples:

See
.https://seangeorge.com.au/my-story/my-story/

And the documented evidence here:
https://seangeorge.com.au/my-story/medical-details/

And

Raising the Dead: A Doctor Encounters the Miraculous

Yet you ran away from the evidence like Bill Clinton from a paternity test.  

Faith is believing something without sufficient evidence to back it up that's you not me , 

Faith is clinging to a belief when overwhelming evidence says you are wrong.  I have provided peer reviewed journal articles, medical records, video of a healing, eye witness testimony, news reports, etc.  And you have not provided evidence, you have only made faith claims.

Craig Keener is professor of the new testament at a seminary why would  I belive a word from his mouth?

Because Keener is considered the foremost scholar on Miracles in the world.  He wrote a 2 volume book on miracles throughout history.  The man is qualified to make those observations.  You - not so much.

There is zero scientific evidence for the efficiency of prayer , post up a peer reviewed paper by reputable scientists stating such?

The vast bulk of all prayer studies shows that it works.  I've posted several examples.

1. I cited the Stanford and Harvard lecturer, Marilyn Schiltz, who  has done a summary of the studies on prayer:

Marilyn Schlitz, Ph.D., and lecturer at Harvard, says, “It's clear from the correlational studies within the epidemiology data that positive relationships exist between religious and spiritual practice and health outcomes on a variety of different conditions.” Moreover, she says that in a study and confirmation study on intercessory prayer, “the prayer groups had statistically significant improvements in outcome, suggesting that the intervention has clinical relevance.” - Fox News

In the recent National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) survey study I mentioned, a significantly high percentage of the population makes use of prayer for other people. Many people believe that if I pray for you, you will become better, or if you pray for me I'll become better, and yet we know very little of the mechanism to explain how this might happen. So this is a frontier area for research. To date, more than 180 studies have been done in this area, with more than half of them producing significant results. In these experiments, one person through their intention tries to influence the physiology or the physical condition of a target system, such as cell cultures, animal models, and there are human studies. As of March 2004, there have been nine controlled clinical trials looking at intercessory prayer (compassionate intention at a distance). Six of these have produced statistically significant positive results. For a complete list of these studies, one can visit the distant healing research site at the Institute of Noetic Sciences Web site (www.noetic.org). - Marilyn Schlitz, Meditation, Prayer and Spiritual Healing: The Evidence

2. I cited multiple individual prayer studies from reputable peer reviewed science journals that prayer works:

Effects of intercessory prayer on patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Results: Patients receiving in-person intercessory prayer showed significant overall improvement during 1-year follow-up. ..
Conclusions: In-person intercessory prayer may be a useful adjunct to standard medical care for certain patients with rheumatoid arthritis. 

A Randomized Trial of the Effect of Prayer on Depression and Anxiety

Results:

At the completion of the trial, participants receiving the prayer intervention showed significant improvement of depression and anxiety, as well as increases of daily spiritual experiences and optimism compared to controls (p < 0.01 in all cases). Subjects in the prayer group maintained these significant improvements (p < 0.01 in all cases) for a duration of at least 1 month after the final prayer session. Participants in the control group did not show significant changes during the study. Cortisol levels did not differ significantly between intervention and control groups, or between pre- and post-prayer conditions.

Conclusions:

Direct contact person-to-person prayer may be useful as an adjunct to standard medical care for patients with depression and anxiety. Further research in this area is indicated.

The Effect of Prayer on Depression and Anxiety: Maintenance of Positive Influence One Year after Prayer Intervention

Results:

Evaluations post-prayer at 1 month and 1 year showed significantly less depression and anxiety, more optimism, and greater levels of spiritual experience than did the baseline (pre-prayer) measures (p < 0.01 in all cases).

Conclusions:

Subjects maintained significant improvements for a duration of at least 1 year after the final prayer session. Direct person-to-person prayer may be useful as an adjunct to standard medical care for patients with depression and anxiety. Further research in this area is indicated.

From JAMA website

A Randomized, Controlled Trial of the Effects of Remote, Intercessory Prayer on Outcomes in Patients Admitted to the Coronary Care Unit

Results  Compared with the usual care group (n=524), the prayer group (n=466) had lower mean±SEM weighted (6.35±0.26 vs 7.13±0.27; P=.04) and unweighted (2.7±0.1 vs 3.0±0.1; P=.04) CCU course scores. Lengths of CCU and hospital stays were not different.

Conclusions  Remote, intercessory prayer was associated with lower CCU course scores. This result suggests that prayer may be an effective adjunct to standard medical care.

3.  I referenced a few summary of prayer studies that showed that most prayer studies concluded that prayer works:

Such as:

A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE QUALITY OF RESEARCH ON HANDS-ON AND DISTANCE HEALING: CLINICAL AND LABORATORY STUDIES,

which examined the quality of studies of hands-on healing and distance healing that were published between 1955 and 2001. There were 90 identified studies of which 45 had been conducted in clinical settings and 45 in laboratory settings. they reported that 71% of the clinical studies and 62% of the laboratory studies reported positive outcomes; and that the overall internal validity for the studies on distance healing was 75% for the clinical investigations and 81% for the laboratory investigations. So the bulk of studies shows prayer works.

in a systematic review of distance prayer 

The Efficacy of “Distant Healing A Systematic Review of Randomized Trials

" Of these studies, 13 (57%) yielded statistically significant treatment effects favoring distant healing, nine showed no superiority of distant healing over control interventions and one showed a negative effect for distant healing. "

So the bulk of studies shows that prayer does work.  Further, this can generally be seen in hospitals and medical programs around the world as most have over the last 20 years incorporated spiritual aspects into their treatment programs and academic studies.

4.  I provided examples of miracles that appear in scientific journals:

Example of miracle of healing from blindness by prayer,:

Case report of instantaneous resolution of juvenile macular degeneration blindness after proximal intercessory prayer

And a case of miraculous stomach healing after prayer:

Case Report of gastroparesis healing: 16 years of a chronic syndrome resolved after proximal intercessory prayer

There is evidence of healings of eyesight and hearing following prayer (see Southern Medical Journal):

Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Proximal Intercessory Prayer (STEPP) on Auditory and Visual Impairments in Rural Mozambiqu

And what evidence have you shown that prayer doesn't work?  None.  Its just a faith claim that disagrees with overwhelming evidence.  Go ahead and run, move the goal posts, make up another lie.  Do what you have to to cling to your battered and disproven faith claim that there is no evidence of healings and miracles.  But I warn you, you don't have prayer. 

Dee

@just_sayin

Typical Christian you deflect and dodge and accuse me of making up lies all because you have not got even one peer reviewed paper from a reputable scientist that says prayer works, therev is not one shred of evidence that prayer works and no one can demonstrate this to be the case.

The word of an array of Bible thumping fraudsters is like that of second hand car salesman, worthless.

So let's have a look at what has you running scared......

 


Show me one quote where Knoxx mentions her spinal injuries?  THERE ARE NONE SHES A FRAUDSTER.


Show one medical person who attended her talking about her spinal injuries? NOT ONE WILL CLAIM SHE HAD SPINAL INJURIES SHES A FRAUDSTER

Show me one piece from Knoxx talking about her injuries?  THERES NOT ONE PIECE RELATING TO THIS FROM HER , SHES A FRAUDSTER


You cannot address even one of these questions  because it's all utter bull which only the ignorant and truly gullible like you believe

John_C_87

@JulesKorngold
Does preyer work?

I guess in honesty it would depend on who answers our prayer. Is prayer a closed service to only good religious deities?

Dreamer

Argument Topic: Hmmm, heart attack and cardiac arrest are two different conditions.

@just_sayin

 American ignorance manages to conflate the two.

https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/how-aeds-public-places-can-restart-hearts

A heart attack is a circular problem and a defibrillator won't help. Cardiac arrest is an electrical problem and defibrillator will save your life.

"Jeff Markin who had a massive heart attack and was declared dead.  Dr. Chauncey Crandall, a Yale educated cardiologist, had already filled out the paper work declaring the man dead, when he felt impressed to stop and pray for the man and then gave the guy one more shock against the wishes of the staff in the room."

Very strange considering shocks don't work against circular problems that cause heart attacks.

Barnardot

@just_sayin @Dee ;Come join Atheist Spin Class - Where we are always Spinning Overwhelming Evidence of Miracles so We Can Pretend They Don't Exist. 

I have to say that Im totally with Dee on this one and with due respect your doing what maxx and Dee to much and that is looking for articles that support a total belief thats dead in the guts any way.

What I mean is that those articles say a lot of stuff but when you analize them in the end they actually say nothing.

One trick that Dee used was posting stuff that says nothing because you have to buy it which is not being exactly up the front or actually quoting any thin at all. So posting that book is a definite no no.

And the totally wurst thing to do is posting that video Delia Knox was paralyzed from the waist down with no feeling. Because that was so totally staged its not even funny. That Hinze guy got done for that years ago and he paid all those people to act so the hole thing was put on to make people who look at the surface then only believe the hole thing which was actually fake.

And the article you posted was totally fake useless and invalid https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11142453/ 

Because it was about 40 patients and no proper survey uses only 40 people with no control group. A properly conducted survey that was done on the same thing and done on a thousand people in the UK showed the opposite results and in fac found that many people who prayed got so stressed about weather it would work were doomed to failure. So they found that it didn't even pass the placebo test. It actually was worse results for many people who prayed.

So all your links and what you think is evidence is not evidence at all its just a load of baloney put there by people who make money by suckering other people in to believe totally wrong things. So theres totally no such things as miracles and unfortunately you have failed miserably at trying to prove such an old fashioined thing that no one believes any more because we have better inf a round and dont get bullied by those lying church people any more.

Dreamer

Argument Topic: Nice catch about the sample size of 40 and no control.

@Barnardot

I get overwhelmed and missed details, thank you for noticing the flaws.

Barnardot

@MayCaesar ;a defense of the Shinto religion that I to this day have not fully cracked

Well that wood be interesting because the golden rule is that any thing that cant be proven can be cracked any way and all those religions cant be proven any way at all so there have to be cracks in them. But then it was a geisha girl then was it. May be you couldn't fully crack it because you were concentrating to hard on the wrong crack lol

Barnardot

@Dee ;From you I agree it would be......you bible thumper are hilarious.

Well I have to pubically announce right here and now that I am totally done with that religion crap and Im back to my normal self. I woke up one morning and thought what the and after I cleaned the bed I realized that I just got suckered in by all the adrenalin rush about joining my partners church. I feeled really uncomfortable about singing all those dum songs and praying and got to the point of saying thats it all this stuff is total hyped up baloney.

And the thing is you start believing all sorts of other wired things and just explain them away as God did it with out analizing the right facts.

So from now on its the true Barnardot here and those bible bashers are going to get bashed a round the ears with the true truth.

Dee

@Barnardot

So now quoting 78 different scientists and psychologists saying profiling is nonsense is actually saying nothing at all you sound just like Just Sayin .....you bible thumpers are all the same ....

Barnardot

@Dee ;So now quoting 78 different scientists and psychologists saying profiling is nonsense is actually saying nothing at all you sound just like Just Sayin .....you bible thumpers are all the same ....

I reckon that they should up your dose of Ritalin because when you carry on like that and trying to make things out of things that weren't things then making those things things when there not even things any way then your going to get your Calvins in a horrible not.

Dee

@Barnardot

I reckon that they should up your dose of Ritalin because when you carry on like that denyinhg nd trying to make things out of things that weren't things then making those things things when there not even things any way then your going to get your Calvins in a horrible not.

just_sayin

@Barnardot
I have to say that Im totally with Dee on this one and with due respect your doing what maxx and Dee to much and that is looking for articles that support a total belief thats dead in the guts any way.

I think your claim that I just looked for articles that support my claim is a falsehood.  I have pointed out multiple times in this discussion that the vast majority of studies on the efficacy of prayer show that prayer works.  That's not cherry picking.  There have been hundreds of studies done on the efficacy of prayer since 1870.  I'm not the one misrepresenting what the vast majority of those studies show.  It seems to me that YOU are guilty of that.  You took a single study that you didn't like the size or methodology used and you then claimed all research on the efficacy of prayer was bad and tainted.  You should be ashamed of yourself - that's the kind of thing Dee would do.

And the article you posted was totally fake useless and invalid https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11142453/ 

Because it was about 40 patients and no proper survey uses only 40 people with no control group. A properly conducted survey that was done on the same thing and done on a thousand people in the UK showed the opposite results and in fac found that many people who prayed got so stressed about weather it would work were doomed to failure. So they found that it didn't even pass the placebo test. It actually was worse results for many people who prayed.

So all your links and what you think is evidence is not evidence at all its just a load of baloney put there by people who make money by suckering other people in to believe totally wrong things. So theres totally no such things as miracles and unfortunately you have failed miserably at trying to prove such an old fashioined thing that no one believes any more because we have better inf a round and dont get bullied by those lying church people any more.

I get that you didn't like the study you mentioned.  It was very focused on just those with rheumatoid arthritis and the efficacy of prayer of patients under the care of one hospital.  Hey, and it that was all the evidence I brought, you may have a point that the size and methodology were flawed, but as I keep saying, and you keep ignoring, the vast majority of all prayer studies shows it has positive health benefits for those who receive prayer. 

For example the study on JAMA's website,

A Randomized, Controlled Trial of the Effects of Remote, Intercessory Prayer on Outcomes in Patients Admitted to the Coronary Care Unit
Results  Compared with the usual care group (n=524), the prayer group (n=466) had lower mean±SEM weighted (6.35±0.26 vs 7.13±0.27; P=.04) and unweighted (2.7±0.1 vs 3.0±0.1; P=.04) CCU course scores. Lengths of CCU and hospital stays were not different.
Conclusions  Remote, intercessory prayer was associated with lower CCU course scores. This result suggests that prayer may be an effective adjunct to standard medical care.

Is a randomized, controlled trial, where not even the person who was praying knew the condition or the health status of the person being prayed for.  They prayed for the person for 28 days, even if the person had been discharged long before that time.  This study seems to have more of the elements you where looking for.  But wait, before you move the goal posts again, let me AGAIN point out that the vast majority of prayer studies show that prayer works.

It is easy to pick data from one study and take it out of context, that's why systematic reviews of studies are considered the gold standard.  And what do those studies show.  This may surprise you, but they show that prayer works.  

A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE QUALITY OF RESEARCH ON HANDS-ON AND DISTANCE HEALING: CLINICAL AND LABORATORY STUDIES
found that
Results: A total of 45 laboratory and 45 clinical studies published between 1956 and 2001 met the inclusion criteria. Of the clinical studies, 31 (70.5%) reported positive outcomes as did 28 (62%) of the laboratory studies; 4 (9%) of the clinical studies reported negative outcomes as did 15 (33%) of the laboratory studies. The mean percent overall internal validity for clinical studies was 69% (65% for hands-on healing and 75% for distance healing) and for laboratory studies 82% (82% for hands-on healing and 81% for distance healing). 

It discounted some studies as not measuring up to its criteria.  

Another systematic review study:

The Efficacy of “Distant Healing A Systematic Review of Randomized Trials
A total of 23 trials involving 2774 patients met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed. Heterogeneity of the studies precluded a formal meta-analysis. Of the trials, 5 examined prayer as the distant healing intervention, 11 assessed noncontact Therapeutic Touch, and 7 examined other forms of distant healing. Of the 23 studies, 13 (57%) yielded statistically significant treatment effects, 9 showed no effect over control interventions, and 1 showed a negative effect.
Conclusions:
The methodologic limitations of several studies make it difficult to draw definitive conclusions about the efficacy of distant healing. However, given that approximately 57% of trials showed a positive treatment effect, the evidence thus far merits further study.

Now, unlike you did, I have not claimed that one study proves my case or that even a single systematic study proves my case..  I admit some prayer studies have had negative results.  My point is that 1) the vast majority of prayer studies have shown positive outcomes, and 2) that some of the best of the research that has employed double blind, randomized trials and systematic reviews of the studies have shown that prayer has positive health outcomes.

That's why the Stanford and Harvard professor/lecturer on the subject of the efficacy of prayer, was quoted in Fox as saying:

Marilyn Schlitz, Ph.D., and lecturer at Harvard, says, “It's clear from the correlational studies within the epidemiology data that positive relationships exist between religious and spiritual practice and health outcomes on a variety of different conditions.” Moreover, she says that in a study and confirmation study on intercessory prayer, “the prayer groups had statistically significant improvements in outcome, suggesting that the intervention has clinical relevance.” - Fox News

Also see:

To date, more than 180 studies have been done in this area, with more than half of them producing significant results. In these experiments, one person through their intention tries to influence the physiology or the physical condition of a target system, such as cell cultures, animal models, and there are human studies. As of March 2004, there have been nine controlled clinical trials looking at intercessory prayer (compassionate intention at a distance). Six of these have produced statistically significant positive results. For a complete list of these studies, one can visit the distant healing research site at the Institute of Noetic Sciences Web site (www.noetic.org). - Marilyn Schlitz, Meditation, Prayer and Spiritual Healing: The Evidence

Now, not only have I reference several systematic review studies and have quoted from the leading experts in this field of study, I provided at least 4 medically documented examples of miracles.

1)

Case report of instantaneous resolution of juvenile macular degeneration blindness after proximal intercessory prayer

2)
And a case of miraculous stomach healing after prayer:

Case Report of gastroparesis healing: 16 years of a chronic syndrome resolved after proximal intercessory prayer

3).https://seangeorge.com.au/my-story/my-story/

And the documented evidence here:
https://seangeorge.com.au/my-story/medical-details/

And
4)

Raising the Dead: A Doctor Encounters the Miraculous

In the 4th example the Yale Cardiologist was so overwhelmed that the man came back to life after having been, not only legally declared dead, but dead for 85 minutes, that he wrote a book about it, packed full of the medical documentation.

Dee dismissed it out of hand without any rational reason and ran away from the evidence.  Are you too, ignoring medically documented examples of miracles?

What I mean is that those articles say a lot of stuff but when you analize them in the end they actually say nothing.

Your claim is a demonstrable lie.  Maybe you should actually look at them before you make your claim.  Again, we could swap one pro prayer study for one negative prayer study.  That was never my point.  Again, most studies, and many with the most rigorous standards and considered highly reputable, show that prayer works.  The documented miracles show that prayer worked.  The truth is YOU said a lot of stuff that when you analyze it, doesn't really say anything at all about the topic.

Again, I don't have to show that every prayer study shows positive benefits.  If just one miracle happened, then that alone is evidence of a God and that God responded to prayer.  Maybe you were too busy saying things that didn't matter that you ignored what really did matter.  Just sayin

Dee

@just_sayin

Typical of just sayin, he couldn't answer questions on the fraudster Koxx so ignored them and instead made up lies about me which  he uttered to others , what a coward here is what yellow belly just sayin is running from .....
So let's have a look at what has you running scared......

 


Show me one quote where Knoxx mentions her spinal injuries?  THERE ARE NONE SHES A FRAUDSTER.


Show one medical person who attended her talking about her spinal injuries? NOT ONE WILL CLAIM SHE HAD SPINAL INJURIES SHES A FRAUDSTER

Show me one piece from Knoxx talking about her injuries?  THERES NOT ONE PIECE RELATING TO THIS FROM HER , SHES A FRAUDSTER


You cannot address even one of these questions  because it's all utter bull which only the ignorant and truly gullible like you believe

Barnardot

@Dee ;Show me one quote where Knoxx mentions her spinal injuries?  THERE ARE NONE SHES A FRAUDSTER.

Show me one quote where scientists mention that psychology is pseudo?  THERE ARE NONE YOUR A FRAUDSTER.

See, I can play that dum game to but only better.

Dee

@Barnardot ;

Show me one quote where scientists mention that psychology is pseudo?

But I  never said that, so yet another of your lies fail. You should lay of your Ho's crack pipe buddy.....

just_sayin

Dee said:

@just_sayin

Typical of just sayin, he couldn't answer questions on the fraudster Koxx so ignored them and instead made up lies about me which  he uttered to others , what a coward here is what yellow belly just sayin is running from .....
So let's have a look at what has you running scared......

 


Show me one quote where Knoxx mentions her spinal injuries?  THERE ARE NONE SHES A FRAUDSTER.


Show one medical person who attended her talking about her spinal injuries? NOT ONE WILL CLAIM SHE HAD SPINAL INJURIES SHES A FRAUDSTER

Show me one piece from Knoxx talking about her injuries?  THERES NOT ONE PIECE RELATING TO THIS FROM HER , SHES A FRAUDSTER


You cannot address even one of these questions  because it's all utter bull which only the ignorant and truly gullible like you believe

Delia Knox has not been shown to be a fraudster. All evidence has shown she was paralyzed for 22 1/2 years and then being prayed for she walked and continues to walk.  You are the one who has made claims that the evidence does not support.  You have suggested that because I don't have access to her medical records that she is a 'fraudster'.  It appears you have fabricated medical records for her that reflect your own narrative.

I have not lied about your conduct in our debates. If you look in a mirror and don't like the reflection, don't blame the mirror.  

Now I responded to your claim that I have not provided medical records for Delia Knox.  I have freely admitted I don't have access to them.  I have pointed you to news reports, tv reports, eye witness testimony, and video of her healing.  I have noted where others have mentioned that her doctor's told that it was not likely she would ever walk again.  I provided clips of her and others making that same comment.  

The one running is you.  You dismissed Delia Knox's miracle because you could not see her medical records.  I provided four medically documented miracles for you and you ran from them like Joe Biden from a lie detector test.  Will you continue to be a coward and deny the medically supported miracles I provided:

1)

Case report of instantaneous resolution of juvenile macular degeneration blindness after proximal intercessory prayer

2)
And a case of miraculous stomach healing after prayer:

Case Report of gastroparesis healing: 16 years of a chronic syndrome resolved after proximal intercessory prayer

3).https://seangeorge.com.au/my-story/my-story/

And the documented evidence here:
https://seangeorge.com.au/my-story/medical-details/

And
4)

Raising the Dead: A Doctor Encounters the Miraculous

In the 4th example the Yale Cardiologist was so overwhelmed that the man came back to life after having been, not only legally declared dead, but dead for 85 minutes, that he wrote a book about it, packed full of the medical documentation.

So how long will you continue to run away scared?



See Dee run.  See Dee run fast.  See Dee run away.  

Dee

@just_sayin

Just saying still running like a scared  rabbit , Knoxx is a  fraud which is why you cannot post even post  one sentence where she admits she had spinal injuries,  you seriously  expect me to believe the word of her bible bashing cohorts as evidence?  Bahahahahahahahahaha

Your links to bible thumping preachers  claiming prayer works are hilarious which is why you cannot post one peer reviewed paper supporting your gibberish,.

You're a compulsive li-r and a fantasist and apparently a spokesman for the loony Knoxx. 


Typical of just sayin, he couldn't answer questions on the fraudster Koxx so ignored them and instead made up lies about me which  he uttered to others , what a coward here is what yellow belly just sayin is running from .....
So let's have a look at what has you running scared......

 


Show me one quote where Knoxx mentions her spinal injuries?  THERE ARE NONE SHES A FRAUDSTER.


Show one medical person who attended her talking about her spinal injuries? NOT ONE WILL CLAIM SHE HAD SPINAL INJURIES SHES A FRAUDSTER

Show me one piece from Knoxx talking about her injuries?  THERES NOT ONE PIECE RELATING TO THIS FROM HER , SHES A FRAUDSTER


You cannot address even one of these questions  because it's all utter bull which only the ignorant and truly gullible like you believe



 I have noted where others have mentioned that her doctor's told that it was not likely she would ever walk again.


What Doctors? Name them ? Where are their written testimonies? Where are the X -Ray's?

Just Sayin caught lying yet again ......

just_sayin

@Dee
I addressed your questions as best I can.  I don't have access to her medical records.  I told you that.  You have claimed she is a fraud because you can't see them, even though there is no evidence that she lied.

I have told you that I have provided 4 examples of miracles with medical documentation.  And you have run from them faster than a child with diarhrea runs to the bathroom.  

When will you stop running and start addressing the 4 miracles I mentioned? 2 of which I mentioned before the Delia Knox example.  

See Dee run


See Dee run real fast

Dee

@just_sayin


I addressed your questions as best I can. 

You have nothing.


 I don't have access to her medical records. 

Yet you claim two doctors know all about the spine injury but you cannot supply theri names or even a testimony from them or Knoxx, what a pile of baloney.


 I told you that.  You have claimed she is a fraud because you can't see them, even though there is no evidence that she lied.

If she wasn't a l-ar and a fraudster there would be medical evidence to support her lies , yet there's nothing.

Post up where she says she has a spinal injury in her own words? You cannot as you made that up like all your other claims.

I have told you that I have provided 4 examples of miracles with medical documentation. 

No you haven't each of them is a piece by a christian preacher or Christian whacko.

Again you cannot post up even one piece that's been peer reviewed by a credible scientist because there are non 

 And you have run from them faster than a child with diarhrea runs to the bathroom.  

Yet another lie from the pretend " christian" how is it running when I'm asking you to back your nonsense up?

When will you stop running and start addressing the 4 miracles I mentioned?

Read above 

 2 of which I mentioned before the Delia Knox example.  

Read above. I see others have pointed out the hilarious propaganda pieces you post up and call " evidence " , how much money do you give the fraudster Knoxx and her husband every year?

You American christians are the dumbest most gullible nuts on the planet which is why Trump loves you 

just_sayin

@Dee
If she wasn't a l-ar and a fraudster there would be medical evidence to support her lies , yet there's nothing.... No you haven't each of them is a piece by a christian preacher or Christian whacko.

Is that right?  Do you have medical records that say they are Christian whacko's?  If so you need to show those medical records immediately. Calling someone a whacko without medically documented evidence is a serious charge. Failing to produce that evidence would make you a, what was the term you used, 'l-ar and a fraudster', so put up or run away AGAIN.  

In reality, it doesn't matter if the patients are whackos or not, because the documented medical evidence supports their claim.  The 4 miracles have documented medical evidence.  One from a Yale cardiologist who was literally in the room where the guy died.  Do you have have documented evidence that they are whacko's?  They have documented medical evidence of their claims. Should we believe the guy without documented medical evidence or the witnesses with documented medical evidence?   I have a reason to believe them.  I don't have any reason to believe you though.  

Will you produce medically documented evidence that they are whackos?  If not that would make you a 'l-ar and a fraudster'.  The 4 miracles I produced backed up their claims with medical records.  Where are yours?  

See Dee run

Dee

@just_sayin


To call American "  christians " whackos is based on the facts and doesn't need any medical diagnosis to confirm you and other religious nuts in the US think Jesus would have carried a gun and think Trump is the ideal " Christian" proving you're Whackos, also anyone that believes they have a relationship with an entity that cannot be seen , heard or touched yet exists  is a whacko. 

For you to claim to be a " christian" is hilarious you're a compulsive l-ar and a hate filled bigot, but hey so is Trump.

Just sayin the compulsive l-ar and religious Whacko still cannot make a case for religios Whacko Knoxx ......


 addressed your questions as best I can. 

You have nothing.


 I don't have access to her medical records. 

Yet you claim two doctors know all about the spine injury but you cannot supply theri names or even a testimony from them or Knoxx, what a pile of baloney.


I told you that.  You have claimed she is a fraud because you can't see them, even though there is no evidence that she lied.

If she wasn't a l-ar and a fraudster there would be medical evidence to support her lies , yet there's nothing.

Post up where she says she has a spinal injury in her own words? You cannot as you made that up like all your other claims.

I have told you that I have provided 4 examples of miracles with medical documentation. 

No you haven't each of them is a piece by a christian preacher or Christian whacko.

Again you cannot post up even one piece that's been peer reviewed by a credible scientist because there are non 

 And you have run from them faster than a child with diarhrea runs to the bathroom.

Yet another lie from the pretend " christian" how is it running when I'm asking you to back your nonsense up?

When will you stop running and start addressing the 4 miracles I mentioned?

Read above 

 2 of which I mentioned before the Delia Knox example. 

Read above. I see others have pointed out the hilarious propaganda pieces you post up and call " evidence " , how much money do you give the fraudster Knoxx and her husband every year?




You American christians are the dumbest most gullible nuts on the planet which is why Trump loves you 

Barnardot

@Dee ;But I  never said that, so yet another of your lies fail.

And I didn't say that you did Iasked the same question 10 times and you cant answer it for some funny reason

21CenturyIconoclast

@Dee

It is easily shown ad infinitum in how utterly Bible "just_sayin" truly is, and when this person can't get out of from under their Bible ignorance, "just_sayin" RUNS AND HIDES from questions posed to them that embarrassingly show how Bible inept  they are!

Barnardot

@21CenturyIconoclast ;It is easily shown ad infinitum in how utterly Bible "just_sayin" truly is

Well your quite right there and also I agree with you on the point that you pointed out there also. I converted to religion for a while and then I woke up one morning and thought what the. Any way after I cleaned up the mess I thought that so many people just believe in God just because other people told them and they get so high on there belief that they now get along with all the other dweebs who believe in that crap any way. Any Way after the high goes a way they realize what total dufises they are and then start to think out side of the circle more and think what other crap do I believe just because it is convectional wisdom. So now Im starting to question every thing and Im starting to get the true answers because I all ways look side ways at things now and at people who say suss things. And sure there are going to be those people who have the disposition in the first place to believe wired things because they dont want to know any more than what they want to know because it up sets the space that there in. So does that make any sents to you at all.

For example an example is that you cant believe hypnotits and clearvoyance because there just show biz people who make a living out of taking the mikey and fooling simple people into believing a heap of dog mess about there lives.

just_sayin

@Dee

To call American "  christians " whackos is based on the facts and doesn't need any medical diagnosis to confirm you and other religious nuts in the US think Jesus would have carried a gun and think Trump is the ideal " Christian" proving you're Whackos, also anyone that believes they have a relationship with an entity that cannot be seen , heard or touched yet exists  is a whacko. 

For you to claim to be a " christian" is hilarious you're a compulsive l-ar and a hate filled bigot, but hey so is Trump.

Just sayin the compulsive l-ar and religious Whacko still cannot make a case for religios Whacko Knoxx ......

Where are the medical records to back up your claim?  You demanded medical records to back up any claim of healing or miracles and I provided you 4 medically documented examples.  Now where is your evidence that someone is a Christian whacko if they have medical evidence of a healing or miracle?

You tried to dismiss medically verified miracles from a Yale Cardiologist and claimed he was a 'Christian Whacko'.  Sorry bud, but your special pleading isn't working this time.  Address the 4 documented miracles.  Calling someone a whaco without medically documented evidence isn't going to fly.  All 4 miracles have medical documentation to support their claim.  Yet you, who demand others have medical evidence of their claim, failed to support your claim with medical evidence.

Hey, if you ever stop running and discuss the miracles, know I'll provide you with even more documented evidence.  Maybe we can then talk about the 70 medically documented healings at Lourdes or one of many other miracles.  But you have to stop running first.  Just cause you don't like medically document miracles corroborated by a Yale Cardiologist doesn't make him a Christian Whacko.  

What does "Jesus would have carried a gun and think Trump is the ideal " Christian" proving you're Whackos," have to do with medically documentation of the blind seeing and the dead coming back to life?  Does Jesus' gun invalidate medical documentation of someone's condition?  I don't think so.  

According to a Radiant Foundation study of 1100 people:

87% of Americans who pray say their prayers were answered in the last year: study

Is it your plan to call a hundred million American's 'Christian Whackos' to avoid the evidence that prayer works?  Such a claim will need medical records for each and every person.  You better get busy.  

JulesKorngold

Argument Topic: Negative Results

• A study published in the journal Scientific American in 2006 found that there was no difference in the recovery rates of patients who were prayed for and those who were not prayed for. 
• A study published in the journal The Lancet in 2000 found that there was no difference in the survival rates of patients who were prayed for and those who were not prayed for. 
• A study published in the journal Psychological Science in 2001 found that people who prayed for themselves were no more likely to achieve their goals than people who did not pray. 
• A study published in the journal Nature in 2005 found that there was no difference in the performance of athletes who were prayed for and those who were not prayed for. 
• A study published in the journal PLOS One in 2019 found that there was no difference in the survival rates of patients with heart failure who were prayed for and those who were not prayed for. 
• A study published in the journal Religion, Brain & Behavior in 2018 found that there was no difference in the anxiety levels of people who prayed for themselves and those who did not pray. 
• A study published in the journal Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2017 found that there was no difference in the happiness levels of people who prayed and those who did not pray. 
• A study published in the journal Health Psychology in 2016 found that there was no difference in the pain levels of people who were prayed for and those who were not prayed for. 

just_sayin

@JulesKorngold
You forgot the Harvard study that found no effect of prayer.  There are several studies which have found no positive effect of prayer.  However, they are in the minority as the vast majority of studies have found positive benefits to prayer.  I know I am repeating myself, but I sent this to you the last time you listed negative studies:

Rather than go back and forth with you, where I cite a study affirming healing or the benefits of prayer from a top quality peer reviewed journal or site such as Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and then you rebut with a vague study without a link from Critical Care Medicine, whatever that is, I thought it would be more beneficial to see where the bulk of studies on this topic come down.  In

A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE QUALITY OF RESEARCH ON HANDS-ON AND DISTANCE HEALING: CLINICAL AND LABORATORY STUDIES,

examined the quality of studies of hands-on healing and distance healing that were published between 1955 and 2001. There were 90 identified studies of which 45 had been conducted in clinical settings and 45 in laboratory settings. they reported that 71% of the clinical studies and 62% of the laboratory studies reported positive outcomes; and that the overall internal validity for the studies on distance healing was 75% for the clinical investigations and 81% for the laboratory investigations. So the bulk of studies shows prayer works.

in a Pub Med systematic review of distance prayer 

The Efficacy of “Distant Healing A Systematic Review of Randomized Trials

" Of these studies, 13 (57%) yielded statistically significant treatment effects favoring distant healing, nine showed no superiority of distant healing over control interventions and one showed a negative effect for distant healing. "

So the bulk of studies shows that prayer does work.  Further, this can generally be seen in hospitals and medical programs around the world as most have over the last 20 years incorporated spiritual aspects into their treatment programs and academic studies.

I have also mentioned this before:   From the National Library of Medicine's website:

In the recent National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) survey study I mentioned, a significantly high percentage of the population makes use of prayer for other people. Many people believe that if I pray for you, you will become better, or if you pray for me I'll become better, and yet we know very little of the mechanism to explain how this might happen. So this is a frontier area for research. To date, more than 180 studies have been done in this area, with more than half of them producing significant results. In these experiments, one person through their intention tries to influence the physiology or the physical condition of a target system, such as cell cultures, animal models, and there are human studies. As of March 2004, there have been nine controlled clinical trials looking at intercessory prayer (compassionate intention at a distance). Six of these have produced statistically significant positive results. For a complete list of these studies, one can visit the distant healing research site at the Institute of Noetic Sciences Web site (www.noetic.org). - Marilyn Schlitz, Meditation, Prayer and Spiritual Healing: The Evidence

Dee

@just_sayin

American christians are gullible.and incredibly ignorant , Trump loves American christians because he know how ignorant and gullible they are.

You and fellow Christians believe you have a relationship with a supernatural entity that cannot be seen,  heard or touched yet somehow exists that makes you whackos.

Also you have not one peer reviewed  paper by a credible scientist backing up your ridiculous prayer claims and still not one testimony from Koxx herself claiming she ever had a spinal.injusry, so I think clearly demonstrates how deluded and gullible you truly are.


How much does a chump like you give Knoxx a year from your salary?

Barnardot

@just_sayin ;I get that you didn't like the study you mentioned.

You might get that and its sad because what you don't get is that the study is totally invalid and in complete because no decent survey surveys just 40 people and no decent survey excludes control groups and not decent survey excludes a certification that the survey is authenticated. You have already been advised of that and not by me and you even accepted that. Now the next invalid bit of your bogus evidence.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/485161

The article says absolutely and totally nothing, zippo zilch. The conclusion says This result suggests that prayer may be an effective adjunct to standard medical care. Does it say that prayer works. No it doesn't any where at all in the survey, absolutely no where at all. And now for the next piece of bogus information.

https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/41193143/Crawford_CC_Sparber_AG_Jonas_WBA_systema20160115-557-il6nr7-libre.pdf?1452859376=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DCrawford_CC_Sparber_AG_Jonas_WBA_systema.pdf&Expires=1691249560&Signature=c4bBGiURLy7ZMF3iMCzrijBI9JNNnrdfhRY64MI5vgtE0AHzkQT2OMpRecMg5EuutC4EYrYA0~O9Z7dWnHSPVruJj8J3KmDFdfBwaDCqKjFu3IOV1WVu7rtJ4QGbkpErGWx8z-T6SRTbCE6-0zUxLiG6~w65L24wxWVGaGKV5AOklanCOJf2eivPz2k6KrJYDuXDaikISH~ihpPxAYF~GPTFTacnuhzUDeLBsya88-4I0DrAAUbJNd~XrKoJg7L33t-o~3oLAxdHmOr5cAqpNinyhHnlEdUB3NtiHA5QpeD1JBLiHv1yXEVV8wzRqAn-jtbsTt4KEMOCtbmlA4twMw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA

Yes its one big link all right but it is spam and locked for some odd reason. In other words its totally invalid. Now for the next one

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/abs/10.7326/0003-4819-132-11-200006060-00009

Another one that says totally nothing .....However, given that approximately 57% of trials showed a positive treatment effect, the evidence thus far merits further study. Like you tell me what that term means, is it definitive is it committal is it conclusive. No it does not qualify what on earth it means at all. And it admits that it needs more study. Like are they going to measure the placebo effect as being totally responsible for the so called positive treatment effect. And now for the next suck in the gullible article. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550830720300926?via%3Dihubhttp://

Case report of instantaneous resolution of juvenile macular degeneration blindness after proximal intercessory prayer

So okay lets go no further than the title to kill this little bit of fake news. After. So what. So I can equally say that the patient got better after drinking a cup of tea there fore the tea cured the patient. You got real sucked into that one. And the same applies to the next fake article that totally concluded absolutely nothing So he got better after prayer so it must be the prayer that did it. No it wasn't and the article nowhere says it was.

htthttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965229918313116p://

Now for the next bit of total nonsense and I mean that in the true sents of the word.

http://https//www.amazon.com/Raising-Dead-Doctor-Encounters-Miraculous/dp/044655720X//

The blog admits that the patient was given a defibrillator yet oh la de da it happened to be the prayer that just so happened to bring the man to life. Nothing to do with the defibrillator of course. So why would any one with half a brain read such a loony story that infers a load of baloney but says and proves totally nothing at all.

So when you analize it in the end a zillion people on this site are telling you one thing and that is it is not about not liking the evidence you gave but it is not evidence at all. Not one bit. It only proves that there are many people out there that get sucked in to believing suggestive crap and these scientists make heaps of money out of it.

You can search the hole universe but you are going to get no evidence from anywhere except by con artist preachers who are totally dis honest. And that video about people being cured in church. That is so obviously over acted and put on and is 10 times worse acting than mid day soapies and that is saying some thing. One day you will get to rerealizehat those smiling kindly preachers at your church are nothing more than lying con artists. They know it but they make a living out of sucking in gullible people who want to believe there lies and they also enjoy the power trip. Enough said because you have been totally sucked in by a load of total baloney and dont say you haven't had it properly pointed out and exposed to you.

MayCaesar

@just_sayin

What does it even mean to say that your "prayer has been answered"? What, they saw a dream in which a bearded guy told them that their prayer has been heard and the wish will be granted?

There is a reason all this data you cite is so incredibly vague: this is the only way it can be kept from being reproducible - and falsifiable. Say something more concrete - that, say, in over 80% cases one gets what they pray for within a year - and we can immediately set up an experiment and a year later see that the claim is hogwash.

As for your question on whether 87% people were deluded... yes, they were. If you have ever studied statistics, you know very well that humans are incredibly good at finding patterns and connections when there are none. If you have prayed for a gazillion different things throughout a year and a couple of them came to pass, you should not be surprised: what are the odds that none of all those things would come to pass even if you did not do anything? But if you are a theists who sees the world through prism of divine intervention, then, of course, you are going to pick on those two dice roll and say: "Gods favor me!"
"I threw a coin a thousand times and got one streak of 8 tails! Lady Fortune is on my side!"

I can show you right now a result of 20 random coin flips and ask you to find a mathematical pattern - and your mind will pick out something, guaranteed. That the pattern instead is a pure product of chance and has nothing to do with any intrinsic laws of nature is something your mind will fight as hard as it can: you have already convinced yourself that there is a pattern, and your conviction now is the glasses you wear and see everything through.

This is why scientific method is the way to determine what is true and what is not. It is the only approach known to humanity that, when followed rigorously, fully corrects for inherent human biases and flaws of thinking.
The religious methodology, instead, embraces those biases and flaws of thinking and glorifies them. The most devoted theists take pride in following their faith even in direct contradiction to evidence. It is glorification of human idiocy and gullibility, and complete inversion of reason.

just_sayin

Dee said:

@just_sayin

American christians are gullible.and incredibly ignorant , Trump loves American christians because he know how ignorant and gullible they are.

You and fellow Christians believe you have a relationship with a supernatural entity that cannot be seen,  heard or touched yet somehow exists that makes you whackos.

Also you have not one peer reviewed  paper by a credible scientist backing up your ridiculous prayer claims and still not one testimony from Koxx herself claiming she ever had a spinal.injusry, so I think clearly demonstrates how deluded and gullible you truly are.


How much does a chump like you give Knoxx a year from your salary?

Not a lot of time this week to respond to comments, so I thought I'd respond to yours first - they are always the most fact free comments.  

"American christians are gullible and incredibly ignorant?"  Do you have their medical records to back that claim up?  If not its just your opinion masquerading as a fact again (Barnardot is the king of it though). 

"You and fellow Christians believe you have a relationship with a supernatural entity that cannot be seen,  heard or touched yet somehow exists that makes you whackos."

Do you have medical records declaring hundreds of millions of Christians whackos?  I didn't think so.  So once again, you made an evidence and fact free claim.  

Also you have not one peer reviewed  paper by a credible scientist backing up your ridiculous prayer claims and still not one testimony from Koxx herself claiming she ever had a spinal.injusry, so I think clearly demonstrates how deluded and gullible you truly are.

 Now the scientists must have been reputable enough to get their papers published in journals - because that's where I saw them.  Further, as I have pointed out, one is a professor and guest lecturer at Harvard and Stanford.  Another is a Yale Cardiologist.  Do you have medical records that say they aren't credible scientists?  I'll need to see that documentation.  if you don't have it, then it is just another one of your personal opinions that you are claiming is a fact without any evidence to support it at all. 

Now I don't have access to Delia Knox's medical records.  I've provided 1) video of her healing, 2) her personal testimony, 3) eye witness testimony from her mother, sister, pastor, co-worker, and husband.  4) print and TV news reports of both her accident and her healing, and 5) Various other news reports substantiating her claims.  So I've provided evidence.  Which is more evidence than you have provided for any of your claims.

 

Dee

@just_sayin

Well done , a typical response from a typical American religious nut.

You still have nothing , no medical records, no testimony from Knoxx, no peer reviewed papers .....next you will be saying the bible is evidence .....

You never answered how much a year do loons like you contribute to Knoxx's luxury lifestyle?

ZeusAres42

Edit: Sorry, misread the op. Will comment later.

ZeusAres42

More specificity would be helpful. The question to me is like "Does thinking work?"

ZeusAres42

@just_sayin

Marilyn Schlitz, Ph.D., and lecturer at Harvard, says, “It's clear from the correlational studies within the epidemiology data that positive relationships exist between religious and spiritual practice and health outcomes on a variety of different conditions.” Moreover, she says that in a study and confirmation study on intercessory prayer, “the prayer groups had statistically significant improvements in outcome, suggesting that the intervention has clinical relevance.” - Fox News

There are scientifically documented accounts of healing after prayer.  Here is but one example: Case Report of gastroparesis healing: 16 years of a chronic syndrome resolved after proximal intercessory prayer

Post hoc ergo propter hoc (After this, therefore because of this) It cannot be stressed enough that correlation is not causation. Just because there might be a connection discovered between two things it does not mean that one caused the other. There are a whole multitude of variables as to why they might have healed and only further studies will be able to determine this. 

As for statistical significance, it should be noted that while this may very well be the case with some anecdotal studies it means very little in terms of clinical or practical significance. 

Lastly, while there are studies that do indeed exist like this it does not mean the prayers are being answered by some divine intervention; the positive physiological aspects with regards to certain practices need to be taken into account e.g, placebo effect, psychological benefits of beleife, decreased stress associated with religious practices such as prayer and mediation, and so forth. 

Barnardot

@just_sayin

Not a lot of time this week to respond to comments, so I thought I'd respond to yours first -

Yes well we have all had that sort of excuse before. Not being very up front so to speak is it.

they are always the most fact free comments.  

That is being totally hypercritical because all of your comments and every one of you links with evidence have been totally disproven and clearly outlined as why.

But of course you didn't have time to respond to that did you.

Dont you ever wonder why God lovers have a big reputation for lying and dodging the truth.

MayCaesar

I find it curious that hypotheses that are the easiest to test and reject tend to be the ones people are most hesitant to give up on. Few people will dispute that the temperature at the core of the Sun is above a million degrees Celsius, even though demonstrating that it is requires understanding a very sophisticated theory in conjunction with using a fairly expensive equipment - they will say: "Scientists probably know what they are talking about".

On the other hand, the hypothesis that "prayers work" is very easily falsifiable - in fact, anyone can set up an experiment at home requiring zero equipment and very little time investment. Here is the set up: take a year and every odd day pray that exactly one year from now the temperature in the morning will be higher than this morning, and every even day pray that exactly one year from now the temperature in the morning will be lower than this morning.
Next year, collect the data, marking each day as 1 if the temperature increased, and -1 if it decreased. If "prayers work", then you should observe significantly more 1-s on odd days and significantly more -1-s on even days; if they do not, then 1-s and -1-s will be similar to each other in numbers in both cases. There are many online hypothesis testing tools you can upload your dataset to and get an immediate result.

Nope, nothing. Someone will spend thousands of hours praying, meditating on their "holy book" and attending church sermons - but will not spend a few seconds putting the most basic claims to the most basic test. Anything people do to demonstrate that "prayers work" is so excruciatingly vague, they might as well say "hocus-pocus abracadabra" - the concreteness of the methodology required to demonstrate this will be similar.

Barnardot

@MayCaesar That is an interesting test to do and of coarse it makes heaps of sents. When I got involved in the church after being suckered in to it by my partner I just jokingly said to the pasta one day what if I pray for a million dollars. And he got out of it by saying that God will only answer prayers that are for the good of the world. But it was only later that I thought what if I prayed that the million dollars was for me to feed the poor. So I reckon that if you pray to God to change the temperature every day then he might think how does that help the world. Any way I bet that God would get a bit peed off having to fiddle with the air con knob very morning when he gets up

just_sayin

@Barnardot

You might get that and its sad because what you don't get is that the study is totally invalid and in complete because no decent survey surveys just 40 people and no decent survey excludes control groups and not decent survey excludes a certification that the survey is authenticated. You have already been advised of that and not by me and you even accepted that. Now the next invalid bit of your bogus evidence.

Its fine for you to say you would have done the study differently.  You wanted a larger group and a double blind study.  That's fine.  What's dishonest is to suggest that the study was found 'invalid'.  That is a lie.  That is your opinion only..  The study has not been found 'invalid' nor has it been removed nor have the people behind it walked back its claims.  Numerous studies use smaller groups - particularly when they have a narrow focus.  Just because it has a small group does not mean that the opposite results would be found if it were larger.  In fact as I keep pointing out to you, but you ignore it, because it completely destroys your falsehoods, is that the vast majority of prayer studies show positive effects from prayer.  This study is not out of the norm of other findings, but not only is your claim that it was found 'invalid' false, it is your MINORITY opinion.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/485161
The article says absolutely and totally nothing, zippo zilch. The conclusion says This result suggests that prayer may be an effective adjunct to standard medical care. Does it say that prayer works. No it doesn't any where at all in the survey, absolutely no where at all. And now for the next piece of bogus information.

Let me quote from the journal: "We found an 11% reduction in scores in the prayer group (6.35±0.26) compared with the usual care group (7.13±0.27) (P=.04)."  and "Using a severity-adjusted outcomes score, we found lower overall adverse outcomes for CCU patients randomized to the prayer group compared with those randomized to the usual care group."  

So, there was an 11% lower MAHI-CCU score, showing that those prayed for had less symptoms and issues, which also confirmed previous findings of the Byrd study.  That's not 'nothing'.  That is a something.  

https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/41193143/Crawford_CC_Sparber_AG_Jonas_WBA_systema20160115-557-il6nr7-libre.pdf?1452859376=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DCrawford_CC_Sparber_AG_Jonas_WBA_systema.pdf&Expires=1691249560&Signature=c4bBGiURLy7ZMF3iMCzrijBI9JNNnrdfhRY64MI5vgtE0AHzkQT2OMpRecMg5EuutC4EYrYA0~O9Z7dWnHSPVruJj8J3KmDFdfBwaDCqKjFu3IOV1WVu7rtJ4QGbkpErGWx8z-T6SRTbCE6-0zUxLiG6~w65L24wxWVGaGKV5AOklanCOJf2eivPz2k6KrJYDuXDaikISH~ihpPxAYF~GPTFTacnuhzUDeLBsya88-4I0DrAAUbJNd~XrKoJg7L33t-o~3oLAxdHmOr5cAqpNinyhHnlEdUB3NtiHA5QpeD1JBLiHv1yXEVV8wzRqAn-jtbsTt4KEMOCtbmlA4twMw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA
Yes its one big link all right but it is spam and locked for some odd reason. In other words its totally invalid. Now for the next one

The xml message suggests you don't have access.  I think the study you are referencing is this one:

A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

OF THE QUALITY OF RESEARCH ON HANDS-ON

AND DISTANCE HEALING:

CLINICAL AND LABORATORY STUDIES

Let me know if you can't access it.  

The study foiund:

A total of 45 laboratory and 45 clinical studies published

between 1956 and 2001 met the inclusion criteria. Of the clinical stud-

ies, 31 (70.5%) reported positive outcomes as did 28 (62%) of the labo-

ratory studies; 4 (9%) of the clinical studies reported negative outcomes

as did 15 (33%) of the laboratory studies. The mean percent overall

internal validity for clinical studies was 69% (65% for hands-on heal-

ing and 75% for distance healing) and for laboratory studies 82% (82%

for hands-on healing and 81% for distance healing). 

For the record, we have indeed discussed the details of this study.  Yet another systematic study on prayer shows that a majority of prayer studies show that prayer lead to positive health outcomes.

You complained about the quality of them before.

From the report:

Study Quality

Laboratory

Quality scores for laboratory studies ranged from 73% to

95% out of a maximum of 22 quality variables, with a mean

score of 18/22 (82%). The mean quality score for hands-on-

healing in laboratory studies was 82% in a total of 25 studies,

while the mean quality score for distance-healing studies was

81% in a total of 20 studies. These 2 interventions scored sim-

ilarly according to overall internal validity quality

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/abs/10.7326/0003-4819-132-11-200006060-00009
Another one that says totally nothing .....However, given that approximately 57% of trials showed a positive treatment effect, the evidence thus far merits further study. Like you tell me what that term means, is it definitive is it committal is it conclusive. No it does not qualify what on earth it means at all. And it admits that it needs more study. Like are they going to measure the placebo effect as being totally responsible for the so called positive treatment effect. And now for the next suck in the gullible article. 

First, this study has a lot of the elements you asked for:

"Studies with the following features were included: random assignment, placebo or other adequate control, publication in peer-reviewed journals, clinical (rather than experimental) investigations, and use of human participants."

Secondly, the prayer group had statically superior treatment effects.  That means better treatment and health outcomes.

"Of the 23 studies, 13 (57%) yielded statistically significant treatment effects, 9 showed no effect over control interventions, and 1 showed a negative effect."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550830720300926?via%3Dihubhttp://
Case report of instantaneous resolution of juvenile macular degeneration blindness after proximal intercessory prayer
So okay lets go no further than the title to kill this little bit of fake news. After. So what. So I can equally say that the patient got better after drinking a cup of tea there fore the tea cured the patient. You got real sucked into that one. And the same applies to the next fake article that totally concluded absolutely nothing So he got better after prayer so it must be the prayer that did it. No it wasn't and the article nowhere says it was.

Are you blind to the obvious problem of your argument?  The blind girl can see.  There is no medical explanation.  If you want to attribute the miracle to coffee, fine, then show evidence of coffee making the blind see.  The event she denotes as the turning point is prayer.  Hate it all you want.  The fact is the blind woman is seeing and there is no medical answer for it, but there is a supernatural one that corresponds to her experience.

htthttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965229918313116p://

did you mean

Case Report of gastroparesis healing: 16 years of a chronic syndrome resolved after proximal intercessory prayer

How did you miss the description of the prayer service?

From the report:

"At the time of the healing, they attended a non-denominational cessationist Christian church. On November 6, 2011, at age 16, the patient and his family went to a service at a Pentecostal church (that believed healing miracles occurred in Biblical times and also occur today) led by a healing evangelist.

In the message, the speaker reported his own story of having his life spared when his intestines were severed in a serious accident after a 22,000 kg truck fell on his abdomen. While hearing this account, the teenager felt a pulsating sensation in his abdominal region. He reports that “It felt as if God was preparing me […]”. While continuing to listen, he prayed to God “that if He heals my stomach that I would not keep quiet about the subject [sic] [healing]. I told Him that I would share the good news of Jesus and my healing with everyone […]”.

After the sermon, the evangelist talked to the boy and they “compared battle-scars”, as both went through several surgeries, developing an instant comradery. He asked the whole family to gather, and he led a time of PIP (laying hands upon the boy’s shoulders). The patient doesn’t recall how long the PIP intervention took but mentions that he was prayed for only once. The intercessor prayed that, in the name of Jesus, the boy’s stomach be healed. He commanded the healing in the authority and power of Jesus. He made a point of indicating that he had no power or authority to heal, but only with the authority of Jesus Christ, he could command the healing. Halfway through the prayer the boy recalls a shock starting from his right shoulder going down in a diagonal angle across his abdomen and described it as a pulsating and electrical sensation. It surprised the boy, and he reports that he also experienced some pain at the time of the shock. Despite the discomfort, they continued to pray a while longer. The experience is consistent with prior accounts, from scholarly practitioners, who have noted that “About 50 percent of people who are healed feel something […] - heat, electricity, tingling, coolness, pain going away”20 This phenomenon is described by charismatics as manifestations of the Holy Spirit21(p21), which may or may not occur during the PIP. That night after prayer, he ate a meal for the first time without any complications."

And the result:

"The patient’s pediatric gastroenterologist, who was his primary care physician for 16 years, described his case as difficult to explain, but verified that the symptoms had resolved and recommended removing the g- and j-tubes contingent upon three months of toleration to oral feedings (Fig. 2; SM 4: 12/19/11; SM 5: 12/15/11). The patient was able to eat normally during the four months prior to his appointment with the surgeon. The surgeon removed the g- and j-tubes and the abdominal wall, where the tubes previously were, was surgically closed (Fig. 2; SM 6: 04/26/12). To date, six years later, the patient has had no need to see the pediatric gastroenterologist or surgeon, take any medication, nor has he had any health problems."

So yet another miracle without a medical explanation, after prayer.  

Now for the next bit of total nonsense and I mean that in the true sents of the word.
http://https//www.amazon.com/Raising-Dead-Doctor-Encounters-Miraculous/dp/044655720X//
The blog admits that the patient was given a defibrillator yet oh la de da it happened to be the prayer that just so happened to bring the man to life. Nothing to do with the defibrillator of course. So why would any one with half a brain read such a loony story that infers a load of baloney but says and proves totally nothing at all.

So, after the man had been dead 85 minutes, and after the cardiologist wrote out a certificate of death for the guy, the Yale Cardiologist felt led to use a defibrillator one more time, against the pleading of the nurse and the guy comes back to life.  The Cardiologist recognizes that the guy was dead.  How does a defibrillator bring a dead guy back to life, whose been dead for 85 minutes and legally declared dead?  Seems like you forgot the obvious again.  There you go again, desperately clinging to your anti-science.  

So when you analize it in the end a zillion people on this site are telling you one thing and that is it is not about not liking the evidence you gave but it is not evidence at all. Not one bit. It only proves that there are many people out there that get sucked in to believing suggestive crap and these scientists make heaps of money out of it.
You can search the hole universe but you are going to get no evidence from anywhere except by con artist preachers who are totally dis honest. And that video about people being cured in church. That is so obviously over acted and put on and is 10 times worse acting than mid day soapies and that is saying some thing. One day you will get to rerealizehat those smiling kindly preachers at your church are nothing more than lying con artists. They know it but they make a living out of sucking in gullible people who want to believe there lies and they also enjoy the power trip. Enough said because you have been totally sucked in by a load of total baloney and dont say you haven't had it properly pointed out and exposed to you.

What a wonderful example of your desperate pleading.  I provide you with peer reviewed examples of prayer working and of examples of miracles and you seek to attack the researchers and those who reported the incidents.  There is no indication that the events occurred anyway but as they are reported.  You have projected your feelings, and then called it fact.  The reality is that there is overwhelming evidence that prayer works

1) Pew research found that 87% of people who pray report having had a prayer answered in the past year.

2) Pew research reports that millions of Pentecostal/charismatic people report that they have personally seen a miracle.

3) The vast majority of prayer studies show that prayer works

4) There is video of miracles (Delia Knox)

5) There are medical journal accounts of miracles.

Hard to say there is no evidence of answered prayer when so many people are saying they have had prayers answered.  Just cause you deny the evidence doesn't make it less real.

just_sayin

MayCaesar said:

I find it curious that hypotheses that are the easiest to test and reject tend to be the ones people are most hesitant to give up on. Few people will dispute that the temperature at the core of the Sun is above a million degrees Celsius, even though demonstrating that it is requires understanding a very sophisticated theory in conjunction with using a fairly expensive equipment - they will say: "Scientists probably know what they are talking about".

On the other hand, the hypothesis that "prayers work" is very easily falsifiable - in fact, anyone can set up an experiment at home requiring zero equipment and very little time investment. Here is the set up: take a year and every odd day pray that exactly one year from now the temperature in the morning will be higher than this morning, and every even day pray that exactly one year from now the temperature in the morning will be lower than this morning.
Next year, collect the data, marking each day as 1 if the temperature increased, and -1 if it decreased. If "prayers work", then you should observe significantly more 1-s on odd days and significantly more -1-s on even days; if they do not, then 1-s and -1-s will be similar to each other in numbers in both cases. There are many online hypothesis testing tools you can upload your dataset to and get an immediate result.

Nope, nothing. Someone will spend thousands of hours praying, meditating on their "holy book" and attending church sermons - but will not spend a few seconds putting the most basic claims to the most basic test. Anything people do to demonstrate that "prayers work" is so excruciatingly vague, they might as well say "hocus-pocus abracadabra" - the concreteness of the methodology required to demonstrate this will be similar.

I can't speak for other faiths, and I don't even claim to speak for all Christians, but as I read your comments it was obvious that our understandings of the nature of prayer are very different.  You seem to see prayer as a drink machine; put in the required amount, press the right button and you get what you want.  My understanding is very different.  To me, prayer is talking with God.  It is relational, but we are not co-equals in the relationship.  

For me, it seems illogical to have someone pray in a experiment that A) doesn't believe in God, and doesn't believe He answers prayer, and C) has no faith that God will answer.  This may be because of Bible verses I've heard such as " And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." (Hebrews 11:6 NIV)  

Because I see prayer as relational, I don't see it as magic words where if I just get the incantation right, I get what I want.  God is not going to answer a prayer for something that goes against His will and character.  "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him." - 1 John 5:14-15,  "When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." - James 4:3 (NIV), "If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened;" - Psalms 66:18 (NIV), and even mistreating other people, like a wife, will keep God from answering your prayer: "In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered." - 1 Peter 3:7 (NLT)

If God answers prayer, then I think your fundamental beliefs about God and prayer would impact the study.  

Barnardot

@just_sayin ;Its fine for you to say you would have done the study differently. 

yes it is fine for me but the point that Im pointing out is that it isn't me who does the studies and neither is it you either. There is a convention of standards that sets out how surveys are done and Im afraid to say that the survey you quoted just doesn't even come close to that. it is totally bias and useless and it is not my opinion it is a fact as set by the convention. So if you wants to quote sites that say totally nothing and use every trick in the book to hood wink simple people in to making conclusions thats good for you. But hay your fooling no body but your self. All of the sites and studies you posted are total spams and are moving targets because they change there addresses constantly so no body can pick them out. Dont you know a scam when you see it or are you just going to go round believing all the crap there trying to push because you want to believe it.
 But dont take my word for it. Why dont you try and go back to those scam sites (yes every one of them is a scam because I double checked them all) and see what you find. But I know you wont because you dont want to because it is going to completely shatter all the crap that all of these dis honest dufises pumped in to your brain and succeeded.

MayCaesar

just_sayin said:

I can't speak for other faiths, and I don't even claim to speak for all Christians, but as I read your comments it was obvious that our understandings of the nature of prayer are very different.  You seem to see prayer as a drink machine; put in the required amount, press the right button and you get what you want.  My understanding is very different.  To me, prayer is talking with God.  It is relational, but we are not co-equals in the relationship.  

For me, it seems illogical to have someone pray in a experiment that A) doesn't believe in God, and doesn't believe He answers prayer, and C) has no faith that God will answer.  This may be because of Bible verses I've heard such as " And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." (Hebrews 11:6 NIV)  

Because I see prayer as relational, I don't see it as magic words where if I just get the incantation right, I get what I want.  God is not going to answer a prayer for something that goes against His will and character.  "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him." - 1 John 5:14-15,  "When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." - James 4:3 (NIV), "If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened;" - Psalms 66:18 (NIV), and even mistreating other people, like a wife, will keep God from answering your prayer: "In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered." - 1 Peter 3:7 (NLT)

If God answers prayer, then I think your fundamental beliefs about God and prayer would impact the study.  

This does not fit my interpretation of talking to people. When you talk to someone, especially for an extended period of time, you continuously (perhaps, semi-consciously) are running an experiment. You throw something at the person, see how they respond and get to understand them better, refining your prior understanding of them. People who empirically you have learned to be fun to be around and who seem to share many of your values and interests become friends, sometimes lovers - and you only learn all this through talking. And once you have learned enough, you can predict quite well how the person is going to react to many things you can say to them. You absolutely can design a more intentional experiment in order to test one of your hypotheses about the person, although in most cases we do not do so because there is understanding that, on some level, a person is sacred and not an experimental object. Yet there are societies in which psychological experiments on even unwilling humans are commonplace.

When I have a good relationship with someone and want to ask them something, I have enough respect for them to let them make up their own mind. I do not expect them to automatically grant my request, but if they do not, I would like to hear a reason for rejection. If I am having a really bad time psychologically and really need to meet with a close friend, and she just says, "I'm busy", then I might question just how good of a friend she actually is: a good friend will not push me away so lazily.

The "faith" you are talking about seems to rely exactly on the opposite: on some blind trust that a given creature exists and that it has your good will in mind. This makes absolutely no sense to me, and while my default expectation of anyone I meet is highly positive, I do not enter a deep relationship with everyone I meet out of unfoundedly believing that I am the center of their Universe.

If there is no way to measure, to quantify alleged "answers" to people's prayers by god, then that god is fiction, and the relationship exists only in their heads. It is, in fact, the worst possible kind of relationship. It is much better be in an extremely abusive relationship, yet being extremely forgiving and blindly believing that your partner loves you - than be in a relationship with something that does not even acknowledge your existence for it itself does not exist.

Why do you not have faith, say, in me? Why do you not pray to me, sharing your most private secrets with me? Can you give a rational reason as to why your "god" in its ability to converse with you during your prayer is more real than me? With me you are talking right now, and there is a written record of this conversation. What record do you have of your conversations with "god", other than a bunch of stories in your head that you tell others and that no device in the Universe can detect and verify?

Barnardot

@MayCaesar @just_sayin
I'm afraid that I might have sceered Just Sayin off because I think he could feel the heat starting to press a round him since I was pushing a bit to hard by exposing all his fake evidence. Then he said he was in a hurry and he had to go and avoided my post. So I hope he hasn't done any thing rash like jumping in front of a bike after realizing the facts of all the baloney he was believing. Im just reching out to Just Sayin to communicate that I didn't mean to be so hard and I know what its like when you suddenly realize that your hole imaginary world comes crashing down and all thats left is the 4 gray walls that surround you and that your not going go to that condo in the sky when you die. I just want to say to him that Im with you on your journey to freedom from that horrible dog mess that you got into. Sure hes not going to get any prayers answered but look at whats in the reel world. Where I live there are casinos where you dont need to pray for money and you dont need to pray for beautiful women either.

just_sayin

Barnardot said:

@MayCaesar @just_sayin
I'm afraid that I might have sceered Just Sayin off because I think he could feel the heat starting to press a round him since I was pushing a bit to hard by exposing all his fake evidence. Then he said he was in a hurry and he had to go and avoided my post. So I hope he hasn't done any thing rash like jumping in front of a bike after realizing the facts of all the baloney he was believing. Im just reching out to Just Sayin to communicate that I didn't mean to be so hard and I know what its like when you suddenly realize that your hole imaginary world comes crashing down and all thats left is the 4 gray walls that surround you and that your not going go to that condo in the sky when you die. I just want to say to him that Im with you on your journey to freedom from that horrible dog mess that you got into. Sure hes not going to get any prayers answered but look at whats in the reel world. Where I live there are casinos where you dont need to pray for money and you dont need to pray for beautiful women either.

Fake evidence?  Baahahahahahahahahahaha.  That's funny.  Running from you?  LOL.  I was at the beach.  Oh, and thank you for not being so hard on me with failing to make a valid argument.  The fact is that there is overwhelming evidence that prayer works.  Let's briefly list some of it now;

1)  Radiant Foundation study of 1100 people found that

87% of Americans who pray say their prayers were answered in the last year: study

Wow, that's 100 million people in the US alone who claim they had a prayer answered in the last year.  I'm sure you'll put forth another conspiracy theory for that.

2) I gave you a medical study in JAMA that not only found prayer had health benefits to the one prayed for, it confirmed the Boyd study also:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/485161

The study found:  "We found an 11% reduction in scores in the prayer group (6.35±0.26) compared with the usual care group (7.13±0.27) (P=.04)."  and "Using a severity-adjusted outcomes score, we found lower overall adverse outcomes for CCU patients randomized to the prayer group compared with those randomized to the usual care group."  

So, there was an 11% lower MAHI-CCU score, showing that those prayed for had less symptoms and issues, which also confirmed previous findings of the Byrd study. 

3) I've mentioned that since 1870 there have been at least 1200 studies on prayer with the vast majority of them showing that prayer works.  I've highlighted a few systematic reviews such as:

A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

OF THE QUALITY OF RESEARCH ON HANDS-ON

AND DISTANCE HEALING:

CLINICAL AND LABORATORY STUDIES

It concluded:

"A total of 45 laboratory and 45 clinical studies published

between 1956 and 2001 met the inclusion criteria. Of the clinical stud-

ies, 31 (70.5%) reported positive outcomes as did 28 (62%) of the labo-

ratory studies; 4 (9%) of the clinical studies reported negative outcomes

as did 15 (33%) of the laboratory studies. The mean percent overall

internal validity for clinical studies was 69% (65% for hands-on heal-

ing and 75% for distance healing) and for laboratory studies 82% (82%

for hands-on healing and 81% for distance healing). "

4)  I've provided medically documented examples of miracles:

a)  healing of the blind

Case report of instantaneous resolution of juvenile macular degeneration blindness after proximal intercessory prayer

b)  miraculous stomach healing after prayer:

Case Report of gastroparesis healing: 16 years of a chronic syndrome resolved after proximal intercessory prayer

c) Rising from the dead
https://seangeorge.com.au/my-story/my-story/

And the documented evidence here:
https://seangeorge.com.au/my-story/medical-details/

And
d) another rising from the dead

Raising the Dead: A Doctor Encounters the Miraculous

In this example the Yale Cardiologist was so overwhelmed that the man came back to life after having been, not only legally declared dead, but dead for 85 minutes, that he wrote a book about it, packed full of the medical documentation.

5) I've mentioned the miraculous healing of Delia Knox which was caught on video.  I've provided video, news reports, eye witness accounts, etc.

The fact is there is overwhelming evidence that prayer works - its not the evidence that is lacking.  Its just you bitterly cling to your disproven faith claim that prayer doesn't work.  You don't have a prayer of winning this argument.  Check out my next post - its a documented miracle from the Mayo clinic.