I was just wondering if praying works then what about this situation.
Say there are 2 hospitals in the same city.
One of them has doctors and medicines and surgery theaters.
The other instead has religious preachers and faith healers and prayer rooms.
The question is which one of the hospitals would have the biggest morgue and why.
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It appears that, statistically, counting on prayer as a healing mechanism is as sound as counting on a lottery as means of making a fortune. It would be interesting if all deeply religious people, instead of having jobs, went to casinos every evening, so we could compare their outcomes with those of the general population.
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The thing is though that the chance is real in that the money actually exists.
With prayer it never works and if someone recovers after praying why think that the recovery was because of the prayer. By the same token I could claim that taking a dump can cure illness if I recover from an illness.
I will believe in miracles and prayers when a severed arm miraculously reattached itself and the guy goes on the tennis court and serves 4 aces in a row.
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I suppose one could adopt the view according to which whatever happens must have happened with the 100% probability since the reality is fundamentally deterministic. In that case, if someone did go to a casino and did win a lot of money, their strategy was sound - even if they could not have possibly known that it was.
In that case, any strategy that has a non-zero probability of returning a positive result can potentially be sound. I suppose one could also say that we can never claim that something is true with exactly 0% probability, so it is impossible to completely outrule the possibility that prayer involves communication with god, the latter bestowing boons to the seeker.
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I think the OP is making a false dichotomy. Why can't a person of faith, go to a medical doctor and pray also? At least 117 medical programs in the US have added prayer and spiritual training tot heir programs because they see the benefit. The Bible is not anti-doctor. Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles was a doctor. Paul encouraged Timothy to take something for his stomach issues. So, the Bible is not anti-doctor.
Pew reports that 34% of Americans have either been healed by God or witnessed a divine healing: see (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-divinehealing-life/a-third-of-americans-report-divine-healing-pew-idUSN2042499020080623#:~:text=%E2%80%9CA%20third%20of%20all%20Americans%20(34%20percent)%20say%20they%20have%20experienced%20or%20witnessed%20a%20divine%20healing%20of%20an%20illness%20or%20injury%2C%E2%80%9D%20the%20survey%20said."
That's a lot of healing that occurred outside of normal medical means. It would be dishonest to claim that there are no examples of divine healing, and it makes no sense to prohibit someone from praying for a miracle or healing.
Oh I saw somewhere on this thread that someone wanted evidence of God growing back a limb right in front of people. Well, there is a known example. See
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Calanda
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Well I suppose a shrink wood have a field day with that reply which is why I posted the thread and given that in the same sentence I called you lie boy. That says it all really. Wow that’s totally wired all right.
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