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Does Prayer "Work"?
- Thread starter Heyo
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- #effective #prayer
I just did, read it. prayer is communication to some one or a believed god or a Living God. meditation is no more then relaxation promoting HGH and the like in some cases. has nothing to do with a communication with a power that can do at will for one's request.
You're engaging in the logical fallacy of equivocation.
You're playing with multiple meanings of the word change while ignoring the point I made about the types of change that prayer is suppose to achieve.
In a Biblical sense, prayer is suppose to cause change to happen. Change in the substance of reality. Change in people. Change in circumstances. Change in spiritual dynamics. Change in just about anything you could imagine you'd want to be changed.
If all you are changing is your own understanding of a verse while you meditate on it, then you aren't achieving the kinds of change that prayer is suppose to be able to achieve.
You aren't praying. You're just meditating by another name.
I already answered your question by providing the definitional differences between the two.
Biblical prayer is when you ask God for something and He gives it to yo.
Biblical meditation (which is different from other types of meditation) is when you think about something continually. The hebrew word behind "meditate" would be better translated as "ruminate" - like a cow continually chewing over it's grass all day in order to thoroughly digest it.
The mechanisms of how they achieve their effects are different by nature of what they involve doing and what they seek to aheive.
In the first, the mechanism of answered prayer is God giving you what you asked for.
That's why we refer to it as "answered" prayer. It's relational. You've being given something by an intelligence who can make a decision to do so or not do so.
In the second, the mechanism by which you achieve successful meditation is within your own power entirely. You merely focus your mind on something and hold it there. It's not relational.
And the difference between the two words applies regardless of which religious definition you plug in for meditate.
Your request is not relevant to the issue of prayer's definition.
Whether or not evidence can be furnished to prove prayer works doesn't change the definition of what prayer is and how it's definitionally and functionally different from meditation.
Even if you assumed prayer doesn't work, that doesn't give you logical warrant to start misusing terms by proclaiming meditation and prayer are functionally or definitionally the same.
Your own link disproves your claim that "prayer has no influence on the world outside yourself".
There are many studies listed there which did report prayer having a measurable impact.
It might not be as much of an impact as you'd like but it's an impact nonetheless.
And just because some studies don't report an impact doesn't mean you can ignore all the ones that did report an impact.
"Based on these data there seemed to be an effect, and that effect was presumed to be beneficial", and that "intercessory prayer to the Judeo-Christian God has a beneficial therapeutic effect in patients admitted to a CCU."
...
Several reviewers considered Byrd’s study to be well-designed and well-executed,
Harris et al. concluded that "supplementary, remote, blinded, intercessory prayer produced a measurable improvement in the medical outcomes of critically ill patients", and suggested that "prayer be an effective adjunct to standard medical care."
A 1997 study by O'Laoire measured the effects on the agents performing daily prayers and reported benefits not only for the beneficiaries, but also for the agents, and the benefit levels correlated with the belief levels of agents and beneficiaries in some cases. The study measured anxiety and depression. This study used beneficiary names as well as photographs.
In 1998 Fred Sicher et al. supposedly performed a small scale double-blind randomized study of 40 patients with advanced AIDS
...
Six months later the prayer group had fewer AIDS illnesses, less frequent doctor visits, and fewer days in the hospital.
A 2001 study by Leonard Leibovici used records of 3,393 patients who had developed blood infections at the Rabin Medical Center between 1990 and 1996 to study retroactive intercessory prayer.[26] To compound the alleged miraculous power of prayer itself, the prayers were performed after the patients had already left the hospital. All 3,393 patients were those in the hospital between 1990 and 1996, and the prayers were conducted in 2000. Two of the outcomes, length of stay in the hospital and duration of fever, were found to be significantly improved in the intervention group, implying that prayer can even change events in the past.
A meta-analysis of several studies related to distant intercessory healing was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2000.[46] The authors analyzed 23 trials of 2,774 patients. Five of the trials were for prayer as the distant healing method, 11 were with noncontact touch, and 7 were other forms. Of these trials, 13 showed statistically significant beneficial treatment results, 9 showed no effect, and 1 showed a negative result.
In 2001 the Journal of Reproductive Medicine published an experimental study by three Columbia University researchers indicating that prayer for women undergoing in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer (IVF-ET) resulted in a success rate (50%) of pregnancy double that of women who did not receive prayer.
while a 2007 systemic review of intercessory prayer reported inconclusive results, noting that 7 of 17 studies had "small, but significant, effect sizes"
Statistical trends in an additional 5 of the 17 studies favored the prayer group over the control group
some have reported correlations between prayer and health,
Heyo
Veteran Member
Really? You quote studies that were debunked and the debunking cited in the same article just a few line later.
"Richard P. Sloan compared the Byrd and Harris studies with the sharpshooter fallacy, "searching through the data until a significant effect is found, then drawing the bull's-eye."[12]"
"Years later this study was debunked. The original research showed no significance so the researchers went data dredging. They isolated the few statistical figures that were significant and discarded the rest, including one metric which showed prayer had a negative outcome.[17] A later study which attempted to replicate the original found no significant difference between the study group and the control group.[18]"
"The most vocal skeptic was Bruce Flamm, a clinical professor of gynecology and obstetrics at the University of California at Irvine, who found that the experimental procedures were flawed.[22] One of the study's authors, Cha, responded to criticism of the study in the November 2004 issue of JRM.[23] In December 2001, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (DHHS) office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) confirmed a report by the Columbia University Health Sciences Division that one of the study’s authors, Rogerio Lobo, only learned of the study six to twelve months after the study was completed, and that he had only provided editorial assistance.[24] The name of Columbia University and Lobo were retracted from the study.[25]"
**mod edit**
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There are two fatal problems with your assertion:
1. You are engaging in the logical fallacy of "appeal to authority".
Merely because wikipedia quotes someone as saying they disagree with the conclusions of a study doesn't automatically mean that person's viewpoint is true.
You would have to assess the merits of their claim against the study itself in order to determine if what they say is true or not.
2. Your original claim is still proven wrong, even if we assumed some studies had been debunked, because not all those studies on the wikipedia article even have any quotes of disagreement written about them.
For example, the O'Laoire study.
The O'Laoire study by itself is sufficient to disprove your original claim that "prayer has no influence on the world outside yourself".
The O'Laoire study shows an effect.
And there's nothing disputing their conclusions.
So your original claim is proven false.
Proven false by your own link.
Which means my claim was right: That your own link disproves your claim.
Nothing in that quote references anything that would qualify as "debunking" that study.
All it does is reference someone as being a skeptic of the study. But that doesn't mean or prove anything by itself.
Just because he accused them of engaging in fallacious data analysis doesn't make it true just because he said it.
His opinion is at odds with what else is said:
Several reviewers considered Byrd’s study to be well-designed and well-executed
Obviously not everyone thought the way he did.
If you want to argue that his claim is true, you'd need to cite the specific reasons why and the data behind his claim so we can assess whether or not there is any validity to his accusation.
Merely quoting someone making an accusation doesn't prove their accusation is true.
You are engaging in either the logical fallacy of "Irrelevant conclusion" or the logical fallacy method of "Cherry Picking".
Only one of the studies is actually claimed to be "debunked". You'd be engaging in the fallacy of cherry picking if you tried to claim that represents all the studies in the article. Because your claim was already disproven.
If you aren't trying to claim that, then what you're doing is engaging in the logical fallacy of "Irrelevant Conclusion". Because even if what you said were true about that one study being debunked, your original claim is still proven wrong by one or more studies that don't even claim to be debunked.
Thus rendering any dispute over this one particular study moot.
If we really wanted to we could go look up all the data and study to see whether or not the claims against it are true, but ultimately that would be a waste of time because the truth of falseness of that claim doesn't have any impact on the fact that your original claim is still disproven by other studies in your link.
Considering that:
a) I just demonstrated that my argument was true (your claim was disproven by your own link), you have no basis to accuse me of dishonesty.
b) I showed you were wrong to assert that two out of three of those studies you quoted had been debunked.
c) That you engaged in fallacious (potentially dishonest if done willingly) tactics to try to refute my argument.
d) The reason I cited the one study that was claimed to be debunked was because, like some of the other negative things posted, we have no way of knowing what actually happened without looking at the data. No attempt at dishonesty was meant by it. It was simply coming from a different assumption than you were. You assumed wrongly that just because someone is quoted as disagreeing with a study on wikipedia that that proves the study must be disproven. But we know that's not a true assumption. You'd have to actually look at the data to prove it's been debunked.
We can conclude you have no basis for your accusations.
In which case, I would expect you will apologize for your fallacies and baseless accusations - because that would be consistent with what you have demanded of others.
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Heyo
Veteran Member
Deflection? Not a good tactic either.
Fact is and remains that you tried to quote-mine an article I linked to and thought you'd get away with it. I think that's insulting my intelligence.
Now you try to disqualify the article you yourself quoted from - only just the parts you don't like and failed to mention - after being called out.
Too little, too late.
The same goes for your failed attempt at an counter attack. The purpose of an counter attack is to counter first and then attack. You didn't counter, explain or apologise for the quote-mining.
I'm convinced praying basically is a good thing as it means fellowshipping with the creator. Bible says that a prayer can do a lot if the believer really believes in it. I agree with it.
chinu
chinu
Very true.In my understanding, prayer and meditation are two different techniques thought in different spiritual teachings, but they aim toward the same thing. Calming of the mind, so that we can realize the truth from within our self. And as you say, yes both has an effect on our body.
In prayer, asking for guidance is the way to go, not asking God to remove our illnesses or ask God to fix our problemsAsking a God for guidance how we can do it our selvs, how can I fix my problem.
The answer is not given directly in words, but in thoughts, or in answer from a person you meet who of some reason give you the hint you need to realize your own faults, so you can correct your self
chinu
chinu
Parent gives hand to help the baby who TRY to stand-up and walk.
No help is provided to the one who doesn't TRY.
Its called learning
chinu
chinu
Is trying to win the debate also called learning ?
chinu
chinu
Undevstoom.
Is trying to win the debate also called learning ?
I am not trying to win anything, but maybe trying to impart a little information. Do with it what you want
Your claim is unsupported, which means you are engaging in the logical fallacy of "argument by assertion".
Merely asserting that I have engaged in deflection does not make it so just because you assert it is so.
You would need to give justification for your claim by quoting me and then explaining why you think that qualifies as the logical fallacy of "avoiding the issue" (ie. deflection).
Your claim is false. My prior posts are full of direct refutations of your claims using valid arguments. And you haven't offered any valid counter arguments in response to that.
Which is why you will not be able to justify your claim with evidence and logical reasoning.
Logical fallacy, "argument by assertion".
Merely asserting that I have taken quotes out of context doesn't prove your claim is just merely because you assert it is.
You would need to quote anything I said and then give specific reasons why you think it qualified as taking quotes out of context.
You already tried to do that but I refuted your arguments in my last post.
You did not attempt to respond to my refutations, but merely repeated your original claim as though it has not already been refuted.
This makes you further guilty of the logical fallacy of "argument by repetition".
You don't defend your refuted argument as true merely by repeating it without offering any counter arguments.
Get away with what exactly? You haven't proven I've done anything wrong yet.
You didn't show my conclusions about the article to be wrong.
You didn't show that I was incorrect in saying that some of the studies hadn't even been disagreed with.
You didn't show that I was wrong to not assume those studies had been "debunked" just because someone said they disagreed with the conclusions.
You haven't shown any evidence or arguments for your assertion that I took those quotes out of context.
The only thing I appear to be getting away with is winning the debate because you can't furnish valid counter arguments to mount a defense of your claims.
I think your continual use of fallacious arguments are doing a good enough job of that without my help.
Your sentence is a logical mess so it's a bit hard to decode what you're trying to claim and argue...
What does "disqualify the article" even mean according to you? Without knowing what you mean by that term, I can't tell exactly what you're trying to argue.
With regards to the parts I didn't quote: I already justified why I was fine to do so, and refuted your claims that something was wrong with that.
You haven't offered any counter argument to that.
You seem to be trying to imply I engaged in some kind of hypocrisy - but you cannot quote any specific thing I argued and then give a logical reason why that would qualify as hypocrisy.
You cannot quote any reference I made to that article and then give a specific reason was you think it was either in error or an act of hypocrisy.
Logical fallacy, "argument by assertion".
Merely asserting that my counter arguments have "failed" or did not counter your arguments does not make it true just because you assert it is.
You would have to shown with evidence and logical counter arguments why supposedly any of my arguments "failed".
You cannot do that, because they are sound and true.
Furthermore, your unwillingness to respond to my counter arguments which refuted your claims means you have failed the "burden of rejoinder" and tacitly conceded that you cannot refute my points.
Your claim is demonstrably false. I addressed your accusations and refuted them already.
My entire last post dealt almost exclusively with that issue and is full of counter arguments that explain why your accusation is baseless and wrong.
You did not respond to any of my arguments with valid counter arguments.
Which makes you guilty of the logical fallacy of "argument by assertion".
Merely asserting that my counter arguments did not counter your claims doesn't make your assertion true just because you assert it is.
The burden is on you to support your assertion's claim to truth by specifically addressing my counter arguments and then attempting to give evidence or logical reasons that would show why they are supposedly invalid arguments or insufficient as counter arguments.
You cannot do that, because your claims are not true.
The reason you're engaging entirely in assertion and repetition fallacies is because you don't have a valid counter argument to offer.
Which is why I stopped explaining things to @Heyo. I felt like I was on a merry-go-round.
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Heyo
Veteran Member
Yep, you win the debate and a place on my ignore list.
You can see here an example of what I just was relating to KenS.
Those who don't love truth cannot engage in a debate based on logic because a logical debate presupposes you are willing to use logic to arrive at the truth.
When using fallacies doesn't work to win the debate the only thing you can do is try to forcibly silence those who don't agree with you - because humbling yourself and admitting you were wrong is out of the question, because that would mean giving up the idol you've erected in your mind about the supremacy of your own ideas over others.
People who actually want the truth will learn from you pointing out their fallacies and modify their arguments to be valid.
People who don't actually want the truth will just get angry, and often try to silence those that don't agree with them.
Online this takes the form of banning or muting.
In person this takes the form of physical violence, intimidation, or other physical means of preventing their voice from being heard.
You can always tell those who don't want truth by how they try to short circuit the logical process of debate to avoid letting the truth be arrived at.
That's why the political violence and intimidation and online silencing happening over the past few years by the left against the right in the USA is extremely dangerous to the foundation of our Republic - because our Republic and constitution are based on the idea that the only way to maintain a peaceful society is to guarantee everyone the right to speak freely, under the assumption that the truth will eventually win out if no one has the power to silence that truth from defeating lies.
We did this precisely to avoid the kind of political violence and civil wars that Europe had experienced previously.
This system only works if people are humble enough to accept the outcome of a fair debate or fair election in which they lost.
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chinu
chinu
My pleasure, for that you imparted little information for me from your bank.
My pleasure, for that you imparted little information for me from your bank.
"A" little, surely you saw the "a"? But maybe not.