The existence of God and the efficacy of prayer

[kyrani99]

You are clearly aware of the standard of evidence needed to establish that your remission was due to prayer rather than being just another case of spontaneous remission (for which there are several non-prayer-related possible explanations), and that you have not (and, as far as I can see, cannot) meet it.

My question is: in the absence of this evidence, why are you so convinced that it was indeed prayer that was responsible?

I cannot provide at this time the evidence that is needed to say I definitely had several spontaneous remissions. However it is not that important to show evidence for my own episodes.

The evidence that is needed is how and why the cancer develops in terms of cell biology and genetics. Once I can do that, then I will have the evidence.

There are two main reasons why people have had spontaneous remissions.

One is that they have moved away from the cause of the problem, which is how I had the original spontaneous remission.

And the other is that the people hassling them have reason to stop hassling them. Cancer often has to do with coercing another person, to force them into agreement for something or to gain power and influence over them. If they can cause the person to have a bad scare they may back off and the person gets well because with changed conditions in their life, they have stopped reacting. When they stop reacting the body reverses all the changes and cleans up. Often the offenders will appear to be their best friend, who stood by them in difficult times. It is a big deception.

So to answer your question.
Brief answer.. my repeated experiences with cancer brought me understanding and the knowledge I needed to formulate the right prayer.

More comprehensive answer.
Years after the first episode of cancer I had begun my work as an activist. This got a lot of people's backs up. They moved to try and (in toxic jargon) "make me go away permanently". And they tried hard.. very hard.

From 2004 to 2100 there were another 7 episodes of cancer and several other serious medical problems as well.

In about March-April of 2004 I got a major clue in that when I confronted some people who were violating some of my property and causing me major distress, especially enigmatic episodic anger. I resolved the issue and incredibly some of my symptoms (the flu-like symptoms) vanished within 15 mins, as soon as I was back inside my house.

The inflammation in my throat was gone by the next day and within the next 3 weeks the lump in my throat (esophageal cancer), which was bad enough that I could no longer swallow solid food, dissolved away and was gone.

The next episode was in Nov 2004 to Feb 2005. It was again ovarian cancer. This time I threw caution to the wind and decided to use Vipassana or insight meditation, which I had mastered many years earlier, to investigate what was going on in my body. It was aggressive but I allowed the cancer to metastasize to the bowel because I wanted to see the whole process. The knowledge I gained helped me bring about the first spontaneous remission deliberately, within weeks. It was the first time I developed mental prescriptions, using the information I had gained.

Repeated attempts after that only gave me further opportunity to investigate more. By 2010 I learnt how to "stage-manage" my biology so as to never develop cancer again.

And it was also interesting that the people against me had a fair idea each time I had developed cancer. They made open displays, especially of looking at me and sniggering and laughing. On several occasions people approached me when I was out shopping and running my errands, asking after my health. These were often people I had never met using my name, approaching me confidently and in a sarcastic manner asking after my health and laughing.

PAYER without understanding is lame. Won't work.

The reason why mental prescriptions (structured prayer) worked are:
1. The ah ha experience that I had, in understanding what it was all about, was a critical and very potent factor. This lead to belief based on strong evidence.

2. the body is purpose-driven and not a machine. This means that ideas and belief, to which we react (somatic reaction) affect what happens in the body. These are seen and known by the medical industry and medical science, in the placebo and nocebo effects.

Formulate the right prayer, under belief gained from strong evidence and the results are spectacular.

 

[kyrani99]

Then you share that belief with scientists and a lot of people including me. The difference is that I have great respect for the knowledge and skill of the scientists who have dedicated their lives to the complex problem. I don't have respect for those who promote quackery and false hope of an easy answer.

If any god was going to listen to prayers, they've had thousands of years to do so, and reduce human suffering. They're clearly not interested.

For this post and the one above.
Prayer needs to be well structured and targeted. An airy fairy prayer of "God please make me well" won't work.
And again God is not a puppeteer.

 

[Pixel42]

There is a reason why objective evidence is required to establish whether a medical treatment of any kind is effective. Alternative explanations must be ruled out. Anecdotal evidence alone cannot do that, which is why we have to go to the trouble and expense of conducting large scale, double blinded, clinical trials.

There are many possible explanations for spontaneous remission, and therefore for your experience. Without objective evidence there is no good reason for you, let alone anyone else, to prefer your "prayer plus understanding" explanation over any other. Your anecdote and theory as to the cause and cure of your cancer are unconvincing, to put it mildly.

I recently read an interesting article which discussed a possible explanation for spontaneous remission: that the patient unknowingly contracted a virus, which infected the tumour cells. The immune system does not recognise cancer cells as foreign, but it does attack viruses; once the cancer cells were infected the immune system finally recognised them as ones it needed to eliminate. This is a promising line of research, as it opens up the possibility of deliberately targeting cancer cells with a relatively harmless virus, thereby "tricking" the body's own immune system into destroying the tumour. This seems to me a far more promising line of enquiry than anything you have suggested.

 

[kyrani99]

And yet, after thousands of years of opportunity to show what prayer can do, scientists have done more to cure disease than prayer has.

So why didn't the iron lung industry stop a polio cure? All that profit caring for crippled children and adults, gone. All the TB sanitariums closed down, thanks to antibiotics. All those doctors visits for measles, mumps, whooping cough and other childhood diseases, lost to some cheap preventative shots.

Firstly antibiotics and vaccines that have been successful were developed in a different era.

Secondly, in the last 70 years the word "cure" cannot be used for cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, autoimmune diseases etc., etc., etc.

Thirdly about 70% of antibiotics sold today are sold to the food industry, cattle, sheep, pig farming etc. They are given to health animals to fatten them up because this is a side effect of long term use. https://www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2016/05/10/antibiotics-resistance-livestock-fda/

Antibiotics are in the meat you eat and into the water you drink (in all major waterways) and resistant strains have evolved. So what will happen when there is an epidemic with resistant bacteria and viruses?

Better it is to understand why a person gets sick and how to get well again, without the need of doctors. The immune system works better than the best antibiotics and vaccines and the bugs can NEVER develop a resistance to it.

But of course in your opinion, I am the scum, who would open people's eyes as to how to manage their own health, to put themselves in the driver's seat.

 

[The Sparrow]

If you choose zero then you will see zero result.

I believe you were asked for evidence of amputees regrowing limbs as a result of the requested intercession of god. Your response dodged the question. So your evidence is zero. Please don't play stupid.

 

[The Sparrow]

...
If I'd gotten the same cancer I have now, six years ago, I'd be dead already. Prayer didn't extend the life of those who used to have it beyond six months average. I just passed the two year mark, with good appetite, all my hair, and tumors smaller than when they were discovered. No prayer.

The drug I'm taking just came out of clinic trials last year, and the previous one, five years ago. More progress like that, please.

Good news. Science rocks at cleaning up the mess that god left behind.
Science will continue to rock while prayer continues to remain useless.

 

[Pup]

For this post and the one above.
Prayer needs to be well structured and targeted. An airy fairy prayer of "God please make me well" won't work.
And again God is not a puppeteer.

Why do you think God requires a special structured and targeted prayer? Why does he deliberately withhold healing until then?

People for centuries have claimed that prayer needs to be done just right (different religions have different definitions of "just right"). But I always figured it was to provide an excuse for failure.

 

[Pup]

Good news. Science rocks at cleaning up the mess that god left behind.
Science will continue to rock while prayer continues to remain useless.

 

[jimbob]

I believe you were asked for evidence of amputees regrowing limbs as a result of the requested intercession of god. Your response dodged the question. So your evidence is zero. Please don't play stupid.

I'd like to add that given that some animals can regrow limbs, it isn't beyond belief that medical science might eventually achieve this. I know of no claimed miracle where this happened.

Medical science has already gone one step beyond the bible as I can't think of any miraculous hand transplants but there have been several surgical ones.

If a deity can bring the dead to life, why not give some people new hands?

 

[Delvo]

If praying can only heal the person who's praying, not also someone else, then it doesn't necessarily involve the supernatural and isn't prayer.

If we could prove beyond any doubt that this mental activity had caused the healing to happen, that would still not eliminate purely biological/chemical mechanisms: the brain in that state sends some signal to another body part which alters that body part's physiological activities. But that would mean you were not praying but meditating. Some effects on human body processes (although nothing this drastic) have been demonstrated to result from meditation before, but all only internal to the body of the meditator.

 

[kyrani99]

There is co-operation between cancer and the immune system cells!

There is a reason why objective evidence is required to establish whether a medical treatment of any kind is effective. Alternative explanations must be ruled out. Anecdotal evidence alone cannot do that, which is why we have to go to the trouble and expense of conducting large scale, double blinded, clinical trials..

I said the evidence has to be INDEPENDENT of my experiences. I have to show scientific evidence in how and why cancer develops.

I recently read an interesting article which discussed a possible explanation for spontaneous remission: that the patient unknowingly contracted a virus, which infected the tumour cells. The immune system does not recognise cancer cells as foreign, but it does attack viruses; once the cancer cells were infected the immune system finally recognised them as ones it needed to eliminate. This is a promising line of research, as it opens up the possibility of deliberately targeting cancer cells with a relatively harmless virus, thereby "tricking" the body's own immune system into destroying the tumour. This seems to me a far more promising line of enquiry than anything you have suggested.

(note: my emphasis)

The official medical story about cancer is that the immune system normally kills cancer cells and that somehow the cancer cells, if successful, are able to evade the immune system.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ROFL

A tumor is typically made up of about 40-60% or more of immune system cells. Some are macrophages and neutrophils and many others, which are said to be “alternatively activated”. These are the usual types of immune cells engaged in wound healing and tissue maintenance. Cancer cells are dependent on the very cells that they are said to be able to evade.. the immune system cells!

Metastasis is the defining condition of cancer.

Cancer cells secrete tiny particles called exosomes, which are taken up by immune system cells. These particles direct the immune system to prepare a distal site as a metastatic sites. This means that the new environment is primed to become a friendly microenvironment — to contain non-cancerous cells, molecules, and blood vessels into which cancer cells can grow and a new tumor develop. The immune system cells together with fibroblasts, stromal cells and other cells nurture cancer cells when they arrive and help a tumor develop.

For a cell to move out of a tissue and enter the blood stream, in the very least case, tissue permeability is a necessary condition. That means the surround cells “drop hands” in a sense (breach of cell-cell interactions) and move a little as to create a space big enough for the cells that wants to get past, to squeeze through. This has been extensively studied in the processes of inflammation.

“Well hey”, you might say, “there is often inflammation associated with cancer so maybe it takes advantage of conditions already present”.

Not all cancers have associated inflammation but also metastasize. But here we see deception. When it comes to cancer cells they no longer talk about permeability but say that the cancer cells breach either the basement membrane or squeezes through the cells breaking the cell-cell interactions.

However if you look closer at what they are saying it is none other than tissue permability, just said in a different way. And it requires the FULL cooperation of immune system cells. Mast cells release histamine, causing the surrounding tissues and blood vessels to dilate and increase in permeability.

On entering the bloodstream the cancer cells are accompanied by other cells, from the tumour site, which are immune system cells…

In the bloodstream immune system cells help the cancer cells survive. Platelets cover the cancer cells to protect them. Immune system cells accompany the cancer cells in a "run and chase process" to the site where they are to exit the blood vessel..

The immune cells provide substances called chemoattractants to help the cancer cells stay within their vicinity and not get lost. Remember the blood is flowing fairly fast. And in the blood cancer cells are helped to acquire a shield of platelets that protect them while in the bloodstream; It doesn’t sound like the immune system is out to kill them to me.

Next for cancer cells to travel to a new site they have to exit as some desired location. Remember cancer metastasizes at precise locations, not at random. So the precise exit location has to be “primed”, which means immune system cells release substances that cause the cancer cells to be able to roll along the arterial inner wall at the locations in which they want to exit. This is another well-known process.

For the cancer cells to exit the blood stream they have to cross the membrane walls. Here again cells need to move apart to allow the cancer cells to squeeze through. This is tissue permeability again and as I mentioned earlier, facilitated by immune system cells.

The cancer cells may need to travel through the tissues they enter to the new location. This again is facilitated by immune system cells in a process called chemotaxis, using chemoattractants.

All this and it be fitting to say that cancer cells EVADE the immune system or CO-OPT the immune system. What?

I can look up the relevant scientific paper and post the links if you like.

 

[kyrani99]

I believe you were asked for evidence of amputees regrowing limbs as a result of the requested intercession of god. Your response dodged the question. So your evidence is zero. Please don't play stupid.

I answered the question by Rincewind in post 1291.
I am saying the potential is real and the evidence is seen in animals that can regrow limbs after the are lost.

And I didn't say that lame prayer worked. I said the opposite to that.

 

[sackett]

O god how CLEVER!

It was reincarpnated.

Sounds fishy to me.

 

[jimbob]

I answered the question by Rincewind in post 1291.
I am saying the potential is real and the evidence is seen in animals that can regrow limbs after the are lost.

And I didn't say that lame prayer worked. I said the opposite to that.

Never in humans.

I don't need to invoke a deity for newts regrowing legs. I see no reason why a deity couldn't have designed humans with similar capabilities.

 

[kyrani99]

Why do you think God requires a special structured and targeted prayer? Why does he deliberately withhold healing until then?

People for centuries have claimed that prayer needs to be done just right (different religions have different definitions of "just right"). But I always figured it was to provide an excuse for failure.

God has created a universe where everything is made of a matrix of potentialities. These can be selected and an outcome brought into being. This means that one needs to be able to make the right selections.

Belief is also a critical factor. Belief rests on evidence. If you don't have evidence for something you are not going to believe it. The evidence varies. One person may accept the word of someone the respect as an authority or a religious text that they respect as an authority. Another person may want to have spiritual experience or at least paranormal experience to have the evidence they need.

Creation is not a puppet show with a puppeteer holding the strings and moving the puppets at will or as the puppets might ask. The creation is made for conscious beings to have physical experiences. They are also co-creators and have free will and volition. This needs to be understood because your version of reality is just a puppet show or robot show.

 

[kyrani99]

Good news. Science rocks at cleaning up the mess that god left behind.
Science will continue to rock while prayer continues to remain useless.

You must go with what you believe is the best way. You have a lot of faith in science because you are convinced by the evidence you see. I am not convinced. I am a scientist and I respect science but I am also a theist and I have been able to have good results where science or rather doctors failed me.

 

[kyrani99]

If a deity can bring the dead to life, why not give some people new hands?

There is a lot of stuff written in the Bible and other religious texts too, which is corruption and nothing else. While I can see explanations for many of the miracles of cures, there is no reliable evidence nor explanation that Jesus brought anyone back from the dead. And the idea that he rose from the dead in bodily form and floated up to heaven is also Pauline mythology. Paul made up the story that Jesus was God. In my opinion it is blasphemy.

 

[kyrani99]

If praying can only heal the person who's praying, not also someone else, then it doesn't necessarily involve the supernatural and isn't prayer.

If we could prove beyond any doubt that this mental activity had caused the healing to happen, that would still not eliminate purely biological/chemical mechanisms: the brain in that state sends some signal to another body part which alters that body part's physiological activities. But that would mean you were not praying but meditating. Some effects on human body processes (although nothing this drastic) have been demonstrated to result from meditation before, but all only internal to the body of the meditator.

You can pray for someone else BUT only when you have their permission AND only when the other person believes it is possible. You can see that Jesus always sought to get these conditions before he did anything.

As far as "mental activity" (I take it you mean brain activity) causes something in the body. I don't think this is enough because from what I have seen in myself and in others I have known that have had various placebo effects, a belief is always a necessary pre-condition.

Given that the person believes something they will react, either positively or negatively to that belief, and that reaction is somatic. So very definitely there is a biochemical reaction but that is not all.

 

[kyrani99]

Never in humans.

I don't need to invoke a deity for newts regrowing legs. I see no reason why a deity couldn't have designed humans with similar capabilities.

Yes, God could have and maybe has. There are no humans that I know of that have regrown limbs but I think if the potential is there then we can but have to rediscover how.

 

[Pixel42]

I said the evidence has to be INDEPENDENT of my experiences. I have to show scientific evidence in how and why cancer develops.

And yet you seem already to be personally convinced, despite the fact that you do not have that evidence. This is what is puzzling me. You understand why personal experience is insufficient to convince anyone (including the experiencer) of anything, yet you still give it as your reason for being convinced.