Nothing Fails Like Prayer (not)

Just to point out that psy had prayed for a round number.

Since most people, if sending money, will send a round number, this really isn't very miraculous. Sounds more like coincidence.

Something similar happened to me this weekend, sans prayer. I wanted to buy some new weight plates for my weight bench. I needed $40 to buy the plates I needed. Suprise suprise, I got exactly $40 in a birthday card from my parents.

Coincidence <> God.
 
Well now, let's be reasonable. The graph COULD be interpreted to show that dog is less powerful than Dick Cheney and the Oil Companies :)
 
LostAngeles said:
No, you said the first time around that you had told no one. You said nothing about any amount. Your statement implied that you had told no one that you had, "...asked for a certain amount of money..."
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To be fair, I think that there is enough ambiguity in the first statement so that it can be read as consistent with the more detailed account. Of course, the less detail the more impressive it seems.
 
Thanz said:
To be fair, I think that there is enough ambiguity in the first statement so that it can be read as consistent with the more detailed account. Of course, the less detail the more impressive it seems.
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Yes, but literal reading can go both ways, m'dust ball.
 
It's not much of a coincidence that someone from a group of people that knew he needed help sent an amount of money that happened to match an amount he was thinking of... certainly not the powerful statement psy kick was hoping would convince us that prayer beats wishing in the results department.
 
gnome said:
It's not much of a coincidence that someone from a group of people that knew he needed help sent an amount of money that happened to match an amount he was thinking of... certainly not the powerful statement psy kick was hoping would convince us that prayer beats wishing in the results department.
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True. Especially when one considers that it was a round number. Praying for $187.16 to pay the long overdue electrical bill and getting it is a lot more impressive than thinking "If I can just get a hundred bucks, I can make it through the month" and getting that.
 
Beleth said:
And yet...

The graph certainly shows an abrupt change in the trend of gasoline prices at that time.

I'm not saying that the two had anything to do with each other. I'm just saying that the evidence provided does not disprove the hypothesis that praying has no effect.

Who knows exactly what all those clergymen actually prayed for? Maybe a bunch of them prayed for "gas prices to stop rising" instead of for "gas prices to go down".

While I am a firm believer that prayer is ineffectual, this study does not add to the data supporting that belief.
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Of course it doesn't add to the mounting evidence prayer is ineffectual. It doesn't add to the evidence of anything. A poorly designed study shows nothing. Nothing, as in no evidence.

If I pray for the Sun to come up in the morning and it does, is that failing to disprove prayer works as well? Maybe, but is it worth even mentioning that it fails to disprove the effect of prayer? In the last hour my actions have not added to the evidence prayer is ineffectual. There is no evidence here one way or the other.

Fantasy in the eyes of those praying perhaps, which reminds me of childhood rituals that some people carry over into adulthood. I couldn't sleep at night, (I believed anyway), unless my closet door was shut. Ever watch a highly paid basketball player perform a ritual before shooting a free throw?

So here are all these 'believers' performing their 'worship rituals' to get through the day. "I better pray and go to church lest the Lord raise gas prices." "If I pray, God may lower those prices." That is all that is going on here. There is no evidence here because there is no study, no test, no research.
 
woodguard said:
Is’t that a woowoo tactic. If you can not attack the evidents, attack the person.

And if your going to correct my grammar, please show what you mean.
I learn from my mistakes. :p
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evidence not evidents

Addressing your grammar and stating it was common among believers was indeed irrelevant to the issue.
 
Hey, I have a couple of great atheist stories.

On one trip to Canada as a young college student I had gone with a boyfriend hitchhiking and traveling around the country. I have several great and very true stories from that trip alone.

We couldn't get a ride out of Banff as there were too many hitchers and not enough rides so we started walking. My only pair of shoes literally fell apart. I had no other shoes and we were going to have to walk a ways when right there at the very time my shoe broke, on the side of the road was a nice pair of Puma tennis shoes. Not only did they fit exactly, I ended up wearing them for a year or more.

We couldn't get a ride one night late and my boyfriend said if we lit a candle a truck driver would pick us up. Within minutes of lighting it, a truck stopped for us.

We had been camping at night in various places off the road just like the bums do. We camped one night in the dark. When we woke up there were many many cacti with big thorns all around us, yet we hadn't stepped nor slept on any of them in the dark.

We ran out of money and just happened on this little weekend rock festival. We were able to work for free admission and managed to take a fair amount of money away as well.

We had to toss our pot, (in those days, I don't smoke now, really), to cross the border yet found a bag full later on the other side just lying on the side of the road. (Probably that one is easy to explain. I hope the folks who left it got ours. :wink:)

And to think, I didn't have to perform any rituals for any of my miracles unless you consider lighting the candle a ritual.
 
skeptigirl said:
Of course it doesn't add to the mounting evidence prayer is ineffectual. It doesn't add to the evidence of anything. A poorly designed study shows nothing. Nothing, as in no evidence.
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I agree, which is why I am taking exception to Randi saying that this test "failed grandly".

It neither succeeded nor failed. It simply did nothing.
 
Beleth said:
And yet...

The graph certainly shows an abrupt change in the trend of gasoline prices at that time.
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Hi, Beleth --

I thought the same thing, and it got me thinking for a bit. But I looked at it several more times, and I realized that the graph levels out BEFORE the "prayer mark". The units of time are 24 days between marks, so -- doing a little eye-integration here -- the prices had been relatively level for maybe, uh, 6 or or so days? by the time the prayer test occured. So nothing really changed. I'm not sure I would call it a "grand failure" either, because it seems that "lower gas prices" is a pretty vague goal.

Mind you, I don't think that anyone who's really investing energy is going to pray and mean "5 cents lower" when they pray for "lower gas prices". If I were going to pray, I'd pray for something like "50 cents a gallon". And I'd expect the results within a couple of days. If /that/ happened, oh yeah, I'd be a believer. If they had claimed those kinds of results, then this definitely would have been a "grand failure". But of COURSE, nothing that specific was defined.

-- Kat
 
Childhood rituals carried forward to adulthood; that's why I say Jesus is Santa Claus for adults!

I think LostAngeles hit probably the most compelling argument against God and prayer - why did the semi-truck run over a four year old boy in my town a couple weeks ago? Right in front of his mother and siblings on the way to pre-school? Thanks God....you suck...

Even if there is a God, he's a total bastard...so why would I suck up to Him?
 
Beleth said:
I agree, which is why I am taking exception to Randi saying that this test "failed grandly".

It neither succeeded nor failed. It simply did nothing.
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But .... if you invent a death ray and you aim it at something and pull the trigger and nothing happens, isn't that a grand failure? It doesn't have to blow up in your face to be considered so.
 
gnome said:
It's not much of a coincidence that someone from a group of people that knew he needed help sent an amount of money that happened to match an amount he was thinking of... certainly not the powerful statement psy kick was hoping would convince us that prayer beats wishing in the results department.
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I wasn't trying to convince that. I believe I said something to the order of "sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Maybe just like chance."
Those were not my exact words, but i never said it worked often. it doesn't.
And I'm a she.
 
psy kick said:
I know from personal experience, sometimes prayer is definitely answered. But sometimes it isn't. Its a bit capricious. So you can't count on it to happen (if one is christian). Sometimes He'll answer, sometimes, its a no.
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See?
 
psy kick said:
See?
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See what? That prayer is identical to chance? Or in other words; that whether you pray or not it doesn't make any difference, you'll get the same result regardless?

I have an invisible, silent, floating, incorporeal dragon living in my garage....
 
See where I said it doesn't seem to matter whether one prays or not.

Is that a 2 dragon garage?
 
psy kick said:
Sometimes He'll answer, sometimes, its a no.
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I might be a bit late with this, but I just wanted to point out that 'no' is an answer as well.

Actually, how do you know whether god answers with a 'no' or he doesn't answer at all?

Hey, the other day, I prayed so the world doesn't end on 6/6/6, and it didn't!
And boy, you got lucky with the guy who sent you money saying that god told him to do that..

Imagine if god told him to kill you!
 
Medb said:
But .... if you invent a death ray and you aim it at something and pull the trigger and nothing happens, isn't that a grand failure? It doesn't have to blow up in your face to be considered so.
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There are failures, and there are grand failures. Having nothing happen is not a grand failure; it is a simple failure. But even so (and please pardon the double negative), nothing didn't happen in this case.
If you invent a death ray and pull the trigger and the person you aimed it at falls asleep, is that a failure?
 
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