The powerlessness of prayer

[Ethnikos]

Why are you so special? Why doesn't god save Christian children who die of leukemia, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, cancer and all sorts of infections and accidents. Why did god care so much about you and not about these other children?

For all the times that God saved me, if you did not know any of that and just met me somewhere you would think I was cursed by God. I have to walk around with a cane, as a result of a couple of motorcycle accidents that put me in the hospital twice. So, I did not make it through my stupidity phase unscathed. I went through what is called an unregulated intersection, meaning it did not have any stop signs.(it is still like that today) I was barely 17 years old and made a bad choice between trying to stop real fast or speed up and try to make it through before the truck. It was a 3/4 ton construction pickup full of materials. It was going a lot faster than it should have been in this residential area, about 45 mph. Another kid in my class had almost the same accident at almost the same time, about four miles away. He lost his leg and I still have mine. I have a bad degenerative osteo arthritis in my hip, but I have to consider myself fortunate, when I have a direct comparison in order to put it in context. I am now disabled but it took 35 years to get to that point. I easily could have been killed but I could put it down on my list of times that I was saved. God did not put the truck there to kill me. It did change my attitude about life after 2 1/2 weeks in the hospital. I have a constant reminder of my mortality and the truth of having to live with the consequences of my actions.
When people talk about life as if we are just spirit beings living in a hologram, I know that even if that is true, we do not have any power over it, otherwise I could walk normally and my problems would go away.

 

[Ethnikos]

If you have come to this critical thinking forum to think, critically, then I can sincerely recommend that you watch the video.
If you are scared that your God will get angry and smite you for doubting him, then I suggest you reconsider how firmly you believe what you wrote earlier:
It seems to me that you (and countless others too, this thought ain't aimed at attacking you, honest ) have no problem accepting a rational explanation (i.e. it was your own stupidity) when crediting God as the cause would/could seem smite-worthy
However, I suspect that you have no problem dispensing with the rational world and crediting a god who is (irrationally) beyond all/any perception other than via faith...
If you're still reading, then maybe you are here to think critically. If so, try thinking about this:

can you imagine anything more perfectly (ridiculously) circular than claims for a god whose existence can only be tested on pain of death?​

The video seems to be talking about what looks like a pagan belief system. Apparently some Christians subscribe to it but it is not something I am familiar with.
Things do happen though. I know from personal experience. Like having an out of body experience. I was called away to Alaska on a spur of the moment military mission. I had to leave my wife in a bad situation because I had just gotten back from another tour and did not have time to straighten out the trouble she had gotten into while I had been away. I was laying in bed in a worried state of mind. Next thing I knew, I was looking at myself and then I was looking at my wife, who was a thousand miles away, physically. Her friend was with her and saw her just freeze where she stood. My wife remembers looking at the wall and seeing my face talking to her.
Another time, more recently, I was worried about someone but I had no idea how to contact her. An angel appeared to me and said, "She is in town right now and if you go to this place right away, she will run into you." I got in my car and went there and sure enough, she showed up a little later. That was my only chance to see her in about seven years.
So, things can happen, without actually asking for it specifically. I would have been content to just sit there and feel bad, but God did things that I would not even have imagined.
Now God did not tell my commanding officer to give me that assignment and God did not tell that girl to move out of town. These were not life threatening situations but at the time, they were consuming to me and was interfering with other things I should have been focused on. God could easily put my mind to rest and get me back on course, by doing a couple of simple miracles.
Why would God do that, when there are plenty of people sitting around asking for God to give them a sign? They did not get an answer but I got something without asking. Maybe because My intention was focused on someone other than myself. Maybe because I would recognize it for what it was and been able to articulate it. I wonder about that, myself. When I was younger, I could imagine that I had something in the future that would justify the attention that I got, but now I can not look back and see anything in particular to point to.​

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

So, it was not a sadistic God who got me in trouble, it was my own stupidity.

If it's easy for you to rationally accept that it was not God who got me into trouble but instead it was your own clumsiness, why isn't it equally easy for you to accept the idea that it wasn't an angel who sent the child to rescue you but instead that he just happened to be there?

Do you know that there are a lot of people who did not have someone to rescue them from cliffs and other mortal dangers and did die? People in poverty who do not have someone sent to give them food or treat their diseases?

 

[Ethnikos]

Why didn't you simply command the rattlesnakes to fly up and land someplace else. Jesus, himself, clearly states that people with faith can do that.
You didn't have to cast them into the sea; but surely you could have prayed them into a different location.

Good question. After I wrote that, I tryed to remember what happened that allowed me to get back to what I was doing, getting up the ridge, to get over to the next canyon over, on the mountain.
This was like a steep climb, over the top of a bunch of boulders on the hillside. The surface I was on was probably about seven by five feet, but tilted on a thirty degree angle. The reason I was on the rocks was that there was heavy underbrush around it that was hard to walk through. There was a tree that I could reach and break off a branch from. I took that and poked it at the snake right in front of me and it did not seem to bother scare it but just made it madder. Even if I thought I could pick it up, as you suggest, I could not have. These were very large snakes, probably five feet long, so 3 1/2 feet of the snake would have been between the rocks, so there is no way I would have been able to pull it out. I was involved in attempting to kill a huge rattlesnake once because I was with a friend who wanted to get souvenirs from it. It is not something fun and I would never want to try it again without a gun.
I ended up just sitting there because they did not advance on me but stayed put but acted very menacing. I guess they were protecting their nest and probably had a whole mess of babies under that rock. I had to wait them out to finally go back under the rock.

 

[Ethnikos]

If it's easy for you to rationally accept that it was not God who got me into trouble but instead it was your own clumsiness, why isn't it equally easy for you to accept the idea that it wasn't an angel who sent the child to rescue you but instead that he just happened to be there?
Do you know that there are a lot of people who did not have someone to rescue them from cliffs and other mortal dangers and did die? People in poverty who do not have someone sent to give them food or treat their diseases?

I was not clumsy. If I was, I never would have attempted what I was doing. It was pure foolishness. I had practiced on my home ground and thought I had some skill. The difference was that at home, I could fall without any serious injury. On that mountain, (look at the photo for some idea of what this place was like) I would have been dead.
At the time, I did accept it as just someone who was there. The problem is that the only people in the area was the people in my group. He seemed familiar to me, somehow but he was not and after that event, I never saw him again.
Another example is the time I thought I might die while surfing in the winter, in California. I went with my older brother who had a drivers license. He went off on his own and left me to my own devices. This was back in the mid sixties when people went out in cold water without wet-suits. The winter time was good because of the big storm waves coming in from the Pacific. You could only stay out so long before your whole body would turn blue. I was out as long as I could stand but I was stuck out beyond the surf line and did not know how I was going to get back in. The waves got real big and I was afraid if I got knocked off my board, I would end up drowning. (this was before they invented leashes)
I all of a sudden saw someone on a board, kind of a ways off. I decided he probably knew what he was doing so I paddled towards him. He kept moving away from me and I kept following. He seemed to be able to figure out just where to go, to keep from being hit by breakers. I eventually made it back to shore and looked for the man and no one was there. I had to figure it was an angel sent to guide me. This might sound trivial to anyone who has not been through this before. I stick to kayaks anymore but I read all the books and magazines and know the stories about how many people die kayaking when they do not know what they are doing.
I am aware that people die in the same situations that I was in and I can not explain how it is that I did not. I guess there is a reason for it but not one that I can be sure about.

 

[Ladewig]

Ethnikos, you have typed out four somewhat lengthy responses to four different posts and you managed to ignore the main question in all four cases.

Why don't you stop playing the I'm-so-special-that-angels-protect-me game and focus on what is being discussed? I understand how your approach would win accolades on a Christian forum, but this is a critical thinking forum.

 

[Ethnikos]

Ethnikos, you have typed out four somewhat lengthy responses to four different posts and you managed to ignore the main question in all four cases.
Why don't you stop playing the I'm-so-special-that-angels-protect-me game and focus on what is being discussed? I understand how your approach would win accolades on a Christian forum, but this is a critical thinking forum.

I would never write any of this stuff on a Christian forum. You can check it out, if you want. I use the same screen name. It is the Greek word for what is used in the New Testament for a gentile. I use it to differentiate myself from delusional Christians who think they are spiritual Jews, or something.
They probably do not want direct links to other forums, but you can google this line from one of my posts: Lucifer of Christian myth was a cherub that would have been a sharer in this "divine brightness".
OK, so the question would be, why can I not use reasoning to come up with an explanation of my experiences that does not include God?
My answer would be that God is a reasonable answer. If you have a different explanation, I would be happy to entertain it.
Back to the OP, I do think a lot of prayer is useless for changing outcomes.
I believe that God does things for His own purpose and will, whether you ask for it or not.
If you think it makes you feel better, go ahead. On the milk bottle video, it says that praying for yourself can be shown as ineffective. OK, but there is some evidence for people praying for others, that do seem to help.

 

[Tapio]

OK, but there is some evidence for people praying for others, that do seem to help.

YES!! Now you're at it! Now, pllleeeeaaaasseee, pretty please show us to the evidence. Thank you.

 

[Ethnikos]

YES!! Now you're at it! Now, pllleeeeaaaasseee, pretty please show us to the evidence. Thank you.

You can google:
"Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care Unit Population," Randolph C. Byrd, M.D.
There is also a critical analysis of this study at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/gary_posner/godccu.html

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

I was not clumsy. If I was, I never would have attempted what I was doing. It was pure foolishness.

How are these two contradictive?
Do you fail to see the point I made?

Fine, lets use the word foolishnes and keep the rest intact (and this time, try to actually answer the questions I asked because you completely avoided them):

1) If it's easy for you to rationally accept that it was not God who got you into trouble but instead it was your own foolishness, why isn't it equally easy for you to accept the idea that it wasn't an angel who sent the child to rescue you but instead that he just happened to be there?

2) Do you know that there are a lot of people who did not have someone to rescue them from cliffs and other mortal dangers and did die? People in poverty who do not have someone sent to give them food or treat their diseases?

 

[quarky]

God hates me and loves me equally?

That would explain some stuff.

 

[I Ratant]

God hates me and loves me equally?

That would explain some stuff.

.
If the question has an equally valid yes and no answer, maybe it's the wrong question?

 

[six7s]

God hates me and loves me equally?

That would explain some stuff.

If the question has an equally valid yes and no answer, maybe it's the wrong question?

Or maybe quarky is the Patron Saint of Ambivalence

 

[Ethnikos]

1) If it's easy for you to rationally accept that it was not God who got you into trouble but instead it was your own foolishness, why isn't it equally easy for you to accept the idea that it wasn't an angel who sent the child to rescue you but instead that he just happened to be there?

2) Do you know that there are a lot of people who did not have someone to rescue them from cliffs and other mortal dangers and did die? People in poverty who do not have someone sent to give them food or treat their diseases?

1) It was not so easy for me to think that way but a conclusion I came to decades later. It was easy to know what happened to get me into a bad situation because I was the one making the decisions. I can not explain why god did what He did. Thinking the kid was just there is easy to do and that is what I thought, at the time. I never tryed to analyze it until relatively recently.
I did put this lesson to good use when I drove my car off a road. It was on a forestry road winding around the mountains. When I went off, I had a lot of thoughts , rather quickly. I knew that somewhere down that side of the mountain there was a couple of houses and I actually thought I could see a road below. I imagined I could just go straight down and get onto it. Of course there was no road and I could have run off a cliff or hit a big rock or something. I had a sudden realization that I had been here before (de ja vu?) and decided I had to keep all the elevation I had and to fight going down. I could try to stop as close to where I came off, as possible, and check it out on foot. The driver's side of the car was on the up hill side. I could not get out of my car without it rolling down. I had to stay seated and reach something (a jack) to jam under the back of the front tire. I took my dog's leash and tied the steering wheel to keep it from turning down-hill. I reached behind me and grabbed a rope from the back seat and tied one end to the window opening of my open door and the other end to a conveniently nearby, very small tree. This was a VW bug. I was able to get out and walk for help. In the morning I was able to get someone with a big 4wd to pull my car up onto the road.
So, while I was foolish to drive off the road (my generator quit and my lights dimmed out. I was driving under trees and when I came around the corner, I was in the open, looking straight into a full moon) I did learn something from that previous episode of foolishness. Which is, don't go down when it leads only to oblivion, in order to find a hypothetical path.
I normally never think about any of this stuff and writing about it forces me to deal with it, somehow. Same thing with the boy and the cliff story. I never analyzed it until recently and because of other experiences, I can see a certain pattern, and better come up with a possible agency behind them.
2) I do know other people die. In that particular case, of attempted mountain climbing; most people who die mountain climbing probably have some idea of what they are doing and make an informed decision to do something dangerous. Maybe God protects people who do not know better, I don't know. This is a serious question that there may not be a good answer for. My brother let this get to him and it practically drove him insane. He got to the point of thinking he should get killed somehow, while saving someone else. "you are a better man than me, Gunga Din". Well, that's not me. I have a limit and it has to do with the idea that I can not help people if I am dead.
That probably disqualifies me from being a good Christian, so that is not a reason for me being alive, while others are not.

 

[JPL]

Ethnikos

It seems to me that analyzing these occurences a long time after they happen provides a big opportunity for the mind to reinterpret the events. If you had made a strong attempt to find the boy who rescued you and failed to find him your story might hold a bit of weight. I've explored around the top of that tramway and it sure wouldn't be hard to lose sight of someone just a few feet away. Also, if you had managed to capture one of those rattlesnakes - the ones who raise their young - I'd be more inclined to believe your stories occured as you remember them.

By the way, you still didn't answer Ron's question: why isn't it equally easy for you to accept the idea that it wasn't an angel who sent the child to rescue you but instead that he just happened to be there?

 

[Hokulele]

You can google:
"Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care Unit Population," Randolph C. Byrd, M.D.

You can also read what people here had to say about this.

Evidence for Correlations Between Distant Intentionality and Brain Function in Recipients: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Analysis
Nowhere in the abstract does it say the differences in the MRI scans correlated to the times which the healer sent the messages. It only says there were differences. It also says the healers "chose" the recipients. It also doesn't say the recipients were unaware they were chosen. Nor does it say the 11 'chosen' recipients were randomized into "send" and "no send" groups. It isn't clear at all what the "unsend group" consisted of.

Until those three procedural issues are clarified and depending on the answers, one cannot say this study was actually blind.

I hate this kind of crap. Why is it that a researcher going to all this trouble to study the brain using an expensive MRI procedure cannot perform a decent blinded study? And why would they not realize these issues are important to include in the abstract?

Positive therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer in a coronary care unit population.

Critics claim Byrd's 1988 study was not fully double-blinded

At least Wiki notes this criticism but they get the specifics wrong.

From the study abstract:

The control patients required ventilatory assistance, antibiotics, and diuretics more frequently than patients in the IP group.

What they fail to mention is they studied many more variables than these 3. Then they cherry picked the variables which showed a positive difference.

Here is the Skeptic article which includes a summary of the kind of flaws found in these supposedly scientific studies so I don't have to bother repeating what I have posted on this topic several times before.

Prayer & Healing - The Verdict is in and the Results are Null, by Michael Shermer

In one of the most highly publicized studies of cardiac patients prayed for by born-again Christians, 29 outcome variables were measured but on only six did the prayed-for group show improvement. .... if enough outcomes are measured some will show significant correlations by chance....

...In several studies on the relationship between religiosity and mortality (religious people allegedly live longer), a number of religious variables were used, but only those with significant correlations were reported...

...Many of these studies failed to control for such intervening variables as age, sex, education, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, marital standing, degree of religiosity, and the fact that most religions have sanctions against such insalubrious behaviors as sexual promiscuity, alcohol and drug abuse, and smoking. When such variables are controlled for, the formerly significant results disappear. One study on recovery from hip surgery in elderly women failed to control for age; another study on church attendance and illness recovery did not consider that people in poorer health are less likely to attend church; a related study failed to control for levels of exercise.

And unless god believers are claiming prayer causes a god to change medical records after the fact, or gods act on future prayer while ignoring current prayer (sort of contradicts the, ""God won't act if it is being studied", hypothesis**) then the following study proves the analyses being used in these studies is inherently flawed.

Effects of remote, retroactive intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients with bloodstream infection: randomised controlled trial, (emphasis mine). In other words these guys prayed over medical records of past patients no longer in the hospital and then analyzed the prayed-for and not-prayed-for medical records.


**From the Wiki citation:

Deuteronomy 6:16 states, "You shall not test the Lord thy God"[17], reflecting the notion of some that prayer cannot, or should not, be tested.

You might also want to check out the Harvard Medical School Study referenced here:

http://scienceblogs.com/thecheerfuloncologist/2007/03/post_70.php

The bottom line of this large study is that intercessory prayer did not reduce the incidence of complications after cardiac surgery, not to mention the fact that a huge number of Bostonians had complications after their heart surgery. Who's minding the store up there anyway?

 

[Ethnikos]

Ethnikos

It seems to me that analyzing these occurences a long time after they happen provides a big opportunity for the mind to reinterpret the events. If you had made a strong attempt to find the boy who rescued you and failed to find him your story might hold a bit of weight. I've explored around the top of that tramway and it sure wouldn't be hard to lose sight of someone just a few feet away. Also, if you had managed to capture one of those rattlesnakes - the ones who raise their young - I'd be more inclined to believe your stories occured as you remember them.

By the way, you still didn't answer Ron's question: why isn't it equally easy for you to accept the idea that it wasn't an angel who sent the child to rescue you but instead that he just happened to be there?

I would not even be talking about it, if I had not reinterpreted the events. I guess I could go into a little detail about what happened Above the tram. I was going to summer camp and one of the possible activities is hiking. We went up the mountain from the opposite side, from the Tram. On one side of Mt. San Jacento is the desert of Palm Springs, with a very steep drop-off. The west side is more gradual with a nice trail with switch-backs. We came up that way and stayed two nights on top, (in tents we carried with us) a few miles from the tram. We left camp and hiked to the tram and there was a bus waiting at the bottom, to take us back to the summer camp.
My point is that we were a long way from anyone else, when that kid showed up. The only people around would have been just whoever was in our group. Also I would have had three days to find the kid. All the boys who went on that trip lived in the same cabin, in the main summer camp. The girls stayed in another cabin, of course. I never saw the kid to say thanks for the help.
I think a couple of people are missing that I did not say an angel sent the boy, I think the boy was an Angel. When I looked at him, he seemed familiar in a very vague way. I think that was an illusion, to hide its true identity, to not frighten me.

Rattlesnakes are termed a "live-bearer, like a mammal." Most reptiles lay eggs. "They are the only snakes that we know of that express maternal instincts. They protect their young from several hours all the way to several weeks, until they do their first shedding."http://www.jqjacobs.net/southwest/rattlesnake.html

 

[RandFan]

Ethnikos,

I don't understand. Why is that some children suffer and die and you get to live? I know you've had some difficult times but come on, these kids die at 1, 2, 3...7, 8... and they only know suffering. How can you compare yourself to them? Why are you so special? What's the point of prayer if it won't save children who are suffering? Why is prayer no more effective, statistically, than four leaf clovers and horse shoes.

I'm reading what you are writing and it's hard for me to believe that you believe it. And I was a true blue believer.

 

[six7s]

it's hard for me to believe that you believe it. And I was a true blue believer.

If you're anything like me RandFan, you may well find it quite cathartic to trawl the memories, dredge up the nonsense that once passed for reality and give it another flush

 

[Ethnikos]

I don't understand. Why is that some children suffer and die and you get to live? I know you've had some difficult times but come on, these kids die at 1, 2, 3...7, 8... and they only know suffering. How can you compare yourself to them? Why are you so special? What's the point of prayer if it won't save children who are suffering? Why is prayer no more effective, statistically, than four leaf clovers and horse shoes.
I'm reading what you are writing and it's hard for me to believe that you believe it. And I was a true blue believer.

I think that prayer is an outward manifestation of an internal belief. It might be that more skeptical people have less miracles in their lives.
I have suffered quite a bit and I do not need to get into that. A lot of people have looked at me as being unfortunate, for a few reasons, other than the ones earlier mentioned. My life is far from being a ball of joy. My blessing is that I am alive and I appreciate that. I had a friend who was down-right rotten and some people hated him. He was actually multiples of degrees of crazy, for doing dangerous things, compared to me. His body is covered with scars to show for them. He is still alive and in certain ways has made out better than me. So, what I believe seems not at all far fetched, to me. For every angel I saw, he saw a devil. Of course I do not hang out with him any more.
These stories are just the easily acceptable ones. I would applaud anyone who sat through these. I have a lot more stories about miracles. I doubt that people would want to hear more. Just hanging out with my friend generated at least half of them. Like I said earlier, I began to see a pattern. That influenced how I felt when I revisited these earlier events and can more easily ascribe to them a divine hand.