RE: prayer and healing

In order to assess if a particular prayer has been answered or not one
has to know beforehand what the expected answer(s) ought to be, which
will allow us to decide whether the prayer has been answered or not.
Now, how do you know that prayers may not be answered in a totally
different way than you expect. Do you people know the mind of God so
that you can determine whether a prayer has been answered or not? If so,
that is the apex of haughtiness. Prayers indicate that we
acknowledgement that God is and that we rely on His omnipotence to
consider them as He sees fit.

Moorad

________________________________

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Freeman, Louise Margaret
Sent: Tuesday, April 04, 2006 1:10 PM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: prayer and healing

__> Experiments like the one Jack points us happen frequently; they are
> notoriously difficult to design and carry out; even more difficult to
> analyze.
>
> Burgy

I spoke on this topic recently for an honors colloquium (the full
lecture was on investigating the supernatural with the tools of science)
and came across a very interesting set of studies on retroactive
accessory prayer. I decided not to address these particular studies in
my lecture... the real-time prayer studies were more than enough...
but the results were certainly fascinating. Apparently prayer works
even 4-10 years after the actual medical crisis. Perfectly sensible for
a God not limited by time or space, right?

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/323/7327/1450?view=full&pmid
=11751349

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/327/7429/1465
<http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=300811>

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=535973

However, I think these studies must be reinterpreted in light of the
recently published results. Perhaps the improved outcome is an artifact
of the subjects *not knowing* they were going to be prayed for 10 years
later.

 
Received on Tue Apr 4 13:39:14 2006