The Impotence of Prayer

Opinion Columnist

Published: Monday, September 21, 2009

Updated: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 13:09

Every so often, while perusing www.reddit.com, searching for an appropriate piece of news for the UNIFI blog (www.unifreethought.com), I come across a story like this: "Group asks God for rain, showers follow." Apparently there was a drought in San Marcos, TX. A group of 150 people gathered together to pray for rain. No more than 10 days later, their prayer was answered: it rained for several days. Halleluiah! Praise Jesus, God made it rain!

Now hold on a second. As a person who prides himself on being at least a little skeptical, I could not forgive myself if I didn't ask some important questions here. First of all, assuming for the sake of argument that a god exists, and that this god gives two hoots about the weather in Texas, isn't this god responsible for the drought in the first place? "Praise God, he is merciful enough to rescue us from the blight he inflicted on us!" It's a microcosm of Christianity as a whole: substitute "sin nature" or "death" for the word "blight" and you have the Christian religion.

My second question is this: why is it that the prayers that are answered are almost always inevitable occurrences? It rains. Even in Texas, even when it seems like it will never rain again, it will—eventually—rain. Also, why did God wait 10 days? Did he want it to look like a natural occurrence in order to test your faith? Another example of the power of probability rather than prayer is the case of televangelist Pat Robertson, who recently underwent heart surgery (rather than pray for God to heal him). Pat stated, "Only the prayers of thousands of believing people kept me on this earth." This makes sense until you account for the fact that many people survive heart surgery without prayer, and many don't make it despite the prayers of family and loved ones. In fact, the largest study on the "power of prayer" that was ever conducted showed no correlation between prayer and the likelihood of a good recovery after heart surgery. In fact, this New York Times study found that those who knew they were being prayed for had a greater risk of complications. You can bet that if Pat hadn't made it, they would have said it was "his time to go." God's will is a great fallback plan for when prayer fails. The same applies to the drought: if the prayers did not work, it would have been God's punishment for something (the state's new unconstitutional Bible curriculum in schools?).

I propose a scientific experiment that will eliminate the problem of statistical probability: allow a large group of Christians (BASIC?) to pray earnestly and regularly for a tornado to occur in December. No casualties, just a specific weather occurrence. If this happens, a skeptical person could consider it to be at least potentially divine. Until such an event occurs, I would encourage everyone to be skeptical of claims such as "God sent the rain."

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Cory D.

Fri Oct 2 2009 03:32

Socrates:

Either god exists or he/she does not. The only reasonable belief until either side presents evidence is a lack of belief. That is why I am an agnostic atheist: agnostic=without knowledge (i.e. I don't make a truth claim that god doesn't exist), atheist=without belief in a god. But make no mistake, the burden of proof lies with those making the claim (that god exists, or in the case of gnostic atheists that no god exists). Neither applies to me and I'm fairly certain that neither applies to my friend Nick.

@against this whole hater thing: I respect people, that does not mean I have to respect the ideas they hold, especially ludicrous ideas like prayer. If you are interested, I could point you to a very good post Nick wrote on the UNIFI blog about prayer. It's my all-time favorite :).

insomniac

Thu Oct 1 2009 01:21

Nick: you kind of went over most people's head there...

Trevor: your statement is obviously uninformed and comes from some deep-rooted dislike towards Catholic teachings. Please show me what sort of AIDS relief effort tries to preach the sinfulness of condoms. If you are talking about Catholic Relief Services, you are in error. Just look it up.

lion in a coma

Thu Oct 1 2009 01:11

Amen to that, Socrates.

Socrates

Wed Sep 30 2009 22:49

"If we have three chairs in a room, one real, one invisible, and one non-existent, how do you tell the difference between the invisible and the non-existent? If you can't demonstrate that the chair is in fact invisible, then what else am I to assume other than it doesn't exist?

Same goes for prayer, same goes for your god."

Here's the fact: you don't know whether or not the invisible chair exists. However, your ignorance of the chair's existence does not mean that the chair doesn't exist. It would if your perception defined reality, however, if you have any faith in science (ironic turn of phrase), then you obviously believe it doesn't.

Either God exists or he doesn't. This is a fact. So far, nobody has provided a conclusive argument for or against the existence of God. So as far as philosophers or scientists are concerned, God either does or does not exist, and the fact is that we DON'T KNOW which is true! Assuming that God doesn't exist has one thing in common with assuming that he does: you don't have proof to back up your belief. Knowledge is philosophically defined as a justified true belief. You can believe that God does (not) exist, and you can be right, but until you provide conclusive proof in either way, you can't know.

Question all assumptions, even the (non)existence of a God.

Nick

Wed Sep 30 2009 16:53

/ But thats how it is he tests us to humble us and so that we rely him and not ourselves. You want to test God by prying for a tornado to hit? Who are we to test God?/

From nizkor.com:

"Special Pleading is a fallacy in which a person applies standards, principles, rules, etc. to others while taking herself (or those she has a special interest in) to be exempt, without providing adequate justification for the exemption. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:

1. Person A accepts standard(s) S and applies them to others in circumstance(s) C.
2. Person A is in circumstance(s) C.
3. Therefore A is exempt from S.

The person committing Special Pleading is claiming that he is exempt from certain principles or standards yet he provides no good reason for his exemption."

against this whole hater thing

Wed Sep 30 2009 16:29

How about we try respecting one another and give peace a chance!?!?!?!??!?!?!?

all you need is love.

Your name

Wed Sep 30 2009 15:49

God tests our faith all the time. Its apart of growing in faith. I know many people don't understand why God would for example cause a drought and then let it rain after many people have prayed. But thats how it is he tests us to humble us and so that we rely him and not ourselves. You want to test God by prying for a tornado to hit? Who are we to test God? Jesus in the Bible even say 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test' (Matthew 4:7) when he is in the desert for 40 days while the devil tries to tempt him. We should not go around trying to test God.

Nick

Wed Sep 30 2009 14:17

/Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen./

Science doesn't work that way. If prayer works in any real sense, there should be a demonstrable, repeatable, cause and effect relationship between the prayer and its result. Just as we can release an object a thousand times and still see that it falls downward, so we should be able to test the hypothesis that prayer works. Saying that it is beyond the realm of scientific inquiry is a fallacy of special pleading. If prayer works, it should be demonstrable, if it doesn't we would expect not to find any significant correlation between a prayer and its outcome. This is precisely what science has demonstrated.

If we have three chairs in a room, one real, one invisible, and one non-existent, how do you tell the difference between the invisible and the non-existent? If you can't demonstrate that the chair is in fact invisible, then what else am I to assume other than it doesn't exist?

Same goes for prayer, same goes for your god.

BTM

Tue Sep 29 2009 20:48

I find it interesting that all of this is being based on a "scientific" study on prayer. You cannot scientifically prove whether or not something like prayer works or not, because prayer rides completely on hope and faith. Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen... it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. These are physically intangible things - things that cannot be scientifically measured or observed. Looking at the study itself, one will see that it was simply an observation of coronary bypass patients after their surgeries; not a scientific measurement of cause and effect, or even of the physical and mental changes going on in a person's body during prayer. The authors of the study themselves said after every outcome that the results can always be due to chance - not something a true scientific study is based on. Not to mention the fact that this study took place over nearly a decade period of time. Medicine is changing every day and yet these patients were all being viewed the same despite obvious advancements in such a time span in the ways of care, procedures, rehabilitation, and recovery. Individuals and their actions and results are also affected when they know they are being used as part of a test or study. A study it may have been, but to deem it "scientific and proving evidence" in favor of something is plain idiocy, seeing as there were no tangible or conclusive results, and much "could have been left up to chance", in the words of the authors.

Eventually, in the absence of legitimate science, it becomes once again a matter of faith, hope, and trust in something we cannot see. For many of us, that faith, hope, and trust is in God, and you cannot put God in a test tube to be studied and tested. Neither can the power of that hope in Him, growing itself in prayer, be tested or proven.

Cory D.

Sun Sep 27 2009 17:55

@The dude abides: "We're all paying a part of your wages here, so how about discussing something with substance . . . or something you know anything about?" I am an opinionated person, and I am paid to be opinionated, not to agree with you. Also, I spend a good amount of time thinking about this stuff; it's a hobby of mine.

@JT: Whether or not prayer has an effect is not an opinion: it is a fact. Either the "power of prayer" works, or it does not. It is not a matter of opinion; someone is right and someone is wrong. The largest prayer study ever conducted seems to favor the claim that there is no "power of prayer."

evie

Sat Sep 26 2009 22:28

"We're all paying a part of your wages here, so how about discussing something with substance . . . or something you know anything about?"

I couldn't disagree more with this comment. Although I definitely don't agree with all the editorials in the NI, in my opinion they are far and away better than they've been in the past. I look forward to reading them now, because I think they offer a lot more substance. Great job to everyone at the NI!

evie

Sat Sep 26 2009 22:19

John - I know that churches give a lot to the needy, which is good, but that wasn't what I was trying to say in my last comment. I was trying to say that just because belonging to a church makes people feel warm and fuzzy, this does not make churches legitimate institutions. I didn't really explain what i meant in my last comment - I was thinking of the Catholic Church (of course) and the huge mega-churches we have here in America. Sorry, but I really don't see why the Pope needs the biggest and fanciest church in the world - is there some competition going on between religions? Does the winner get a front row seat in heaven or something?

I could go on forever about what's wrong with churches - one of them being that prayer is pointless, which is why I posted here in the first place. Some people might argue that though religion has some flaws, it does more good than harm by providing a community for people to belong to and, like you said, is oftentimes very charitable to the needy. That's all BS to me. There are plenty of other ways for people to belong to supportive communities, ones that don't tell them to believe dogmatic teachings and stifle their ability to really think for themselves. Look at some of the countries in northern Europe - they are some of the least religious places in the world, yet most of them are ranked very highly in terms of happiness. And there are far more efficient ways to channel your money to the poor - pick some other organization, preferably one that isn't using it for things like elaborate churches and salaries for guys who preach that you're going to hell if you don't bow down to God.

So again, I don't think religion can be justified just because it does some good sometimes - I think we can find other ways of doing this that don't involve being completely irrational and senseless about our world.

Sat Sep 26 2009 22:09

Nick---thats why the arguments are valid...because it is an opinion column. I know there is no scientific data to back anything up, but people are entitled to their own beliefs and opinions.

Nick

Sat Sep 26 2009 21:21

I'm just cracking up at people commenting who clearly haven't even bothered to do the research.

/Both opinions are valid because they are OPINIONS/

No, one is backed by repeatable, scientific data, and the other is sheer incredulity.

Trevor

Sat Sep 26 2009 19:11

John - You mean the help they give in third-world countries by preaching the sinfulness of condoms as AIDS ravages their country? Yeah, I'll pass on that "help."

John

Sat Sep 26 2009 17:42