The Science of prayer

There isn’t a science to prayer in my life. How about yours?
Study fails to show healing power of prayer

Isn’t the very premise of prayer that it isn’t scientific? So, what will a scientific study prove? The funny part to me is that they even included a placebo of sorts as you will read in the third paragraph.

What is their conclusion? You could sum it up like this . . . “Well, we had a couple of guys pray for you while you were under the knife, and you didn’t get better, so our statistics say that prayer doesn’t heal . . . at least that’s what the study shows.”

“A study of more than 1,800 patients who underwent heart bypass surgery has failed to show that prayers specially organized for their recovery had any impact, researchers said on Thursday.

In fact, the study found some of the patients who knew they were being prayed for did worse than others who were only told they might be prayed for — though those who did the study said they could not explain why.

The patients in the study at six U.S. hospitals included 604 who were actually prayed for after being told they might or might not be; another 597 patients who were not prayed for after being told they might or might not be; and a group of 601 who were prayed for and told they would be the subject of such prayer.”

You don’t get the caveat until the end of the story, so that’s where I put it in my post.

“Private or family prayer is widely believed to influence recovery from illness, and the results of this study do not challenge this belief,” the report concluded.”