Prayer isn't so good for your heart afterall

Silly fundies, prayers are for kids.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/03/30....ap/index.html

Of course they had to qualify the report saying that "Researchers emphasized their work does not address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf." Still trying to be polite I guess.

How ironic.

Theists fail to realize that prayer is simply a form of meditation, designed to focus your mind and/or motivate yourself and others. If done properly meditation can indeed lower blood pressure and reduce stress. Praying "for" someone else only works if they are aware of the act and share the same beliefs. When prayer becomes a literal appeal to the supernatural though, the opposite can happen. Rather than taking control of the situation you are deferring control over to something that doesn't exist. If you convince yourself that you are helpless, powerless, or otherwise at the mercy of a capricious entity, how exactly does that help anybody?

Considering the way fundies often use prayer, to smite, curse, or exert control over their enemies, I'm not surprised that this backfired. :rolleyes:

Silentknight wrote

Praying "for" someone else only works if they are aware of the act and share the same beliefs.

According to this study, it doesn't even do that. The only way that it could produce any result is through the placebo effect, which has nothing to do with religion.

I remember somewhere that random number generators can be infintesimally altered by concentration--on the order of one in a billion tries.

If that is the power of prayer than what a powerful god this is indeed.