The power of prayer.

Paul B · May 21, 2007

We all know about the final in Istanbul and how we'd all like to believe the power of our prayers and desires helped our team overcome incredible odds but did it? We all also know that all our prayers on this very forum in recent weeks/years has not always had the most positive outcome. Think about the ocean of prayers from around the world for the safe conduct of little Madeleine McCann, so far unanswered. So, do our prayers have any effect? According to a study carried out in America, prayers could actually make things worse.

Richard Dawkins writes in "The God Delusion" about a double-blind, randomised controlled trial of prayer in America. What they did was to take a hospital where there were some seriously ill patients and randomly assign individuals of this group of patients, to a series of nominated churches. The congregation of the church was asked to pray for that person. The person being prayed for never knew (s)he was the subject of the prayers and the medical staff didn't know either (to stop any operator bias). As a control, other patients in the same hospital were not prayed for. Would the prayed-for group do better/survive longer? Would the prayers have no effect? In fact, it was established that the prayed for group did demonstrably worse than the non-prayed for group! This was a reputable, scientifically controlled study in close to perfect circumstances and proved that we might as well comb the cat's hair as pray, we might still get the same result!

John am Rhein · May 21, 2007

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