Prayer Doesn't Have a Prayer.

Today I seemed to have hit a hotspot with someone I knew. The topic of prayer was brought up and I simply provided this reference. I was innundated, in reply, with two stories. One of these stories involved a body part healing itself (and we're not talking regrowing amputated limbs or something) and the other was a third hand story about soldiers in Africa not attacking when poised to do just that. The conclusion that was reached by this zealotrous individual was that prayer in both cases was, without doubt, the cause of the favorable outcome.

I responded, as I tend to, with a volley of savage arguements. I was not rude, I was not offensive. Well, I guess I was offensive, because said individuals wife 'unfriended' me on Facebook. I guess when cornered, the best option is to hold your hands over your ears and run away. Once again, I can use one of my favorite terms: Intellectual Cowardace. If you believe in something without any doubt, there is clearly a reason...but in light of the arguements provided, it looks like those reasons aren't enough to even try to defend.

My first move, which is an obvious one to those that know me, was to attack the analogical evidence provided as an absolute proof. Analogical evidence is not the same as empirical evidence. A comprehensive study conducted over a decade holds far more ground than a statement like "I got better because I prayed". Personal stories are a nice addition to empirical evidence and should be taken at face value. Personal stories, as I pointed out, have zero repeatability ot confirmability. If our society were to believe, as this type of person does with this kind of thing, I promise we would have alot of good ol' witch burnings going on to this day. Remember, it is belief like this that is the sole cause of the dark ages, procrastinating the forward progession of thought and society for hundreds of years. It's different, they'll say, because it's the word of their God. Well fuck right off and show me why it's right.

Anyways, back to the topic. It is intellectually irresponsible to say "I prayed and therefore it worked" with any certainty when you have zero point of reference for what would or could have happened if you didn't pray in the first place. Also, this could have been a "one-of" coincidental outcome in the first place (though people such as this believe god remains hidden by using coincidence, I'd again ask them to qualify this in a proper way). Repeatability comes into play here: If the exact same situation were to happen over dozens of trials, with and without prayer, would the same outcome happen? I think most certainly yes, but the test would be an elegant demonstration of the block headedness of various individuals. Without these trials, there is absolutely no way of knowing for sure, so it is completely unreasonable and unfair to say with such certainty that it is the direct cause of you the outcome. I would suggest they are discrete, mutually exclusive events UNTIL demonstrated to have a connection.

One thing prayer is good for is my dear friend the placebo effect. If you think something will work, even if it's a sugar pill, it will likely have some effect similar to what it is supposed to have, at least for a while. Pharmaceutical companies compensate and allow for this in their tests the world over. So thinking prayer will help will automatically have an impact. It is interested and rather amusing to point out that in the abovementioned test, the group that was prayed for but not told about it did the worst, statistically speaking, for survivability and health. Purely a coincidence, but there is little way to reconcile this if you don't believe in coincidence...unless you want to play the classic religion card of cherry picking what you want to apply and what you don't, which is hypocritical at best.

Speaking from a purely theological perspective, why is this person so certain that they prayer even worked? Assuming there is a god and that he meets the criteria that is assumed by these people, why does the apparently success of a prayer automatically mean it was a success? What makes these people so certain that their god, with a horrible track record for not granting prayer requests, not only acknowledged their prayer but intervened and helped. What is to say the god didn't completely ignore the prayer and help anyways, thus rendering the prayer completely useless. How can it be demonstrated that the healing, for example, wasn't just healing with no supernatural interference? There is simply no way of objectively testing the above, so it is assinine to assume things. Though, to be fair, this group of people has a rich and rather prideful history of stacking assumptions upon assumption.

After all these completely reasonable arguements, the reaction was to flee like a coward. I do not understand these people, they are so very, very irresponible with their minds.