It's official: praying for sick people doesn't help

[Thorum]

"Every few years, a group based at Hertford College at Oxford puts together a statistical analysis of all the studies conducted to date that have looked at whether praying for sick people helps them get better (or at least stay alive).

The latest has just been published (http://bhascience.blogspot.com/2009/04/its-official-praying-for-sick-people.html), and it contains something pretty radically new in their conclusions: the evidence is now so clear cut that they think that no more studies should be done. The book is shut. Praying for sick people simply doesn't work."

(I knew praying didn't work since I have never had a prayer "answered" in my life!!) ;)

Thanks to BHA Science Group (http://bhascience.blogspot.com/) for the story. Incidentally, it is a very interesting blog!!

[Beorn]

Ah well that's it then. Let's just stop praying and give in to the people who don't want us to talk to made up people.

It's been "officially proven".


(I knew praying didn't work since I have never had a prayer "answered" in my life!!) ;)

It's because God doesn't like you.

[Loki]

BH0rFZIqo8A

[Vargtand]

Good too see that their time is spend presuming the great mysteries of the world :P I wonder who is paying for it?:P

[Beorn]

I do love watching these kind of videos. Thanks for linking it up Loki.

The Horseshoe: The horseshoe is a well wish charm. It is fabricated from the time when the blacksmith was the supernatural epicentre of small iron age villages and represented a link to the other world.

To gain good luck from a horseshoe, you need to place it upon the top right of your front door, pointed up, and to keep it there. It is usually thought to be an old, used horseshoe that brings better luck.

The onus is it staying upon your door frame to bring you well wishes from similar fellows of your clan or tribe and certainly not thought as some special button to being rewarded directly by the Gods.

There is no precedence in common folklore to suggest our ancestors believed this, nor is there proof beyond doubt that this was what the horseshoe was initially entailed for.

To say you will roll six-sixes by merely being in possession of the horseshoe is lamentable in the person firstly going against the history of the lucky horseshoe, (not to mention that if you need lucky charms to aid your gambling habit, you really should consider not gambling) and the people who mistakenly believe science needs to disprove the lucky horseshoe.

To be fair to the horseshoe, both false practitioners and people who wish to show to the world through the medium of science that we can still suck eggs with the best of them, are bigger arseholes than each other in the first place.

Horseshoes are for placing upon a horses hoof and for signalling within the greater community your belief and sanctity towards well wishes and goodliness.

The luck and charm is in the position of your centre.


Praying to God: I do have to say that the idiot narrating the video doesn't leave much room for people explaining their belief system, but hey! When have scientists and sceptics ever given anyone a fair and reasoned chance?

Firstly, what religious person who follows the belief system of say, Christianity, is going to thoughtfully pray to the God in the belief that an insignificant and trivial exercise such as rolling six-sixes is going to be answered for him?
The Bible of Christianity strictly adheres those to not gamble and fritter away your earnings, so the point is moot: God would never bother himself with the success of your insignificant dice.

God is not going to heal the sick, he does not want the world populated by miraculous cancer recovery patients and will certainly not listen to the confused and spiteful rantings of a silly atheist trying to justify his purpose in life.

Again, the whole purpose of prayer is one aimed at the community. You pray towards the well being of your family and your community.

An example would be me. I always ask my God to ensure that nothing bad happens to me or my family and loved ones. I also reserve a little sentence for the people of the world.

As it goes, nothing bad has happened to me. I still have my health and I have a roof over my head. I also have food in my stomach and my family and friends are too.

Prayers answered.


As for the rest of the video, it does the same old routine, "blah, blah, the church says this and the Bible says that, blah, blah, blah....look at me! Ain't I a smug person with my fancy science and size 500 shoes"

It's another atheist with an attitude trying to debunk something which they have misinterpreted.