Thread: The prayer experiment.

Ok so i have made up this scientific experiment to understand if the christian, muslim, jewish, seek, hindu etc god is real. For the last week or so i have been praying to each and every god I know about to receive Warhammer Online and a new bike. Knowing how poor my welfare family is if i get these objects then one of these gods must be real and i will start going to church. If not then god is just a delusion and a fake.

But on the other hand maybe I should be praying for Santa or bribing him? What do you think?

I think warhammer online sucks, it's user interface is dreadful and it inspires very bleak headaches..

Your just another WoW fanboy. I myself am a fan of WoW but id rather get the new WAR and try its awesome pvp.

Slugman, My understanding is that the christian, muslim and Jewish God is the same fellow so you might be okay there. I don't know much about Sikh's but I do know it is not spelled seek. The Hindu's have hundreds of Gods so you might want to think about which one you are praying to.

I'm also fairly sure that prayers are only supposed to work if you believe in the first place. Prayer is not supposed to be a test of God, but a demonstration of your faith. From this perspective your experiment will fail simply because you do not believe.

Also, your experiment is not very scientific because you don't have any people testing the consequence of not praying, and you have failed to keep the identity of the person doing the praying a secret from the person collecting the data.

What you should do is get twelve friends and randomly assign six of them to the prayer group and the other six to the non-prayer group. Then you observe the effect of their actions without knowing who is in which group. Only after collecting the data and doing the analysis to determine whose actions were successful do you then ask them who was in which group.

After doing all this you will undoubtedly conclude that since prayers only work if you believe they will, you should have prayed to Santa in the first place.

Merry Christmas.

Originally Posted by SlugMan

Ok so i have made up this scientific experiment to understand if the christian, muslim, jewish, seek, hindu etc god is real. For the last week or so i have been praying to each and every god I know about to receive Warhammer Online and a new bike. Knowing how poor my welfare family is if i get these objects then one of these gods must be real and i will start going to church. If not then god is just a delusion and a fake.

But on the other hand maybe I should be praying for Santa or bribing him? What do you think?

Prayer has never been about wishing for earthly goods, and then seeing them materialize due to Almighty God's generosity. God is under no obligation to answer any of your prayers, especially when they lack the sincerity and cohesiveness one would expect from them.

That being said, do not allow me to discourage you from pursuing your "scientific experiment". I would, however, like to mention one thing: your idea isn't the first of its kind.

Originally Posted by The Pride

That being said, do not allow me to discourage you from pursuing your "scientific experiment". I would, however, like to mention one thing: your idea isn't the first of its kind.

True. Prayer experiments have already been conducted, all failing miserably.

They didn't all fail.. they were neutral.. as if the same thing would of happened if there was no prayer... HOWEVER the group knowing that they were being prayed for and were actually prayed for had a 59% chance of complications compared to the 52% chance everyone else got after 1802 people went for heart surgery.

Originally Posted by (Q)

Originally Posted by The Pride

That being said, do not allow me to discourage you from pursuing your "scientific experiment". I would, however, like to mention one thing: your idea isn't the first of its kind.

True. Prayer experiments have already been conducted, all failing miserably.

At what depth was the concept of prayer studied in these so-called "scientific experiments"? Is "prayer" defined as "praying to God for one's desires, and subsequently receiving them via divine intervention"? What makes these experiments "scientific" in nature, anyway? Do you believe prayer, assuming its viability, should be used for obtaining material wealth and accessories, or for maintaining proper health and protection from danger? Do you believe the sincerity of the individual offering the prayer, and the earnestness of its nature, has any bearing on the outcome? Do you believe prayer is a personal affair between the individual and God, or is it a phenomena meant to be experimented with and studied?

What I think: Stop being a troll and making our dear mod come in here and verbally molest you.

Originally Posted by verzen

They didn't all fail.. they were neutral.. as if the same thing would of happened if there was no prayer..

That's what I meant when I said failed. Prayer failed to work.

HOWEVER the group knowing that they were being prayed for and were actually prayed for had a 59% chance of complications compared to the 52% chance everyone else got after 1802 people went for heart surgery.

Mind over matter?

Originally Posted by The Pride

At what depth was the concept of prayer studied in these so-called "scientific experiments"? Is "prayer" defined as "praying to God for one's desires, and subsequently receiving them via divine intervention"? What makes these experiments "scientific" in nature, anyway?

You're free to look over the experiments, the parameters and the results to answer your questions.

Do you believe prayer, assuming its viability, should be used for obtaining material wealth and accessories, or for maintaining proper health and protection from danger? Do you believe the sincerity of the individual offering the prayer, and the earnestness of its nature, has any bearing on the outcome? Do you believe prayer is a personal affair between the individual and God, or is it a phenomena meant to be experimented with and studied?

What I "believe" is irrelevant. What theists believe about prayer IS relevant, and evidently wrong, according to the results.

But, what I'm gleaning from your post, correct me if I'm wrong, is that we puny humans shouldn't be meddling in the affairs of gods?