BobHarris.com - The medical power of prayer debunked

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The medical power of prayer debunked

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Saturday, 16 July 2005

A study just published in The Lancet quite exhaustively contradicts a useless-if-way-comforting earlier claim that simply praying for someone has any medical effect whatsoever.

Nope. Nada.

This should just be common sense. Wish it was.

Suppose any particular god really intervened consistently in human medical affairs, to the benefit of his believers only, and in direct relation to their pleadings. Just suppose. Imagine this really had happened with any god, consistently, since the beginning of humankind.

Obviously, a process of natural selection would have operated on all faith systems. People lucky enough to have guessed this god's identity correctly would long ago have begun consistently recovering from cancer, quinsy, and the heartbreak of psoriasis, and not just for ten minutes on TV after being screamed at by combover guys. True believers would have been living longer lives than the rest of us for centuries.

People like not dying. Word would probably have gotten out.

And so by now, most of humankind would be senselessly bombing itself over how to worship this one medically-certified deity correctly. We certainly wouldn't still be quibbling over his name, preferred M.O., and ideas on women's fashion.

Of course, the Lancet study only tried prayer from Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Buddhists.

So the remaining two billion assorted Hindus, Shintos, Taoists, Confucians, Sikhs, Bah'ais, Jainists, Rastafarians, Lukumists, Caodaists, Falun Gongers, and miscellaneous Spiritualists and Animists can still argue the experiment.

Christian Scientists... you're on your own.