Healing

Other Links of Interest

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/gary_posner/godccu.html

http://www.religionandsocialpolicy.org/news/article.cfm?id=2002

http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-05/prayer.html

 

that last sentence in Vito's post about if God is all knowing and all-powerful then He needn't be reminded or persuaded into healing someone is interesting. Do you think that we are asking God to do something that has already been provided?

 

i thought he had some in mind. the two most frequently mentioned studies are Byrd's and Harris. harris' study was to correct the problems in byrd's (namely that the conclusions were drawn from a very subjective measure of "did they do better?"). neither study was secular.

i'm curious about all the studies that DON'T show prayer working. do people go ahead and publish them or do they just sort of peter out...

 

Every scientific study that has set out to debunk the phenomenon of ESP has succeeded. Every scientific study that has set out to prove it as authentic has also succeeded. My bet is the same thing would apply to today's topic.

 

prove it.

 

I believe in the power of focused energy, including prayer. I think there will probably be a time when we can explain it scientifically, whether or not we yet have the methods to do so. One person focusing their mental and emotional energy on a particular purpose is a powerful thing. A group of people doing it can be a very powerful thing, in some ways moreso than the sum of it's parts it seems. I don't know that it matters if it's a prayer group or a Tupperware party, though. You get peoples' minds and hearts focused on a goal, and they're going to create viable energy toward those ends.

 

If you mean "healing" in the general sense of the word. I do believe we can see it everyday. Healing can stem well beyond one individual. It can be a whole city after a terrible diseaster.

We give doctors and the like credit for healing the ill, yet it is my belief that God works through them. Those types of healing we can see everyday. Being humans as we are, at times we need fireworks in order to see God is here.

 

Exactly. Electrical activity in the brain can be observed & measured today in ways undreamed of in the past. There is real power in thought; & vast, mostly untapped power in focused thought.

 

some people call it meditation or visualization

 

All you people that believe in the healing power of prayer should never go to the doctor. Let God heal you when you get a tumor. Good luck.