Okay.
Let's analyze the data.
On the matter of prayer, if a scientific study is done, that study must first of all determine what prayers are answered, and if they can be answered.
Has scientists determined that prayers can be answered?
Does scientists know what prayers are, and what prayers are acceptable?
Assuming that the answer to both questions will be that they are going by what people of various religious faiths say, the there is no way that data can be accurate.
Why?
Various religious faiths
- have various gods.
- have different views.
- are not all acceptable by the God of the Bible, and therefore, are not all heard by that God.
Proverbs 28:9; Isaiah 1:15; Isaiah 59:2; Matthew 6:5-8; 1 Timothy 5:8;
These scriptures as well as many others show that the God of the Bible does not listen to all prayers.
To give an example.
At the Rio games, many atheletes made gestures of prayers. Sometimes in one event alone, multiple contestant may make these gestures. Which of those prayers does God listen to? The Bible clearly shows that God's interest is not in nationalism and its Olympic Games.
Another example.
The nations get together each year for the national day of prayer.
The National Day of Prayer (36 U.S.C. § 119) is an annual day of observance held on the first Thursday of May, designated by the United States Congress, when people are asked "to turn to God in prayer and meditation". Each year since its inception, the president has signed a proclamation, encouraging all Americans to pray on this day.
Which one of these nations does God listen to? The Bible clearly shows that God's interest is not in hypocrisy, much less patriotism.
The Bible makes it very clear in more places than one, that not everyone who has a religion, is worshiping the God of the Bible, who is identified as the true and living God, the creator, and the omniscient one - who knows the thoughts of all men.
However, if persons who know what the Bible says about prayer, and worship of the true God, did do a report, it can be considered accurate, because they have an accurate "measuring rod".
Once we have that data, them we can narrow down the field of religious claims, and see how those measure up.
Many people have already done so, and the results are in opposition to your data.
So looking at the data you provided.
Since this one doesn't deal with prayer or scietific research on prayer, I will address it, by using a contrasting report.
Mean religious affiliation of inmates in U.S. prisons, as reported by prison chaplains in 2011
This statistic shows U.S. prison chaplains estimations of the percentage of inmates belonging to different organized faiths and religions as of 2011. Chaplains surveyed reported that on average 50.6 percent of inmates were of protestant faiths.
Since the report comes from the chaplains, consider a contrasting report
These ones as I stated are inaccurate.
Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer
This one giving added reasons why.
At least 10 studies of the effects of prayer have been carried out in the last six years, with mixed results. The new study was intended to overcome flaws in the earlier investigations. The report was scheduled to appear in The American Heart Journal next week, but the journal's publisher released it online yesterday.
In a hurriedly convened news conference, the study's authors, led by Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiologist and director of the Mind/Body Medical Institute near Boston, said that the findings were not the last word on the effects of so-called intercessory prayer. But the results, they said, raised questions about how and whether patients should be told that prayers were being offered for them.
Other experts said the study underscored the question of whether prayer was an appropriate subject for scientific study.
"The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion," said Dr. Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia and author of a forthcoming book, "Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine."
The study cost $2.4 million, and most of the money came from the John Templeton Foundation, which supports research into spirituality. The government has spent more than $2.3 million on prayer research since 2000.
Dean Marek, a chaplain at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a co-author of the report, said the study said nothing about the power of personal prayer or about prayers for family members and friends.
Wow.
That's a lot of money
to waste imo.
Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: a multicenter randomized trial of uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer.
Templeton Prayer Study FAIL!
I'm here wondering if the poster of this read it. It actually make a point I was thinking of.
Why would anyone of Jesus followers get sick, die, or be put in prison? Would one imaging that they would pray about these things? Why? And why would they expect God to prevent any of these thing happening? lol
Flaws of the Study
According to the research team, one of the issues may have been that those who knew they were being prayed for had “preformance anxiety,� which could complicate a heart condition. “It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?� Dr. Charles Bethea said. This does beg the question that if God were interested in healing people based on prayers for them, could he have not also prevented complications for these patients? Would God not be invested in being a part of this study if it were designed to prove his existance?
The other issue that is noted by Richard Dawkins in his book The God Delusion is that there really are issues with how the study was done in the first place. The full set up of the experiement, assuming that those involved believed in the power of prayer, was subjecting some people to what could be considered cruel because they were not chosen to be in the “prayed-for� group. Those who were part of the study could very well have gotten prayers from people that cared about them. Yet, why would they especially considering that those recieving prayers did worse?
No Results; Nothing Studied
The problem with the study was based in the hypothesis itself: if we pray for someone then God will intervene in some supernatural way to restore a person’s health. No doubt this is a wonderful concept, but it eliminates the truth about he subject being studied. In the same way that the Prosperity Gospel cult has undercut the basis of Christian belief, this study is based on a lie. Somehow people have come up with this idea that if we ask for something then we can obligate God to deliver.
What kind of God would he be if we were able to say just the right words or preform just the right action that would somehow get God’s attention and thus getting a desired result? This concept makes God not God at all, but rather some cosmic vending machine (insert prayer) or light switch.[lol]
Prayer’s Power
This is not to deny the power that abides in prayer, but it does stand in the face of a fallacy. Prayer is not about getting our goodies from God, but it is about trusting God to do what is best. It is about building a relationship and leaning our the truth that comes from that relationship.
This study would be just as flawed if it were conducted on child-parent relationships and we expected that the child would receive everything she asked her parents for. No doubt we would think very poorly of a parent who did that and it would be no stretch to expect that the child would be a lazy, fat brat. [lol] No doubt we would be in quite a big mess if God also fulfilled every request to our liking. It frankly gives me much satisfaction that this study was a failure, because it strengthens my trust in a God that cannot be contained and who works toward our best, even if we do not agree that our best is.
Thanks for sharing this B. LOL
Largest Study of Third-Party Prayer Suggests Such Prayer Not Effective In Reducing Complications Following Heart Surgery
"Our study was never intended to address the existence of God or the presence or absence of intelligent design in the universe. The study did not endeavor, either, to compare the efficacy of one prayer form over another or to assess participants' understanding of the nature and purpose of prayer. Finally, it was not our objective to discover whether prayers from one religious group work better than prayers from another," said co-author Father Dean Marek, Director, Chaplain Services, Mayo Clinic. Patients across the three groups had similar religious profiles. Most believed in spiritual healing and almost all believed friends or relatives would be praying for them. Investigators did not ask patients to have their friends and families withhold prayers, and assumed that many patients prayed for themselves during the study.
"One caveat is that with so many individuals receiving prayer from friends and family, as well as personal prayer, it may be impossible to disentangle the effects of study prayer from background prayer," said co-author Manoj Jain, Baptist Memorial Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee.
I think you get the point.
You have offered me zip.
