site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1844 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 8, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

If God only grants you specific, insignificant, entirely-taking-place-in-the-mental-realm prayers

Yeah, that's not what I'm talking about at all. I saw (and see) entirely tangible results. My claim is specifically that if you pray for things, with a good understanding of who God is and what prayer actually is, you're likely to get those things. It's not limited to revelation or other mental changes.

If you really think that this is something that works empirically, it should be easy to design some studies that properly prove it. Has anyone done it? Or maybe there are too many confounding factors like true belief?

Well, studies can't truly prove anything, ever. But I've seen plenty of relevant studies. Some tested whether crops which were prayed over did better than others, some tested whether people who were prayed for survived longer than others. Some have positive results, some negative (no effect) results. I'm not satisfied with any of them.

If you look at some of the popular commentary on these studies it is shockingly bad. Just look at the first study mentioned:

Probably the experiment cited most often by advocates of prayer is the one performed by Byrd, a cardiologist at San Francisco General Medical Center. According to his report, he studied 393 patients between August 1982 and May 1983. He divided the group into 192 patients who were prayed for, and 201 who were not prayed for.7 He reported that, among other things, the people who were prayed for were five times less likely to develop pulmonary edema. None required endotracheal intubation, and fewer patients died.

The problem with this and any so-called controlled experiment regarding prayer is that there can be no such thing as a con-trolled experiment concerning prayer. You can never divide people into groups that received prayer and those that did not. The main reason is that there is no way to know that someone did not receive prayer. How would anyone know that some distant relative was not pray-ing for a member of the group that Byrd had identified as having received no prayer? How does one control for prayers said on behalf of all the sick people in the world? How does one assess the degree of faith in patients that are too sick to be interviewed or in the persons performing the prayers? Even Byrd acknowledges these problems and admits that “`pure’ groups were not attained in this study.”8 Since con-trol groups are not possible, such purported scientific exper-iments are not possible.

Basically the guy is saying "ok, evidence says prayer works, but maybe people in the control group were prayed for too, so it doesn't count." OK, but the experimental group was likely prayed for much more. It's like saying that a vitamin C supplement study (with a control that doesn't take the supplement) is impossible because the control group will still eat some vitamin C. No, that's not how studies work. The same calibre of commentary (easily dismissed by anyone with half a brain to think about these things) can be found everywhere. The studies themselves are not much better, and I think you can dismiss those that find positive results for prayer as easily as I can dismiss those that find negative results.

I could go on. Maybe a smarter person than me could define a good study. Maybe they already have and I haven't seen it yet. But in the meantime I think it's up to each person to figure this out for themselves. It's really not hard to do, as I did, a "controlled" study of the efficacy of prayer. Make a list of twenty things you want, good things that you think God wants you to have, come up with a rough estimate of how likely they are to happen, and pray for a randomized half of them. It doesn't take that long.

If you fail to pray for something and it happens anyway, did God do it?

Yes? God works the same way reality itself does--we don't fully understand him or have perfect knowledge of every detail of his mind. I don't understand the objection here, is God not allowed to do anything unless we pray for it? I don't believe prayer is guaranteed to achieve results--for that to happen I'd need a perfect understanding of who God is, rather than a pretty good one. I just think it raises the odds, basically proportional to how good my understanding of God is (and reality, too).

For example, say my dad is depressed because my mom is on her deathbed. So I pray for her to live a bit longer so that my dad can have more time with her before she passes. But, say I don't know some crucial detail--maybe he'll be happier and more at peace in the long run if she passes now. Let's assume I have a correct model of God, too, and I'm asking in faith. This doesn't necessarily mean the prayer will be answered, simply because my model of reality is correct. God knows my heart, and my prayer (which is really about alleviating my dad's suffering) doesn't force him to ignore the spirit of my request.

Now, I've been down this road before, with other interlocutors. So I'm going to politely request, using enough lines that you're sure to not miss this part--

please

please

please

please

please

please

please

think through the implications of this before typing up a snarky response. Assume I've done the same. My only claim here is that prayer increases the odds of the thing you requested happening. I'm not saying it's guaranteed. I'm not saying you're stupid, bad, or wrong if you pray for something and it doesn't happen. Please assume I've actually put ten seconds into thinking through the implications of this.

But I really can't stand these kinds of outrageous claims about how prayer really works when it's been pretty clear that it does not work at all for years.

Have you seriously tried to test it? It will take perhaps an hour to get started, and then five minutes a day for a few weeks. Provided you go into it with an open mind I'm confident you'll see results. Plenty of people put that much time into meditation on a whim.

Let's say that the study really did prove that prayer works.

Okay. What kind of wording was used during the prayer? How many people prayed for the subject? Did they pray a long, individual prayer, a short, individual prayer, or multiple prayers throughout the days? Does length of time spent praying increase the statistical likeliness that the prayer works? Do acts of faith (fasting, attending worship, displaying faith artwork) improve the outcome? Does Biblical conduct (charity, honoring the Sabbath, honoring one's parents) improve the outcome? Does the intensity of the prayer (praying for one's child recovering from cancer as opposed to praying for one's stubbed toe to stop hurting) affect the outcome? Are people in the faith more likely to have a support group that helps them relieve stress?

Do you see that there are an impossible amount of factors involved in such a study? I guarantee the study was not so rigorous as to specifically probe every single aspect that I've listed here. Even if you asked them, you wouldn't get straight answers. People forget, people don't understand their own minds or why they think certain things or do certain acts.

It's really not hard to do, as I did, a "controlled" study of the efficacy of prayer.

This is the same problem we ran into last week with the gender dysphoria thing. It's impossible to look inside someone's mind. Do you tally your successes to failures? For how long? Are they correlated at all with the other upswings of your life?

In my youth, I thought that when I was worried sick about my dog, calling for it to come back over and over, praying desperately for it to come back, that it was certainly a miracle when it did, in fact, come back. The problem is that there is no evidence for this whatsoever. There is no way to run two exactly matching sets of reality, one where I prayed that my dog came back, and one where I did not pray that my dog came back. For such a trivial matter, it is easy to say that my calling had more effect than prayer. What about for not-so-trivial matters? The feeling that a miracle happened would be even greater, but it would have no more basis than my dog anecdote. I felt spiritually uplifted by that event, just as I guarantee a girl who mistakenly thought she was a boy would feel great relief at wearing boys' clothing and being called by a masculine name. But feelings are not proof of anything. We are not scientific beings. We are animals, a big ball of emotions, tightly wound at times.

I can tell you I prayed for a troubled girl once every night, and despite my devotion, despite pledging I would never ask for anything more besides if this wish was granted, she ended up shooting herself due to chronic abuse that I had no idea about. It was after some years of sustained nightly praying that her soul did not go to Hell that I realized the utter stupidity of such a venture.

Let's say that the study really did prove that prayer works.

Okay. What kind of wording was used during the prayer? How many people prayed for the subject? Did they pray a long, individual prayer, a short, individual prayer, or multiple prayers throughout the days? Does length of time spent praying increase the statistical likeliness that the prayer works? Do acts of faith (fasting, attending worship, displaying faith artwork) improve the outcome? Does Biblical conduct (charity, honoring the Sabbath, honoring one's parents) improve the outcome? Does the intensity of the prayer (praying for one's child recovering from cancer as opposed to praying for one's stubbed toe to stop hurting) affect the outcome? Are people in the faith more likely to have a support group that helps them relieve stress?

Do you see that there are an impossible amount of factors involved in such a study? I guarantee the study was not so rigorous as to specifically probe every single aspect that I've listed here. Even if you asked them, you wouldn't get straight answers. People forget, people don't understand their own minds or why they think certain things or do certain acts.

Well, look, I don't put any faith in the study at all. I only brought it up to critique what I see as both typical, and extremely lackluster, commentary around that kind of study (and by extension, the quality of the studies themselves). Like I said, I'm sure either of us could absolutely tear it apart.

But these objections you've listed really aren't great. Just as quantum physics adds up to normalcy, all these factors add up to a statistically significant difference between the experimental group and the control. If it works, that's an enormously important thing to know about the world, and it would be worth first replicating, then attempting to control for each of these factors in turn.

Do you tally your successes to failures? For how long? Are they correlated at all with the other upswings of your life?

Yes, for a few weeks. I would have gone much longer but the results were extremely definitive quickly, to such an extent that continuing the test felt quite disrespectful. I recognize this means that the test really isn't worth much as far as evidence goes to anyone other than myself--I can only ask you to try to replicate it.

In my youth, I thought that when I was worried sick about my dog, calling for it to come back over and over, praying desperately for it to come back, that it was certainly a miracle when it did, in fact, come back. The problem is that there is no evidence for this whatsoever. There is no way to run two exactly matching sets of reality, one where I prayed that my dog came back, and one where I did not pray that my dog came back. For such a trivial matter, it is easy to say that my calling had more effect than prayer. What about for not-so-trivial matters? The feeling that a miracle happened would be even greater, but it would have no more basis than my dog anecdote.

Well this is why I made a list of things I wanted, estimated their outcome probabilities, chose half at random, prayed for them, and then compared my average error in that group to my average error in the group of outcomes I didn't pray for.

Human reasoning isn't perfect but I do think it's capable of overcoming this sort of error with enough study. The dog will probably come back eventually, so if you want to use [dog comes back] as your test of prayer then it probably needs to be focused on timing. How long does the dog normally take to come back? How long did it take to come back when you prayed for it? A few of my desired outcomes were this sort of test (though a bit less trivial). I certainly agree that the feelings themselves aren't good evidence.

I can tell you I prayed for a troubled girl once every night, and despite my devotion, despite pledging I would never ask for anything more besides if this wish was granted, she ended up shooting herself due to chronic abuse that I had no idea about. It was after some years of sustained nightly praying that her soul did not go to Hell that I realized the utter stupidity of such a venture.

I'm very sorry. I think this absolutely should reduce your faith in God. But it should take most of that probability mass from theories of God, and reality, that most strongly predicted otherwise. In this case, I'd say a lot of that probability mass should be taken from the theory that being alive was actually good for her--that what you were praying for is actually what you would have wanted with full knowledge of all the details.

It's pretty trite to say "she's in a better place now" but I truly do believe she is--with family members who care for her a lot more and a lot better than it sounds like her living family did. You were praying against that outcome, and God didn't answer your prayer.

This is the same problem we ran into last week with the gender dysphoria thing. It's impossible to look inside someone's mind.

I'm not asking you to--I wouldn't expect anyone to take my results on faith. In fact, not only would I not believe my own results if someone else told them to me, but I often don't believe they happened myself, and it takes a fair bit of convincing to remind myself they actually did happen.

In this case, I'd say a lot of that probability mass should be taken from the theory that being alive was actually good for her--that what you were praying for is actually what you would have wanted with full knowledge of all the details.

Ha. Haha.

I have sometimes thought that someone being dead means that you will never worry about them again, because their story has ended; they are right where you left them, and you will always know where they are, what their status is.

Offense taken, all the same. What an absolutely awful way to view life. I suppose everyone who is dead is better off dead, otherwise they wouldn't be dead, right? Not to mention the conclusion that perhaps the suicidal ought to take their own lives since their earthly ones suck so bad.

Regardless, I wish you the best in your theories, though I will continue to doubt them.

It always seems to boil down to theodicy in the end.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats