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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   2294 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.

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I'm not asking anyone to become atheist. But the idea that prayer does anything is chafing enough to me to cause me to comment. As I said elsewhere, I think religion is healthy, though I struggle to accept the good with the bad.

What do you mean by "does anything"? If you see the prayer as an ATM, that you put the right card in, type the right code, and the stuff you asked for comes out, that most certainly does not work and can not work - that's called "magic" and you can read about it in any number of fantasy books, but that's not how our world works([citation needed], of course), and even more, as far as I know, most Abrahamic religions at least kinda frown on such things. Clearly, it's not intended to be the ATM.

If you are asking whether a prayer changes anything in the world at all, e.g. if the world post prayer is identical to the world prior, or you can observe something different anywhere at all, then obviously it does, there are multiple people who could testify to that. Is it just a subjective phenomenon? Maybe yes, maybe not. What knowing that would give you? If your answer to this boils down to "magic" again, then maybe that's not the right way to deal with the issue. You won't get magic from it. You can't just pray for winning the Powerball and become a multimillionaire (at least not in the sense that you can get $100 from your bank's ATM). If this issue bothers you, maybe the more productive approach would be to consider what people are getting from it, and what you would want to get from it - i.e. if it "did anything", what kind of anything would you want it to do? Is it magic ATM? Is it Prozac without side effects? Is it imaginary best friend? Is it something else? Maybe that's what people find in it.

Obviously prayer does do something, if you're counting spiritual feeling or literal mouth movements as "something". If you read this far down in the thread, hopefully you remember the original claim causing me to post at all, but since you asked what I meant by "does anything":

But what really brought me back was simple, undeniable, tangible evidence. I decided to try to pray for something (freedom from an addiction I had) and the result was spectacular, far beyond anything I'd have expected. I then set about more formally testing prayer and related things and found consistent, similar results.

It's just plain false that there is undeniable tangible evidence to anyone except the prayermaker themselves. If it wasn't, all kinds of religious organizations would be falling all over themselves commissioning study after study.

I used to pray, and not as a magic ATM, but there's only so much placebo can do for you once you know it's placebo.

It's just plain false that there is undeniable tangible evidence to anyone except the prayermaker themselves

Are you sure? If somebody prays and becomes a better person, father, wife, child, boss - it is only a selfish benefit or does it have a wider effect? If an addict stops being an addict, that's certainly not only a selfish problem - otherwise we as a society would not spend so much money and effort battling with addictions. Let's set aside prayer and assume we got a magic serum. If you are an addict and take this serum, you stop being an addict. Plain and simple. To avoid getting into the weeds, let's assume it's all true - every study ever done confirms this is how it works. Addiction just goes away, that's it. How much do you think such a serum would be worth? Billions? Would it have any effect on a society? Would you invest in a company that you know for sure is about to release such a serum? Would you reasonable claim "this serum doesn't really do anything" and not have people stare at you as if you have grown an extra head? Would you say "well, it's not really worth considering because it doesn't have any effect to anybody except the person who takes it"?

If it wasn't, all kinds of religious organizations would be falling all over themselves commissioning study after study.

You are assuming winning studies is the only goal anybody could reasonably pursue. For some people, it could be true. But it's certainly not true for all people. There's a lot to life beyond winning studies.

but there's only so much placebo can do for you once you know it's placebo.

There's only so much anything can do for you in general. It's not like you have a magic genie in a bottle that is ready to fulfill your every desire but a bunch of assholes around here try to convince you to abandon it and use the much inferior option instead. If you have something that works much better for you, sure, use that thing. If people claim there's a thing that works for them, you certainly can disbelieve them and think they are just stupid. But at some point you'd have to ask yourself - what exactly you're getting from believing so many people are stupid? Is that working well for you?

Are you sure? If somebody prays and becomes a better person, father, wife, child, boss - it is only a selfish benefit or does it have a wider effect?

Of course that's a good thing, and if prayer gets you there, that's great. But it is no magic bullet. I don't really like your magic serum analogy for the same reason. While there are a lot of addicts who find salvation to be the way out, I have to imagine there are many pounds of dead bodies who tried it and found it lacking. And, furthermore, Tenaz's post goes outside of the scope you're setting. He tested more than just addictions, and presumably, material outcomes that didn't depend on himself.

What if the serum only worked for gay people? You should just go gay, right? That's impossible for a lot of people. What if it required you to believe in astrology?

You are assuming winning studies is the only goal anybody could reasonably pursue. For some people, it could be true. But it's certainly not true for all people. There's a lot to life beyond winning studies.

Tell that to the Creation Research Society, bashing their heads against an Old Earth over and over again, presumably for preaching the faith to skeptics who have heard the evolution lie. If they throw themselves at that complicated problem of radiometric dating and rock layers over and over again, they really ought to be throwing themselves at the much easier problem of verifying prayer. It would be super cheap and testable anywhere, compared to copious use of labs for dating of various samples. If it was verifiable, anyway.

Obviously some winning studies would be exceptionally helpful to the faith. Most Christians are tired of losing the battle against science by now.

If people claim there's a thing that works for them, you certainly can disbelieve them and think they are just stupid. But at some point you'd have to ask yourself - what exactly you're getting from believing so many people are stupid? Is that working well for you?

I can't say I get anything out of knowing that prayer has no material effect on outcomes outside of yourself. But sometimes, the truth hurts.

I'm not going to say anyone's stupid for believing it. Many very smart people believe much more plainly false things. I'm probably going to say something if I know it's plainly false, especially on a forum dedicated to searching for the truth. Or as close as you can get to anything called truth.

they really ought to be throwing themselves at the much easier problem of verifying prayer. It would be super cheap and testable anywhere

All that tells you is whether the prayer answerer is a deterministic system, or imitating one, or something which isn’t either, and whether the person praying “has the password” for getting the result they want.

(One problem often pointed out in schools is how much of schooling is essentially guessing what the teacher wants to hear.)

Biblical Christianity on the other hand is about being so different after being saved from sin that one might as well be a new person, “born again” as a new creation with God’s law written on one’s heart and the Holy Spirit urging loving choices toward any and all, even one’s enemies.

People with autism, like me, often have trouble understanding non-transactional relationships, as well as where duty and authority come into play without resentment in a loving relationship between unequals. God is not a system or a tricky genie.

But it is no magic bullet

That's what we started with, remember? No magic. So we are in agreement here.

While there are a lot of addicts who find salvation to be the way out, I have to imagine there are many pounds of dead bodies who tried it and found it lacking

Yes, sure, it was just an analogy, designed to address your argument that "if only affects the user, so it doesn't matter". I am showing there are a lot of things that affect the user and matter a lot. That's just one aspect, so once we're done with that aspect, the analogy does not extend further.

Tell that to the Creation Research Society,

Why should I tell them anything? They want to win studies, fine. Maybe they are bad at winning studies, that's fine with me too - a lot of people are bad at doing something they try to do, why should it bother me? I am not responsible for how they find their path to faith - even if that path looks completely wrong to you and me, and they are really bad at convincing people that there's an empirical evidence for Old Earth theory, why should it be a problem for me, to tell them anything?

Obviously some winning studies would be exceptionally helpful to the faith.

That's debatable. If it was about winning studies, then it'd be the Unseen University, not faith. For some people, probably, faith is just a technology. But it can't be just that, because then there's no point in having a separate category called "faith" anymore. If there's some aspect that is not covered by technology, then winning studies won't help much for that aspect, because that aspect does not rely on studies.

Most Christians are tired of losing the battle against science by now.

Are they? I'm not a Christian, so I don't know, but it doesn't seem like they are tired that much - and in fact, many of them don't even see it as a battle. Why there must be a battle? Who said good Christian must yearn to destroy science, or good scientist must yearn to destroy Christianity - or any other religion for that matter?

I can't say I get anything out of knowing that prayer has no material effect on outcomes outside of yourself.

Didn't we just establish it isn't true? And didn't I just demonstrate even if it were true it wasn't a problem at all? I'm also not sure which theory you are trying so valiantly to disprove here. We already agreed there's no magic. So which other "plainly false" thing you are disproving? That there are many studies that show prayers are magic? Ok, there aren't. Anything else?

That's what we started with, remember? No magic. So we are in agreement here.

No, that's actually not what we started with. Did you read this thread in its entirety? I'm not convinced we really disagree with each other, I was assuming you came in here in defense of Tenaz's writings.

Tenaz writes:

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).

Furthermore, he writes regarding the probability of your lost dog coming back:

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).

And in this separate comment he linked:

Recently my (quite remote) ward was broadcasting stake conference. There were 3 2-hour sessions to be broadcast, including 2 which would contain highly-anticipated talks (sermons) from a church higher-up. Unfortunately, the broadcast wasn't working. So the wonderful members of my ward sat through 5 hours of screechy whines, the words of the talks only very rarely intelligible at all, and even then only for a second or two at a time. At this point there's only an hour left, everyone looks quite grumpy as they sit and bask in the sound of unholy microphone screeching, and I feel impressed to suggest that we pray for the sound quality to improve... ...So, the congregation thankfully went along with the suggestion, and the static immediately cleared up completely.

This is the magic I'm arguing against that I presumed you were arguing for. You think this is not correct, right? Does it make you an asshole who thinks people are stupid to disbelieve this and straight up tell him there was no correlation?

honestly even from a completely materialistic worldview, the idea that spending some time every day focusing on things you are grateful for, letting go of things you are worried about, and thinking about things you want to have happen could have positive impacts doesn't seem far-fetched.

EDIT: probably should add for the sake of debate I have also had (less dramatic than OP) experiences of immediate and hard-to-explain things happening after prayer on multiple occasions. Not impossible to explain, but felt quite meaningful at the time to me.

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