prayer

I was raised as a Baptist, and I have been surrounded by "prayer warriors" all of my life. Having examined recent studies of prayer, I am left to conclude that it does little good in helping anyone being prayed for. That being said, I am curious about the usefulness of prayer to the person...

I teach first grade, and I try to incorporate my skepticism when I can. We have frequent discussions and experiments about whether or not crossing your fingers gets you your wish. My last year's class got broken of that belief pretty quickly. So, this new school year, I have a boy who prays at...

Article here What about all the unanswered payers? <-----Rhetorical Oh wait didn't Garth Brooks say god's greatest gifts are unanswered payers...??? I am happy that this kid lived though. Amazing thing that natural survival instinct.

I administer the mail server at work, so I get to peruse the spam pit occasionally, make sure there are no babies in the bathwater. Here's a gem, similar to the "John of God" thread, almost as pathetic. It seems the amount of this crud going around in email is rising. N-C is selling Gregg...

I read a story recently where a couple, after years of being unable to conceive, used IVF and became the parents of five new babies (sorry, I can't find a link to the news article). The thing is, in the article, the mother was quoted as saying something like 'I would like to thank god for...

by Patrick Crewdson - The Dominion Post Christians are offering to cure sick people through prayer at "healing rooms" modelled on doctors' surgeries. Visitors to the rooms – established at churches in Wellington and Auckland, with another planned for Dunedin – receive attention from...

The following is a perfectly true in every detail. It's nothing Earth shattering or even particularly interesting, but I thought I would relate it and this seemed an appropriate place. I've been going through a somewhat difficult time recently. A friend betrayed me, and a loved one chose to...

This comes from a discussion I had earlier today. A little old atheist lady has a cat she loves very much. One night, the cat somehow gets out of the house, but the lady doesn't know it until the next day. The cat has been gone for hours by the time she realizes it. She's distraught...

I was out on a bike ride yesterday when I saw this sign, and I had to stop to take a photo: Effective at what? And effectual compared to what?

I know I am! I'm going to pray to Bob that he keeps his followers out of my business!

USA Today reports: Good to see that the "prayer warriors" have an air force now.

Found while surfing........ ------------------------- I hate to say this, but my brother is a member of the James Randi website which is a website for skeptics and critical thinking. They totally trash the movie "What the 'bleep' do we know?". more ...

One of the most perplexing elements of religious faith is prayer—the notion that, by pleading with God, one actually can cause changes for the better in the world. Of course, we see this strange practice in a great many of the world’s thousands of faiths, meaning multitudes of God characters all...

Started thinking about this about yesterday... :D Now, I'm not a christian, jew, muslim or even rastafarian, so I'm not too well informed in these things, I guess. I do, however live in a part of the world where there is the occational religious person, so I've had *some* contact with them...

See http://www.prayermatch.org/ . It should be a complete description - methodology, goals, my intent / opinion, etc. The backend programming isn't ready yet but the basics (i.e. user accounts and the public pages) are there. I intend to begin once a sufficient number of participants are signed...

Yeah, a family in Berlin, which likes to start praying at 2:30 AM, and can be heard from their 2nd floor apt up to the 5th floor, are being put out. Would it make any sense to ask how he knows you have to shout to fight the devil? Well, that kind of thinking could lead to all manner of...

Interfax Found it posted Here While scientist (so called) Angelina Malakovskaya does not seem to appear in the English half of the Internet (outside of this article), but "she shows up in quite a few number of articles, but only in Russian." I have challenged him to the Million Dollar Prize...

Here we go again. Oh, shut up.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/07/18/haiti.voodoo.ap/index.html Well, it will work at least as well as Pat Robertson praying to protect Israel. ETA: Spelling voodoo is hard ok?

I'm surprised when people study the power of prayer, or make websites like why God won't heal amputees. 1. If God did answer prayer, the mind absolutely boggles. If I prayed that the most beautiful woman in the world would fall in love with me, and 180982 other guys prayed the same thing...

I searched for about 10-15 minutes for this, but surprisingly found nothing. So sorry if it was already posted. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html?ex=1301461200&en=4acf338be4900000&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss I was disappointed they just had some random people pray, but...

From the BBC website: The score: Brazil 3 - Ghana 0 Not only that but Ghana had some of the worst luck I've seen in the World Cup so far, they should have had one or two goals at least if not for some 'miracle' saves by Brazil. Chalk this up as another example of the power of prayer - or...

Did God listen to the prayer? I looking at a graph that stops going up and flats out? It even started to go down for a while. How is this proof nothing happened? I did not know it was good to pick a decision without look at the evidents you have. Maybe is graph should go in the "file drawer"...

http://www.fabricoffaith.com/Default.aspx?AffiliateId=7&AffiliateCode=PPT&AffiliateName=The%20Presidential%20Prayer%20Team&Super=Yes Yep, this will help us turn the corner so we can see the light at the end of the tunnel while a new day is breaking and we reach a safe harbor....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12467604/?GT1=7938 Sweet Jeebus! At first I laughed and thought this was the inverse of the "atheist attorney gets struck by lightning" myth. Then I realized it was five actual children who were probably there because their parents told them to be and I was a bit...

The latest (and largest) study of the health effects of Xian intercessory prayer finds that people who were prayed for, and knew it, tended to fare worse.... What an appropriate day to publish, don't you think? Disclaimer: I know the thread title isn't accurate. But I think that should be...

In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications. cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/03/30/prayer.study.ap/index.html...

Of course, the actual title is, "Study fails to show healing power of prayer." http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2006-03-30T204217Z_01_N30395850_RTRUKOC_0_US-PRAYER.xml&rpc=22 This story is in bold red on drudgereport.com, and I fail to see why it's even...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/03/30/national/a100110S72.DTL I just read this article off the AP wires. Most of us are not at all surprised but at least now there is more science. I bet there will be a great hoo haaa ( NO..... It can't be!!!!!) from all...

A local TV station in PA ran a piece about The Power of Faith. In the section titled "God's Will": Anyone know what studies they refer to? I sent an email to the station asking for the information.