[extropy-chat] prayer and healing again

[The Avantguardian]

Yes... but since the prayers were "public" the question remains whether their prayers were sincere or they were just doing it for show. (e.g. so as not to be called a traitor or what have you.) This is a problem with all the double blind prayer studies as well, after all how can you invest any true spiritual energy into a prayer for someone's health if you don't even know who it is you are praying for. I think it would be a more accurate study to examine casualty records for wars and such since the military keeps accurate data on the religious denominations of soldiers for funeral purposes and such. Unfortunately prayers by professed atheists under fire might confound such studies, but that too proves a point. ;)
    
 
 
 

John K Clark <jonkc at att.net> wrote:
James Watson in his recent book "DNA" talked about a much larger scale test
of the effectiveness of prayer. He points out that for hundreds of years
millions of people have been publicly praying that the King or Queen of
England have a long life, but actuarial studies have shown that monarchs on
average have slightly shorter lives than other members of the aristocracy.

John K Clark jonkc at att.net



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The Avantguardian 


"He stands like some sort of pagan god or deposed tyrant. Staring out over the city he's sworn to . . .to stare out over and it's evident just by looking at him that he's got some pretty heavy things on his mind."

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