PRAYER? What is it?

[ProfWag]

[Craig Browning]

[ProfWag]

[Craig Browning]

When I live in L.A. I worked closely with the New Age community of the time (Louise Hay, Marianne Williamson, etc.) so I was around tons of folks dealing with all kinds of chronic or mortal illnesses. One guy in particular was just awesome; he was diagnosed with some form of cancer... I want to say it was Colon Cancer but don't hold me to that... regardless, he got mad at himself for allowing himself to slump into such a dark place after his diagnosis and a rather grim prognosis. So he decided to fight things by exploiting their exact opposite... he went out and either bought or rented ever classic comedy film he could get his hands on and spent hours daily, watching them and laughing... as the Reader's Digest has said for years "Laughter is the Best Medicine" and in this guy's case, it seemed to have prolonged his life by over two years.

[Scepcop]

Here is my theory of why prayer sometimes works, from page 15 of my Debunking Christian Fundamentalism treatise:

http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/Debunk ... Page15.htm

My own theory on how and why prayer works

Now, you may be wondering how prayers and miracles could be real supernatural phenomena, yet the religions behind them not be true. How could you harmonize that? Well there are other explanations that theoretically harmonize them.

I have a theory which I call metaphysical societies. A Canadian colleague helped me formulate it. We were talking about religion and answered prayer, and how and why they worked. I mentioned that I had some amazing stories of answered prayer that I knew weren't just coincidence, when I was a Christian. Yet, the beliefs and doctrines of Christian fundamentalism have obviously been proven false for me in the literal sense, so I was trying to make sense of how prayers could still be answered. Aaron, the colleague I had these discussions with, then started explaining to me about "metaphysical societies." It made a lot of sense to me and provided a unified theory.

Here is how it goes. As we all know, in New Age quantum theory, "thought creates reality" in a universal sense, even though in our dimension, this principle is reflected much more weakly and slowly than in other dimensions. Therefore, when a group of people gather for a single purpose, they create a certain energy field between them that makes their power stronger. And that's especially true with organized religion. And in Christianity's case, with a billion followers, that energy field would be very powerful indeed. Therefore, when one is indoctrinated into Christianity, he/she also becomes part of this massive group energy field, and is governed by its principles, values and beliefs. As a result, when that person lives according to the values of this energy field, that energy field works to help that person in many ways, including answering its prayers. That is why, when I was a Christian, I found that when I prayed for things that I was SUPPOSED to pray for, that a good Christian should want and desire, it had a very high probability of manifesting and coming true, smoothly and easily. However, when I prayed and asked for things of a purely selfish nature, it had a very low probability of manifesting. I noticed this pattern. And when prayers came true, whether for me or others, it would obviously not be ordinary day to day coincidences or selective perception and memory, because the answered prayers would come about my seemingly impossible odds of things that never happen, all SYNCHRONIZED to manifest the result. Sometimes, in manifesting the prayer, people would be involved who did odd things and later claimed that they had no idea why they even did it, but what they did brought about the answered prayer. These kind of things tell anyone that it was a real answered prayer, and not coincidence or selective memory.

This same "metaphysical society" effect happens in other religions as well, since people in other religions get prayers answered as well, as long as they are in accordance with the values of their metaphysical society. I have even heard that with Wiccans, when they make a pledge to a goddess and then break it without asking permission of that goddess, they often reap bad or disastrous consequences, until they go back and ask permission of the goddess to leave. Perhaps, these goddess that Wiccans pledge to are also metaphysically created, either in some other dimension or the mind of the believers, so that they do exist in a metaphysical sense, having power and influence in our lives, physical world and dimension.

[Scepcop]

There was a Duke University study on prayer that concluded:

"In a feasibility study conducted by the Duke University and Durham Veterans Affairs medical centers, angioplasty patients with acute coronary syndromes who were simultaneously prayed for by seven different religious sects around the world did 50 percent to 100 percent better during their hospital stay than patients who were not prayed for by these groups.”

[ProfWag]

[Wilhelm]

Quick note here: the prayer studies are useless, no matter the outcome. You can never have a control group. Ever. Are you going to seriously ask the loved ones of a sick person to not pray for them? What about the super-duper Christians who just pray for everyone? I reiterate, you can never have a control group, so these studies are unscientific and a monumental waste of time.

It this entire argument comes down to positive or negative thinking, then the reality is self-evident; Think negatively and negativity will be all around you, think positively and you will see the positive. Is that really subject to debate? Each and every one of us creates our very own version of reality and we can certainly infect others with portions of that reality. Can you do it by wishing really hard? Maybe, maybe not, but there are probably much easier ways.

[ProfWag]

[Wilhelm]

[Scepcop]