Why Should The Total Number Of People Praying For A Certain Outcome...

[arwalden]

... make any difference to a deity? Logic tells me that a deity would grant the prayer request based on whether or not the recipient/s are deserving. It also seems logical that the other reason a deity would grant a prayer request, would be out of compassion for the person/s.

Do things like "prayer-chains" or "prayer circles" give any one person an unfair advantage over people who don't have such networking abilities? Are lone prayers more likely to be ignored by deities than the organized group prayers?

If it's true that prayer-chains are more effective, that doesn't seem quite fair to isolated individuals. To me, the prayer-chains sound like they are "freeping" the prayer-system. -- On the other hand, if lone prayers are just as effective as prayer-chains, then what's the purpose of prayer-chains?

I just don't follow the logic behind such tactics of begging deities for specific desirable outcomes.

[htuttle]

1. The idea is that they can force God to do what they want

Just like the apocalyptic types who think if they do 'A' and 'B', then God will HAVE to do 'C'.

It's probably unwise to attempt to strongarm a diety into doing what you want -- just ask an Ancient Greek.

Just saying...

[rainy]

2. your question assumes that god picks and chooses like god is

human. Might it be more like god is energy and the more energy you direct by thought in prayer is the real healer? I don't know but I always imagine god as a huge mass of energy and when we die our energy joins the big mass of energy-god. Our energy can come back to earth in any form or maybe another human. Energy is finite. Just a thought, who knows?

[Az]

3. That would be testable

And so far the tests show otherwise.

[aneerkoinos]

12. Actually

So far the tests are inconclusive - and there is not even real agreement on what theory is tested ;).

[Az]

18. As tests go

A claim is made and the test is performed. As such each test has fallen short of the claim it was seeking to test. The close calles have turned out to be the result of mistakes in procedure or on occaision ourright fraud.

I have conducted my own experiments and they were outright failures. Of course prayer may have some other effect that we have not yet accurately tested for but so far the more obviously testable claims have proven untrue.

[aneerkoinos]

19. Please

If you refer to the whole field of paranormal, your claim is outright incorrect. Meta-analysis show that there is small but constant anomaly - to deny the existance anomaly is not scientific, but a matter of ignorance and/or belief that such anomaly is a priori impossible.

Specifically, what comes to the MANTRA-project, first study showed positive correlations, but BBC reports (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3193902.stm) that further studies don't give such results. However, with little googling I didn't find support for the BBC claim, the relevant Duke university website is not updating, which of course don't give good impression. So without better information (like the actual published paper) I cannot pronounce my final verdict but have to accept it's so far inconclusive, but let's say that personally I'm not very enthusiastic about this specific line of study.

[Az]

20. Not my area of focus these days

But the notion of meta-analysis showing a consistant anomaly begs a mighty large question of who gets to pick the data being included in the analysis. Such grand claims seem important but how can one back them up?

Suffice to say the door is always open to convincing evidence. To hear full on paranomalists talk about it people are levitating and reading cards on venus every day. All the skeptics ask for is someone to make a claim of what they can do and then to simply do it. If a person can bend spoons with their mind then do it. If a person can heal another person with prayer then do it.

Let us say I remain skeptical on this subject. I find far greater value in exploring other areas of the mind and returning to this subject without substantial evidence is not a path I am prepared to take at this time.

[aneerkoinos]

21. Skepticism is good

Only way to keep one's mind really open. But there's no halfway with skepticism, being dogmatic about some things (e.g. monistic materialism) and skeptic about others is not skepticism. In this sense I don't consider the CSICOP gang scientific or philosophical sceptics, but polemists for a certain scientific and metaphysical theories and paradigms (e.g. consecutive time-bound causality, which BTW according to Hume is psychological consept, not logically provable, and now seriously questioned by Quantum Physics).

>>>All the skeptics ask for is someone to make a claim of what they can do and then to simply do it.<<<

This is anything but scientific demand, as most evidence point's the way that the phenomena studied are seldom if ever produced by consciouss will, or at least they have very complex relation to personal intentionality.

In science game there are no proofs beyond doubt, only relative truths, and by the rules of the games there is sufficient evidence of an anomaly, so that now the study can and should move from proof of anomaly to the study of that anomaly, e.g. the complex relations of these phenomena and personal intentionality.

[Az]

22. Hence the remaining open to evidence

It is good to have tension on a subject pulling in both directions. It keeps the research honest.

[whistle]

4. Good point, if God is an all loving personal God, He listens...

... to each and every voice with the same degree of attention and compassion. I would think though that rather than millions of people all praying and asking for some specific outcome from God carrying any real weight (God knows what He wants) that the greater impact would come from those people who love God with all their heart and all of their souls so as to become totally willing to follow Gods will for them, rather than the other way around. Obviously, the greater the number of people following God's will of peace on earth and loving thy neighbor as themselves, and so forth, the greater would be the impact. IMHO

[Dogmudgeon]

5. The struggle against helplessness

When nothing can be done, human inventiveness comes up with something. Prayer, supplication, propitiatory sacrifice, and what Jim Morrison called "petition(ing) the Lord with prayer" are some of the things they do.

People who are critical of religion often try to find the single organizing principle behind the strange behaviors it produces, but I think religion is a grab-bag of good, bad, and worse. Religion drove the development of philosophy, but it's also carried "social diseases" like bigotry, tribalism, and superstition.

It's often just too painful to think that the universe acts without concern for human life and desire. I'm not talking about praying for certain election outcomes, or for a new car, or for one's hot Saturday-night date to come across. Intercessory prayer is usually used to try to persuade God to prevent death or loss, or to at least explain it.

As in any situation where there are people in pain, the vultures circle around the corpse, waiting for the survivors to show up. A good many of those vultures wear the Roman collar.

There are good members of the clergy, who realize that prayer can be taught as a type of meditiation to help people resolve some of this pain. Just talking to a sympathetic member of the clergy is often much easier than talking to a psychologist or psychiatrist, as the clergy lacks the onus that mental health professionals labor under. These clergypeople, in spite of the irrationalities of their faiths, are the ones who keep religion from becoming completely worthless and evil.

But they're not the ones running multi-million-dollar televangelical ministries, Forune 500 companies, political parties, or finance companies.

--p!

[El Fuego]

6. That is a great observation

I get annoying religious emails from my relatives asking me to pray for this or that. You've made me realize what they're trying to do -- "Freep" the prayers! Too funny.

[AllegroRondo]

7. If God already knows what will happen,

what makes us think that prayer will change the outcome?

Who are we to presume that we know better than God what should happen?

[Brianboru]

8. A prayer is not a demand

We don't know how prayers will be answered. However, Scripture tells us to pray.

"In response to the request of His disciples to teach them how to pray, He repeated the prayer commonly spoken of as the Lord's Prayer (q. v.), from which it appears that above all we are to pray that God may be glorified, and that for this purpose men may be worthy citizens of His kingdom, living in conformity with His will. Indeed, this conformity is implied in every prayer: we should ask for nothing unless it be strictly in accordance with Divine Providence in our regard. So much for the spiritual objects of our prayer. We are to ask also for temporal things, our daily bread, and all that it implies, health, strength, and other worldly or temporal goods, not material or corporal only, but mental and moral, every accomplishment that may be a means of serving God and our fellow- men. Finally, there are the evils which we should pray to escape, the penalty of our sins, the dangers of temptation, and every manner of physical or spiritual affliction, so far as these might impede us in God's service."

This is from a link to understand prayer from a Catholic persoective:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12345b.htm

There are on-line prayer chains for those isolated, such as:
http://www.lambsvoice.org/prayer_request.asp

This is a Christian, non-denominational link. Google "prayer chains" for other sites.

Hope this helps.

[Igel]

9. Parent/child analogy.

Parents do what's good for their kids. But they also do things they wouldn't otherwise when the kid asks. Not allowing purely bad things, by and large, but just things they wouldn't choose. I suspect my parents, however, also let me do things that were unlikely to turn out good for me, however, just so I'd know.

My parents got me a bike, neither good nor bad, because I asked for it. A lot. If I had asked for a tuna sandwich, I wouldn't have asked as hard for the result. I also didn't get the bike I wanted. Later, I skinned my knee riding the bike, but it wasn't the bike's or my parents' fault. And friend's brother wanted to go to summer camp; the answer was no, he had to stay and help out with yardwork, they were putting in new sidewalks that summer. His brothers also chimed in, and said they didn't mind. The kid went to summer camp because of the show of solidarity. (Granted, it wasn't altruism, but because the middle kid's brothers just wanted him gone, but the parents didn't know this.)

I suspect that sometimes the "theological" reason for "having" to ask is reliance. I'm not sure never having to show reliance on another person, or gratitude to another, is a good thing. When teenagers get jobs and control over their own money supply (and, therefore, become less reliant), I think their parents' moral authority (if there's any perceived by the kid) weakens severely. This, long before the kid's internal inhibition centers kick in.

I also strongly suspect that the business about 'asking, and receiving not" because we want things for the wrong reason may frequently apply.

[trotsky]

10. Or, in other words...

"God answers all prayers. It's just sometimes the answer is 'No.'"

Must be tough being God. My sense of moral decency would never allow me to answer the prayer of "Please God, don't let my child die of cancer" with a "No."

[Igel]

11. I stay away from that kind of question, usually.

Largely because it's hard to find a falsifiable answer (there's another thread on Sagan and his dragon going that crucially involves falsifiability, so allow me a bit of bleedover).

Maybe there's no answer forthcoming: is "I'm not going to hear" the same as saying "I'm not going to answer"? Maybe because it's a non-god being asked. If it's "no" answer, maybe it's better for him (her) to not live, for one reason or another.

In any event, I'm not sure how to impose my sense of moral decency on an entity that's considered either omnipotent, or the very definition of decency, nor do I find it necessary to believe that God would bind himself to answering every that asks for anything people in the affirmative, even if they wildly diverge in what they ascribe to him (her).

Like I said, I stay away from that kind of question. It raises far too many unanswerable questions.

[trotsky]

13. The other standard answer.

"God works in mysterious ways."

[onager]

14. No he doesnt

He/she/it works exactly like random chance. No mystery at all.

:evilgrin:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

15. actually, the prayers aren't for God

but for us to open our hearts to unconditional love that is always there for everyone.

[supernova]

16. I agree with this ayeshahaqqiqa

And I'll add, graniting a prayer/wish also would entail whether it is a good idea in the grand scheme of things. Something we can't know with our limited perspective.

[aneerkoinos]

17. Well said

Buddhist have meditation called Metta Bhavane, where you wish happiness and all the good first for yourself, then friends, then neutrals, then those you feel negatively about, and the all the being.

"Unconditional" is important word here, if one targets positive vibes to someone who has not asked for and given permission, the effects can be destructive. The worst Japanese curse is "May you pay all your Karma debt in a week".

[raccoon]

23. I don't think there's any point in praying for specific outcomes

I don't think praying for specific outcomes affects outward circumstances AT ALL.

It always annoys me when I heard somebody say, "I prayed that X would happen, and it did!" Because what about all other people who prayed for X to happen--and it didn't? Does God not like those other people as much as the speaker?

I think to pray for the strength to deal with the circumstances, or the outcome, whatever it might be, makes sense.

[aneerkoinos]

24. Magic

If we consider prayer a form of magic, and frame the question on Jungian/etc premises, supposing collective levels of mind/subconsciouss, the question gets interesting.

I'm inclined to guess that ("quality" or practitioner aside), numbers of individuals engaged in magical intentionalisty matter in bending the likelihoods. Of course in the usual limits of magic (e.g. uncertainty principle).