THE GREAT PRAYER EXPERIMENT

An amusing, if rather pathetic, case study in miracles is the Great Prayer Experiment: does praying for patients help them recover? Prayers are commonly offered for sick people, both privately and in formal places of worship. Darwin's cousin Francis Galton was the first to analyse scientifically whether praying for people is efficacious. He noted that every Sunday, in churches throughout Britain, entire congregations prayed publicly for the health of the royal family. Shouldn't they, therefore, be unusually fit, compared with the rest of us, who are prayed for only by our nearest and dearest?* Galton looked into it, and found no statistical difference. His intention may, in any case, have been satirical, as also when he prayed over randomized plots of land to see if the plants would grow anything faster (they didn't). More recently, the physicist Russell Stannard (one of Britain's three well-known religious scientists, has throwns weight behind an initiative, funded by - of course - the Templeton Foundation, to test experimentally the proposition that praying for sick patients improves their health.Such experiments, if done properly, have to be double blind, and this standard was strictly observed. The patients were assigned, strictly at random, to an experimental group (received prayers) or a control group (received no prayers). Neither the patients, nor their doctors or caregivers, nor the experimenters were allowed to know which patients were being prayed for and which patients were controls. Those who did the experimental praying had to know the names of the individuals for whom they were praying otherwise, in what sense would they be praying for them rather than for somebody else? But care was taken to tell them only the first name and initial letter of the surname. Apparently that would be enough to enable God to pinpoint the right hospital bed. The very idea of doing such experiments is open to a generous measure of ridicule, and the project duly received it. As far as I know, Bob Newhart didn't do a sketch about it, but I can distinctly hear his voice: What's that you say, Lord? You can't cure me because I'm a member of the control group? . . . Oh I see, my aunt's prayers aren't enough. But Lord, Mr Evans in the nextdoor bed ... What was that, Lord? . . . Mr Evans received a thousand prayers per day? But Lord, Mr Evans doesn't know a thousand people . . . Oh, they just referred to him as John E. But Lord, how did you know they didn't mean John Ellsworthy? . . . Oh right, you used your omniscience to work out which John E they meant. But Lord ...Valiantly shouldering aside all mockery, the team of researchers soldiered on, spending $2.4 million of Templeton money under the leadership of Dr Herbert Benson, a cardiologist at the Mind/Body Medical Institute near Boston. Dr Benson was earlier quoted in a Templeton press release as 'believing that evidence for the efficacy of intercessory prayer in medicinal settings is mounting'. Reassuringly, then, the research was in good hands, unlikely to beiled by sceptical vibrations. Dr Benson and his team monitored 1,802 patients at six hospitals, all of whom received coronary bypass surgery. The patients were divided into three groups. Group 1 received prayers and didn't know it. Group 2 (the control group) received no prayers and didn't know it. Group 3 received prayers and did know it. The comparison between Groups 1 and 2 tests for the efficacy of intercessory prayer. Group 3 tests for possible psychosomatic effects of knowing that one is being prayed for. Prayers were delivered by the congregations of three churches, one in Minnesota, one in Massachusetts and one in Missouri, all distant from the three hospitals. The praying individuals, as explained, were given only the first name and initial letter of the surname of each patient for whom they were to pray. It is good experimental practice to standardize as far as possible, and they were all, accordingly, told to include in their prayers the phrase 'for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications'. The results, reported in the American Heart Journal of April 2006, were clear-cut. There was no difference between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not. What a surprise. There was a difference between those who knew they had been prayed for and those who did not know one way or the other; but it went in the wrong direction. Those who knew they had been the beneficiaries of prayer suffered significantly more complications than those who did not. Was God doing a bit of smiting, to show his disapproval of the whole barmy enterprise? It seems more probable that those patients who knew they were being prayed for suffered additional stress in consequence: 'performance anxiety', as the experimenters put it. Dr Charles Bethea, one of the researchers, said, 'It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?' In today's litigious society, is it too much to hope that those patients suffering heart complications, as a consequence of knowing they were receiving experimental prayers, might put together a class action lawsuit against the Templeton Foundation? It will be no surprise that this study was opposed by theologians, perhaps anxious about its capacity to bring ridicule upon religion. The Oxford theologian Richard Swinburne, writing after the study failed, objected to it on the grounds that God answers prayers only if they are offered up for good reasons. Praying for somebody rather than somebody else, simply because of the fall of the dice in the design of a double-blind experiment, does not constitute a good reason. God would see through it. That, indeed, was the point of my Bob Newhart satire, and Swinburne is right to make it too. But in other parts of his paper Swinburne himself is beyond satire. Not for the first time, he seeks to justify suffering in a world run by God: My suffering provides me with the opportunity to show courage and patience. It provides you with the opportunity to show sympathy and to help alleviate my suffering. And it provides society with the opportunity to choose whether or not to invest a lot of money in trying to find a cure for this or that particular kind of suffering . . . Although a good God regrets our suffering, his greatest concern is surely that each of us shall show patience, sympathy and generosity and, thereby, form a holy character. Some people badly need to be ill for their own sake, and some people badly need to be ill to provide important choices for others. Only in that way can some people be encouraged to make serious choices about the sort of person they are to be. For other people, illness is not so valuable. This grotesque piece of reasoning, so damningly typical of the theological mind, reminds me of an occasion when I was on a television panel with Swinburne, and also with our Oxford colleague Professor Peter Atkins. Swinburne at one point attempted to justify the Holocaust on the grounds that it gave the Jews a wonderful opportunity to be courageous and noble. Peter Atkins splendidly growled, 'May you rot in hell.'*
ong in Swinburne's article. He rightly suggests that if God wanted to demonstrate his own existence he would find better ways to do it than slightly biasing the recovery statistics of experimental versus control groups of heart patients. If God existed and wanted to convince us of it, he could 'fill the world with super-miracles'. But then Swinburne lets fall his gem: 'There is quite a lot of evidence anyway of God's existence, and too much might not be good for us.' Too much might not be good for us! Read it again. Too much evidence might not be good for us. Richard Swinburne is the recently retired holder of one of Britain's most prestigious professorships of theology, and is a Fellow of the British Academy. If it's a theologian you want, they don't come much more distinguished. Perhaps you don't want a theologian. Swinburne wasn't the only theologian to disown the study after it had failed. The Reverend Raymond J. Lawrence was granted a generous tranche of op-ed space in the New York Times to explain why responsible religious leaders 'will breathe a sigh of relief that no evidence could be found of intercessory prayer having any effect.38 Would he have sung a different tune if the Benson study had succeeded in demonstrating the power of prayer? Maybe not, but you can be certain that plenty of other pastors and theologians would. The Reverend Lawrence's piece is chiefly memorable for the following revelation: 'Recently, a colleague told me about a devout, well-educated woman who accused a doctor of malpractice in his treatment of her husband. During her husband's dying days, she charged, the doctor had failed to pray for him.' Other theologians joined NOMA-inspired sceptics in contending that studying prayer in this way is a waste of money because supernatural influences are by definition beyond the reach of science. But as the Templeton Foundation correctly recognized when it financed the study, the alleged power of intercessory prayer is at least in principle within the reach of science. A double-blind experiment can be done and was done. It could have yielded a positive result. And if it had, can you imagine that a single religious apologist would have dismissed it on the grounds that scientific research has no bearing on religious matters? Of course notNeedless to say, the negative results of the experiment will notake the faithful. Bob Barth, the spiritual director of the Missouri prayer ministry which supplied some of the experimental prayers, said: 'A person of faith would say that this study is interesting, but we've been praying a long time and we've seen prayer work, we know it works, and the research on prayer and spirituality is just getting started.' Yeah, right: we know from our faith that prayer works, so if evidence fails to show it we'll just soldier on until finally we get the result we want. THE NEVILLE CHAMBE





This is copy and paste material from a chapter of my great Hero prof RICHARD DAWKINS in book....... 

Is Religion Delusional

Religion . . . has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. What it means is, 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not? - because you're not!' If somebody votes for a party that you don't agree with, you're free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If there is need to ban okada nationally, u are free to have an argument about it. But on the other hand if somebody says 'I mustn't work on sunday', you say, 'I respect that'. Why should it be that it's perfectly legitimate to support the PDP or APC, Republicans or Democrats, this model of leadership verses that - but to have an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe . .. no, that's holy? . .. We are used to not challenging religious ideas but it's very interesting how much of a furore Richard creates when he does it! Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you're not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn't be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn't be.

 Attention is drawn to the privileging of religion in public discussions of ethics in the media and in government. Whenever a controversy arises over sexual or reproductive morals,the opposition would respectfully tiptoe away. And it is no use claiming that this is an unfair parallel because apartheid has no rational justification. The whole point of religious faith, its strength and chief glory, is that it does not depend on rational justification. The rest of us are expected to defend our prejudices. But ask a religious person to justify their faith and you infringe 'religious liberty'.

"the notion that the values of Islam trump anyone else's - which is what any follower of Islam does assume, just as any follower of any religion believes that theirs is the sole way, truth and light. If people wish to love a 7th century preacher more than their own families, that's up to them, but nobody else is obliged to take it serious..." Mueller


Am not an atheist but a rationalist that believe in facts.
So there should be no biased mindset

Source: Richard Dawkins

What Is Religion And How Is It Explainable?

There are proofs that humankind has been religious since Pleistocene, perhaps already since its very beginning. Ethnography has documented that religion penetrated every tribal society and every archaic or premodern society. Religion seems to be much stronger and vivid in archaic societies than in the current world religions of Asia, America, or Europe. For example, the Australian Aborigines used to spend months of the year with religious practices and rituals. Religion and magic had a great impact on their everyday life. Religion seems to play a bigger part in societies staying upon lower stages than in those upon higher stages. In fact, there is not a single person to find in archaic societies who doubts in the existence of mystical forces such as ghosts, sorcerers, or divinities (Eliade 1974; Frazer 1994; Jensen 1992).

According to research of Febvre, there did not exist a single atheist in 16th century Europe (Febvre 1946). The first atheists appeared in France, intellectuals who were influenced by the philosophy of Descartes (Buckley 1990). A clandestine literature came into being in the end of the 17th century and moreover in the beginnings of the 18th century in France, where a small number of authors formulated atheistic ideas for the first time in history. Denis Diderot and Paul d´Holbach were the two most important atheistic authors during the 18th century.

Agnosticism and atheism spread from these origins in circles of scientists and intellectuals in the Western world to become a social movement during the 19th century. 41% of the leading scientists in the US were atheists already in 1916 (James Leuba), 93% of the members of the American Academy of Sciences were atheists in 1998 (Dawkins 2006; Oesterdiekhoff 2013a: 239). Roughly half of the Europeans or Japanese currently don´t believe any more in god and immortality of the soul, while 90% of people living in the developing countries are still religious (Bruce 2002).

A society, divided in believers, agnostics, and atheists, reveals a much weaker religiousness, in comparison to a society with 100% believers. Thus, religiousness in tribal societies is much stronger than in any kind of modern society. Further, atheism among the members of the American Academy of Sciences is deeper rooted than among the half of the peoples of England, Scandinivia, and Japan that is said to be atheistic today. Obviously, a psychological evolution has taken place, starting in the heads of a few intellectuals some 300 years ago, conquering now the most advanced nations and later on the whole world. There are estimations according to them there exist now some hundred millions of non-believers throughout the world (Oesterdiekhoff 2013a: 235-240, 2009a, b, c, 2015).

How can we explain the total absence of agnosticism and atheism in the premodern world and their emergence and spread since 1700? How can we explain religiousness and atheism basing on one striking theory?

Ludwig Feuerbach (1985) in 1841 explained religion as the childish nature of the humankind, manifesting the psyche of humans staying on childlike psychological stages. According to Feuerbach, the risen intelligence and grown maturity of humans might explain the emergence of atheism during the age of Enlightenment. He discriminated the “emotional man” of the premodern world from the “rational man” of the modern world as the fulcrum of the development of religion, science, and culture. He excellently demonstrated how single religious ideas and practices root in childlike mental characteristics.

Despite his celebrity nobody really followed his approach after his death. It would have been necessary to rely on child psychology and cross-cultural psychology in order to develop Feuerbach´s approach further. Successors should have had to show that children actually are deeply religious from their very nature, not in consequence of education and culture. Then, scholars should have had to show the resemblances of the religion of children and premodern man. Further, Feuerbach´s disciples should have had to evidence the childish anthropological or psychological nature of premodern man and the more mature status of modern man. Had his successors carried out this work, they would have accomplished the work and would have evidenced his early but brillant theory. The branch of religious studies would be able now to present a theory that explains both the full religiousness of the premodern mankind and the emergence of the weak religiousness, agnosticism, and atheism during the past 10 generations.

Not one expert in the field of religious studies of the past century did the work mentioned because nobody could ever imagine that children are deeply religious due to their developmental stage only. Many a scholars had even problems to understand the childlike nature of premodern man. Though, there had been many authors such as Heiler, Campbell, Freud, Jung, and Clodd who saw the resemblances but they did not followed the obvious traces. However, some most influential and distinguished scholars and schools emphasized the apparent resemblances between premodern and modern human beings, especially in the time span 1800 to 1945/1980. Yet they did not think that these resemblances could build the basis to explain the phenomenon “religion”.

Almost all classical authors of psychoanalysis and developmental psychology, many a classical authors of sociology, history, and ethnology, contributed to the theory of the childlike nature of premodern man. Among these approaches and works, the books of Piaget (1975) and Werner (1948) are especially impressive and plausible.

These books show that the psychological correspondences of children and premodern men cover all dimensions of logic, reason, perception, social understanding, morals, and political reasoning. Premodern man discriminates from the child by knowledge and experience but not by the psychological stage and by basic categories of reason and mind. The resemblances actually concern every single aspect and detail (Oesterdiekhoff 2009a, 1997, 2011, 2013a, b, 2012 a, b; Hallpike 1979).

Piagetian Cross-Cultural Psychology in the past 80 years has evidenced through more than 1000 empirical studies conducted in more than 100 milieus and cultures that adult humans from archaic, traditional, illiterate, and premodern milieus do not develop beyond the psychological stage of children while adult humans from modern societies develop some more developmental years and elaborate the adolescent stage of formal operations (Dasen 1977; Dasen & Berry 1974; Hallpike 1979; Oesterdiekhoff 1997, 2009a, 2011, 2013a, b, 2012 a, b, 2014, 2015; Piaget 1974).

Cross-cultural intelligence research has confirmed this result, too. Adults of premodern societies manifest IQ scores of below 75, in comparison to IQ scores of adults from modern, advanced nations. Even Europeans, Eastern Asians, and Northern Americans scored with below 75 a 100 years ago. Flynn effect is the name for the secular increase of intelligence during modernization. IQ scores of 50 match to the usual intelligence of children aged seven, scores of 75 match to the intelligence of teens aged 13 (Flynn 2007; Oesterdiekhoff 2011, 2012b, 2013a: 49-78). These are the empirical data that correspond to the data of Piagetian psychology, according to them premodern adults stay on childlike psychological stages while modern adults develop some 5 or even 10 developmental years further. The main causes to the divergent psychological paths and stages are school systems, primary socialisation techniques, media, and occupational systems.

The whole research branch „religion of the child“ of the past century has shown that children are deeply religious and modern adolescents manifest a decreased religion. K. Hyde (1990) and Goldman (1964) presented each an impressive compendium that cover the abundant data related, all evidencing the facts mentioned. Literally thousands of studies show that every child has elementary ideas of god, of prayer, of divine government of the world, of efficacy of magic, and of the immortality of the soul. Further, modern adolescents run through a religious development in which the original, magical, animistic, and concrete ideas and practices are becoming weaker and more abstract.

Already Piaget´s book on the worldview of children (Piaget 1975) demonstrated the correspondences of children´s and premodern men´s religion and worldview. It showed that modern children surmount this archaic worldview with 10 years at the latest, while premodern men adhere to this belief system all their lifetime. I have evidenced, upon some articles and a book that is to be published in 2015, that every element, which composes religions, roots in reason, mind, and psyche of children.

Every child believes, like premodern adults do, the world be an artefact, born in actions of persons and powers. Both groups surmise human or divine magic may create every occurrence and the run of history. Both groups believe in award and punishment both in this world and the other one. Children believe in god, ghosts, and in magic of their parents and of adult people (Oesterdiekhoff 2009a, 2013a: 215-240; Hyde 1990; Goldman 1964). Children by their sixth year regard parents and adults as being omniscient and almighty, as a kind of divinities (Bovet 1951; Piaget 1975; Goldman 1964; Hyde 1990). Children, older than six years, run then through a sceptical crisis. The grown mental abilities show to them restrictions that limit intelligence, capabilities, and knowledge available to adults. The children transfer then their religious feelings to the official and imaginary god of the adult culture, being the Bible God in the Western cultures. The preschool child shares with the stone age and tribal societies, with the ancient civilizations and with Christianity, the idea of the one, great god of heaven. Every premodern culture, including stone age peoples and agrarian civilizations such as China, India, pre-Columbian America, and the Meditarreanean, knows next to the cult of the god-father the worship of ancestors as a parallel cult. Ancestor worship concerns the adoration of deceased parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and former generations that dominate the life of their descendants from their place in heaven (Frazer 2010; Jensen 1992). I have shown that this core element of ancient religions stems from the mentality of the child before his sceptical crisis, of his religious attitude towards his parents before his seventh year of life (Oesterdiekhoff 2013a: 223-230).

Both children and primitive tribes initially have problems to imagine the death could completely annihilate the personality of the deceased. This capability is by no means self-evident but provides the attainment of certain abstractive cognitions (Anthony 1940). Further, children have a blooming fantasy and the power of wishful thinking. Therefore, they paint a life after death with concrete and colurful pictures (Goldman 1964; Hyde 1990). The fancyful ideas of the ancient peoples regarding hell and paradise root in this childlike mentality. The decline and annihilation of the belief in immortality of the soul, of paradise and hell, roots then in this evolution of the adolescent stage of formal operations (Oesterdiekhoff 2009a, b, 2013a: 236-240).

Children´s fantasy is also the source of the belief into myths and fairy tales. Children from 3 to 8 live in a world of myths and believe in sorcerers, ghosts, and witches (Blair et al. 1986; Dieckmann 1995; Hyde 1990, von der Leyen 1995; Werner 1948). Not only W. Wundt (1914) demonstrated that originally differences between divine myths and children´s myths did not exist. In fact, the belief in gods roots in myths and legends. Premodern man was capable to fancy such myths and to believe in them, too. Thus, religion and myths of gods stem from anthropological stages of children below their 8th year of life. Whenever adults grow beyond this psychogical age their mythological capability continually decreases or completely vanishs. Modern agnostics and atheists aren´t any more capable to believe in gods. Their developmental stage prevents them from understanding myths and legends as being reports (Oesterdiekhoff 2006, 2007, 2011, 2009a, b, c, 2013a: 232-236).

Henceforth, “full religiousness” (M. Eliade) is a manifestation of certain developmental stages of humans, whose anthropological summit remains on childish stages. Every central element of religion comes from psychological mechanisms, which are parts of children´s psychological stages.

Religious people of modern societies have then a weaker and more abstract religion than our ancestors had. The modern rest religions are by no means detached from psychological developmental stages but reflect transitional stages. Atheism and agnosticism clearly result from the gradual evolution of the adolescent stage of formal operations. Henceforth, the theology of Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Hans Küng, J. B. Metz, or J. Ratzinger reflects transitional phases of the psychological evolution. As there is no psychological phenomenon that is untouched by the laws of psychological development, as there is no religious phenomenon that exists apart from this evolution.

On the whole, developmental psychology delivers the key to a comprehensive understanding of religion and religiousness. Sociology, general psychology, phenomenology, and evolutionary psychology do not explain religion but decelopmental psychology does so. Child or developmental psychology explains religion, atheism, and agnosticism at the same time. To my opinion, developmental psychology is the searched theory that explains both belief and disbelief.




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