Prayer does not heal the sick, and hurts heart surgery recovery!

[yesthattom]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2112892,00.html

Many years ago someone did a non-scientific, study that claimed that prayer helped sick people. Ever since then the Radical Religious Right has been quoting it and mis-quoting it claiming everything from "scientists have acknowledged that prayer cures people" to "scientists have proved that prayer can cure". It pisses me off, because the study wasn't double-blind nor done with any kind of reasonable scientific process.

So now someone has spent money to do the longest study of its kind, with more than a decade of research. The result? Prayer doesn't help people get well and, in fact, patients who know they are being prayed for suffer a noticeably higher rate of complications. Let me repeat that:

In fact, patients who know they are being prayed for suffer a noticeably higher rate of complications, according to the study, which monitored the recovery of 1,800 patients after heart bypass surgery in the US.

The findings of the decade-long study were due to be published in the American Heart Journal next week, but the journal published the report on its website yesterday as anticipation grew.

So what's happening now? The Radical Religious, Right is going nuts trying to put a positive spin on this. All their lingo has been encouraging reporters to put the emphasis on the study showed no harm, and ignore the fact that patients who know they are being prayed for suffer a noticeably higher rate of complications.

The study was done by a well-funded group that wanted to provide evidence that it did help people, so the fact that the study has backfired is driving them nuts. As part of their damage control, they are saying things like, "Intercessory prayer under our restricted format had a neutral effect." In other words, "Oh it didn't work because we had to restrict the way the prayers were done." Yeah right!

The only thing that makes me happy about this study is that every penny spent on it was a penny not spent on hate-tanks working out how to punish homosexuals, atheists, and liberals.

quietchris once pointed out to me that people consider it crazy to believe in aliens from another planet or the Easter Bunny but the same people believe in a person coming back from the dead after three days or turning water into wine. Oh please. Why aren't those people considered as insane as someone that believes they can talk to trees?

(Note: I'm not an atheist. I have a lot of spirituality. I just realize that the whole "water into wine" thing, the "grace of the goddess", the "miracle of Babylon 5 going all 5 seasons" and other such things aren't real... they're useful metaphors that teach us about living our lives.)

Comments

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Oh now now. I've seen the so-called "season 5" and believe me, it wasn't real.

[airshipjones.livejournal.com]

What, just because Ivanova wasn't there? I rather liked the dark side of Kosh, and the opening shots of the Telepaths Wars (which were mostly hinted at) that were played out on B5. I admit the Tracy Scoggins wasn't a great replacement for Claudia Christian, but I didn't see her as a detriment to the show, she just did add much. I think the movie (River of Souls?) where the hologram of her gets taken over by an ancient alien technology was kinda cool.

Now, if you had watched the cheesy opening for the show about the Rangers on the haunted ship, you would know why I don't look at the 5th season in such a harsh light.

[kimuchi.livejournal.com]

There is also be the part where the scripts for at least the first half of the season were so painful I was tempted to watch it on fast-forward.