Quote Originally Posted by DD2014 View Post
In a long-awaited comprehensive scientific study on the effects of intercessory prayer on the health and recovery of 1,802 patients undergoing coronary bypass surgery in six different hospitals, prayers offered by strangers had no effect.
That would make sense since a far greater percentage of strangers are unregenerates. That is, they had the evil spirit in their spirits. Praying by the evil spirit is selfish. What is prayer? Praying is praying the will of God.

The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion.
I disagree. Just as you can do studies showing the unethicalness of atheism, you can prove prayer if genuine is healthy for your spirit, soul and body. Atheism is a belief system like a religion is. Atheism can even be called a religion because it is faith in something that there is no God.

The 1,802 patients were divided into three groups, two of which were prayed for by members of three congregations: St. Paul’s Monastery in St. Paul, Minnesota; the Community of Teresian Carmelites in Worcester, Massachusetts; and Silent Unity, a Missouri prayer ministry near Kansas City. The prayers were allowed to pray in their own manner, but they were instructed to include the following phrase in their prayers: “for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications.” Prayers began the night before the surgery and continued daily for two weeks after. Half the prayer-recipient patients were told that they were being prayed for while the other half were told that they might or might not receive prayers. The researchers monitored the patients for 30 days after the operations.
This approach seems to have problems in several ways. The above groups are not Christians, but Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox which teach a person can lose salvation after being born-again, that a human being such as Mary was sinless, and other false teachings such as amillennialism which claims we are in the 1000 years now even though Jesus hasn't returned yet. They even add books to the 66 books of God's word and worship a pope and deny every Christian is a saint. That is just some of the problems. They are into man-rulership, not God-lead worship. Plus, forced prayer is not genuine prayer. It must come from the heart. You can pray for someone, but if it is not genuine, then it will produce no results or even be detrimental. Selfish prayer is not true prayer. The study was flawed from the outset. What it only proves is if your approach is unethical you will get results that match it.

The way the study should have been done was to find real Christians and determine if their prayers were genuine and not forced to observe their corresponding results whatever it was they prayed for, having recorded it soon after it was given. Spiritual life is spontaneous so if you are going to do a double blind study, it must maintain that genuine characteristic. You can still group various controls, but they must be on an individual basis. Like when someone comes out of a near death experience, you must record what he saw right after he comes out and then ensure there is no way he could have known the things that he said he saw.

His team’s rigorous methodologies overcame the numerous flaws that called into question previously published studies.
The problem was his approach was not genuine and ethical. So it doesn't negatively reflect on previous studies done. You know what they say, two sins don't make a right. Stating appropriate operational definitions are needed yet not abiding in that rule, shows the persons in charge of this study were being duplicitous. The Bible says, be "not doubletongued" (1 Tim. 3.8).

Outcome Differences
In one of the most highly publicized studies of cardiac patients prayed for by born-again Christians, 29 outcome variables were measured but on only six did the prayed-for group show improvement. In related studies, different outcome measures were significant. To be meaningful, the same measures need to be significant across studies, because if enough outcomes are measured some will show significant correlations by chance.
I find this point faulty for several reasons. It is not clear the person doing the study knows what a born-again Christian is. Or that all studies measured true Christian prayer similarly. Nonetheless, it's nice to see there were some areas improved upon through prayer showing the power of prayer.

The ultimate fallacy of all such studies is theological. If God is omniscient and omnipotent, He should not need to be reminded or inveigled that someone needs healing. Scientific prayer makes God a celestial lab rat, leading to bad science and worse religion
Don't think the purpose of prayer is to remind God. Rather it is to pray the will of God. So if you are doing God's will, no doubt, there shall be results. If you are thinking along God's thought, you will have results that are beneficial for nothing is better than God's way of doing things. God actually likes these studies, because they prove that prayer is real and effective if done according to His will and in agreement with His mind by the Holy Spirit.

You can do studies comparing different kinds of prayer such as genuine prayer praying the will of God by true born-again believers and prayers that do not conform to His will from people who are unregenerates or false Christians. The results will be obvious.

Praise the Lord for this discernment! Amen.