Prayer as a Placebo Effect
Offline A common citation for the validity among god's ever-so-gullible flock is the illustrious power of prayer. I thought about prayer alot and read some interesting articles about it and I've realized that it does have power, but not for the reason that theists believe. Prayer acts as an empty placebo. Ironically enough it's explained in the bible in an entirely different context. "As a man thinketh therefore is he" or something to that degree can be found in the bible (don't remember where sadly), but it's a fundamental and very suprising insight into the human mind. A hypocondriac can worry about symptoms that don't exist SO MUCH that their brains will physically create them in order to accomidate the belief of the mind. Doesn't mean the person actually IS sink, they just THINK they are.
Same exact thing goes for prayer. If you are, say chemically dependent on drugs (Lindsay Lohan has been in the news alot lately so we'll use her as an example) and you just hit rock bottom you say to yourself, how in the world can I get out of this? What is a likely course of action for Ms. Lohan? Why, find Jesus of course. If your mind can trick you into thinking you're sick, if you TRUELY held the belief that Jesus could change your desire to take part in your addictions, what's to stop your brain from physically and chemically altering you so that that can happen? It's ironic that then, God and the glorious holy spirit get the credit while the brain you just used in an amazing way to create a change in yourself, will be wasted for the rest of your life on theism.
The best thing I read about prayer that debunks the SHIT out of it was an article I read called "Why doesn't God heal amputees?". And it is DEAD ON in prayer being ridiculously useless. Think about it. Never in the history of...ever has someone who's lost a limb for any reason EVER spontaneously grown it back for no reason at all. If cancer leaves someone mysteriously, prayer is credited. As a recipient of a miracle you assume either that person or the people whol love them prayed hard enough and was deserving enough to get the miracle right? Well what of amputees?? The question that needs to be begged is that WHY, no matter how hard they pray or how deserving they are, don't they get their limbs back through prayer? There's only 3 answers that can explain this quandery. 1. God hates amputees for some reason. no matter what they say to god it doesn't matter because he will ignore them for all time. 2. No amputee in the history of amputees has ever been deserving enough to have a limb regenerated. they haven't "wanted it" enough or they haven't believed it could happen hard enough well since 1 and 2 are both idiotic conclusions you HAVE to go with 3 which is that there is no god to spontaneously rengerate limbs therefore they do not regenerate through prayer.
The more you know about the world around you, the less you have to make up.
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The only good thing about prayer, and heck, the only good thing about Theism is the placebo effect. When I was less than 8 years old I heard a story like this on TV:
A guy was badly injured. He could only be moved on a wheel chair, and there was nothing he could do without the help of someone else. Except pray. So he prayed for God and within a few months he was miraculously healed and he could walk again.
After however hearing this story a few years ago, I knew it had nothing to do with God:
A boy got a deadly brain tumour, and he got only a few months to live. He started a special placebo/visualisation treatment on the brain tumour, and miraculously the brain tumour completely disappeared within a few months.
See? No need for God. If miracles happen it's because of the mind itself can heal the body with placebo. This is why miracles have happened, yet God has still not healed a single amputee: God doesn't exist, and the body cannot heal amputated limbs.
Trust and believe in no god, but trust and believe in yourself.
Everytime a soldier dies in Iraq we hear "Let's pray for the families." I've heard politicians, TV news anchors, and even people that aren't even that religous.
Its such a natural thing to say since we (at least in the USA) always hear it. From the time we were born, that phrase has always worked it self in to conversation. The placebo has gained an entrenched place in our society.
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I think sometimes people say it because there's a lack of anything sympathetic to say.
I'm sure every religion that ever existed would show some positive effect from its prayers. As long as the person believed it true.
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There is no question about the fact that the human body can heal itself with nothing but placebo. Imagine if in the future we could activate the body's natural healing mechanism to cure diseases and injuries. Now that would be amazing.
Trust and believe in no god, but trust and believe in yourself.
I remember reading somewhere that placebo is a neurochemical phenomena (a patient was given morphine regularly and at one point was just given a shot of saline solution which acted exactly like morphine but once it was mixed with a drug that reverses the effects of morphine, the effects were "balanced"
so hopefully at one point in time modern medecine will figure out how it works and will be able to use it, which would render prayers obsolete.
It is a legit point though. One (and only) good thing about prayers is the possibility of a placebo effect.
Scientific evidence that the mind can heal the body?
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
A bit. Placebo medicine may be given to people in hospitals, like a placebo painkiller, and it works because people believe it will ease their pain. People can be healed by alternative medical "sciences", such as magneto therapy, reflexology and homeopathic herbs, even though it doesn't really work.
This is some evidence to the theory that mind can heal the body. Although it isn't completely proven yet.
EDIT:
Well, I contradicted myself here. It's not really "no question about the fact".
Trust and believe in no god, but trust and believe in yourself.
It's basically a positive thinking and visualization thing.
My guess is, if you asked a religious person why God never heals amputees, s/he's probably answer, "Maybe He hasn't, but he could if he wanted to."