Are We More Than Bodies?

Prayer experiments are methodologically flawed in that they fail to make a distinction between a Necessary Causal Link vs. a Personal Causal link.  If I have some gas under pressure then there is a NCL between pressure & temperature.  If I increase one then I increase the other.  However if I have a Literary Benefactor who gives out money to aspiring authors the existence of said benefactor is not determined whether or not more or less than 50% of requested grants are given out.  Gas is NOT free to NOT increase it’s temp if pressure is increased.  Any personal causal link may or may not act as he freely wills.  Also a personal causal link need not act according to any discernable pattern since they are not operating according to any external regularities like gas conforming to the regularities of the Laws of physics but by ipure Will.  The problem with all so called prayer experiments is that they treat God like a NCL & not a PCL which renders them useless.

Besides it’s not a choice between a God who participates in the experiment and answers prayers purely for the purpose of generating a favorable statistical outcome vs. a God who sabotages the experiment because He is insulted by it’s blasphemous presumption.  There is a third alternative.  A God who ignores the experiment and answers prayers related to individual needs according to His will & judgment for them not some pop scientists profane idea of prayer.  Prayer experiments are what you get when you mix bad philosophy, bad theology with equally bad science.  It’s the ultimate example of trying to find a Galaxy under the microscope.  Not impressed.

BTW in line with the topic of the thread I offer the following philosophical paper by the late James Ross..  enjoy.

Immaterial Aspects of Thought
http://www.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/43151/ross-immateriality.pdf

Ben, you state, but do not explain, why you think that effective prayer (in James’ words, prayers that heal the sick) would not show up in statistics.  Nor do you explain why god would refuse to answer prayer for fear of showing up in the stats.  I read you as explaining away the lack of effectiveness - which is quite another thing altogether.

Prayer would be taken into account in clinical trials, just like the placebo effect is, if it were effective (otherwise, God would have to actively skew the results).  Clinical trials are not placebo effect trials - but as the placebo effect has been demonstrated, clinical trials take them into account. 

Again, we are not looking for a galaxy in a microscope, but looking to see that the parts of galaxies we’ve brought back to earth are consistent with what our telescopes discover.  If prayer were effective, our statistical studies would find it.  What we find is that prayer is not effective.

In terms of your literary analogy, in a large enough statistical survey of aspiring author’s bank accounts, the cash would show up - as in “authors applying to said benefactor have x% more cash than authors who do not.”  This independent of the # of grants - if, that is, the cash was given out.

>Ben, you state, but do not explain, why you think that effective prayer (in James’ words, prayers that heal the sick) would not show up in statistics.

I reply:  You still haven’t explained to me how you can statistically predict the actions of an a A-temporal Omniscient Being who would know your intentions & the mechanics of your experiment from all eternity?  You keep treating God like The Force or a Genie.  But that is not what God is at least according to the classical Thomistic definition.

Plus you contradict yourself.  You still can’t seem to discide whether or not God can be detected scientifically.  You affirm it in one post then deny it in another.  It makes discussion with rather impossible.  Plus you should know by now as a Catholic I reject your private interpretation of James.  You must first learn Catholic Theology & philosophy on the nature of prayer.  You present knowledge & dogmatic insistence on treating God like a NCL suggests you only have knowledge of Name It & Claim It versions.  I believe in something a tad bit more sophisticated.

BTW Greg just to put you on notice & so we don’t waste time with 100 posts tallking past each other. 

I will reject all of your arguments justifying a statistical study of prayer unless they are framed within Catholic Theology & Philosophy on the nature of prayer.  So giving me YOUR interpretation of isolated unstated verses from the Bible isn’t going to cut it.

>Ben, you state, but do not explain, why you think that effective prayer ...... would not show up in statistics.

I reply: I explained it rather clearly in post #22362.  What was unclear about what I said?

Ben, I find your restrictions on the discussion bizarre - both humorous and arbitrary.

post #22362 misses the point.  Look, the definition of effective, when applied to healing prayer, means that the person prayed for becomes not sick.  If people become not sick more often when prayed for, we would notice.  For you to suggest that someone can become both not sick, and yet that better health not be noticeable is ridiculous.  Or are we going to go on and ask if god can make a rock that is too big for him to lift?  You write “I believe in something a tad bit more sophisticated.”  Evidently!

Greg why should I submit to your humorous and arbitrary & as of yet unstated & undefined definition of prayer over and against my Catholic view of prayer found

here ?  Until you answer that your artful dodging becomes even more tedious.

or here

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12345b.htm

>post #22362 misses the point.

I reply: So there is no difference between experimenting on or making statistical predictions about or modeling such experiments between a thing which is a necessary causal link (like a regularity in physics or chemistry) vs an experiment on the behavior or choices of a person(i.e. a personal causal link)?  They are absolutly the same? You want to defend that because I don’t see how any sane rational person Atheist or Theist can make that claim.

> Look, the definition of effective, when applied to healing prayer,etc

I reply: Are we talking about the as of yet unstated & undefined definition of prayer held secretly by Greg Myers(who seems too scared to put it out there least it be proven to be a bogus definition of prayer) or the Catholic definition of prayer found in the link I gave?  Because reason dictates you can model an experiment which defines let’s say evolution strictly in terms of Lamarck’s views.  Debunking them scientifically & then proclaiming uncritically the results must apply to Darwin(which would require different experimental modeling to confirm or debunk).  How is that logical or rationally convincing?  It isn’t.  Neither is your humorous and arbitrary argument.

I lifted the following from the Straight Dope on prayer experiments.

QUOTE ”As Eric Stockton pointed out in a letter to the editor of Skeptical Inquirer (July/August 2000), if prayer works because of God’s intervention, and God is the omniscient deity of Christianity (or most any major religion), then He knows He is being tested. As such, He could accept or reject whatever prayer is offered, and either choose to give or not give evidence that it works. It would be impossible to properly blind such an experiment if it’s the deity we’re talking about. If it is supposed to be the prayer itself that heals, rather than God intervening, then we don’t have that issue, but we instead have to wonder how it might be that such prayer might work—if we ever get a decent study that shows it does, that is.”END QUOTE

This is proof the so called “prayer experiments”  (or demand experiments) are not tailored to test any specific recognized religious view of prayer & thus functionally their results are insignificant to the truth or falsehood of religion and prayer.  How is it Greg you can’t see what is obvious to even rational skeptics & Atheists?

> For you to suggest that someone can become both not sick, and yet that better health not be noticeable is ridiculous. 

I reply: Where have I ever made such a claim?  Of course that is silly just as it’s silly to claim it misses the point to ignore whether or not the Being or Force you are experimenting on is either a Being or a Force.

I would be happy to concede there is no scientific correlation between petitionary prayers (as you define them)and the suspension of previously observed regularities.  However I am still forced to conclude you can’t scientifically model any valid experiment that can test a correlation between petitionary prayers (as defined by Catholic Theology) and the suspension of previously observed regularities.  Thus I have no reason to find these experiments compelling arguments against the efficacy of prayer.  I would believe this even if I denied God tommorow.  The logic is undeniable.

Ben, if your understanding of God is such that there is no way of knowing that the promise that prayers will be healed can be counted on, then sure, a prayer study can’t work (and then again, prayer would not be effective, not to mention that it seems a little peevish not to heal because someone is watching).  Not everyone shares your view however.  Not only does Catholic theology not speak with one voice, there are other sects of Christianity, and other religions as well - all with various theologies, none of whom can be shown to be the one that best communicates about God.

My argument dealing with statistics, however, is somewhat different.  If we can detect better health (as you suggest we can), then we can tell if particular groups (for example, those who are prayed for) enjoy better health - specifically, faster recovery and fewer complications.  We can and they don’t.  What is more, over large numbers of studies, we do seem to need to control for the placebo effect, but not for a prayer effect.  Both of these observations would suggest that if god is answering prayers, folks do not obtain any discernible health benefit from those prayers - which is not what you would expect from most religious understandings of god.

>Ben, if your understanding of God is such that there is no way of knowing that the promise that prayers will be healed can be counted on, then sure, a prayer study can’t work (and then again, prayer would not be effective, not to mention that it seems a little peevish not to heal because someone is watching). 

I reply: There is no “promise that prayers will be heeded&can; be counted on” (as you understand it) taught in either the Bible or Tradition as found in the Church Fathers.The article from the Catholic Encylopedia makes that rather clear QUOTE Absolute though Christ’s assurances in regard to prayer would seem to be, they do not exclude certain conditions on which the efficacy of prayer depends. In the first place, its object must be worthy of God and good for the one who prays, spiritually or temporally. This condition is always implied in the prayer of one who is resigned to God’s will, ready to accept any spiritual favour God may be pleased to grant, and desirous of temporal ones only in so far as they may help to serve God…To be efficacious prayer should be humble. To ask as if one had a binding claim on God’s goodness,or title of whatever colour to obtain some favour, would not be prayer but demand.

Thus if we believe the Catholic Encyclopedia then you can’t ever in principle have a true prayer experiement.  You can only have “making a wish” experiments & or making “demands on God” experiments (which are in principle profane & would offend the God of Christian Tradition).  But not any prayer experiments.  No one has ever been done or could be done.

Question: In light of the historic definitions in the CE do prayer experimenters make sure they only use prayers “worthy of God”?  How is it scientifically determined any specific prayer for any specific individual is in fact “worth of God”?  If it can’t be done then one should simply admit prayer experiments cannot prove or disprove God and are not scientifically or religiously significant for or against the efficacy of prayer.  Like I said Bad Theology, Bad Philosophy, Bad Methodology mated with Bad Science.  I don’t know who I pity more Atheists who fall for “failed” “prayer” experiments or Theists who fail for “successful” ones?  Tough choice.

Question:  In light of the QUOTE in #22771 How do prayer experimenters know if they selected people to pray who are resigned to God’s will?  How is that determined scientifically when modeling the experiment?  If it is as it seems, purely a subjective phenomena, then per the views of the Atheist Philosopher Thomas Nagel, is it not beyond the testing of empirical science?  So doesn’t that in principle render any “results” of existing “prayer”(Demand) experiments worthless?

BTW I am consistent.  I would not accept the data from a “successful” prayer experiment either in principle for Theological & philosophical reasons.  I can provide an explaination upon request.

Cheers.

>Not everyone shares your view however. 

I reply:  Of course I know that.  A mere 900 million Catholics in principle share my view.  Non-Catholics not so much.  The question is do you know that?  Because to this day you keep insisting on using your one size fits all polemical style against religion and in spite of my obvious correct advice against it you keep doing it.  Not all religous concepts are the same.  Thus you need to taylor your polemics to fit specific concepts.  This prayer experiement nonsense is simply another example of this in action.

>not only does Catholic theology not speak with one voice,

I reply: Catholic Dogma does & the Universal & Ordinary teaching of the Church on prayer has no differing theology schools that I am aware of save for differing prayer techniques not theologies.