Pray it's not true

Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer

The Times: Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers suggested.

Because it is the most scientifically rigorous investigation of whether prayer can heal illness, the study, begun almost a decade ago and involving more than 1,800 patients, has for years been the subject of speculation.

The question has been a contentious one among researchers. Proponents have argued that prayer is perhaps the most deeply human response to disease, and that it may relieve suffering by some mechanism that is not yet understood. Skeptics have contended that studying prayer is a waste of money and that it presupposes supernatural intervention, putting it by definition beyond the reach of science.

At least 10 studies of the effects of prayer have been carried out in the last six years, with mixed results. The new study was intended to overcome flaws in the earlier investigations. The report was scheduled to appear in The American Heart Journal next week, but the journal's publisher released it online yesterday.

Well, duh... a bunchof people praying for people they've never met who have no idea they're being prayed for has no benefit? I think Chicago Cub fans could've told you that.

What kind of a world would we live in if random prayer did have a benefit? Heck, China and India would truly be unstoppable, then.

Or do Westerners think their prayers would count double?

Uncredited photo of Muslims in Agra offering Eid prayers with the Taj Mahal in the background via The Milli Gazette ("India's leading English newspaper").