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Religion IS crazy!

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Sorry I should have pointed out after the quotes was my 'bitter' words not that of the study. Actually the study was carried out by the Templeton Foundation who's goal is the "progress in spiritual discoveries" so it's fair to say they hoped for different results especially when most their funding comes from numerous religious groups.

As I said prayer can only benefit as a placebo effect.
 
Yes, I'd agree about 'placebo' but I would never use the word "only". Placebo is hugely powerful. It's actually been shown to be more powerful than most medicines, therapies and surgeries. Ref: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3655171/ As a systematic review and meta-analysis, this is about as scientific as you can get.

So if that study you posted was correct in its methodology and findings, then I would accept it. My personal experience is that religious people tend to be fairly anxious types and so of course their prayers will reflect that negativity and not work.

[edited]
 

Yes I agree.
I meant 'only' in the context of a deity as a placebo isn't as extravagant , ironically both religion and placebo's are the manipulation of the mind.
 
Gringotts Bank said:
It's actually been shown to be more powerful than most medicines, therapies and surgeries.[edited]
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Really, I must admit I have not read this study but it seems hard to believe it is MORE powerful.

Are surgeries, therapies and medicines more or less effective on very young children/babies or animals who would have no idea about a god or power of thought?
 

Babies are known to spiral downwards extremely quickly, but also bounce back extremely quickly. Ask any doc/nurse who works in a neonatal ICU or children's ward. One minute they are close to death, next day they are happy and bouncing around as if nothing has happened. To me, this suggests that a relatively blank slate can be influenced very easily, and studies on hypnosis confirm that children are far more easily hypnotized.

Intention will be operational mainly through the baby's parents and caregivers. That will be having an effect. The baby itself may have some sort of basic pre-verbal intention to survive (or die), and I imagine that would be in effect also.

I only know of one experiment with animals to show that intention can have an effect - Placebo effect in canine epilepsy trials. J Vet Intern Med. 2010 Jan-Feb] - PubMed - NCBI. 2013-03-25. Retrieved on 2013-08-25.
 
Placebo is real but I am not convinced it is MORE powerful.

Are there studies that testing the opposite?

A highly effective treatment is applied that a patient strongly believes wont work and stops it from working? So not something subjective like a pain score but something objective like the size of a tumor maybe? Im sure there are better examples.

Or maybe told they have been given a placebo but have been given actual treatment?
 

Yes, all of these scenarios have been tested, and it's good that you think that way. If you want, I can look it up but I have to go to work now.
 
It may have been mentioned already, but in many cases prayer can have a detrimental effect if it results in proper remedial action NOT been taken. All too sad when such decisions are made by those with a duty of care for the person in need.
 
Gringotts Bank said:
Yes, all of these scenarios have been tested, and it's good that you think that way. If you want, I can look it up but I have to go to work now.
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58, you mention that pain is subjective but the methods used to assess this (pain scales etc) are tested carefully for validity and reliability before they are used in research. Here's one study which demonstrates that belief/expectation is more powerful than a powerful opiate drug. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110226212356.htm

Your example about a serious condition being monitored would be a very good test. I don't know of any such research but consider this, which is along similar lines: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23179742

The wikipedia site is pretty good too. Here are some excerpts. Highlights are mine:

Because the placebo effect is based upon expectations and conditioning, the effect disappears if the patient is told that their expectations are unrealistic, or that the placebo intervention is ineffective. A conditioned pain reduction can be totally removed when its existence is explained.[45] It has also been reported of subjects given placebos in a trial of anti-depressants, that "Once the trial was over and the patients who had been given placebos were told as much, they quickly deteriorated."[46]

A placebo described as a muscle relaxant will cause muscle relaxation and, if described as the opposite, muscle tension.[47] A placebo presented as a stimulant will have this effect on heart rhythm, and blood pressure, but, when administered as a depressant, the opposite effect.[48] The perceived consumption of caffeine has been reported to cause similar effects even when decaffeinated coffee is consumed,[49][50] although a 2003 study found only limited support for this.[51] Placebos represented as alcohol can cause intoxication[52] and sensorimotor impairment.[53] Perceived ergogenic aids can increase endurance,[54] speed[55] and weight-lifting ability,[56] leading to the question of whether placebos should be allowed in sport competition.[57] Placebos can help smokers quit.[58] Perceived allergens that are not truly allergenic can cause allergies.[59] Interventions such as psychotherapy can have placebo effects.[60]pp 164–173 The effect has been observed in the transplantation of human embryonic neurons into the brains of those with advanced Parkinson's disease.[61]
 
Cheers GB, but there is no way a pain scale is not subjective. That article does not claim this. "set so that each individual rated the pain at 70 on a scale of 1 to 100". My 70 and your 70 will likely be very different but will both show brain activity in similar areas.

Maybe I am arguing semantics but I was more getting at your general statement that placebo

more powerful than most medicines, therapies and surgeries
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I believe it is more accurate to say that placebos may be more powerful in specific neurological effects but not biological effects.

This article explains what I am trying to say much better than I can

http://www.abc.net.au/health/features/stories/2013/11/11/3888346.htm
 

I think this is what you're saying (from the article): "This is not to say that a placebo can cure cancer or an infection. Placebos appear to be most effective at relieving the symptoms of disease, such as pain, but not the disease itself".

There are some examples of physiological/biological changes occurring through changes in expectation and belief. Mostly these studies relate to skin conditions, but skin changes are biological changes and they are easy to measure objectively. It doesn't seem so strange really. Consider this: I can change your heart rate, peripheral circulation and skin conduction by simply looking at you with an angry expression. These changes happen almost immediately and you won't be able to prevent it happening. If I yell at you, I can change the circulating levels of stress hormones which then precipitate a whole host of changes that are damaging to the body in some small way. If I yell at you every day, eventually the body's biology changes in response to this physiological insult and maybe disease starts somewhere in the body.
 
A bit of light relief from a time when comedy didn't mean every second word had to be the F-word.....

 
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MrBurns said:
I think religion is losing its grip in the west
Been to a few funerals lately and the sermons just seem antiquated.
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Yes it is, and I think it’s because young people these days tend to question things and make up their own minds about them, rather than just accepting age-old beliefs as being correct.

There was a time when most people brought up as Christians just accepted what was taught to them about God, such as..... He’s a God of love and compassion, and if you follow him and believe in him he’ll stand ready to help you if you bring your problems to him through prayer.

These days I think there are increasing numbers of people who find reason to question these beliefs when they look at what’s happening around the world. For example, the typhoon in the Philippines wiped out much of the country despite prayers from millions of Phillipinos asking God to keep their homes and loved ones safe.
Thinking people ask themselves how their God could have let this happen if he’s so kind and compassionate.

Now heavy rain is hampering rescue efforts and bringing utter misery to people whose homes have been destroyed. Here again, thinking people look at this situation and ask how this compassionate God of theirs can be so callous and uncaring as to send rain to make things even tougher for the Philippinos.

In answer to these questions, some people may take the usual Christian line of ‘God works in mysterious ways – we can’t even begin to understand everything about him’.
Others may say ‘God is an uncaring bastard – all this talk about how compassionate he is is just complete bull****’.
Others may form the opinion that God is simply a myth, and there’s no supreme power that can turn aside a typhoon or stop the heavy rain that usually follows these extreme events of nature.
 
bunyip said:
Yes it is, and I think it’s because young people these days tend to question things and make up their own minds about them, rather than just accepting age-old beliefs as being correct.

.
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I'm not young but when I hear these sermons I cringe, the church has failed to move with the times and they will lose followers as a result,
 
MrBurns said:
I'm not young but when I hear these sermons I cringe, the church has failed to move with the times and they will lose followers as a result,
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Yes, you don’t need to be young to question age-old beliefs.
It’s easy to believe something when there’s supporting evidence. But much harder to believe something when the facts don’t back it up.

A new couple bought the house down the end of my road a couple of years back. I called in and introduced myself, told them to give me a yell if I could ever help out in any way. The bloke said ‘Same here, just sing out if you ever need a hand with anything.’
He and I have become good mates since then, and have helped each other out on numerous occasions. We each know the other is reliable if called upon to help.
It’s pretty easy to put your trust in someone like that. But if either of us was all talk and no action, always making some excuse as to why we couldn’t help out this time, then the other bloke would soon lose faith in him.

That’s one of the reasons why I and many others like me have lost faith in the Christian god. We grew up hearing how a supreme being called God was more than willing to help us out if we believed in him. And yet time and again he just doesn’t deliver on that promise.
Sooner or later you become disillusioned and lose your belief in someone or something like that.
Couple that with proof of evolution as opposed to the creationist theory, and it’s not hard to see why people are drifting away from religion.
 

Exactly.
Most people grow up believing what their parents and their culture taught them. Some continue to believe it for the rest of their lives, which is no doubt why religions drum their religious views into kids from an early age when they’ll simply believe without understanding what they’re believing. Many former Catholics have attested to this fact, including my wife who says she had little understanding of the various Catholic rituals she had to go through as a child.

If Pav was born into an aboriginal family in some remote part of Australia, he’d quite likely believe that the rainbow serpent had a hand in creating various geographical features of the landscape, and that ferocious beasts called bunyips ate anyone who ventured into a billabong at night.
The primitive aboriginals ‘knew’ how the human race was created too. I can’t remember what their views were on that one, but Pav would have grown up believing it if he’d been born into a primitive aboriginal tribe.

Man has invented dozens, maybe even hundreds of gods throughout history. Some cultures had several.
Each culture fervently believed their god/s had supernatural powers, despite a lack of evidence to support their beliefs, just as Christians do.
 
Someone might be born into a fans that teaches the word is flat. Another family believe the world is round. Just because the person who believes the world is round was brought up believing it by their family doesn't take away from the truth of it.
You have to determine if something is truth, and this isn't based on whether someone was brought up with it or not.

Christianity is one philosophy that has been adopted by many cultures that were AGAINST it. Shows how open minded people have had to be to accept it. The centre of Christianity has been.
Middle East
Rome (the foremost persecutors of the faith originally)
Europe
South America
and now China (YES, communist China)

That debunks the whole "grown up with it myth"
 
PS - people who use the throw away line "no evidence" for Christianity/the resurrection are simply lazy and sloppy in their "research" if there was any. Many posting in here bunch it in with all other religions. It is ignorant.
Christianity is not based on mythical man made beliefs. It is founded and supported by historical evidence of an ACTUAL MAN and ACTUAL event with an abundance of historical evidence.

Anyone who equates Christ as a myth in the same way as the "sun god" or "rain god ", is displaying all their ignorance for the world to see. There is no comparison.


Then many who say there is no evidence for this (which is ludicrous) seem to believe that there is strong evidence for macro evolution -insanity!!!
 
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