Evaluating the power of prayer

Prayer is a crucial component to most religious faiths. It is considered by many a means in which humans can directly communicate to God. Some believers will even go as far as to say God will intervene and help us out if we are willing to readily dedicate our lives to the process know as prayer. For many prayer is a deeply personal affair between them and God, but one thing that can’t be denied is people from all around the world and from all different faiths confess to having their prayers answered in all sorts of wonderful and colourful ways. So, is prayer an actual means of making contact with God? Can we find truth by continually coming to God through prayer? Or are we wasting our time by deluding ourselves into thinking that anyone’s actually listening on the other end?

The unfalsifiable nature of prayer

One of the issues we must first address before we can either validate or falsify the power of prayer is the unfalsifiable nature of everyday prayer. To the believer who prayers every day, God most certainly, no doubt, without question answers their prayers. But what happens when God doesn’t? What is the answer a believer will give when he or she is faced with the inevitable circumstance of a specific unanswered prayer? It usually sounds something like this:

It wasn’t God’s will,
God works in mysterious ways,
He is testing my faith,
His ways are bigger than mine,
He sees the bigger picture.

But of course when a prayer is answered, all glory goes to God right? If we look at prayer through this lens we will never really, truly know if prayer works or it doesn’t, because through this system God can never lose. If the prayer comes to fruition, God wins because he answered it. But, if the prayer courses through time unanswered then it simply wasn’t God’s will or he works in mysterious ways, so he still wins. Now I’m not saying that God doesn’t answer prayers. I’m simply bringing to light the fact that if we are going to look at prayer objectively, if we are going to put prayer to the test and scrutiny of 21st century investigation we need to try to (at least for the moment) put aside our theological glasses and bravely and honestly look at prayer head on and ask ourselves the question, what’s really going here?

Prayer and healing

Naturally there have been many case studies on prayer to see if we can scientifically validate wether prayer actually has a positive outcome on people who are sick.
What I find amusing about these studies is you will find many that suit the outcome you want. Believers in the power of prayer will often site case studies that showed a positive outcome for those that have been prayed for:

http://www.proofgodexists.org/scientific_study_of_prayer_under.htm
http://www.1stholistic.com/Prayer/hol_prayer_proof.htm
http://www.summitlighthouse.org/prayers/Stories-And-Studies/Prayer-Works.html

Sceptics of the power of prayer will often provide case studies that show actually those that have been prayed for had no effect or sometimes had even gotten worse!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html
http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/07/prayer_still_us.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12082681/ns/health-heart_health

So what’s a well intentioned agnostic supposed to make of this? Does this just lead us to yet another cross road where we must just say people stretch the facts to suit their own agendas? Maybe, but if prayer had no effect on recipients than what would we expect to see?

Let’s take a coin toss analogy. Most believers and non believers will agree that no matter how many times you pray to God, he’s not going to break the laws of nature to win you a coin toss. So if we can all agree that flipping a coin is a completely random process, what happens when you toss a coin over a long period of time? Your heads to tails ratio roughly gets split down the middle. So what does it tell us that with so many case studies done on the effectiveness of prayer that they roughly equal themselves out? If I were to make a personal judgment I think this leans more towards the inefficiency of prayer, rather than the efficiency. Surely if prayer played a larger role in determining the well being of sick people we would see a much higher percentage in the increased health in those that were prayed for. But we simply don’t.

Now I don’t mean to offend anyone, I really don’t. For the record I have prayed for many sick people in the past that have gotten better, and if they were the only subjective experiences I had I would probably still hold to that belief. The only difference is now I look back, I probably tend to give most of the credit to the wonderful doctors and surgeons, rather than the invisible working hand of God. But then again he does work in mysterious and wonderful ways... right?

The dangers of prayer

Can faith in the power of prayer ever be dangerous? Unfortunately yes it can. When things like modern medicine and technology are substituted for complete faith in the power of prayer, this is when things turn ugly:

http://www.komonews.com/news/national/17057006.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-6162918-504083.html

Besides the obvious tragedy that a beautiful innocent child has died from a perfectly preventable disease, I think there is another underlying theme here that needs to be addressed. Aren’t these people, when you really think of it, the true believers! These people are willing to forsake all forms of worldly aid to rely on nothing but complete faith in the healing power of God and take him at his word:

James 5:14-15: "Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him." (ASV)

Matt 21:22: "And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." (ASV)

Mark 16:18 "they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." (ASV)

If God is pleased with faith than you would think such a God would reward a family for making such a strong demonstration of total faith. But unfortunately for whatever reasons this isn’t the case. I think most people know deep down if they had to make a choice between years of technological advances in modern medicine and surgery or a good old fashion prayer, who their going to choose.

In the case of the young girl who had a treatable form of diabetes, you would think when the parents are met with such a confronting realisation that their child now lies dead on the floor because their prayer hadn’t worked, they would at least begin to question their faith, but quite the contrary. It doesn’t seem to concern them in the slightest:

"Only our faith in God is giving us strength at this time."

I think this goes to show faith is deeply rooted in a persons self. To some of us not even the blatant loss of a child in the face an unanswered prayer can shake us off the foundation of faith.

The positives of prayer

Even if I personally fail to come to the terms that prayer works in the way so many believers confess that it does. I still can’t ignore the countless millions of people from all different faiths that testify to its power. Is it still possible that prayer can still “work” in a positive way for the believer despite my scepticism? Yes, I think it can. I think prayer, like some forms of meditation are great ways to get our focus off of us and to change our perspectives in a more positive fashion. The mind and the body are interdependently connected in ways we still don’t really understand. One cannot function without the other and the well being of one also depends on the other. For example, we all know how stress (a negative mental state) can actually have a direct negative effect on our physical state. People can actually think themselves ill! If this is so, than is it at least plausible that changing our perspective and thoughts to a more positive frame of mind can have a similar positive effect to our physical health? Is it possible prayer works in this manner? If this is so than perhaps regular prayer and meditation (regardless of theological interpretations) is good for us!

For the record I actually think Jesus had it right when he said “your faith has made you well”. I believe the power of prayer has more to do with the hope and faith that we ourselves invest in it. This might explain why so many people, from so many different faith backgrounds can all claim that it is their faith traditions that answers prayers, heals and gives authentic spiritual experience. The human mind is very complex, powerful and not yet fully understood. We do well to wait to see what neuroscience reveals in the coming years.

The only way to truly test prayer

As wonderful as science and data collecting is, I think there really is only one way to really know if prayer actually works,

Try it! I know in the secular world of agnostics and atheists it’s almost Taboo to pray. I do not consider this so. If the bible, or even the Quran, says that the only way to know God and truth is through prayer than what have you got to lose? To be sceptical of prayer is not the same as being a cynic of prayer. Why not take these holy books at their word and test them out? But if I were to give some advice, to really know if this whole prayer thing works, I would ask God for something specific. Many people ask God for a “sign”. Well to me that’s a little too open, this could be interpreted as anything. The very next day you might stumble across a $100 note. Alas! There really must be a God.

If you’re going to pray and ask God to reveal truth then why not ask something deeply personal, that only God (if he [or she] exists) would know. If anything happens let me know! Or maybe God has already answered your prayers, in that case let me know about that experience. I’ve been trying for a number of years now without any luck, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t but a small speck of optimism left that maybe, just maybe, I might get an answer back.

Love you all

Jason