Saturday, April 01, 2006
Ain't that the truth
"The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion..."
...but...
"Working in a large medical center like Mayo, Mr. Marek said, 'You hear tons of stories about the power of prayer, and I don't doubt them.'"
...and...
"In another of the study's findings, a significantly higher number of the patients who knew that they were being prayed for — 59 percent — suffered complications, compared with 51 percent of those who were uncertain... they said that being aware of the strangers' prayers also may have caused some of the patients a kind of performance anxiety.
'It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?' Dr. Bethea said."
• NY Times: Long-Awaited Study Questions the Power of Prayer
...but...
"Working in a large medical center like Mayo, Mr. Marek said, 'You hear tons of stories about the power of prayer, and I don't doubt them.'"
...and...
"In another of the study's findings, a significantly higher number of the patients who knew that they were being prayed for — 59 percent — suffered complications, compared with 51 percent of those who were uncertain... they said that being aware of the strangers' prayers also may have caused some of the patients a kind of performance anxiety.
'It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?' Dr. Bethea said."
• NY Times: Long-Awaited Study Questions the Power of Prayer
