How To Get To Heaven When You Die

[xfrodobagginsx]

Please take the time to read this first post and pray that prayer to God from your heart. Please vote in the poll as well. Thank you.

[Kenny MF Powers]

Youre a funny guy.

[xfrodobagginsx]

I was talking to those who come here because they actually want to seek the truth. If that's why you are here, then it pertains to you.

[squealpiggy]

So, now you have proof to the contrary of what's been asserted, that prayer is ineffective. Like I said, it depends on who is doing the research. Atheists would tend to favor findings that support what they want and Religious people would do the same.

No I don't. I have an article written on the internet that provided no citation, no link to the paper, no information on how I can actually look at that paper.

On the other hand here is a paper involving a double blind trial of intercessory prayerof 1800 cardiac patients that showed that prayer had no effect on people who didn't know they were being prayed for and had a significant negative impact on people who knew.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16569567

The study was funded by the Templeton foundation, hardly a bastion of scientific scepticism. It was also headed by Prof. Herbert Benson, a man who has dedicated himself to bring "spirituality" into medicine.

Next time look at both sides, not just the one that you want to be true. In my opinion, the evidence is overwhelming that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior and King.

If the weight of the evidence is dependent on your opinion about it then it isn't evidence.

Anyway happy sad-Jesus day. Don't worry, it'll be Happy ZombieJesus day on Sunday.

[Ether]

[xfrodobagginsx]

Prayer: An Effective Alternative Medicine Therapy



Prayer does affect healing and the outcome of illness even when the patient does not know they are being prayed for. This has been shown in many research studies over the past few years.
But should prayer be considered an alternative medicine therapy? The answer is yes, if you research the subject and the research study results over the past years.

Let us first look at the definition of alternative medicine. The definition of alternative medicine states it is, "A variety of therapeutic or preventive health care practices, such as homeopathy, naturopathy, chiropractic, and herbal medicine, that do not follow generally accepted medical methods and may not have a scientific explanation for their effectiveness." Does prayer therapy fit into this definition? Let's explore that question now.

Does Prayer affect the healing process? Has this been proven in valid, double blind research studies? Yes, it has.

There have been many research studies conducted and all of them showed that the practice of religious activity and prayer improves health, healing outcomes and longevity. This effect is seen even when other social and lifestyle factors are examined and ruled out.

The first research study that is considered important was in the later part of the 1980's by Dr. Randolph Byrd who practiced cardiology in San Francisco. His ten month research study was published in The Southern Medical Journal in 1988. His research results showed that patients who were prayed for did better than patients who were not.

In the two groups, the group that was prayed for did 10 percent better than the group who was not. This study was a true double-blind research study with two groups involved: one set of patients who were being prayed for and the other group was not. The nurses, doctors, and patients did not know to which group each patient belonged. Each patient had from 5 to 7 people praying for them. The results were conclusive:

The group of patients who were prayed for were 5 times less likely to need antibiotic treatments, were 3 times less likely to develop pulmonary edema, did not need breathing assistance as the patients in the control group. There was no doubt that the prayer therapy was successful.

There was another famous research study done in 1998 at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City and was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The study involved 900 patients in a double blind study. The research team was composed of many medical doctors, as well as the hospital chaplain and a reverend. The patients all were suffering from different serious disease conditions. The study involved 35 different health issue factors and the results were impressive with the prayed for group doing better overall by 11 percent than the patients not prayed for.

There has also been much research performed on plants by an organization called Spindrift located in Salem Oregon. Their whole goal is to better understand prayer and how it can be more effective. Their research showed over and over that plants prayed for sprouted more quickly and were healthier than the control plants.

It has been shown in many research studies that people who included religion and prayer in their life style were healthier, less subject to stress, dealt better with stress, handled hospitalization better, and were overall less depressed.

Does prayer follow accepted medical methods? No

Prayer does not follow generally accepted medical methods so it does fit that part of the alternative medicine definition.

Does prayer have scientific explanation for its effectiveness? No, not at this point

The effectiveness of prayer does not have hard evidence that cannot be disputed.

Does prayer fit in with the goal of alternative medicine therapies to do no harm to the patient?

The worst than can happen when you pray for a person is that is does not help.

Is the effectiveness of prayer a placebo effect?

When there is a double blind study with a control group, the effectiveness of prayer cannot be part of the placebo explanation.

In alternative medicine, you have therapies such as the laying of hands, psychic healing, remote healing which I have experienced firsthand and other forms of healing that are hard to scientifically prove. They operate on a level that science does fully understand at this point, but they exist and are effective. These forms of healing are special gifts.

Prayer, I think fits beautifully into this area of alternative medicine. I know I have seen miracles using prayer. Most of the time the people did not have any idea I was praying for them. In many cases, the odds of the prayer working would seem pretty dreary. I would challenge you to investigate the links to the research below and open your mind to a new idea. You may find it might save your life one day.

[squealpiggy]

Prayer: An Effective Alternative Medicine Therapy



Prayer does affect healing and the outcome of illness even when the patient does not know they are being prayed for. This has been shown in many research studies over the past few years.
But should prayer be considered an alternative medicine therapy? The answer is yes, if you research the subject and the research study results over the past years.

Let us first look at the definition of alternative medicine. The definition of alternative medicine states it is, "A variety of therapeutic or preventive health care practices, such as homeopathy, naturopathy, chiropractic, and herbal medicine, that do not follow generally accepted medical methods and may not have a scientific explanation for their effectiveness." Does prayer therapy fit into this definition? Let's explore that question now.

Does Prayer affect the healing process? Has this been proven in valid, double blind research studies? Yes, it has.

There have been many research studies conducted and all of them showed that the practice of religious activity and prayer improves health, healing outcomes and longevity. This effect is seen even when other social and lifestyle factors are examined and ruled out.

The first research study that is considered important was in the later part of the 1980's by Dr. Randolph Byrd who practiced cardiology in San Francisco. His ten month research study was published in The Southern Medical Journal in 1988. His research results showed that patients who were prayed for did better than patients who were not.

In the two groups, the group that was prayed for did 10 percent better than the group who was not. This study was a true double-blind research study with two groups involved: one set of patients who were being prayed for and the other group was not. The nurses, doctors, and patients did not know to which group each patient belonged. Each patient had from 5 to 7 people praying for them. The results were conclusive:

The group of patients who were prayed for were 5 times less likely to need antibiotic treatments, were 3 times less likely to develop pulmonary edema, did not need breathing assistance as the patients in the control group. There was no doubt that the prayer therapy was successful.

Study is here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3393937

Results were not "conclusive" and the study was not a double blind study. There was selection bias of "prayer receptive" patients (unreceptive people dropped out of the study) and the results were based on a list of 26 possible complications measured for of which positive outcomes were observed in only six. That is to say that instead of there being a positive outcome across all 26 complications measured it happened that patients prayed for showed improvements in six - Byrd then discarded the data that did not fit his hypothesis and recorded the data which did. It's known as a Texas Sharpshooter fallacy in which the marksman shoots the side of a barn then draws his target around the bullet hole thus declaring that he scored a bullseye.

In other words the data was recorded and then pored over to find an effect, rather than being measured according to predefined statistical methods.

There was another famous research study done in 1998 at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City and was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The study involved 900 patients in a double blind study. The research team was composed of many medical doctors, as well as the hospital chaplain and a reverend. The patients all were suffering from different serious disease conditions. The study involved 35 different health issue factors and the results were impressive with the prayed for group doing better overall by 11 percent than the patients not prayed for.

It was so famous that you're unable to provide the name of the researcher who published it?

I think it was this one by Harris et al:

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/con...urcetype=HWCIT

Using the same method as the earlier Byrd study they also reported positive effects. But they noticed different complications having positive results. When they compared it to the Byrd study they found that it was not the same six that had showed improvements in the previous study. This is a clear indicator of chance results.

There has also been much research performed on plants by an organization called Spindrift located in Salem Oregon. Their whole goal is to better understand prayer and how it can be more effective. Their research showed over and over that plants prayed for sprouted more quickly and were healthier than the control plants.

The bolded shows what is wrong with including them here. If "their whole goal is to understand prayer and how it can be more effective" then they have no business conducting research into whether or not prayer is effective. They have started with that as their conclusion.

Much better would be for their goal to be to find out if it has an effect.

It has been shown in many research studies that people who included religion and prayer in their life style were healthier, less subject to stress, dealt better with stress, handled hospitalization better, and were overall less depressed.

[citation needed]

Hint: "Many studies" is not a citation.

Does prayer follow accepted medical methods? No

Prayer does not follow generally accepted medical methods so it does fit that part of the alternative medicine definition.

Does prayer have scientific explanation for its effectiveness? No, not at this point

The effectiveness of prayer does not have hard evidence that cannot be disputed.

This article you copied and pasted earlier claimed "conclusive" results from Byrd et al's study. This article isn't internally consistent. Was it written by someone who does bible studies?

Does prayer fit in with the goal of alternative medicine therapies to do no harm to the patient?

The worst than can happen when you pray for a person is that is does not help.

This is untrue. The STEP study already mentioned found that people who were told they were being prayed for showed a small but significant tendency to suffer more problems and complications as the result of prayer. Prayer can make people sicker.

Is the effectiveness of prayer a placebo effect?

When there is a double blind study with a control group, the effectiveness of prayer cannot be part of the placebo explanation.

Apparently the placebo effect of being told that people are praying for you is likely to make you sicker. See above.

I would like to see a study which compares praying to Jesus with sacrificing chickens to Baron Samedi. That would make for interesting reading.

In alternative medicine, you have therapies such as the laying of hands, psychic healing, remote healing which I have experienced firsthand and other forms of healing that are hard to scientifically prove. They operate on a level that science does fully understand at this point, but they exist and are effective. These forms of healing are special gifts.

So special that they fail every time they are measured. Anyway I thought you were a christian. Psychic healing, laying on of hands, these things would all be witchcraft! Hell for you.

Man, this whole attempt at bullying people into joining your sordid cult is really screwing you in the afterlife isn't it?

Prayer, I think fits beautifully into this area of alternative medicine. I know I have seen miracles using prayer. Most of the time the people did not have any idea I was praying for them.

What else were the patients doing for their illness when these "miracles" happened? Did the chemotherapy "miraculously" work? Did the ever-lovin Jesus smile down upon the patient's dialysis? Did the Almight himself personally oversee the acceptance of the transplanted organ into the patient's body?

Show me a healed amputee and you might have a point.

In many cases, the odds of the prayer working would seem pretty dreary. I would challenge you to investigate the links to the research below and open your mind to a new idea. You may find it might save your life one day.

Or you could take a first aid course, learn CPR. That's my recommendation.

[xfrodobagginsx]

Double Blind Study by Dr. Elizebeth Targ on Prayer Shows that it IS Effective

The Tragic Story of Elisabeth Targ
Vic Stenger
For Reality Check, Skeptical Briefs, March, 2003
Clearly we must be highly skeptical of any scientific claim that is made by "true believers,"
whether the beliefs being tested are religious or secular. Even the most sincere investigators may
unconsciously select data that support their beliefs and ignore the data that do not, when those
beliefs are deeply held. Yet another, very tragic, story needs to be mentioned to emphasize this
point.
In 1998, psychiatrist Elisabeth Targ and her collaborators published a paper in Western
Journal of Medicine which claimed that various forms of "distant healing," including prayer and
"psychic healing," significantly improved the health of patients with advanced AIDS. They reported
on what they claimed was a "double blind randomized trial" involving 40 patients in the San
Francisco area. Here is how the authors summarized their results:
At six months, blind medical chart review found treatment subjects acquired
significantly fewer new AIDS defining illnesses (0.1 vs. 0.6 per patient, P =0 .04),
lower illness severity (severity score 0.8 vs. 2.65, P = 0.03), required significantly
fewer doctor visits (9.2 vs. 13.0, P = 0.01), fewer hospitalizations (0.15 vs. 0.6, P =
0.04) and fewer days of hospitalization (0.5 vs. 3.4, P = 0.04). Treated subjects
also showed significantly improved mood compared to controls (change in POMS
[a measure of mood] -26 vs. +14, P = 0.02). There were no significant differences
in CD4+ counts.
The fascinating tale surrounding this experiment and its aftermath was related in a recent
article by Po Bronson in the December 2002 issue of Wired magazine. Targ was the daughter of
famous parapsychologist Russell Targ who conducted experiments on extrasensory perception in
the 1970s that were published in the journal Nature and then successfully refuted. Russell is a true
1
believer and Elisabeth grew up with a firm conviction that the mind possesses paranormal powers.
Indeed, Russell made much of her apparent psychic abilities in his 1985 book the Mind Race,
written with Keith Harary. While obtaining a degree in conventional psychiatry, the paranormal
remained of interest to her and Elisabeth found willing support and collaboration from
parapsychologists to conduct studies in distant healing.
As a direct result of her promising 1998 study, published in a peer-reviewed journal, Targ
received $1.5 million in grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health's Center for
Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The grants provided support for continuing distant
healing studies on AIDS and further work on the brain cancer Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) .
While rare, GBM is one of the most malignant forms of cancer with survival rates of about a year,
even with the most drastic medical intervention. Patients were dying and it seemed that anything was
worth a try.
By an extraordinary coincidence, in early 2002 Targ was diagnosed as suffering from from
GBM. Surgery was unable to excise all the cancer and, understanding full well her slim chances of
recovery by any medical means, Targ was unsure she wanted chemotherapy.
As word of Targ's illness spread, healing groups worldwide began to pray for her. As
Bronson describes it,
Her bedroom turned into a circus. Healers from everywhere showed up wanting to
help. It was rarely peaceful and quiet. There was Phillip Scott, a Lakota sun dancer
who burned sage; Nicolai Levashov, a Russian psychic who waved his hands;
Harriet Bienfield, an acupuncturist with rare Chinese herbs; Desda Zuckerman, an
energy worker who used techniques inspired by the ancient methods of the Miwok
peoples. The reverend Rosalyn Bruyere phoned often, trying to get on Targ's
schedule. And, of course, there was her father, Russell, urging her to meditate, calm
her mind, go to that place.
Sadly, neither science nor spirit was able to save Elisabeth Targ.
This tragic tale does not end with Targ's untimely death at 40. Bronson reports that the
AIDS study published in Western Journal of Medicine had not been blinded—a fact not known to
2
the journal. He says he has confirmed the following from one of Targ's coauthors, biostatistician
Dan Moore and physicist Mark Comings, who married Targ shortly before her death. Although not
mentioned in the publication, the original study was designed to look at mortality rates. When
Moore broke the code, he found that only one subject had died and so the mortality data were
meaningless. Targ and the other collaborators insisted that Moore examine the data further and look
at certain HIV physical symptoms and quality of life. He found that the treatment group did no
better than the control group. In fact, in some cases they seemed to do worse. Targ urged him to
keep looking. Finally, after more data mining, Moore found that the treatment group had
"statistically significant" fewer hospital stays and doctor visits. Targ was at a conference at the time
and excitedly announced the results.
However, as Bronson put it:
This isn't what science means by double-blind. The data may all be legitimate, but
it's not good form. Statisticians call this the sharpshooter's fallacy—spraying bullets
randomly, then drawing a target circle around a cluster. When Targ and Sicher wrote
the paper that made her famous, they let the reader assume that all along their study
had been designed to measure the 23 AIDS-related illnesses—even though they're
careful never to say so. They never mentioned that this was the last in a long list of
endpoints they looked at, or that it was data collected after an unblinding.
If Bronson's report is correct, the authors misrepresented their experiment, claiming they
had done a blinded study and implying that their criteria were preselected, when, in fact, they
searched many post-selected criteria until they found what they wanted to see.
Targ's paper is not the only questionable study on the efficacy of prayer that has been
published by medical journals. The editors and referees of these journals have done a great
disservice to both science and society by allowing such highly flawed papers to be published. I have
previously commented about the low statistical significance threshold of these journals (p-value of
0.05) and how it is inappropriate for extraordinary claims (Briefs, March 2001). This policy has
given a false scientific credibility to the assertion that prayer or other spiritual techniques work
miracles, and several best selling books have appeared that exploit that theme. Telling people what
3
they want to hear, these authors have made millions.
-------------------
Vic Stenger's next book. Has Science Found God? The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose
in the Universe will soon by published by Prometheus Books.
4

[squealpiggy]

Double Blind Study by Dr. Elizebeth Targ on Prayer Shows that it IS Effective

The Tragic Story of Elisabeth Targ
Vic Stenger
For Reality Check, Skeptical Briefs, March, 2003
Clearly we must be highly skeptical of any scientific claim that is made by "true believers,"
whether the beliefs being tested are religious or secular. Even the most sincere investigators may
unconsciously select data that support their beliefs and ignore the data that do not, when those
beliefs are deeply held. Yet another, very tragic, story needs to be mentioned to emphasize this
point.
In 1998, psychiatrist Elisabeth Targ and her collaborators published a paper in Western
Journal of Medicine which claimed that various forms of "distant healing," including prayer and
"psychic healing," significantly improved the health of patients with advanced AIDS. They reported
on what they claimed was a "double blind randomized trial" involving 40 patients in the San
Francisco area.

Oooh sorry.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.12/prayer.html

Study unblinded halfway through and then results dredged for seemingly positive outcomes. Texas sharpshooter again.

I'm better at this than you are. Maybe you should stick to knocking on doors.

[Russian Crushin]

reply# 2,000 wooo hoooo