WP: Can prayer influence healing?

[grandpa]

WP: Can prayer influence healing?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11986926/
"Millions of Americans offer prayers daily to heal themselves, family, friends, co-workers and even people found through the Internet. Scientists are now studying if prayer really has power or if it's a waste of time."

Well, what do you think? I personally think it's a waste of time, but I'm interested in hearing your throughts on this.

Grandpa h.

[Arawn-ap-Hywel]

grandpa you might find this link interesting http://www.dukemednews.org/news/article.php?id=5056

[Sonart]

.

I've read that studies have shown that remote prayer actually has a beneficial affect on sick patients. I've also read that - at least in the most controlled studies - it didn't matter what kind of prayer... Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu or simply Transcendental Meditation. In essence... that postive energy directed at someone had benefit, not necessarily God.

On the other hand, I've most recently heard that such research has been repeated by peer reviewed, scientifically controlled experiment and they came up with...

...no positive results whatsoever.



.

[another day]

Of course prayer can influence healing. We've always known that placebo is a powerful treatment, and that's all prayer is - placebo.

it didn't matter what kind of prayer...

Of course, this just goes to show that it's not divine intervention (which should be obvious for level headed people but in this ridiculous world things like this somehow need to be proven), but rather just the person's own mind convincing itself so strongly that prayer works so it works...once again, it's placebo.