Re: [asa] God disproven by science? (the answer)

On this subject, there is a book, THE FAITH FACTOR, which speaks to it
in good detail. I reviewed it for PSCF about ten years ago -- a copy
of that review is at

www.burgy.50megs.com/factor.htm

It includes references to a number of studies (with citations).

Burgy

On 4/22/09, Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com> wrote:
> Pastor Murray said:
> "Second, on prayer studies in hospitals, one of the greatest problems is the
> fact that we simply can't establish any sort of control group. We cannot
> stop patients praying for themselves, nor can we stop family or friends
> doing so. And even if patients are die-hard atheists who insist that neither
> they nor any of their acquaintances are praying for healing, there are still
> hospital chaplains and local church prayer teams. Daily prayer for all the
> afflicted is also set down in the Anglican prayer book as well as forming
> part of the liturgy of many Catholic and other traditions. In short, there's
> no such thing as "not being prayed for." Consequently no way, in practice,
> to test the claim that "prayer has no effect on healing"."
>
>
>
> I thought about the same thing last night. I agree. The complexity seems
> to make it impossible to truly measure.
>
>
>
> In addition, there's another problem. How do you classify people? As if
> people could be 1 or 0, believer or non-believer. What about a praying
> non-believer (one who prays only when they are in trouble)? I know people
> like that. What about doubting believers? I guess that's the reason for
> inconclusive results- impossible to measure? I don't know the survey
> details, so maybe they tried to address (isolate) all that... but on the
> surface it seems impossible to isolate.
>
>
>
> ...Bernie
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
> Behalf Of Murray Hogg
> Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 4:41 AM
> To: ASA
> Subject: Re: [asa] God disproven by science?
>
>
>
> Just a couple of thoughts on this thread;
>
>
>
> First, following on from what Louise wrote:
>
>> God, as a presumably free-will agent operating through an unknown physical
>> (or perhaps unknowable "supernatural") mechanism can choose to answer
>> prayer differently even if circumstances, from our human perspective, are
>> practically identical for both patients and petitioners.
>
>> Or, as one of the students put it last spring, "if I were God and people
>> were doing a prayer study with me, I'd just mess with them!"
>
>
>
> There is a similar sentiment from John Polkinghorne, Science and Creation:
> the search for understanding (London: SPCK, 1988), p.87;
>
>
>
> <cite>
>
> Another power we lose in personal encounter is the ability to predict. Only
> in the event itself is its meaning to be found. It cannot be laid down
> beforehand nor prescribed by those who are merely observers and not
> participants. The religious believer is ill and prays for the gift of
> wholeness in the experience. He may find it in physical recovery or in the
> acceptance of disability or death. What will happen to him cannot be
> predicted, nor may any but he say whether the experience, when it comes, is
> one of wholeness or of disintegration.
>
>
>
> Scientific knowledge is concerned with generalities, what all can find if
> they choose to look. In consequence it has a repeatable, and so shareable,
> character to it. Personal encounter is always idiosyncratic, because each
> individual is unique. We may find analogies in the experience of others but
> never identity. We all hear a Beethoven quartet differently, and we
> ourselves never quite hear it in the same way twice. Hence the scandal of
> particularity, which for Christian theology finds its most startling
> exemplification in the unique status claimed for Jesus Christ. While such a
> claim clearly calls for the most careful assessment, it is a rational
> possibility in the sphere of the personal that God should have made himself
> uniquely known in a particular man.
>
>
>
> </cite>
>
>
>
> Second, on prayer studies in hospitals, one of the greatest problems is the
> fact that we simply can't establish any sort of control group. We cannot
> stop patients praying for themselves, nor can we stop family or friends
> doing so. And even if patients are die-hard atheists who insist that neither
> they nor any of their acquaintances are praying for healing, there are still
> hospital chaplains and local church prayer teams. Daily prayer for all the
> afflicted is also set down in the Anglican prayer book as well as forming
> part of the liturgy of many Catholic and other traditions. In short, there's
> no such thing as "not being prayed for." Consequently no way, in practice,
> to test the claim that "prayer has no effect on healing".
>
>
>
> Blessings,
>
> Murray
>
>
>
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-- 
Burgy
www.burgy.50megs.com
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