Do you believe that Prayer helps?

Keyona, you simply cannot make a statement-of-fact unless you can provide evidence that what you say is reality. That's just how things are supposed to work.

If you say, "Snow is hot." or "The Easter Bunny exists." or "Male humans give birth to babies." you will need to provide neutral, scholarly evidence that those claims are real. Otherwise, you are either lying or deluded.

So, when you say, "Prayer works." as if it is a statement-of-fact, you shouldn't be surprised is someone asks you to show the validity of your claim. Just as you would be expected to provide neutral, scholarly evidence that a human male has given birth to a baby, you must provide neutral, scholarly evidence that prayer produces a concrete result.

Too many people on the Net make claims about their religion as if those claims are beyond dispute. They say, "God exists." and "Jesus is the son of God." and "Prayer works." and they have not the slightest bit of evidence for any of those claims.

I wouldn't care, at all, if they want to say, "I believe...". People are entitled to believe whatever makes them happy, even if I consider it arrant nonsense. But, they are NOT entitled to state those beliefs as if they were fact and they are NOT entitled to tell me that I ought to believe as they do.

Isaac Asimov once said that the earth was an oblate spheroid with minor irregularities and that no matter how many people believed it to be flat, the earth *remained* an oblate spheroid with minor irregularities.

Prayer is just a blankie for adults and I do have neutral, scholarly evidence for that.

Because neutral, scholarly studies have shown that the result of prayer is no greater than chance.

John Templeton Foundation 10-year study : http://www.nytimes.com/2006/0...

Medical Journal of Australia: "One common criticism of prayer research is that prayer has become a popular therapeutic method for which there is no known plausible mechanism."

An early study (1872) http://www.abelard.org/galton...

Columbia University study flawed and fraudulent: http://www.csicop.org/si/show...

Follow-up article on Columbia University: http://www.csicop.org/si/show...

But, the foundational point is that it is up to the person making a statement, any statement, to demonstrate that statement to be reality. If I say, "Human males give birth to live young." then I'm the person who must come up with at least one human male who carried a fetus to term and then gave birth to it. It isn't up to my listeners to prove that I am wrong. My expecting them to prove me wrong is a logical fallacy and a sign of an inability to think on an adult level.

I consider prayer to be a "blankie for adults", a placebo, but I'm certainly open to being shown that I'm wrong. It is for those who claim that "prayer works" to demonstrate the reality of that statement.

I just sit here and say..."show me".