Comments on: On a Wing and a Prayer

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 11 Jun 2004 18:22:47 +0000

” if intercessory prayer worked, wouldn’t all UK monarchs live to be about 150? … That study’s been done, dude. Ha! QED, man. QED.” Ah, but the prayers for the monarch’s health are cancelled out by the FTQ graffiti and accompanying sentiments in the Catholic-areas of Northern Ireland.

By: Jonathan Goldberg

Jonathan Goldberg — Thu, 10 Jun 2004 14:32:36 +0000

It seems obligatory in this thread to recall Littlewood’s law of miracles, which states that each person averages one miracle a month. He arrives at this by estimating how many “events” one sees in a month, and assuming that anything with odds of a million to one or more against counts as a miracle. In contexts like this. Littlewood should never be forgotten.

By: pepi

pepi — Thu, 10 Jun 2004 11:19:01 +0000

ayjay – You’re just trying to “test” God, and this is something Jesus explicitly forbade, so any Christian who participates in such an experiment is being disobedient. (…) It’s therefore like trying to play a trick on God. (…) a ridiculous thing both from a scientific and from a religious point of view. From the article I linked:

Many theologians say that, even if you believe in the power of intercessory prayer, such a trial is doomed to failure because it “puts God to the test” – and there are clear instructions in the Bible not to do this. The Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev Tom Wright, said: “Prayer is not a penny in the slot machine. You can’t just put in a coin and get out a chocolate bar. This is like setting an exam for God to see if God will pass it or not.”

I remember Jewish theologians expressing the same perplexity. I believe the slot-maching idea of prayer is not exactly endorsed by other major religions either. Another interesting thing in that documentary was that some of the Christian prayer groups interviewed were voicing their annoyment about having their prayers “counted” together on an equal level with the prayers from Muslims, Buddhists, and other religions. They did not address that theological aspect at all, but, especially after the results came out and were inconclusive, argued that the studies were flawed on the basis of their being “multi-faith” – see this for instance: Some of the studied performed to date have involved multi-faith teams involved in intercessory prayer. For example, the Targ study involved Jewish, Native American, perhaps a follower of the New Age, and probably others. The MANTRA study involved Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Muslims, and perhaps others. It might be revealing to further analyze the data to differentiate among the various religions followed by the prayer groups. Conceivably, prayers from followers of one or more of the religions could be shown to be more effective that the others. That would be a remarkable result! It might give some insight into the nature of God: whether God prefers one religion over others, or all religions equally. That’s just the kind of research the world needs, isn’t it?

By: pepi

pepi — Thu, 10 Jun 2004 10:38:08 +0000

There was a good documentary about a similar experiment. There were also interesting comments by theologians and rabbis who were critical of the idea of such a test from a religious point of view. I wonder why even that doesn't bother those believers who support this kind of "research" approach. Anyhow, I would love to see more experiments like that, if only they were conducted by this guy

By: liz

liz — Thu, 10 Jun 2004 06:31:03 +0000

Ignore the praying for infertile women and so on. The story is the strangeness of the two co-conspirators, Wirth and Horvath: The other of Mr. Weird’s no, Wirth’s papers were in Healing Sciences Research International, 29 Orinda Way, Box 1888, Orinda, CA 94563—some sort of weird front Wirth and his co-conspirator Horvath used. The end of the story: Horvath got an IT job, using the false identity John Wayne Truelove, at Adelphia’s Buffalo office in 1999, and from September 2001 to March 2002, funneled 12 payments to Daniel Wirth, totalling $2.1 million for “computer consulting.” Wirth and Horvath have been friends and co….dupers? Delusionists? since they both were at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda (where Wirth got his law degree). In 1990, Horvath was jailed for fraud (at that time he was using the identity of a child who had died in 1957, Joseph Hessler. The fraud charge came about because Horvath claimed he had been robbed of a $30,000 night deposit. “John Wayne Truelove” is another dead child, this one died in 1959. Both Horvath and Truelove have used the Truelove identity—Horvath to buy a bungalow in and burn it down for the insurance payment; Wirth, in the 1980s, to obtain a passport and obtain a passport and rent apartments in California. Additionally, Wirth was “ Rudy Wirth” to establish an address in New York and claim social security benefits. The real Rudy Wirth died in 1998. Wirth and Horvath originally claimed innocence (of the defrauding Adelphi, itself full of fraudsters as it turns out) but evidently arrainged a plea bargain, as they pled guilty to fewer charges just before the case was to go to trial.

By: liz

liz — Thu, 10 Jun 2004 06:29:28 +0000

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Thu, 10 Jun 2004 01:31:21 +0000

Well, at least it keeps them busy and so not doing other things that might actually make something happen.

By: Maureen

Maureen — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 22:31:08 +0000

What I’m actually concerned about is this: What if there’s a nefarious group of right-wing pronatalists who are constantly praying for everyone’s contraceptives to fail? Because some people do believe that contraception goes against God’s will.

By: Ayjay

Ayjay — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 21:50:55 +0000

Jeremy, it seems to me that. for the experiment to work, the pray-ers would have to know not only whom to pray for, but also whom not to pray for. Not in detail, of course -- not a list of names of Women to Ignore. But presumably they would need to be told to pray for the women in Group A only -- that is, make a point of not praying for (say) all women who wanted to get pregnant through in vitro, or even all local women who were going the in vitro route. Otherwise the control group could be contaminated, and the experimental results compromised. So, again, since the pray-ers could have no legitimate religious reason to pray for some people and avoid praying for others, in the end they are simply saying prayer-like words in order to find out what happens when you use such words, rather than actually praying. I push these points because you just have to think about how you might do this experiment correctly in order to realize what a ridiculous thing it is to attempt, both from a scientific and from a religious point of view.

By: Jeremy Osner

Jeremy Osner — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 20:47:42 +0000

Ayjay—that doesn’t seem quite right to me—the purity of intention of the test subjects (the supplicants) need not be blemished by the nefarious intentions of the people running the test. If the subjects were given some photos, and told “these women are barren—pray for them to become fertile”—could they not sincerely and legitimately pray for an end to the strangers’ misfortunes? They need not have known anything about a separate group of strangers for whom they were not to pray. (And yes, granted the whole thing is silly and lame—I just don’t see how this objection would necessarily hold true.)

By: Ayjay

Ayjay — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 20:01:23 +0000

To c.j.c.: My point was that the participants in the experiment were unable to make the distinction you just made: between people we know and love and people we don't. They were given photographs of people to pray for, and were not given the photographs of another group of women with the same interests. But there can be no legitimate "spiritual" reason to pray for the women in Group A and ignore the women in Group B. It's not like the women in Group A are either more deserving or more important to the people doing the praying. It's an utterly false situation -- whereas there is nothing false about praying for one's spouse while not praying for a stranger. To the contrary; one has more reasons to pray for the wellbeing of loved ones than to pray for the well-being of strangers. But even at that, there can be no justifiable moral or spiritual reason to refuse to pray for someone simply because she is a stranger. The situation of the experiment is therefore one that does not correspond to anyone's real wishes for the women involved. As Lewis put it in his essay on "The Efficacy of Prayer," the stated interests of the people doing the praying are at variance with their real interests. It's therefore like trying to play a trick on God.

By: C.J.Colucci

C.J.Colucci — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 17:18:40 +0000

I can think of many legitimate and theologically sound reasons to pray for Woman A to get pregnant while not praying for Woman B. The most obvious one: Woman A is my wife, Woman B is a stranger. I have lousy sperm. I know nothing comparable about Woman B’s husband, though her having three kids suggests that Woman A and I need God’s help and Woman B and her husband do not.

By: Ayjay

Ayjay — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 17:09:09 +0000

Seriously, as C. S. Lewis pointed out many years ago, a “study” of this kind (whether methodologically sound or not) will always be theologically flawed. The problem is that the only motive one can have for praying for one set of people and not praying for another set is to find out what happens. In other words, you’re not really praying, you’re just saying the words of prayers. You can’t possibily have any legitimate reason for wanting Woman A to get pregnant and Woman B not to. You’re just trying to “test” God, and this is something Jesus explicitly forbade, so any Christian who participates in such an experiment is being disobedient. Q.E.D.

By: Ayjay

Ayjay — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 17:03:59 +0000

A late reply to Ophelia: your point would be conclusive if “saying prayers” and “praying” were one and the same thing. Millions have said “God Save the [Monarch],” not so many have meant it. Plus there’s the problem of what is meant by “save”—maybe none of the English monarchs have gone to hell . . . yet . . .

By: Stentor

Stentor — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 14:26:06 +0000

With regard to the monarchs, one lacks a control sample. How about Prime Ministers as the control? Nobody ever says “God Save the PM,” right?