On God Part VI-Does Prayer have the Power

I’m genuinely undecided on the idea of prayer. Much like the existence of God, there is no direct proof that prayer helps those we’re praying for. There’s anecdotal evidence up the wazoo- someone, somewhere knows someone who was near death but someone prayed for them and they were healed- but there’s no direct evidence.

Many of us are tempted to call the example above direct evidence, but it’s not a fair comparison because the opposite is not also true. When someone is near death and we pray for them and they aren’t healed, we don’t count that as evidence that prayer doesn’t work. This sets up a situation where any positive evidence is counted while all negative evidence is thrown out.

A quick word on confirmation bias

At this point in the article, you already have a pretty strong opinion on whether or not you think prayer does anything. We all use confirmation bias to distort whatever facts we come across to make them fit our view. There isn’t a lot you can do about confirmation bias, other than just acknowledge its existence and try as best you can to not let it cloud your thinking.

It’s important to remember none of us are thinking objectively about the topics of politics, religion or whether or not pass interference should have been called. We’re each seeing the world through our own confirmation bias lens. As objective as I think I’m being, if the 49ers are on offense, I’m much more likely to think the defender held or the receiver had full possession.

Once you decide to pick a team-in this case Team Prayer Totally Works v. Team Prayer Does Not Work– it becomes impossible to view whatever trinkets of knowledge you come across without the aid of your confirmation bias lens. As I mentioned earlier, there isn’t much you can do to shake off the lens, but it is helpful to realize it’s there. Anytime you want a certain outcome to be true, you can be sure you’re viewing information through your confirmation bias lens.

Anyway.

Survivor Bias

Answering my own hypothetical question, I think there’s no question that prayer does help. The question then is who it helps, not if it helps. It might not help the person we’re praying for, but it helps the person praying.

This is regardless of whether or not anyone is listening on the other end of the phone. The placebo effect of believing prayer is working is half of the benefit, maybe all of it. If we could measure how helpful prayer is, I wonder how much the efficacy decreases if we’re not sure whether or not it actually works.

I’m not sure if anything suffers more from a survivors’ bias than prayer. Watch a child get cured of cancer and droves of people will come out of the woodwork to proclaim, “Prayer DOES work! I prayed and the child was healed.” The antithesis to this is seldom voiced during the times when prayer ostensibly DIDN’T work.

If the child is healed, God gets credit for a miracle. If the child dies, then God needed another angel, or God’s plan doesn’t always line up with ours. Rarely, if ever, will a believer shrug their shoulders and admit their prayer just didn’t work.

It gets squirrely when you factor God’s plan into the equation. We believe God has a plan, but we go ahead and pray for whatever we want anyway. When our prayers are answered, it’s hard to know if the outcome was already part of God’s plan or if our prayers somehow convinced him to change course.

Much like God himself, there seems to be no definitive way to prove that prayer does or doesn’t work. Believers and unbelievers each have an enormous supply of examples to cherry-pick from to fit their narrative.

But what IS going on when our prayers are NOT answered?

In the situation of a sick child that doesn’t get better, it’s clear prayer didn’t receive a favorable answer. In this case, why did prayer not work? Would a higher quantity of prayers have done the trick? What about a higher quality of praying participants?

Do we believe-due to our prayers- God is working in the body on a microscopic level, or is our modern medical knowledge what’s really carrying the burden? We know modern medicine works wonders, where does that leave prayer? Do we believe God is just more likely to heal us now then he was during the middle ages?

Maybe prayer is just our attempt to control the uncontrollable. Similar to how we always wear our lucky socks on days the 49ers play at home.

Unworthy Prayers

It’s clear that even if some prayers are answered, not every prayer is. I think we can all agree that many of the prayers we serve up to God are so self-serving that we’d be too embarrassed to even utter them if we found ourselves literally in front of God.

Take the basketball player who just won the championship. During his interview, without a shred of sarcasm, he credits the win to God,

“We just kept believing. Kept praying. God is good.” 

It makes you wonder where exactly God started playing favorites on the court.

Children are going hungry on the streets just outside the stadium, but I’m glad God could take a few minutes out of his day to make sure to answer the prayers of the winning team.

It makes you wonder if prayer -OR- having three all-stars and an injury-free bench helped more.

To be clear, I don’t think God answered the basketball player’s prayer while ignoring the homeless man’s plea for some bread. I’m just pointing out how silly most of our prayers are. I doubt God cares which team wins a basketball game. I’m fairly confident that even if prayer does help from time to time, this isn’t one of those times.

Side Note: It brings up another point. If people honestly felt prayer was the difference between winning and losing a game, how can they take pride in winning once they’ve prayed for God’s assistance? Assuming God really did help their team win, doesn’t that take away from the idea of fair competition? Since they’ll never know if the win was due to fair competition or supernatural interference it seems logical to not pray for an outcome at all. 

Is there a critical mass of prayers that are needed in order for prayers to work?

As a kid in church, it was very important that we all agreed together in prayer. I would worry that if some lukewarm Christians weren’t paying close enough attention they might derail the chances of God answering.

I wondered why we didn’t pick a few of the more holy people and let them do all the praying. Maybe more people increase the prayers chances. Does group prayer have more power than individual prayer? What if everyone on the planet agreed together in prayer? Would the prayer be more likely to work?

What if everyone in America could agree to pray that the 49ers would win the Super Bowl? If everyone in America was on their face, repentant and pleading with God to allow the 49ers to go undefeated and win the Super Bowl, do we believe the 49ers’ chances of an undefeated season are measurably increased?

The outcome of a football game doesn’t seem like something God should waste his time on. Maybe it has to be a worthy prayer.

What if we all agreed together over the life of a child? God isn’t obligated to answer any of our prayers, so I doubt many people believe we could bully God into providing healing if it goes against his plan.

Still, if God already has a plan it makes you wonder why we bother with praying at all.

Meditation through Prayer

On the plus side of things, a prayer is a form of meditation even conservatives can get behind. Sitting down, closing your eyes, and earnestly praying to Zeus for ten to fifteen minutes would have a beneficial effect for anyone willing to go through the charade.

Non-meditating unbelievers miss this focus of thought. Prayer allows a guilt-free break from the world where one can sit quietly and reflect on all the things troubling them. It’s a way to unload ourselves and give our worries a new home.

Does God want us to pray for everything from the extraordinary to the mundane -OR- should we have more reverence for what issues we bring before God?

I’m sure God can handle any number of prayers we throw his way, but I wonder if we’d be so flippant with our requests if we truly believed the God of the universe was listening. We can ask the God of the heavens and the earth to help us beat our math quiz but we lose our nerve if we have to give a speech in front of the class. Humans, man.

We pray for God to bless the food before we eat, but why do we pray again when we eat leftovers? Didn’t God already bless the food? Does his blessing have a shelf life? Couldn’t we pray once for God to bless all the food we’ll ever eat?

I’ve always wondered about this. Believers will recoil from the idea that we SHOULDN’T pray before a meal, even if it is leftovers, but praying a second time seems to show a lack of faith, not an abundance of it.

Unless, of course, the prayer isn’t about actually blessing the food but more about taking the time to be appreciative. If it is more about being appreciative then it wouldn’t matter if anyone is hearing our prayers or not. The point is to pause and reflect. This is another area where unbelievers miss out. Still, I wonder if we shouldn’t be more conscious about asking God to bless the food a second time.

Moving on.

Does the religion of the person doing the praying matter?

I would think following the correct religion would have an effect on how well prayer works, but I’m not 100% sure it matters. If there is power in prayer it’s not to the degree that, say, Dilaudid has the power to stop the pain we experience after surgery. We know this because nearly 100% of the patients who receive Dilaudid find some amount of relief. There isn’t any data that shows people who are prayed for have a measurably increased chance at a successful surgery.

If there were such data we could easily parse out which religion is the correct one. It wouldn’t be difficult to see if Muslims, Hindus, Christians or Atheists have the highest rate of success.

If the percentages of successful surgeries are nearly identical, it should be a giveaway that the prayer isn’t what was doing the trick. If the Hindus end up with a success rate that far exceeds the rest of the field, then it may be time for us to make some changes to our internal belief system.

We should also be able to follow this same logic to figure out which version of Christianity is the best one.

The Measurability of Prayer

If prayer works we should be able to measure it in some type of way. There are many studies on the effectiveness of prayer- including this one from John Hopkins University- that have found a significant benefit for the person doing the praying. Conclusive data as to whether or not the person receiving the prayers is positively affected seems to be harder to come by.

If there is no tangible difference between how well Hindus heal compared to Christians compared to Muslims then what exactly are we talking about when we say our prayers work?

At some point down the line, there SHOULD be a measurable difference in healing rates between various religions. If God is choosing to heal people of different faiths at the same rate as Christians then it’s clear that prayer isn’t what does the trick.

Prayer seems to even have the potential to backfire.

This article from the NY Times details how prayer had no effect on those who didn’t know they were being prayed for- compared to the control group that wasn’t prayed for at all- and even had a negative effect on those who knew they were being prayed for. It’s not clear why prayer had a negative effect other than the added pressure to those who knew they were being prayed for.

Compare that little trinket of data to this article from Scientific America. It looks at how much better patients healed when they had green space outside their window compared to just seeing another building. The effects of prayer seem to be inconclusive, but having a tree outside of your window, apparently, is conclusive.

Conclusion

We have data for everything under the sun. It’s curious that humanity hasn’t attempted to figure out which religion is the one true religion by measuring the effectiveness of prayer. My guess is the religion that would win out would be the one that coincidentally had the best medicine and hospitals. Still, it would be nice to know.

If the question is merely is prayer effective? Then I have to say the answer is ‘yes.’ Prayer seems to help those doing the praying. If the question is the more nuanced does prayer help the person being prayed for? The answer, as with everything pertaining to religion, is inconclusive. We can’t say it for sure doesn’t work. We also can’t rule out the efficacy of praying to Zeus. But, there’s no measurable proof it’s working.

I don’t think God kills the microscopic germs on our food just because we prayed before we ate. I’m still going to be throwing up my requests from time to time.

What are your thoughts? Does prayer have power?

Next: On God Part VII- Adam and Eve

Here are a few more articles to read while you’re here. No pressure, but I prayed you’d read just a couple of them.

On God Part III- What Happens in the Afterlife?

How to Access all that Sweet Pretax Money Once You Retire

How to be Happy with the Body You Have