First I want to say that these are opinions Atheists have on the teachings of the Bible. I am a non religious spiritual person who only would like to further educate myself seeing both views of how atheists and christians think. If you are off a different belief system then please give your opinion also.

If this subject offends you then understand that my intentions are only for educational purposes and not to proove your religious belief is false or bad. If your faith works for you then I encourage you to continue it by all means. What is important is that you can wake up in the morning and enjoy the complete day with much happiness and joy.

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The dictionary defines the word "superstition" in this way:

An irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome. [ref]
We have all seen plenty of superstitions. There are the superstitions that a rabbit's foot or a four-leaf clover bring good luck. There are the superstitions that breaking a mirror or seeing a black cat bring bad luck. And we all know that these superstitions are silly. A rabbit's foot or a broken mirror has no good or bad influence on the course of events. This is obvious to any intelligent person.
So let's imagine the following situation. Let's say that you have cancer. You are lying in the hospital after a round of chemo and you feel terrible. A person pops into your room with a bright smile on his face and a horseshoe in his hand. He says to you, "This is an amazing and lucky horseshoe. If you touch this horseshoe, it will cure your cancer. But I need to charge you $100 to touch it."

Would you pay the man $100?

Of course not. We all know that touching the horseshoe will have zero effect on cancer. The belief in lucky horseshoes is pure superstition.

It is also very easy to scientifically prove that the horseshoe has no effect on cancer (or anything else). The way we would do it is simple: we would take 1,000 cancer patients and split them randomly into two groups of 500. We would let 500 of the cancer patients touch the lucky horseshoe and we would leave the other 500 alone in a double-blind way. Then we would look at cancer remission rates between the two groups. What we would find is zero benefit from the horseshoe. We would see no statistical difference between the remission rates in the two groups of 500 patients.

Prayer

Now let us imagine another situation. You have cancer, you have just finished a round of chemo and you feel terrible. This time, a person pops into your room with a bright smile on his face and a bible in his hand. He says to you, "There is a being named God who is the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving creator of the universe. I am his representative on earth. If you will allow me to pray to God on your behalf, God will cure your cancer."

You agree to the prayer, and the man prays over you for 10 minutes. He invokes all the healing powers of God, beseeching him, reciting verses of scripture and so forth. Afterwards, as he is getting ready to leave, the man says, "Oh, and by the way, God says that you should tithe 10% of your income to the church. Would you consider making a tax-deductible donation today?"

The question is: Is there any difference between the two men? Will the prayer have any effect greater than the horseshoe?

The answer is: No. The belief in prayer is just as superstitious as the belief in lucky horseshoes.

The fascinating thing is that we can prove that prayer has no effect in exactly the same way that we can prove that horseshoes have no effect. We take 1,000 cancer patients. We pray over 500 of them and we leave the other 500 alone. Then we look at cancer remission rates between the two groups. What we find is that prayers have zero benefit. We would see no statistical difference between the remission rates in the two groups of 500 patients.

In other words, we can prove that the belief in prayer is pure superstition. The belief in the power of prayer is no different from the belief in the power of lucky horseshoes.

These experiments have been performed many times, and they always return the same results.

Click here for one of the most recent experiments:

http://www.physorg.com/news63551345.html


If this article has made your face boil and angry then please breathe and count silently to 10. After you do this please reply your opinion. Thank you.

Firstly...hello! *waves enthusiastically*

To the point of prayer and such....it's true but it's not. (I'm more like you...no real religion just a facination with religion in general) There have been cases where a person had such faith in a prayer (or other "superstition) that their body actually healed itself. (if you can give me a bit of time I could google some examples to reference later) Modern medicine has been suprised, but it's been explained that it's along the same lines of a 70 year old woman being able to rip a car door off to save her grandchild trapped within. The body produces the extra endorphines (I believe it is...I saw a special on the Learning Channel and National Geographic Channel that talked about this...again...give me a few moments and I'll google some references) providing momentary superhuman strength for the situation.

So of those 500 patients...you might find a few that were cured simply because the faith of the patient was so strong they -in essence- cured themselves.


Just my 2 cents :P And now I'm off to google...I'll be back in a moment with some reference links for those that need them :D

Thank you for sharing this. Yes I believe our mind is very strong. If we believe we can get better we can actually get better. A great video on this is "The Secret". Supposingly these are ancient philosophical technics used and now reintroduced to the public. If you google it you will get 20 minutes to watch on their belief. It is not religous but philosophical. They call it the Laws of Attraction.

Very interesting indeed and thank you for sharing this.

OK - I saw all these numbered threads and decided to start at the beginning, but I didn't find number 1 so I began here, with number 2.

First of all, there is a great deal to be said for the effects of positive thought. Perhaps a better scenerio would be the following.

2000 people all with the same cancer.
500 who believe in god are prayed over along with the traditional treatment.

500 who believe in god are not allowed to have other pray over them, but get traditional treatment.

500 poeple who do not believe in god, and are prayed for without their knowledge, by the same people who are praying for the other patients, along with the traditional treatment.

500 people who do not believe in got and not not prayed for but receive the traditional treatment.

And in the end, no matter what the results are you will have people who believe in god - beleive that miricles were preformed - and that those who did not benefit from treatment or prayer still followed according to the will of god.

So do all the double blind tests you want, no answers will ever correspond to that of the believer.

I say unto you.....that no one who truly is given gifts of God would charge for the use of these gifts.