GP advised patient to pray/Does prayer help you get better more quickly?
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GP advised patient to pray/Does prayer help you get better more quickly?
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This article from the Guardian (June 2012) is fascinating. It concerns GP Dr Richard Scott a christian Doctor who apparently advised one of his patients that he might get better if he prayed. T
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GP advised patient to pray/Does prayer help you get better more quickly?
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GP advised patient to pray/Does prayer help you get better more quickly?
posted at 12/8/2012 7:28 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 964
First: 15/7/2011 Last: 25/5/2013 |
This article from the Guardian (June 2012) is fascinating. It concerns GP Dr Richard Scott a christian Doctor who apparently advised one of his patients that he might get better if he prayed. This article discusses Dr Scotts case before the GMC and also talks of research undertaken to see if patients who are prayed for get better quicker than those who are not prayed for. Does it make a difference if patients know they are being prayed for? In 2001, Leonard Leibovici, of Tel Aviv university, published a study in the BMJ, testing the power of prayer. He argued that as we cannot assume a priori that time is linear, or that God is limited by linear time, why not pray for patients without their knowledge, after the disease has been treated? He conducted a trial that was randomised, blinded and statistically controlled involving 3,393 patients who had been treated in hospital for bloodstream infection. Years later, long after treatment had concluded, a short prayer was made for one group randomly assigned by the toss of a coin. The patients subjected to remote retroactive intercessory prayer tended to have less fever, reduced hospital stay and lower mortality. Please see the whole article:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/jun/18/christian-doctor-lucky-not-struck-off |
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Re: GP advised patient to pray/Does prayer help you get better more quickly?
posted at 12/8/2012 9:14 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 8
First: 29/10/2010 Last: 12/8/2012 |
For those who are still unbiased, I suggest the following interview of Dr. Larry Dossey MD (Internal Medicine) based in Texas. He explains in clear terms that there is something more than the conventional modern medicine. He cites more than a hunderd experiments with hard data that suggest the existence of an hidden phenomenon behind prayer. Importantly he says - "It is clear that the experiments don't work very well if a person does not have empathy, love, compassion and caring for the object or subject they are trying to influence. The experiments work so much better if there is an empathic connection, a unity, a caring bond." Simple mechanical prayer makes no difference. I am giving link to the interview titled - "Era Three Medicine" : http://www.healthy.net/Health/Interview/Era_Three_Medicine/183/1 Do not get distracted by content of the website in which it appears. |
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Re: GP advised patient to pray/Does prayer help you get better more quickly?
posted at 12/8/2012 11:21 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2952
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 25/5/2013 |
I wonder if God is so stupid as to respond to a flip of a coin or a double-blind cross over trial (excuse the pun). It is as if the mind behind the cosmos if that is what God is, should be act like a black box or a poker machine. Pull the handle and He might come up with three lemons. Does not God look at the heart? |
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Re: GP advised patient to pray/Does prayer help you get better more quickly?
posted at 12/8/2012 4:20 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 8
First: 29/10/2010 Last: 12/8/2012 |
In Response to Re: GP advised patient to pray/Does prayer help you get better more quickly?: I wonder if God is so stupid as to respond to a flip of a coin or a double-blind cross over trial (excuse the pun). It is as if the mind behind the cosmos if that is what God is, should be act like a black box or a poker machine. Pull the handle and He might come up with three lemons. Does not God look at the heart? Posted by Odysseus The following explanation to the above question seems appropriate: The non-local aspect of our 'psyche' or consciousness, implying 'god' or 'feeling of love', is both formless (like electromagnetic radiation - amenable to study) as well as with 'form' in the sense that it can respond to calls if connected through the feeling of love (like an individual). This should not sound absurd if one remembers that light is known to have the property of behaving both as formless (electromagnetic waves) as well as with form (as photons). |
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Re: GP advised patient to pray/Does prayer help you get better more quickly?
posted at 12/8/2012 6:09 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1288
First: 9/12/2011 Last: 24/5/2013 |
There is a great deal of research in the USA that says that Prayer does help. I feel it does help, but I also know that here on BMJ I will be accused of Worshipping Sky Fairies, or invisible friends, the moment you express belief in a divine being, the Posters here accuse you of being Incompetent! So there you have it, my thoughts. DuaneF |
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Re: GP advised patient to pray/Does prayer help you get better more quickly?
posted at 12/8/2012 8:06 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 645
First: 2/2/2011 Last: 22/5/2013 |
An uncountable number of people from among us believe that a way to endure large evils is to find large consolations and they also believe that prayer is the master key of consolation. A researcher and advocate of prayer was Dr Alexis Carrel. In 1903 at the University of Lyons, Alexis Carrel was ridiculed because he mentioned that a Tuberculosis patient he attended, had been cured by prayer. The response of the Dean of Faculty was so cold that he had no choice except to leave the Faculty. Eventually he joined the Rockefeller Institute .He received a Nobel Prize in 1912. |
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Re: GP advised patient to pray/Does prayer help you get better more quickly?
posted at 12/8/2012 10:03 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2952
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 25/5/2013 |
In Response to Re: GP advised patient to pray/Does prayer help you get better more quickly?: In Response to Re: GP advised patient to pray/Does prayer help you get better more quickly? : The following explanation to the above question seems appropriate: The non-local aspect of our 'psyche' or consciousness, implying 'god' or 'feeling of love', is both formless (like electromagnetic radiation - amenable to study) as well as with 'form' in the sense that it can respond to calls if connected through the feeling of love (like an individual). This should not sound absurd if one remembers that light is known to have the property of behaving both as formless (electromagnetic waves) as well as with form (as photons). Posted by drvp I was looking at it the other way. I thought it was God's transmission tower doing the transmitting not ours. Perhaps we have smaller one's as we transmit back; low kV compared to high kV? It is an interesting concept which has been debunked only by modern man in a more skeptical age. In former ages this was accepted as the norm. Seeing our concept of gravity waves is a bit shakey and it rules our life and tides, I think we should keep an open mind on this. I am sure many of us have had situations of premonitions etc which came true. I have and my family have. Most of us cannot even tell which cardinal direction we are in eg in the dark or on unfamiliar turf. If a pigeon and a bee can, it shows to me that modern people are not too well in touch with the information around them let alone paranormal things. |
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Re: GP advised patient to pray/Does prayer help you get better more quickly?
posted at 12/8/2012 11:13 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 3045
First: 27/3/2012 Last: 20/5/2013 |
Evenafter the medical science has been developed a lot (as we think), the fact remains that we actually do not know anything surely about many things. The best examples being the intrinsic & most complex functioning of human brain, as well as we always find ourselves in a helpless situation in certain conditions like stroke management, management of IHD & management of malignancies. We must have to believe in a 'superior' governing power, & please do not forget that our human brain has been designed with many limitations, in that there are many phenomena which we cannot understand due to our inbuilt limitations. So, under certain circumstances everybody will have to 'pray' at sometimes in our lives. There remains no other choice than the belief/hope. |
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Re: GP advised patient to pray/Does prayer help you get better more quickly?
posted at 13/8/2012 11:55 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 579
First: 8/6/2011 Last: 22/5/2013 |
Today our primeminister said that with the help of saint Mary ' we will succeed! Now i don't know what should be my next reaction : to hope or to despair ?... |
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