re: "Why Do People Persist in Believing Things That Just Aren't True?"

I know someone that was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis that never received medical treatment. Her backwoods Church prayed for and visited her everyday, and she started walking again.

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I have a friend who is a hardcore hypochondriac that proves otherwise.

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Thousands of hypochondriacs are successfully treated with SSRIs.

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And atheists remit from terminal cancer and christians die of sepsis after a splinter. So what?

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I really don't understand what you're on about.

Prayer never hurt anybody.

Medications and medical procedures have sometimes dangerous and deleterious side effects. Apart from idiots who refuse medical care for religious reasons, a believe in the healing power of prayer has no dangerous medical side effects.

We don't care about many of the potential side effect of certain meds or treatments because the good outweighs the bad. Same for praying - why would you begrudge someone the comfort? Maybe you wouldn't.

How is a faith in the healing power of prayer different from the placebo effect?

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I know someone that was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis that never received medical treatment. Her backwoods Church prayed for and visited her everyday, and she started walking again.

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Let me know when this works for an amputee...

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And atheists remit from terminal cancer and christians die of sepsis after a splinter. So what?

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Apparently the placebo's not very strong, because Godless Scandinavians and Japanese live longer than vampires while hyper-religious Muslim societies show some embarrassing numbers.

Even within our own United States of America, the most religious states trend extremely heavily towards low life expectancy (for all races, before that argument is tossed out about the South's AA share).

ETA:

This is 10 through 1 of states with lowest life expectancy for Caucasians... Southerners obviously aren't praying enough.

Georgia
Nevada
Tennessee
Louisiana
Arkansas
Mississippi
Kentucky
Oklahoma
Alabama
West Virginia

To the OP:

I read the article and it was very interesting. I feel that people often integrate and idea of the truth so deeply into their belief system that it becomes synonymous with their ego(sense of self). Therefore to question or attack that idea transforms from an attack on an idea into an attack on ones person directly. Fundamentalism is a good example where a violation of a belief can be met with mass-murder. People build entire identities around these beliefs. So much so that to destroy those beliefs would be to "destroy" the person.

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Ooooooo, yeah, okay. What a burn.

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It's not a burn...it's a reasonable retort.

Have you ever wondered why, if intercessory prayer really works, we have not seen an amputee have his/her arm or leg grow back?

Now, as a skeptic the answer seems obvious. That intercessory prayer has no effect and occasionally conditions either real or imagines go into remission. We have stories about things like this happening from time to time. But if intercessory prayer really DOES work, then we'd naturally assume that we'd seem something like a regrown limb, or a new eye in an old dry socket. Surely there are devout people of faith who have prayed for a new leg, or a new eye? I can state point blank that if someone prayed for a new leg and then, onstage, a leg started growing back...I'd have to take that as a serious sign that there may be something to it!

But we never, ever see that.

Now...here's the best part...I've been told why on this very board. I was told here that to regrow a leg would remove the essence of faith from the healing!!! Did you get that?!? It's not that is can't be done, but that god decides that to help THOSE people would be giving people too much evidence, so the gift THEY GET is learning how to eat with the other hand, or something about if it doesn't kill you, blah, blah, blah.

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Faith or Simple Positive Outlook are helpful in the healing convalescent process as they impact attitude/approach/ and in some cases homeostasis. Religion/Faith doesn't have a sole claim in the category, but it certainly can be impactful.

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I imagine it can be. It's hard to beat being positive and having a good outlook. I've also read about studies that have shown the opposite...that when people have known they have others praying for them they have actually done worse.

LINK

It's only one study and certainly proves nothing...but I do find in interesting. That it's almost as is that group seems to be under added pressure to do well?

I forget who it was...but some large denomination had spent t on of money to study if intercessory prayer works, and when it did not show an obvious spike they concluded that god did not like to be tested and had refused to answer prayers because of the study! Anyone else remember that? I'll look around and see if I can find a link, because it was pretty humorous.

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different concept.

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Maybe I'm missing the point, because it seems like simply the other side of the coin? If intercessory prayer can be credited for being at least a placebo, then can it not also, potentially, have the same negative effect a placebo can have if the patient really believes he's getting the actual drug and stresses over it having no effect?

Again...I'm just asking. While I clearly see no reason to think intercessory prayer works in terms of getting god to perform miracles (for reasons I'm on record with) the idea that they can still have an effect (either positive or negative) based solely on natural reasons is interesting to me.