Prayer might not aid healing, but apparently regular church attendance increases life expectancy. I'm sure tomorrow there'll be new studies with opposite findings to both. *rolls eyes*
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You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough.
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Faith Healing
April 4th, 2006 by Funky Dung
Popularity: 1% [?]
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Comments 2
The church attendance study doesn't appear to have also measured average life expectancy for atheists for comparison. What good is that?
Nor does it appear (in the article you linked) to discuss whether the health benefit of attending church is a result of transcendent supernatural or immanent social connectedness. Again, what good is that?
I am also curious whether the "life expectancy tables" consulted in the study included data far into the past. Could it be that church attendance appears to raise life expectancy merely because the church-attending segment of the population is older on average?
Either way, if a positive correlation could be made unequivocally between good health and religious belief, God would become merely a lever to pull for health benefits. But religious people take great pains to insist that God is not merely the effect of a cause and that God does whatever God wants. In the story of Job, God himself is portrayed as taking great pains to insist that God does whatever God wants. If you want to believe in the power of prayer and the health benefits of going to church, then you have to reconcile that with a God who told Job, in essence, "Don't f*** with me!"
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Posted 04 Apr 2006 at 12:44 pm ¶I agree that the methodology in both studies was flawed. I don't understand how anyone could expect science to prove or disprove the existence of God. Falsifiable hypotheses are hard to come by for those trying to prove He does exist and the fact that a negative cannot be proven stumps those trying to proves He does not exist.
IMHO, philosophy is a better arena for this conflict.
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Posted 03 Oct 2006 at 12:40 pm ¶Post a Comment