PRAYING NO MORE THAN PREYING ON THE FOOLS
The following passages are from Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion (p. 63). After debating with agnostics, I find that they are dead set against accepting that the existence or non-existence of the god hypothesis is capable of proof. So let us just say that the following prayer experiment is an attempt to discover if the Universe contains any wonder-working magic in it that the act of praying can elicit from hiding. If we can design enough real experiments that test if there are wonder working marvels in the Universe, then we may not be able to prove whether or not the hypothesis of god is provable, but we can slowly whittle away at the hypothetical wonder worker's powers. We can limit its reach, whatever it is, so to speak. Anyhow, here's a report that shows the severe limitations of prayer.
[SNIP]
Dr. Benson and his team monitored 1,802 patients at six hospitals, all of whom received coronary bypass surgery. The patients were divided into three groups. Group 1 received prayers and didn't know it. Group 2 (the control group) received no prayers and didn't know it. Group 3 received prayers and did know it. The comparison between Groups 1 and 2 tests for the efficacy of intercessory prayer. Group 3 tests for possible psychosomatic effects of knowing that one is being prayed for.
Prayers were delivered by the congregations of three churches, one in Minnesota, one in Massachusetts and one in Missouri, all distant from the three hospitals. The praying individuals, as explained, were given only the first name and initial letter of the surname of each patient for whom they were to pray. It is good experimental practice to standardize as far as possible, and they were all, accordingly, told to include in their prayers the phrase ‘for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications’.
The results, reported in the American Heart Journal of April 2006, were clear-cut. There was no difference between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not. What a surprise. There was a difference between those who knew they had been prayed for and those who did not know one way or the other; but it went in the wrong direction. Those who knew they had been the beneficiaries of prayer suffered significantly more complications than those who did not. Was God doing a bit of smiting, to show his disapproval of the whole barmy enterprise? It seems more probable that those patients who knew they were being prayed for suffered additional stress in consequence: 'performance anxiety', as the experimenters put it. Dr. Charles Bethea, one of the researchers, said, 'It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?' In today's litigious society, is it too much to hope that those patients suffering heart complications, as a consequence of knowing they were receiving experimental prayers, might put together a class action lawsuit against the Templeton Foundation?
It will be no surprise that this study was opposed by theologians….
[PASTIE]
And why do you suppose theologians opposed the experiment? Couldn't be because they know what nonsense their profession preaches and can't bear the thought of suffering loss of status—one of the traits left over from their evolutionary pasts?
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
Monday, March 03, 2008
Friday, June 08, 2007
AN ATHEIST’S MEDITATION
Recently, I’ve been rereading Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. I first read it a long time ago when I was failing to complete my first attempt at graduate school in Carbondale, Illinois. And of that whole book of which my memories are quite fond, I came across this brief piece of dialogue that struck me as true for myself and others at different times of our lives. Doc Reefy tells George Willard’s dying mother, “I had come to the time in my life when prayer became necessary and so I invented gods and prayed to them. I did not say my prayers in words nor did I kneel down but sat perfectly still in my chair.” Since I know for a fact that all gods that people believe in are made up, Doc Reefy’s words are quite powerful.
Well, there are no longer gods in my life to sit still in a chair for, but I’m learning, at age 69, how to sit still on a park bench (or in my living room at home) and silently open myself in a sensible and wonderful way, and, some days, down by the Columbia River now, I can so clear my mind of all gods and so inhabit my body that I become blissful and want to stand and reel, twirling down the street with my face tilted to the sun. And, though I don’t actually reel down the street, I stand and walk with squinted eyes, or sometimes closed when no one is approaching to run into, and I find myself in a state of bliss when I get into these meditative states of mind, and it’s a very wonderful sense of being alive that rushes in to fill me up and every animate and inanimate thing around me verges on the mystical. Who needs gods who are mere copies of mortals with all a mortal’s failings?
GENETIC TESTING—MAKING SPACE FOR IT
The trip to Mars and back is taxing NASA’s imagination. Below you’ll find a few snippets of info from a “NASA document on crew health” that I clipped from a news article released by the Associated Press who obtained it, using the freedom of information act that liberals passed way back when in the Vietnam era. Thank you, AP, for your diligence in obtaining the info and thank you, liberals, for putting such a law in place so that the AP can use it.
The trip to Mars and back will take three long years. Being still a healthy, normally-functioning male animal, one of the two items that really pricked up my ears (pardon the pun) was sex—what’ll a mixed sex crew do about that ancient temptation or, at least, for privacy for masturbatory urges? Read on MacDuff:
[SNIP]
How do you get rid of the body of a dead astronaut on a three-year mission to Mars and back.
When should the plug be pulled on a critically ill astronaut who is using up precious oxygen and endangering the rest of the crew? Should NASA employ DNA testing to weed out astronauts who might get a disease on a long flight?
Sex is not mentioned in the document and has long been almost a taboo topic at NASA. Williams said the question of sex in space is not a matter of crew health but a behavioral issue that will have to be taken up by others at NASA.
Mars-bound astronauts will not always be able to rely on instructions from Mission Control, since it would take nearly a half-hour for a question to be asked and an answer to come back via radio.
NASA will consider whether astronauts must undergo preventive surgery, such as an appendectomy, to head off medical emergencies during a mission, and whether astronauts should be required to sign living wills with end-of-life instructions.
Already, NASA is considering genetic screening in choosing crews on the long-duration missions. That is now prohibited.
[PASTE]
The one truly most interesting issue NASA is thinking about, as far as the human race is concerned, is genetic testing to weed out potential health problems. Here’s the elephant nose under the circus tent. Not that I oppose genetic testing. I’m semi for it. I don’t believe I would have minded much had I been aborted in my first trimester if it turned out that I had a 90% chance of becoming a serial killer or of having MS. It’s what would have happened in my later years had I survived that would be causing me the most travail now.
I know that what I’ve just said will cause great anguish to serial killers and people with serious health problems and those that love them, but the excruciating anguish is because these genetic defects survived the first trimester. Once one of us human animals is conscious, of course the whole damn debate takes on different dimensions and different sensibilities, and I know that and I hope so do you. Some day, if we survive overpopulation, we’ll need to discuss these issues like reasonably reasonable adults. I doubt that most of the human species is up to that discussion yet. I’ll long ago have returned to the same state of being as that of an aborted fetus by that time.
Recently, I’ve been rereading Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. I first read it a long time ago when I was failing to complete my first attempt at graduate school in Carbondale, Illinois. And of that whole book of which my memories are quite fond, I came across this brief piece of dialogue that struck me as true for myself and others at different times of our lives. Doc Reefy tells George Willard’s dying mother, “I had come to the time in my life when prayer became necessary and so I invented gods and prayed to them. I did not say my prayers in words nor did I kneel down but sat perfectly still in my chair.” Since I know for a fact that all gods that people believe in are made up, Doc Reefy’s words are quite powerful.
Well, there are no longer gods in my life to sit still in a chair for, but I’m learning, at age 69, how to sit still on a park bench (or in my living room at home) and silently open myself in a sensible and wonderful way, and, some days, down by the Columbia River now, I can so clear my mind of all gods and so inhabit my body that I become blissful and want to stand and reel, twirling down the street with my face tilted to the sun. And, though I don’t actually reel down the street, I stand and walk with squinted eyes, or sometimes closed when no one is approaching to run into, and I find myself in a state of bliss when I get into these meditative states of mind, and it’s a very wonderful sense of being alive that rushes in to fill me up and every animate and inanimate thing around me verges on the mystical. Who needs gods who are mere copies of mortals with all a mortal’s failings?
GENETIC TESTING—MAKING SPACE FOR IT
The trip to Mars and back is taxing NASA’s imagination. Below you’ll find a few snippets of info from a “NASA document on crew health” that I clipped from a news article released by the Associated Press who obtained it, using the freedom of information act that liberals passed way back when in the Vietnam era. Thank you, AP, for your diligence in obtaining the info and thank you, liberals, for putting such a law in place so that the AP can use it.
The trip to Mars and back will take three long years. Being still a healthy, normally-functioning male animal, one of the two items that really pricked up my ears (pardon the pun) was sex—what’ll a mixed sex crew do about that ancient temptation or, at least, for privacy for masturbatory urges? Read on MacDuff:
[SNIP]
How do you get rid of the body of a dead astronaut on a three-year mission to Mars and back.
When should the plug be pulled on a critically ill astronaut who is using up precious oxygen and endangering the rest of the crew? Should NASA employ DNA testing to weed out astronauts who might get a disease on a long flight?
Sex is not mentioned in the document and has long been almost a taboo topic at NASA. Williams said the question of sex in space is not a matter of crew health but a behavioral issue that will have to be taken up by others at NASA.
Mars-bound astronauts will not always be able to rely on instructions from Mission Control, since it would take nearly a half-hour for a question to be asked and an answer to come back via radio.
NASA will consider whether astronauts must undergo preventive surgery, such as an appendectomy, to head off medical emergencies during a mission, and whether astronauts should be required to sign living wills with end-of-life instructions.
Already, NASA is considering genetic screening in choosing crews on the long-duration missions. That is now prohibited.
[PASTE]
The one truly most interesting issue NASA is thinking about, as far as the human race is concerned, is genetic testing to weed out potential health problems. Here’s the elephant nose under the circus tent. Not that I oppose genetic testing. I’m semi for it. I don’t believe I would have minded much had I been aborted in my first trimester if it turned out that I had a 90% chance of becoming a serial killer or of having MS. It’s what would have happened in my later years had I survived that would be causing me the most travail now.
I know that what I’ve just said will cause great anguish to serial killers and people with serious health problems and those that love them, but the excruciating anguish is because these genetic defects survived the first trimester. Once one of us human animals is conscious, of course the whole damn debate takes on different dimensions and different sensibilities, and I know that and I hope so do you. Some day, if we survive overpopulation, we’ll need to discuss these issues like reasonably reasonable adults. I doubt that most of the human species is up to that discussion yet. I’ll long ago have returned to the same state of being as that of an aborted fetus by that time.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
GROVELING
This morning I had a bad start. I’m not sure why, but, suddenly, I felt weary and defeated, scared and lost and, popping into my head, came an urge to fall to my knees and pray. A picture of myself on my knees, head bowed, emerged into my consciousness.
I’ve had that urge in the past, back in my drinking days and in my early days of recovery, when despair would overwhelm me, and I usually gave in to the urge to drop to my knees back when I believed. There seemed to always come some relief in the act of lowering myself down to my knees or falling face first onto a bed or couch and letting a pile of prayer words flood my consciousness. This morning, I didn’t want to give in to the urge to pray, but I did sit down and close my eyes and silently self-talk myself. Just sitting down helped. I didn’t try to meditate, just sat there, silently talking to myself.
Finally, as my weak, ex-Christian loser emotions subsided, I asked myself why this despairing feeling happened, what was it about? This is the moment among believers that they say is proof of god. They say this desperate urge comes from god directly and is a sign that humans have a hole in themselves that only god can fill. And I must admit the feeling of lostness can be almost overwhelming. So I entertained the idea for a second, but, then, another idea began to emerge, a more rational idea.
Suppose, I told myself, this urge to lower oneself (bow down, grovel) is a purely animal instinct that animals feel when they lose a fight or feel overwhelmingly outmatched by an opponent. The urge to get down on one’s knees and pray might be the instinctual, animal self struggling with the human mental self, and, at times, human consciousness loses and just wants to surrender and fall back on all fours like the animal it once was. Praying on one’s knees is halfway back to an animal on all fours.
Now that makes good sense to me—the god idea in some of us is that animal part of us that rules over our conscious selves, pushing us to bend and crawl up the earth once more. It’s as if, at times, our minds grow tired of remaining human and standing upright, then the evolved animal body takes over and forces us to our knees. This is another proof to me that believers are, ironically, bound by their urges into agreement with evolution even as they consciously resist it. And, I suppose, neither am I totally free of my animal self or the urge to pray (i.e. be an animal on all fours) would no longer strike me.
Later, as I wrote this account out, I began to realize two reasons why I felt so defeated and needy of succor this morning. Last night, a young woman snubbed me, not me exactly, but I was talking to her boyfriend about Dancing Wu Li Masters and after a time she just got bored or threatened by the topic (my atheism) and walked away. My ancient troubles with women can still strike very deep (they echo evolutionary struggle and male defeat when I’m spurned, don't they?) and can cause out of proportion emotional reactions of helpless defeat. Then, also, this morning I overheard during a TV segment that 60% of Americans still believe that the world was created in 6 days. Their ignorance, of course, is an enemy still too huge for me to overcome so, of course, my animal self wanted to bow to that ignorance, give up and surrender, and, the irony, is that the surrender would be a victory for me, through them, because I would return closer to my animal self when I get down on my knees to pray, thus, proving to myself that evolution is true and still active in me and them.
Finally, the realization of what emotional forces were at work in me and perhaps an awareness of how deep the struggle is between the on-all-fours animal in me and the upright human in me brought me back to peace and sanity. Science, reason—the truth will definitely set us free. Religion, superstition—their lie will certainly enslave us.
REPUBLICANS PERVERT AMERICAN JUSTICE TO OWN ENDS or
NOTHING NEW ABOUT FUNDAMENTALIST REPUBLICANS?
In more revelations coming from investigations into the Justice Department’s firing of fair-minded attorneys and their replacement by rightwing lawyers (from Liberty University? we must ask), American patriots can see that in every which way but loose these fundamentalist Republicans have sought to turn our American justice system into an attack dog for fundamentalist Republican’s religious and political, partisan aims. This is serious stuff, folks.
[SNIPPIT]
Federal law and internal Justice Department rules bar taking such affiliations into account in hiring career personnel, the Justice Department has said. Yesterday's letter revealed that the internal inquiry will examine the hiring practices of Justice officials besides Goodling and outside the attorney general's office.
The expansion comes in the wake of claims by former Justice officials that selections by the Attorney General's Honors Program and the department's Summer Law Intern Program were rigged in favor of candidates with connections to conservative or Republican groups. In response, the department this spring agreed to place them back under the control of career officials.
The programs were overseen last year by Michael J. Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, and both Elston and McNulty approved the recent change.
The inquiry will also look at hiring practices within the Civil Rights Division, from which dozens of career lawyers have departed. The career personnel repeatedly clashed with Bush administration political appointees, who overruled them on pivotal voting-rights cases in Georgia and Texas.
[PASTEIT]
This morning I had a bad start. I’m not sure why, but, suddenly, I felt weary and defeated, scared and lost and, popping into my head, came an urge to fall to my knees and pray. A picture of myself on my knees, head bowed, emerged into my consciousness.
I’ve had that urge in the past, back in my drinking days and in my early days of recovery, when despair would overwhelm me, and I usually gave in to the urge to drop to my knees back when I believed. There seemed to always come some relief in the act of lowering myself down to my knees or falling face first onto a bed or couch and letting a pile of prayer words flood my consciousness. This morning, I didn’t want to give in to the urge to pray, but I did sit down and close my eyes and silently self-talk myself. Just sitting down helped. I didn’t try to meditate, just sat there, silently talking to myself.
Finally, as my weak, ex-Christian loser emotions subsided, I asked myself why this despairing feeling happened, what was it about? This is the moment among believers that they say is proof of god. They say this desperate urge comes from god directly and is a sign that humans have a hole in themselves that only god can fill. And I must admit the feeling of lostness can be almost overwhelming. So I entertained the idea for a second, but, then, another idea began to emerge, a more rational idea.
Suppose, I told myself, this urge to lower oneself (bow down, grovel) is a purely animal instinct that animals feel when they lose a fight or feel overwhelmingly outmatched by an opponent. The urge to get down on one’s knees and pray might be the instinctual, animal self struggling with the human mental self, and, at times, human consciousness loses and just wants to surrender and fall back on all fours like the animal it once was. Praying on one’s knees is halfway back to an animal on all fours.
Now that makes good sense to me—the god idea in some of us is that animal part of us that rules over our conscious selves, pushing us to bend and crawl up the earth once more. It’s as if, at times, our minds grow tired of remaining human and standing upright, then the evolved animal body takes over and forces us to our knees. This is another proof to me that believers are, ironically, bound by their urges into agreement with evolution even as they consciously resist it. And, I suppose, neither am I totally free of my animal self or the urge to pray (i.e. be an animal on all fours) would no longer strike me.
Later, as I wrote this account out, I began to realize two reasons why I felt so defeated and needy of succor this morning. Last night, a young woman snubbed me, not me exactly, but I was talking to her boyfriend about Dancing Wu Li Masters and after a time she just got bored or threatened by the topic (my atheism) and walked away. My ancient troubles with women can still strike very deep (they echo evolutionary struggle and male defeat when I’m spurned, don't they?) and can cause out of proportion emotional reactions of helpless defeat. Then, also, this morning I overheard during a TV segment that 60% of Americans still believe that the world was created in 6 days. Their ignorance, of course, is an enemy still too huge for me to overcome so, of course, my animal self wanted to bow to that ignorance, give up and surrender, and, the irony, is that the surrender would be a victory for me, through them, because I would return closer to my animal self when I get down on my knees to pray, thus, proving to myself that evolution is true and still active in me and them.
Finally, the realization of what emotional forces were at work in me and perhaps an awareness of how deep the struggle is between the on-all-fours animal in me and the upright human in me brought me back to peace and sanity. Science, reason—the truth will definitely set us free. Religion, superstition—their lie will certainly enslave us.
REPUBLICANS PERVERT AMERICAN JUSTICE TO OWN ENDS or
NOTHING NEW ABOUT FUNDAMENTALIST REPUBLICANS?
In more revelations coming from investigations into the Justice Department’s firing of fair-minded attorneys and their replacement by rightwing lawyers (from Liberty University? we must ask), American patriots can see that in every which way but loose these fundamentalist Republicans have sought to turn our American justice system into an attack dog for fundamentalist Republican’s religious and political, partisan aims. This is serious stuff, folks.
[SNIPPIT]
Federal law and internal Justice Department rules bar taking such affiliations into account in hiring career personnel, the Justice Department has said. Yesterday's letter revealed that the internal inquiry will examine the hiring practices of Justice officials besides Goodling and outside the attorney general's office.
The expansion comes in the wake of claims by former Justice officials that selections by the Attorney General's Honors Program and the department's Summer Law Intern Program were rigged in favor of candidates with connections to conservative or Republican groups. In response, the department this spring agreed to place them back under the control of career officials.
The programs were overseen last year by Michael J. Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, and both Elston and McNulty approved the recent change.
The inquiry will also look at hiring practices within the Civil Rights Division, from which dozens of career lawyers have departed. The career personnel repeatedly clashed with Bush administration political appointees, who overruled them on pivotal voting-rights cases in Georgia and Texas.
[PASTEIT]
Friday, May 11, 2007
TENET’S MENDED MENDACITY REMAINDERED
No matter how much I enjoy Tenet trying to put GWB on the hot seat, according to this report in the Village Voice, George Tenet ain’t no virgin when it comes to being a Bush trollop.
[RIP AND TEAR]
On February 5, 2003, Colin Powell made the Bush regime's case for war at the U.N. Security Council . . . . The next day, February 6, was the National Prayer Breakfast, where the blood lust was palpable.
The AP's Ron Fournier wrote a perfunctory account of "the 51-year-old tradition that brings hundreds of lawmakers, military leaders, foreign heads of state, and spiritual leaders together in prayer." The crowd, wrote Fournier, "included 56 senators, 240 House members, first lady Laura Bush, National Security Director Condoleezza Rice, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and CIA Director George Tenet. . . ."
[To this assembled multitude of sycophants, before the invasion began, George Tenet made the following prayer/speech.]
God teaches us to be resolute in the face of evil, using all of the weapons and armor that the word of God supplies.
In chapter six of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, we're told, Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stance against the devil's schemes.
Our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the principalities, against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Therefore, put on the whole armor of God so that when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything to stand, stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of justice in place and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes with the gospel of peace.
Take up the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and pray at all times.
[GLUE AND TAPE]
What shivers me timbers about Tenet’s prayer is that it reveals the stance by all the religious Tenets of the world—Bushies, Bush, Xtian fundamentalists, Islamic fascist terrorists, American terrorist Pat Robertson, Falwell and all—that their enemies wear the “faces of evil". Such beliefs are a threat to democratic debate and freedom of expression. On every hand we meet these people who do not seem to have an American bone in their bodies. They seem to have been born in Iran or some other theocratic country and, then, to have melted and congealed on the streets of Washington DC like rancid hamburger fat from the loins of the Idi Amins, Hitlers and Saddams of the world.
No matter how much I enjoy Tenet trying to put GWB on the hot seat, according to this report in the Village Voice, George Tenet ain’t no virgin when it comes to being a Bush trollop.
[RIP AND TEAR]
On February 5, 2003, Colin Powell made the Bush regime's case for war at the U.N. Security Council . . . . The next day, February 6, was the National Prayer Breakfast, where the blood lust was palpable.
The AP's Ron Fournier wrote a perfunctory account of "the 51-year-old tradition that brings hundreds of lawmakers, military leaders, foreign heads of state, and spiritual leaders together in prayer." The crowd, wrote Fournier, "included 56 senators, 240 House members, first lady Laura Bush, National Security Director Condoleezza Rice, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and CIA Director George Tenet. . . ."
[To this assembled multitude of sycophants, before the invasion began, George Tenet made the following prayer/speech.]
God teaches us to be resolute in the face of evil, using all of the weapons and armor that the word of God supplies.
In chapter six of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, we're told, Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stance against the devil's schemes.
Our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the principalities, against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Therefore, put on the whole armor of God so that when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything to stand, stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of justice in place and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes with the gospel of peace.
Take up the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and pray at all times.
[GLUE AND TAPE]
What shivers me timbers about Tenet’s prayer is that it reveals the stance by all the religious Tenets of the world—Bushies, Bush, Xtian fundamentalists, Islamic fascist terrorists, American terrorist Pat Robertson, Falwell and all—that their enemies wear the “faces of evil". Such beliefs are a threat to democratic debate and freedom of expression. On every hand we meet these people who do not seem to have an American bone in their bodies. They seem to have been born in Iran or some other theocratic country and, then, to have melted and congealed on the streets of Washington DC like rancid hamburger fat from the loins of the Idi Amins, Hitlers and Saddams of the world.
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