Faith Can Help To Heal Sickness

I will show that praying, or using faith to heal someone else does not work. In 2006, there was a study conducted to answer the question of whether or not prayer helped. He looked at over 1800 coronary bypass surgeries. This was a controlled experiment. Groups 1 and 2 was told they may or may not be receiving prayers, but only groups 1 was really receiving them. Group 3 was told they were receiving prayers, and were receiving prayers. Groups 1 and groups 2 died at 51% and 52% respectively. This is not significant enough to draw conclusions in either direction, as the groups is not large enough to escape such a minor margin of error. 59% of those in group 3, who knew they were being prayed for, died. [1]Many explanations for the increase in death experienced by the groups who knew they were being prayed for have been speculated. Richard Dawkins, the author of the god delusion, states that ""It seems more probable that those patients who knew they were being prayed for suffered additional stress in consequence: 'performance anxiety', " [2]. A person involved intimately with the expiriment offered a similar conclusion; "It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team? ". I personally feel that it is more likely that there is a more significant margin of error, and the 8% difference between those that were told they might be receiving prayer and did and those receiving prayer is not significant enough across 1800 people to draw the conclusion that one of these three methods makes a true impact on your chance of surviving. What it does show at the very least, is that prayer did not help these people. The group that did best received prayer, but were told they might be receiving prayer, and did not do much better then those told they might be receiving, but did not. It is quite possible that Dawkins and the other researcher are correct, and the nocebo [3] effect was in play. The nocebo effect refers to a harmless, or not beneficial treatment, wherein the patients suffers negative effects due to the belief that it is harmful. It is quite plausable that the nocebo effect played some role in the varied effects of the study. There is a reason why people use placebos in expirements. Often times, as I shall demonstrate below, people get significant health benefits, simply because they believe they are getting health benefits. To test the effectiveness of a new treatment, doctors test the treatment against the belief that you were given a real treatment. It is generally agreed by all, that psychological conditioning plays a significant role in ones recuperation. However, the psychological patterns that faith gives to a patient that may benefit them, can be eisily repeated by other circumstances. "Because the placebo effect is based upon expectations and conditioning, the effect disappears if the patient is told that their expectations are unrealistic, or that the placebo intervention is ineffective. " [4] Since strong belief is slowly fading in the modern world, and atheism and agnosticism is on the rise (19.7% are unafilliated and steadily rising. Of them 5.5% of the percentage are Atheist and agnostic and rising), the faith placebo is becomming less and less effective over an increasing number of patients. Rather, other psychological factors can be of much importance to the psychology of a patient. Confident doctors and nurses, as well as showing that a doctor is experienced, and a lack of general worry surrounding the operation can be shown to have positive effects on the patient, regardless of whether the doctor is truly more experienced or skilled. [1] Benson H, Dusek JA, Sherwood JB, et al. (April 2006). "Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: a multicenter randomized trial of uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer". [2] The God Delusion by C. Richard Dawkins [3] Kennedy (1961), p.204 [4] Montgomery GH, Kirsch I (1997). "Classical conditioning and the placebo effect". [5] CIA American Religious Statistics. Last update to publicly accessible data unknown.