Praying for the Placebo Effect.

I know exactly how God feels – assuming that I, an insignificant little ex-monkey, might comprehend even a small portion of the huge vastness that must be God. But then we must all be able to understand God, as Roger Bacon pointed out. Humans either invented God or we recognized the existence of God, so God must be understandable on some level of human understanding, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. And since humans can thus understand God, thinking we can understand something of God sort of makes us all a bunch of arrogant self centered, ego-maniacal ex-monkeys, doesn’t it? I mean, who the hell do we think we are, gods? That’s fucked up thinking, man, but that’s not my point.
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Every year a bunch of con artists make the rounds of evangelical churches, raising money from trusting Christians, claiming they want to climb Mount Ararat and find Noah’s Ark. And I can’t figure out what the hell these idiots are looking for. Yes, I know…Noah’s Ark, but that’s just stupid. In the first place, if they find his Ark, are they going to return it to him? And how will they know it’s not some other ark, left behind by some other holy man, from some other watery apocalypse? And even assuming it has Noah’ name carved on it some place, what do these born-again non-believers expect to achieve? Perhaps they expect a world wide religious revival of … Judaism – since the Ark would validate the Old Testament and not the new. And secondly, if the Ark isn’t up there, would that invalidate the Old Testament? Okay, it wouldn’t help, but why climb a 17,000’ high volcano to prove the nonexistence of God? Can’t you find lose your faith a little closer to home, like in Las Vegas, maybe? I think you can, but that’s not my point.
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I read that a ten year, $2.4 million “Study on the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer”, or STEP for short, was recently concluded The money came from the John Templeton Foundation, and I guess you might call this the Search for Noah’s Bark, or Noah’s lark, or some other indirect evidence, because, again I can’t figure out what the hell these nominally religious and yet faithless people are looking for.
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Allow me to quote from their mission statement: “…It is the Foundation’s purpose to stimulate a high standard of excellence in scholarly understanding which can serve to encourage further worldwide explorations of the moral and spiritual dimensions of the Universe and the human potential within its ultimate purpose.” See, I have no idea what that sentence means. I tried to diagram it, but what I get looks more like an application to a mail order art school than English. Or, to put it another way, whatever the hell these people thought they were looking for, I don’t think they didn’t find it.
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Here’s how they didn’t find whatever the hell they weren’t looking for; they studied 1,802 coronary bypass patients at six different hospitals. Half (about 900) were told outside groups might or might not pray for their speedy recovery, and half were told nobody outside their families gave a damn if they lived or died. Then the first half were subdivided into “got prayers” and “not got prayers’ groups (about 450 each). Then each side was further subdivided into “Know you got prayers” group and “Don’t Know you got prayers”, “Know you don’t got prayers” and “Don’t Know you don’t got prayers” groups. So there were about 250 subjects in each subcategory.
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Three Catholic churches, in St. Paul, Minn., in Worcester, Mass, and in Kansas City, Kansas started praying. Using the patient’s first name and last initials only they asked God for the patient’s “…successful surgery and a quick, healthy recovery and no complications.” Thirty days after each surgery everybody stopped praying.
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This is the same methodology used by the Food & Drug Administration to study Viagra before it went platinum, and in gauging the effectiveness and safety of blood thinners and Botox injections in your forehead. Don’t look too surprised; it’s a purely statistical study, and says nothing about the moral value of any particular drug in helping any particular patient. A new drug that helps only 85% of patients is often considered a great success.
* Unfortunately this study found that, “Third-party Remote Intercessory Prayer…(was) not effective in reducing complications following heart surgery.” In fact, 18% of the ““Don’t know you got Prayers” group had post surgery heart attacks or strokes, while only 13% of the “don’t know you don’t got Prayers” group had serious problems. Being prayed for, the study seemed to imply, could kill you. And that could not have been the intent of the people funding the study.
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Could it be this study has somehow pissed God off, and he took his anger out on the poor subjects who were hoping for divine intervention? Or could it be that God just doesn’t answer Catholic prayers? That might explain the complete failure of the “rhythm method” of birth control for the last 2,000 years. Maybe they should let some Protestants into the prayer groups, or Muslims or Jews. Or even atheists. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants; if praying atheists could cure people? That would screw with everybody’s head.
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The Foundation itself darkly hints at their own disappointment in the study results, when they note questions about the methodology, and call for “…substantial resources (to) be put forth in order to advance methodological rigor in the design and execution of the new “blue ribbon standard” study.”
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You didn’t think the staff were going to acknowledge you can’t equate God with Viagra and then give up their jobs, did you? Hey, they just came back from Mount Ararat, where on their final day on the mountain they saw something in the distance, through the blizzard, in the fading light of the setting sun. They took a picture but the light was so low, their camera was damaged and they had just run out of film, and they had a piece of the Ark in their backpack which they dropped off a cliff before it was stolen from their hotel room and then seized by the Turkish border guards, so if you could just cough up a couple of hundred dollars more next year…..
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The Catholic Church has been selling masses for 2,000 years, and they have a ready explanation for the study results. God listens to all prayers, but he doesn’t answer all prayers. Yes, its a cop out, but it’s a good cop out, and being a cop out doesn’t mean it isn’t true. We’re talking faith, here. And faith means whatever the hell you want it to mean. And I know exactly how God feels about all of that. What a surprise, he feels exactly the same way that I feel about it. And who would have ever thought that would have been the case, especially since I’m an atheist.
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And that’s my point.

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