Does prayer work

1
Does prayer work?
If prayer workswhy does it work???

• Most famous prayer experiment
• 1980s at San Francisco General Hospital.

• By Cardiologist Randolph Byrd

393 heart patients were studied over a 10 month
period
192 - were prayed for by a prayer group of
different religions. 201 were not prayed for
2
They used the Double Blind Experimental Technique

• Neither the patients, nurses nor doctors knew
  which group any individual patient was in.

• Each experimental group had between 5-7 people
  praying for him/her.

3
The result are as followsThe patients who were
prayed for were

• 5 times less likely to need antibiotics than
• the others

• 3 times less likely to develop pulmonary edema
• (Pulmonary edema refers to the buildup of fluid
  in the lungs
• caused by back pressure in the lung veins.)

• None needed endrotracheal intubation
• (An endotracheal intubation places a tube into
  the windpipe
• trachea. This is done to open the airway to
  administer
• oxygen, medication, or anesthesia. It may
  also be done to
• remove blockages or to view the interior
  walls.)

4
John Templton now donates 60 million yearly for
spiritual research.

• One beneficiary is a Duke University professor
  who is investigating the impact that regular
  church attendance has on blood pressure.
• Another is Calvin College, which puts on
  Templeton-sponsored seminars with titles such as
  "Evolutionary Psychology and Scripture
  Scholarship More Similar Than You Might Have
  Thought.

• The 1.5 million Templeton Prize for Progress
  Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual
  Realities has been given to everyone from Mother
  Teresa to physicist Freeman J. Dyson to
  Watergate-felon-turned-evangelist Charles Colson.