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How Prayer Healing Works · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
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  Speaker 1: From House Stuff works dot com. This podcast is brought
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  Speaker 1: Try it free? Is it Go to my pc dot
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  Speaker 1: com slash stuff. I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh.
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  Speaker 1: That's Chuck, Chuck Bryant, Josh Clark, not Brian. I'm Josh. Right.
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  Speaker 1: We've got some listener mail claiming that Josh is Brian.
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  Speaker 1: Not true. At least they got the spelling of your
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  Speaker 1: last name almost correct without the tea they that. I
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  Speaker 1: think they used the y generally. Brian. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: So it's not Chucking Brian, it's Chuck Brian and Josh
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  Speaker 1: Clark Bryant. That's what I said. Sure, lighten up. That's
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  Speaker 1: that's neither here nor there. No, it's not what it
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  Speaker 1: is here and what is there is intercessory prayer. Wow,
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  Speaker 1: it's like a bowl in a china shop. Let's go
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  Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, yeah, so Chuck, I don't know how
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  Speaker 1: you feel about this, but um, there there there have
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  Speaker 1: been studies on prayer, right, and actually people who pray,
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  Speaker 1: who who who um pray for themselves for others, but
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  Speaker 1: who spent a significant amount of time praying you could
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  Speaker 1: also call it meditating. Um, they actually lead healthier lives.
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  Speaker 1: Did I read your article? Right? Well? Let me ask
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  Speaker 1: you this because this is something that I was aware
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  Speaker 1: of before I wrote this article. Um, and it was
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  Speaker 1: really interesting to uh to to see how it's been studied.
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  Speaker 1: But I was aware that people have been studying it,
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  Speaker 1: but to find you know, what the methodologies were like
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  Speaker 1: and what the results were. I mean, were you aware
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  Speaker 1: that prayer healed? Is that something that you would have
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  Speaker 1: accepted before you read this article? Or well? You know,
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  Speaker 1: I grew up in the church, in the Christian Church,
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  Speaker 1: and uh, anyone who's who's grown up in church or
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  Speaker 1: has been to church like that knows that prayer is
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  Speaker 1: very central. It's the personal conversation that you have with
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  Speaker 1: with God. And uh so yeah, you're taught from early
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  Speaker 1: on that prayer makes a big, big difference, right, and
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  Speaker 1: and it actually does have a physiological difference or is
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  Speaker 1: that taught as well or is this this a happy byproduct? No,
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  Speaker 1: in my church it wasn't at least Um. They just
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  Speaker 1: said to the type they take it results. I got you, okay. Well,
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  Speaker 1: speaking of results, there have been studies that have have
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  Speaker 1: evaluated people examine people who pray a lot, and they
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  Speaker 1: tend to have lower blood pressure, they have they live longer, um,
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  Speaker 1: their heart rate is generally uh a slower, right, they're
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  Speaker 1: a little they're a little more laid back physiologically than
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  Speaker 1: someone who doesn't pray. Um. And there's been some explanations
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  Speaker 1: for it. Well, yeah, I know one that I think
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  Speaker 1: makes a big difference is many people who are in
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  Speaker 1: fact religious probably tend to lead healthier, cleaner lifestyles issue
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  Speaker 1: things like alcohol and smoking and other things that can
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  Speaker 1: avoiding prostitutes of the Yeah, so uh yeah, I think
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  Speaker 1: that might have a lot to do it personally, It
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  Speaker 1: definitely does. But we're not the only ones who thought
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  Speaker 1: of that. Other people have as well and explained it
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  Speaker 1: away with that. So there's been follow up studies that
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  Speaker 1: took all those factors into account and they still found
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  Speaker 1: that people who pray tend to be healthier. My My
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  Speaker 1: theory is that you're meditating when you pray, you're you're meditating,
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  Speaker 1: You're entering a transcendental state of meditative state, so you're
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  Speaker 1: just more relaxed. And I think if you do that
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  Speaker 1: enough times, your body learns to relax. Yeah, that makes sense,
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  Speaker 1: That's what I think. Okay, So there's not a lot
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  Speaker 1: of people who are I guess, debating whether or not
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  Speaker 1: prayer has an effect on the person who's praying. What
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  Speaker 1: is really contentious is whether or not praying can have
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  Speaker 1: an effect on anyone else or anything else in the universe. Right,
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  Speaker 1: And that's where we get into the real um sticky discussion.
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  Speaker 1: Is ready, Yeah, I'm ready. I know. Growing up, as
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  Speaker 1: I said, in the Christian faith, they would often, uh,
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  Speaker 1: tell us if if a family member, a distant family
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  Speaker 1: member of anyone in the church, we're sick, they would
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  Speaker 1: call upon the church to pray for them. What do
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  Speaker 1: they call this sticks? Prayer lists or prayer shoutouts require
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  Speaker 1: shout I don't yeah, I don't remember, to be honest,
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  Speaker 1: but they would prayer request for people to keep them
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  Speaker 1: in their hearts and minds. Sure, yeah, and you could
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  Speaker 1: actually call in and leave like a voicemail and then
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  Speaker 1: you get added to the list. Right. No, No, I
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  Speaker 1: don't know anything about that. I'm pretty sure I've seen
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  Speaker 1: phone numbers like prayer hotlines. Okay, I kid you not, No,
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  Speaker 1: I believe it. Okay, So you've got this congregation praying
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  Speaker 1: for this person. Do you do you have any anecdotal evidence,
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  Speaker 1: any story of somebody healing from that? Uh? No, I'm
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  Speaker 1: sure that that probably happened here and there, but I
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  Speaker 1: don't remember that stuff. Now. Well, that kind of prayer
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  Speaker 1: is called intercessory prayer, interceding on behalf of somebody, maybe
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  Speaker 1: asking for them to heal. Hopefully you're not praying for
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  Speaker 1: them to die. That could still be considered intercessory prayer.
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  Speaker 1: But for the most part, people pray that somebody's going
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  Speaker 1: to rebound from an illness or get over a streak
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  Speaker 1: of bad luck or something like that. It's also called
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  Speaker 1: distant prayer because you know, you're it's not centered on
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  Speaker 1: the individual or you're you're you're praying out for somebody. Um.
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  Speaker 1: These have also been studied, you know. They There's been
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  Speaker 1: some methodologies over the course of the last couple of decades,
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  Speaker 1: starting with this guy named Randolph Bird, who's a physician,
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  Speaker 1: and he he was the first to create this really
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  Speaker 1: groundbreaking landmark study. It was eighty eight I think and um,
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  Speaker 1: I think he was a cardiac physician. He uh he
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  Speaker 1: assembled I think three hundred and fifty three different people's
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  Speaker 1: um histories and he found people who were statistically inseparable,
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  Speaker 1: meaning that they were the same age. Uh, they were
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  Speaker 1: the same race, they were this, they had the same
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  Speaker 1: heart conditions, they were on paper, they were one and
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  Speaker 1: the same basically. Uh. And he contacted some groups. I
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  Speaker 1: think it was in California where he got in touch
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  Speaker 1: with some different denominations. I think they were all Christian,
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  Speaker 1: but he got in touch with Baptists and Presbyterians and
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  Speaker 1: Catholics and all that. And they had these groups get
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  Speaker 1: together in groups of three or four and these people
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  Speaker 1: would have the name of one patient yeah and UM.
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  Speaker 1: They would pray that they they had a speedy and
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  Speaker 1: um and I think effective recovery something along those lines.
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  Speaker 1: And they prayed for him over the course of I
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  Speaker 1: don't know, several weeks, I believe. UM. And after the
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  Speaker 1: after this prayering of this praying was done, UM, the
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  Speaker 1: the physician Randolph Bird went back and studied who, you know,
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  Speaker 1: who thrived and who didn't, which should also say there's
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  Speaker 1: a control group of people who weren't prayed for. Kay, yeah, yeah, right.
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  Speaker 1: So he actually found that there was a really significant difference,
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  Speaker 1: like a huge difference actually between the recoveries of people
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  Speaker 1: who were prayed for and those who weren't prayed for. Um,
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  Speaker 1: something like eight five percent compared to seventy three point
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  Speaker 1: one percent. That's that's enormous statistically speaking, that's that's very big.
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  Speaker 1: And the thing is is there was no one who
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  Speaker 1: could explain away what happened um Bird's. Bird's study has
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  Speaker 1: never been basically overturned. Um, the people who were praying
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  Speaker 1: didn't know the people they were praying for. The people
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  Speaker 1: who are being prayed for, we're you know, not they
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  Speaker 1: There's there's nothing you can say that says, well, this
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  Speaker 1: is what happened. Because that's a huge statistical difference. It
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  Speaker 1: is that got the attention to the scientific community. So
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  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, there's like a slew of of
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  Speaker 1: basically follow up studies that use birds methodology. This is
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  Speaker 1: the most beautiful thing about Randolph Bird, in my opinion.
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  Speaker 1: He used the scientific method He used science to conduct
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  Speaker 1: an investigation into something that science doesn't believe in, which
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  Speaker 1: is prayer, intercessory prayer. And he created this study in
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  Speaker 1: such a way that, um, it could be modeled like
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  Speaker 1: he he said, here's how you do it. And other
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  Speaker 1: people have followed the same model and they have come
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  Speaker 1: up with with radically different results basically. Um. Another pretty
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  Speaker 1: study was the STEPS study, which is the study for
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  Speaker 1: Study of the Effects of Intercessory Prayer. Um, it was.
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  Speaker 1: It was a huge study. It covered six different medical
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  Speaker 1: centers across the US, and this is published in the
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  Speaker 1: American Heart Journal. So yeah, so it was it was
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  Speaker 1: pretty significant. Um. They they basically broke these groups down
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  Speaker 1: into three groups. Uh, those who received prayer but weren't
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  Speaker 1: aware of it, Uh, those who didn't receive any prayer,
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  Speaker 1: and those who received prayer but and we're aware that
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  Speaker 1: they were being prayed for us. Yeah. Yeah, So this
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  Speaker 1: study it was, like you said, it was. It was
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  Speaker 1: published in the American Heart Journal, which is pretty pretty
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  Speaker 1: big journal as far as they go in in this country. Right. Um,
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  Speaker 1: they found that those who, uh who didn't receive prayer
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  Speaker 1: had about the same kind of recovery as those who
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  Speaker 1: did it. Was like and even worse, those who were
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  Speaker 1: aware that they received prayer actually had the worst results.
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  Speaker 1: It was fifty of them had complications after heart surgery.
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  Speaker 1: So this seems to fly in the face of the
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  Speaker 1: Bird study. Yeah, it does. It's it's it's totally contradictory.
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  Speaker 1: It's also pretty counterintuitive to I mean, how would prayer
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  Speaker 1: be harmful? And that's actually one of the reasons why
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  Speaker 1: people are investigating prayer, why scientists, why it's become kind
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  Speaker 1: of a niche field of study, because it's not really
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  Speaker 1: if if people are praying, uh, maybe we should find
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  Speaker 1: out if it is in fact harmful. You. Science shouldn't
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  Speaker 1: just be like, yeah, go pray, we don't believe in
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  Speaker 1: that whatever. There should be investigations into it. And and
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  Speaker 1: this is kind of startling. People who are aware they're
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  Speaker 1: being prayed for had complications following surgery. That alone warrants
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  Speaker 1: investigation into it. Right, So that that step study was
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  Speaker 1: one of a number that have come up with. Nobody's
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  Speaker 1: ever come up with the kind of statistical difference that
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  Speaker 1: Randolph Bird did, Right. I think personally, Uh, I'm a
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  Speaker 1: bit of a skeptic in life in general, and when
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  Speaker 1: I hear about studies like this. It's to me, prayer
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  Speaker 1: something that's hard to quantify statistically because people pray in
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  Speaker 1: different ways, people pray for different lengths of time. Um,
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  Speaker 1: it just I'm not sure how you could say that
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  Speaker 1: this this solid group that prayed, all prayed exactly the
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  Speaker 1: same in the same way and had the exact same beliefs. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: it's hard to quantify. Yes, it is. And again Randolph
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  Speaker 1: Bird came the closest to it. He told these people
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  Speaker 1: how often to pray? You know, what to say when
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  Speaker 1: they're praying, specifically to pray for Here's the problem with
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  Speaker 1: with studying prayer is you can control these groups of
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  Speaker 1: people who are praying for these heart patients or whatever
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  Speaker 1: as much as you want. But if prayer is real,
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  Speaker 1: if prayer does work right, and you've got somebody else
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  Speaker 1: out there praying for this patient, it completely screws up
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  Speaker 1: the results. Like the patient itself where they told not
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  Speaker 1: to pray for themselves, I I don't know, I don't
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. And and how how would you control that?
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  Speaker 1: Would you want to control that? Apparently prayer is the
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  Speaker 1: number one alternative medicine in America that tops vitamins and herbs,
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  Speaker 1: which is like a multibillion dollar industry. If the best
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  Speaker 1: part is prayers free of course, um, but you can't
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  Speaker 1: control how much prayer. You can't say, here's ten ccs
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  Speaker 1: of prayer, let's see if it has an effect. Um.
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  Speaker 1: And you also can't you can't can't control other people
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  Speaker 1: coming along behind you and saying I'm going to pray
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  Speaker 1: for this person. So it's it's very difficult to study,
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  Speaker 1: and not everybody thinks you should study it, right, And
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  Speaker 1: this is then this is uh, these are people that
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  Speaker 1: are being treated medically as well. This is not Christian
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  Speaker 1: scientists who, from what I understand a lot of times
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  Speaker 1: don't believe in medicine and they only believe in the
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  Speaker 1: power of prayer to heal. Yeah, no, these were These
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  Speaker 1: were people who are being treated through modern innocent and
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  Speaker 1: we're being prayed for, right, So you kind of like,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, there's different doctors and different levels experience,
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  Speaker 1: and so that's something you also have to take into
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  Speaker 1: consideration as well. You can't say that everyone was getting
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  Speaker 1: the exact same care and their whole life history and
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  Speaker 1: whether or not these people typically recover quicker than others.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's a lot of factors that weigh
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  Speaker 1: in here. There are, but you could also make the
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  Speaker 1: argument that all those factors would would appear in any study,
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  Speaker 1: you know, and prayers just like this extra layer um
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  Speaker 1: SmackDown basically just smack me down. Yes, sorry chucking. I
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  Speaker 1: tried to do it gently. Um. But like I said,
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  Speaker 1: not everybody thinks that we should be studying this, right,
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  Speaker 1: and that that falls on both sides. There's obviously um
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  Speaker 1: scientists who are totally skeptical of prayer and think it's
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  Speaker 1: a waste of time and funding. But there's also religious
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  Speaker 1: religious devotes um who believe we shouldn't be studying this
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  Speaker 1: kind of thing either that it's folly um, that you
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  Speaker 1: couldn't possibly study something like and um. One guy put
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  Speaker 1: it that studying heart conditions studying the power of prayer
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  Speaker 1: um is basically like asking a composer with I think
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  Speaker 1: a quadrillion times the talent of Beethoven to uh to
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  Speaker 1: compose the notes to three blind mice. Like, we're we're
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  Speaker 1: getting so granular here, We're missing the big picture, right.
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  Speaker 1: I would love to hear that version of three blind
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  Speaker 1: man be really, really good. So yeah, ultimately the jury
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  Speaker 1: is still out, and I don't know personally whether I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to ever come in. I think it'd be pretty cool.
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  Speaker 1: And I definitely believe that there are aspects of us
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  Speaker 1: as humans and among the universe that science either can
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  Speaker 1: explain under the scientific method or just hasn't figured out
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  Speaker 1: the right methodology to apply it. Definitely don't think science
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  Speaker 1: explains all and anything science can explain doesn't exist, right
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  Speaker 1: And since my uh growing up in the church now
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  Speaker 1: here as an adult, my belief is I'm sort of
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  Speaker 1: it to each his own kind of guy. Now, sure,
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  Speaker 1: if you want to, if you want to pray and
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  Speaker 1: you feel like it has an effect on you and
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  Speaker 1: your family and your loved ones, I say go for it.
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  Speaker 1: If you're skeptic and you don't think that it does,
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  Speaker 1: then you know, don't. Yeah, And and trying to avoid
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  Speaker 1: the harmful praying, you know, where you're you're actually praying
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  Speaker 1: for somebody to you know, become injured. That's just me. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: And I don't think that come on, So different strokes
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: for different folkus then fantastic. Yet, like Gary Coleman, all right, well,
• 15:28
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