Effects of Prayers of the Unknown on Heart Surgery
Whenever an ambulance passes my way, I offer a little prayer for the patient even if I do not know him. I don’t really know if it has any effect, all I know is that I find comfort in doing that.
We all know that prayer is the most powerful way in communicating to our Creator. And our Creator is our great Savior so if we pray to Him, He will save us and help us in our problems or suffering especially from death. But in the largest scientific test, Heart Surgery patients showed no benefit when strangers prayed for their recovery. Doctors could only guess why patients knew they were being prayed for had a little higher rate of difficulties. Dr. Harold G. Koenig, director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at the Duke University Medical Center said that Science is not designed to study the supernatural. Patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of complications than patients who only knew that such prayers were a possibility. Maybe they became nervous by the information that they’d been chosen for prayers. The researchers said family and friends should not be disappointed from telling a patient about their plans to pray for a good recovery because the study only focused on prayers by strangers. It is the largest and best-designed study ever to test the medical effects of intercessory prayers, praying on behalf of someone you do not know.
Contradicting indeed, but critics said the question of God’s reaction to prayer just cannot be discovered by scientific study.
