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To: Neocon who wrote (1683)	3/8/2002 10:08:40 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 21057

most spontaneous remission very likely occur in a context of prayer Is that assertion based on data, or is it an assumption? Even if it is true, it really doesn't mean much. Let's say we have reliable data correlating prayer and disease remission. Such data cannot be taken as evidence that any supernatural power is involved. There are other possibilities that must be taken into account. First, we must consider the possibility that the people that are being healed are not being healed by any external force, but through as yet understood internal means. One attractive thing about this explanation is that it correlates strongly with empirical observation. It is well known, though not well understood, that a patient's attitude has a powerful effect on the healing process. Patients that fight, that have a powerful will to live, do much better than those who surrender. We may not understand this, but generations of physicians have observed and confirmed it. It is hardly irrational to assume that persons praying for the recovery of a sick or injured person care deeply about that person. It is reasonable to assume that in most cases the sick or injured person also cares deeply for them. Is it hard to imagine that in the average case, a patient who cares deeply for others and is in return deeply cared for is very likely to fight harder, and very likely to tap into whatever internal ability enables those who fight to survive? We must also consider the possibility that those who pray are exerting some direct influence on the recovery process. This would fall into the "psychic power" category, and is less consistent with observed data, but it cannot be dismissed completely. Then of course we can consider the process that these occasional remissions are caused by the conscious intervention of an external power, in response to a petition. One of the fundamental facts about spontaneous remission is that it doesn't happen very often, in any setting. Many people die of diseases, no matter how hard others pray for them. Others recover, sometimes inexplicably. This is known, and we must deal with it. Now if we assume a natural cause, the random and arbitrary nature of the inexplicable recovery phenomenon raises no further questions. Randomness and arbitrariness are fundamental features of natural process. Let's say that people have an innate potential ability to heal themselves. In some this ability will be stronger than in others. Some will be more able to tap that ability than others. Those who do live, those who don't die. This is entirely consistent with all the other natural processes that we see around us. It's the way nature works. If we assume that a conscious decision of a superior power is involved, we have a hell of a lot of explaining to do. If we say that a spontaneous healing in the presence of prayer is the result of a petition deliberately granted, we must also say that people who die horribly despite the prayers of many are cases where a petition is deliberately and consciously rejected. This is tough to explain. Some blame it on the petitioners, claiming that their faith was insufficient. This seems pretty unlikely; if it's true, it reflects pretty poorly on the deity. A more common explanation is that we cannot hope to understand divine ways, and we should just take what's dished out, no matter how shitty it seems, and accept that it's for our own good. This is not, frankly, very satisfactory. The standard response of self-appointed religious intermediaries to these questions, throughout the centuries, has been "have faith". Translated into realspeak, this means "shut up, stop asking questions, and believe what I tell you to believe". Not a very satisfactory answer. It would seem to me that the assumption of a natural, though as yet understood, process has the virtue of simplicity, is most consistent with observed reality, and requires the smallest amount of intellectual tap-dancing to justify. It simply seems a lot more likely, once one escapes the trained-in default assumption of a deity. I would prefer living in a universe where the individual suffering of all mattered, where there was a final reckoning, and where all will be well in the end I hesitate to point out the obvious, but your preference has little or no impact on the nature of reality. I know how I would like things to be. I know that they are not that way and never will be. If I'm curious about the way things are, the first step in looking for answers is to admit that what I want to find has absolutely nothing to do with what I actually will find. You would like to live in a divinely ordered universe. I would like to find $10,000 in cash in my desk drawer tomorrow morning. The impact of these two preferences on what actually is will be exactly the same, which is to say nonexistent.