Prayer won’t work on medical conditions that can’t go into remission on their own. For example: you can’t use prayer to reattach a limb.
Or in other words, prayer can only work, when you can’t be sure if there even is a medical condition in the first place. That is why we can be so certain that it is bullshit.
If you think WebMD is a trustworthy source for information, you’ve already ran your wagon into the ditch.
I assume then that we all agree that prayer can at the very least produce the placebo effect. Is there something free and easy that can produce the same effects as prayer? Perhaps there is something more powerful than prayer that is free and easy and creates community in a better way than religion, something that doesn’t potentially infringe on the Intellect. Perhaps there is something free and easy that is superior to the senses than spirituality. If there is, please enlighten me.
Yeah, you just mentioned something with those properties: placebos. You know, fake treatment. I don’t think it is a coincidence that prayer and fake treatment work about the same.
Yes, but if you want a quick feel good or you want to trick the brain into healing the body, Is there a cheaper or easier way than prayer that is more effective?
Seriously? Did I not just address this?
I’d guess: all methods that don’t work are equally effective.
Why not? You are made of molecules. Your life is sustained by interactions between molecules. The blueprint for your body is encoded in molecules. Why is it difficult to believe that something made from molecules came from other molecules?
While the universe as a whole is moving toward greater entropy, the little backwater that we inhabit is continually receiving energy from the sun and can therefore move toward lesser entropy and greater complexity. Molecules can get bigger and more interesting and more connected until one day you have Newton or Einstein.
Sure, there is meditation and breathing exercises. The simple act of working to breath slowly in and out of your nose, has shown to be measurably more helpful then praying.
In fact much of the “benefits” of praying comes from some semblance of slowing your breathing. Prayer in a highly agitated state has shown little measurable benefit for the individual, especially if the prayer is spoken out loud (interrupts slow breathing.)
I mean, you could always try LSD?
That’s pretty much meditation 2.0
From what I understand the prescription drugs which I take do not mix well with street drugs. If I took LSD it would need to be approved by a trained medical professional, even then long term use of LSD sounds kind of scary.
Slow breathing helps me some, I guess If I practiced it more it would help me even more. However acknowledging a loving entity greater than myself seems to quite often give me the fix I need. I doubt slow breathing would help me with my heartburn much but if I get heartburn again I guess I’ll try to try it.
As far as molecules to man evolution I suppose it goes along with Big Bang cosmology. All that seems to exist at that point is matter, energy, the forces of nature and the information there of from the beginning of the universe to its end. The human things like emotions and free will that we tend to take for granted seem non existent and irrelevant. Which again goes back to the question do things like dreams, thoughts, emotions, consciousness, free will, life and love actually exist?
Yeah, don’t take LSD with strong medcation, one of my friends did that, he was tearing at his clothes and acting crazy all night.
The next day, he told me he was convinced his flesh was rotting and falling off, and everyone was just laughing at him. 
The only time intercessory prayer has ever been tested under proper scrutiny in properly conducted clinical trials it was found to have no discernible effect whatsoever. I have no interest in what people claim.
Wildly…
Have you tried searching for evidence of mermaids?
I got mixed results…
No I don’t agree, the human mind produces the placebo effect.
noun
Prayer isn’t effective, you just said the best one can attribute is a placebo effect. Intercessory prayer has been tested in strict clinical trials, and was found to have no discernible effect. IT DOESN’T WORK…
I can’t remember which thread the idea of aliens visiting earth was brought up on, but this is as good a thread as any to share this. Yesterday:
So the headline leads one to “reach their conclusion” BUT through a suggestion. A one sided suggestion. No alternative is offered - so one might conclude further that it is a mystery.
HOWEVER …a little google search reveals this footage from last May.
Hmmm 
… perhaps not “so” mysterious. A person could google where exactly the ISS was and then google the location of the Starlink 
, I couldn’t be bothered 
Interestingly enough, those two things can’t be the same thing.
This distancing is different, also the flight patterns, the apace ex video, they are seemingly moving in a train, where as that’s not what the Northern lights peak video showed, they weren’t moving in a orbiting pattern.
Still, easy to make such a video and claim its real 
I wouldn’t make such a claim…unless you have evidence.
The time lapse “however, they were actually visible for 52 seconds,“ isn’t accounted for visually in the video.
What do you “think” is being observed. Is the sunlight reflecting off the later satellites (in the chain) as demonstrated at about 21-23 sec of the 2nd video?
This link is low orbit. How low? What are the angles from the ISS to the “object” - is the size measurable?
All I’m saying is jumping to the suggestion that it is “alien” before investigating more “earthly” answers is irrational. “Playing with the idea 
“ is fun, but not necessarily apart of our “reality”.
If I’m an honest, I am leaning more towards this is man made in nature.
I feel, when the real deal footage is uploaded, even the most isolated communities will hear about it.
But until then, we can just sit tight and wait for that day, when official first contact is made.
Wasn’t there a possible Dyson sphere detected out in space a few years back, a star was sending very unique signals, almost as if it had a massive alien super structure built around it?
I’m so sad I’ll never get to witness a Dyson sphere in my life time.
