TruthBook Religious News Blog

May 5, 2009

The scientific blogosphere, as well as the Washington, D.C., rumor mill, are buzzing this week about geneticist Francis Collins's latest project: a new foundation and Web site created "to engage America's escalating culture war between science and faith."

The new venture is funded by the Templeton Foundation, which supports research exploring the interface of science and religion.

—Jocelyn Kaiser

Please click on "external source" for a link to Dr Collins' website, Biologos.

Labels: faith, Francis Collins, Jocelyn Kaiser, science, Templeton Foundation

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Friday, May 30, 2008

Putting Faith Under the Microscope

By Christy Hall Robinson Thursday, May 29, 2008

Has science made belief in God obsolete? Two scholars debate the Templeton Foundation’s latest ‘Big Question.’

When confronted with the inexplicable and uncontrollable, people often invoke a higher power to make sense of the world around them. But at a time of staggering advances in areas such as genetics and reproductive technology, has science made belief in God obsolete?

The Templeton Foundation posed that question as the third in its series of “Big Questions.” It asked 13 leading scientists, scholars, and commentators—from across the religious and political spectrum—to respond in essay form. At a recent American Enterprise Institute event, two of the essayists, Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and William D. Phillips, a professor at the University of Maryland and a Nobel Laureate in physics, squared off in person.

Shermer, who wrote in his essay that the “veracity of a proposition is independent of the number of people who believe it,” said that, while science probably makes God obsolete, it certainly has not made belief in Him obsolete. According to a 2007 Harris Poll, 82 percent of adult Americans believe that there is a God. In 1916, Shermer noted, a survey found that 40 percent of practicing scientists believed in God. That figure is roughly commensurate with the percentage of scientists today who affirm faith in God.

Phillips, himself a scientist and a practicing Christian who talks openly about his faith, wrote in his essay that “a scientist can believe in God because such belief is not a scientific matter.” At the AEI conference, he was eager to find common ground with Shermer, particularly on the lack of empirical proof of God’s existence. Phillips said that examining belief in God from a scientific vantage point was the wrong approach, since one cannot measure God scientifically. “I do not believe that science is ever going to prove the existence of God,” he explained, “nor do I believe that science is ever going to disprove the existence of God.” The real question, Phillips said, is not a scientific one, and it should not be dealt with in a scientific paradigm. He maintained that people want to experience religion the way they do art, music, or love.

Shermer, however, insisted that religion cannot be separated wholly from science, because “at some point, if you believe in God, you just have to believe that he’s…entering our world. And if he’s entering our world, isn’t he doing it in some measurable way? And now we’re back to the natural world.” Phillips, while assuring Shermer that he believes God does work in the world—he is a theist, not a deist—said that he “has a hunch” that God does so in “undetectable” ways.

If one cannot trace God’s actions or presence in the world, “what’s the difference between an invisible God and a nonexistent God?” asked Shermer.

“For you, none,” Phillips replied. “But for me, I claim that I can feel God’s presence in my life.”

He continued: “The problem here is that you’re thinking . . . the whole question is about whether or not God exists. I already have an answer to that. It’s not a scientific answer. My question is: what does God want me to do?” Shermer, recognizing that Phillips’s insistence about the question not being a scientific one was a refusal to engage the issue on the given terms—whether science makes belief in God obsolete—suggested that the conversation was at an end.

Shermer said that he understands the draw of transcendence, of finding “something grander than me.” Religion is the ultimate source of explanation, Shermer added, and while he may not need it, he understands why other people do. Phillips was unflappable. “It’s not like I’m without my doubts, but I’m comfortable with those doubts,” he said.

Christy Hall Robinson is an associate editor at the American Enterprise Institute.

Labels: belief, Christy Hall Robinson, faith, God, Michael Shermer, science, Templeton Foundation, William D. Phillips

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Monday, November 12, 2007

Do Intercessory Prayers Work?

By Mansur Hallaj Sindhi

28 September, 2007
Countercurrents.org

As a child, the author learnt that self help, rather than prayers or dua would help. The result of a recent comprehensive study about intercessory prayers, which is common in Christianity and Islam, showed that it does not work. Similarly, having people pray for rain as often done by our leaders is futile.

Before long I realized from my report card that the Almighty had better things to attend to than listen to a lad in Karachi. This was about the time that science education, books and film documentaries had raised doubts in my mind about this method of marks-enhancement. Plain hard work turned out to be a surer way to success. This was also the time when I became aware of the importance of prime numbers and began wondering about the magic of '3' and '7': the first was the number of times one washed each limb before prayers; ablution and '3' went together. As for '7' that would be a whole new ball game…

At university I became aware of the historical battles between science and religion, starting with the case of Galileo, and the continuing lack of acceptance of Darwin's theory of evolution. After considerable amount of reading and thought I could no longer keep the ideas of science and religion in separate compartments .

Science is our way of arriving at empirical truths. Its process of refining truths or turning them around completely are evolutionary, in that when people come up with better ideas and experimental results, old findings are altered or discarded. In contrast, most religious scholars refuse to accept that religious texts need to be interpreted differently for each age to match the findings of science and be in line with rational thinking. This is particularly so for areas where interpretations of religion generally differ from what science offers. But for religion to be relevant to people's lives its interpreted doctrines cannot be in opposition to what is found by science, whose strength is based on the idea that there is no finality in ideas. Therefore for religion to remain alive and relevant to modern believers, its interpreters should exercise flexibility. This means not trying to force science into the straight-jacket of religion.

Some of these contentious issues will become clearer through a discussion of a ten-year rigorous study conducted on intercessory prayers, with results announced in 2006. In Islam and Christianity this is a prayer to God on behalf of another person or situation. The prayer pleads on behalf of the subject, believing that God will answer the prayer.

The study cost $2.4 million and was supported by the Templeton Foundation. It was directed by a Harvard University cardiologist Dr Herbert Benson, who is a believer in the power of personal prayer and meditation. There have been at least 10 studies on the effect of prayers since year 2000 with mixed results, with this one intended to overcome the flaws in earlier investigations. The US government has itself spent $2.3 million on prayer research over this period.

The outcome of the study was that prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery. Patients who knew they were prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications perhaps because of the expectations that prayers created or that their condition was so bad that prayers for them was warranted.

Some have argued that prayer is a deep response to illness and it may relieve suffering by some mechanism as yet unknown. Skeptics contend that studying prayers is a waste of money and it presupposes supernatural involvement, and therefore, by definition, beyond the scope of science.

In the study over 1800 coronary bypass patients at six hospitals were monitored. The patients were divided into three equal groups, with groups A & B both prayed for. While group A was told that they would be definitely prayed for, group B was told that they may or may not be prayed for. This resulted in patients in group B not knowing for sure if they were being prayed for. Group C knew that it was not being prayed for.

Members of three different Christian congregations in different parts of the U.S. were asked to pray for the patients in any manner they liked but were instructed to include the following phrase in their prayers: "for successful surgery with a quick healthy recovery and no complications." Prayers began the night before the surgery and continued daily for two weeks after. List of names of people each congregation was to pray for was given as first names and initials of the last names.

Results showed no statistically significant difference between prayed-for and non-prayed for groups. Results were also computed for two types of complications: (a) not serious and (b) major. Patients who received prayers were marginally more likely to develop complications of category (59 to 51 percent) – this is category (a). There were substantially more likely to develop major complications (18 to 13 percent) than patients who received none.

Needless to say, I as a teenager, with my experience of prayers, could have predicted the main findings of this research. The Americans wasted $4.7 million on it.

Labels: God, intercessory prayer, Mansur Hallaj Sindhi, religion, Templeton Foundation