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Last week, scientists determined that praying for bypass surgery patients doesn’t affect the aggregate outcomes. Today, a new study finds that attending religious services weekly increases life span.
What do these studies say about the existence of God? That, of course, depends on your point of view.
Atheists can point to the prayer study and say it’s proof there is no God. Believers can argue that God is not so predictable or simplistic as to be disproven by a study, and that we cannot know how He will respond to prayer. You know, mysterious ways and all.
Daniel Hall, an Episcopal priest and resident in general surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, conducted the “church helps you live longer” study. He did not let theology creep into his scientific paper, but merely presented the statistics and speculated that the social connections provided by religion could be beneficial. I did the same in my story. When I interviewed Hall, however, he offered another view:
“From a theological perspective, I believe that human beings were created to be in a relationship with God,” he said. “We’re wired for that to a certain extent. If we are living our lives in a way that is not fulfilling our ‘created purpose,’ that could have a material manifestation.”
Factor in the power of positive thinking, which has also been shown to increase life span (and which religions tend to foster), and perhaps these studies could be viewed as sources of optimism for people of all beliefs.
April 4th, 2006 at 5:48 am
If the author of the study had said that humans are social animals and tend to live longer as members of a social group that meet regularly to confirm their belonging, I might have felt he was making an objective statement. But instead he strays into religious advocacy. It didn’t seem to occur to him that the benefits might come from the social character of religion instead of the belief system itself.
April 5th, 2006 at 7:23 am
The notion that “Atheists can point to the prayer study and say it’s proof there is no God” represents a fundamental mischaracterization of atheism and rationalism. Atheists don’t claim there is any proof there is no God. They simply don’t believe there is any proof there is a God. Big difference.
Such studies only undermine positive belief. Indeed that’s all science can ever do. Many people of faith make this mistake, falsely accusing atheists of being as dogmatic about the non-existence of a supreme being as they are themselves about the existence of one. Nothing could be further from the truth. Atheism is not a faith, it the absence of faith, and the presence of skepticism and reason.
April 9th, 2006 at 2:28 am
The Universe itself is a living creature. How could something this fast and diverse NOT be alive ? Either we are part of this Universal Creature, or we are just some seperate tag-along ‘things’ that have no place being around at all. Personaly, i belive that we’re part of a larger picture, an infantile (yes, i said infantile, when we’re talking about the UNIVERSE, 13 billion years is pretty young), trying to figure itself out. People who say the Universe is God, i have an idea for ya’ll. WE’RE PART GOD OURSELVES then. So, instead of standing around pointing fingers at eachother and saying your ‘faith’ is right, why not sit back, relax, and leave everybody else alone ? There is no real truth to the universe. As Harrison Ford so eloquantly stated in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade “If it’s truth you’re looking for, Dr. Tyree’s philosophy class is right down the hall ” FACTS are much different than Truth. Precious few things are Facts, even in this day and age. Truth is a much more malable object. Much like the Ideas vs Beliefs bit. Ideas can change, Beliefs.. a true Belief, Cannot. Facts are indisputable laws, whereas Truth is in the eye of the beholder.