What happens when the same number of people pray for something as pray against it? How does God decide whose prayer to answer? Does the total number of people praying for or against something matter? How about the righteousness of the supplicants? Are positive prayers answered more frequently than negative ones? Does God take the positive ones and Satan the negative? Does the intensity of the praying have any effect on the outcome? Does the length of time one devotes to praying have any effect on the frequency with which one’s prayers are answered? Do the words and phrases used in the prayer — either positive or negative — have any bearing on the success rate? Does the nature of the thing or things prayed for have any bearing on the prayer’s success rate — either positive or negative prayers? Why or why not??
~Robert A. Baker
Unfortunately for the bankrupt ‘field’ of theology, there is no way to internally resolve these issues. Of course, science could go ahead and make various measurements – afterall, the claim being made by most people who believe in prayer is that prayer has an affect on the real world. That places it firmly in the purview of scientific study. And indeed, science has studied prayer, so it can actually provide more answers to these questions than religions can. And the answer? Prayer produces no effect on the real world. Some studies show statistically insignificant positive results, other show the opposite, and many show that prayer is no more effective than pure chance.
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For the Sake of Science 