Thought this was interesting:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,405765,00.html

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"I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God."
John Shelby Spong

Congrats Phils 2008 World Champs!

How is it that America keeps drifting farther and farther away from reality?

The title is a bit misleading


While I don't know about "divine intervention", there have been times when people survive things you or a docter would never think possible. Its easy to think about the insurance company right now, but when I was a kid watching my dad die, those extra couple years were really worth it, even if he did die in the end.

Seems like a small focus group, and when someone calls me for a survey, I always mess with them anyway.


And of course the happy ending

Sometimes you can't deny things like this. I saw a baby turning blue that I thought was dead be completely fine.

Interesting article, but a flawed study with some good quick one liners.

There are countless studies on the subject of prayer's effectiveness on medical care. Some claim prayer aids medical care, even when patients weren't aware that people were praying for them; others claim the opposite. It's something that can't really be proven either way, though, so people can believe what they will.

The only problem with that is when it clouds their decisions. Freaky stuff happens all the time, but that doesn't mean you should put all your eggs in the God basket. Medical science is still our first, best defense.

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"And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes."

--U.S. Senator Ted Stevens

I've come across a few studies that say that when ailing person's relative pray for him/her, they're more likely to get anxious and conditions worsen. But yeah, it's pretty interesting....it's like intermittent reinforcement, e.g. gambling. Hope drives us all....thanks Pandora!

I think this has a little bit to do with the idea of placebo effect...if you think it's going to work, it just may. Or you may think it worked when something else effected the change in reality.

God ordains means as well as ends. In other words, God gives us doctors.

They actually did a double blind study that showed the power of prayer.

However the effect was the strongest when the patient felt that someone was listening to their prayers. However it's done, a positive attitude and hope make a large difference.

When people say the person gave up the will to live, they are speaking literally.

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Peace Out, Philly!

I'm just wondering..... in the last 100 years the average lifespan has increased dramatically while our mortality rates have diminished drastically. Either doctors and medicine have gotten better or God decided to just start saving more people. Which do you think it is?

God gave doctors the ability to get smarter?