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Dear Professor Jain

Since atheism and anti-theism is on the rise, and a mistaken notion is being propagated (by anti-theists who aspire to stamp out religions altogether) that belief in God is somehow a sign of a low IQ or a brainwashed childhood over which one had no control as children, it is good to have a physician like you, who has actually done studies in the area of prayer and healing write for this On Faith forum.

Thank you.

The fact that you provided statistics about the percentage of medical doctors (76%) who are believers is also of importance in this context because once again studies are being mentioned to show that a large percentage of "hard" scientists are atheists, thus drawing the conclusion that level of IQ and atheism is directly proportional.

It should be humbling for those who worship science as god to know that some kinds of science has all the limitations of the persons who create/design the science/studies.

I do agree that assessing the affect of intercessory prayer to work medical miracles may not be the best study design. We know from a religious context that the prayer of a righteous person is supposed to be much greater than that of a sinner. How does one empirically measure righteousness while assigning a righteous person to pray for another? And even in the life of Jesus, He was not very happy about being demanded for miracles as proof of His power. Lesser miracles wrought by prayer and a spiritual life may be quite sufficient since medicine itself has now become the greatest miracle worker.

It is exciting that mainstream medicine feels the value of integrating prayer into the art of healing. Doctors would thus become more and more healers as Hippocrates meant them to be.

As an Indian-Australian woman (originally from Kerala), I wish to add a personal note to my wishes for your great success in your work both in medicine and with the work you do with Mr Arun Gandhi!

Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia

PS: Some additional information for the skeptics who responded to your essay -

Can Prayer Heal?

Does prayer have the power to heal? Scientists have some surprising answers

By Jeanie Lerche Davis

WebMD Feature

Traditional religious beliefs have a variety of effects on personal health, says Koenig, senior author of the Handbook of Religion and Health, a release that documents nearly 1,200 studies done on the effects of prayer on health.

These studies show that religious people tend to live healthier lives. "They're less likely to smoke, to drink, to drink and drive," he says. In fact, people who pray tend to get sick less often, as separate studies conducted at Duke, Dartmouth, and Yale universities show. Some statistics from these studies:

* Hospitalized people who never attended church have an average stay of three times longer than people who attended regularly.

* Heart patients were 14 times more likely to die following surgery if they did not participate in a religion.

* Elderly people who never or rarely attended church had a stroke rate double that of people who attended regularly.

* In Israel, religious people had a 40% lower death rate from cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Jain,

It is true that science has limitations in helping heal people, and that should be acknowledged. But it is quackery to suggest religion and prayer as alternative methods of healing.

Of course, sometimes false beliefs can help,e.g., in alleviating pain temporarily, but the effect is temporary and because you are dealing with the fiction of God, there is no way to tell how unpredictable the consequences are.

Indeed, for those patients who see God as fiction, any attempt by doctors to suggest prayer/religion will only aggravate their illness.

Dr. Manoj,

I am appalled that you prescribe medications without thinking about how they work scientifically. Maybe you should resign your position and find a different field of work more suited to your interests and abilities.

Why not say this, Doc?:

After two decades of medical practice, medical science has become hocus-pocus to me while witch doctoring has become sound science.

JJ, having another attack of spamitis? You are on the right blog. Get your head examined.

Paganplace, fourteen out of seventeen posts thus far is yours. Having a monologue or what?

"I have been a doctor for two decades. Medicine has become for me a ritual and a belief."

What, no response?

You're *just* the kind of 'doctor' I've been wanting to give the rought side my tongue to... when I'm not begging for 'ritual' cortisones to such 'pure piety.'

DO tell us of your holiness, Doctor!

Speak it.

Righteous man.

Doctor.

Speak it.

Anyway, JJ spam aside, Doctor columnist, if your practice of medicine became a 'ritual and belief,' ....what were you charging for, you charlatan?

The title you claim, Doctor, is suppposed to *mean* something, and Gods know sanctimonious Christians have cast it aside and laughed at others' pain...

But....

What are you going to do now?

Doctor?

I don't suppose, JJ, that out of all the stuff you spew... somehow it's better than was said by ainy of the poeople you demonstrate such utter contempt for every time you open our mouth?

Jacob?

Is that who you are? Jacob?

Aww, come on, 'righteous men,' where's wth the snappy God-given comeback?

Wot, no retort against the 'radical left?' Here's the doctor you *dream of! Send him your kids!

Really!

Any time now...

Still with us, Doctor?

Maybe it's all convenient and abstract to Your Righteousness... try living this 'Spirit' you think so much of when it's your own sweet little girl in the crosshairs of TB...

Doctor.

Or should I say 'Reverend.'

What would you like, sir?

I think there's a reason the Hippocratic Oath is sworn by the Old Gods.

Cause there's no damn excuses.

Though some might tell you otherwise...

Doctor.

And, *yeah,* 'Doctor,' you can say it's about 'divorce,' when your perfectly willing to breed superstrains, that'll half-choke a homeless person as long as you can feel 'righteous' about it.

You wanna do science, get past 'belief.'

You wanna do 'spirit,' let me tell you, Doctor, you wouldn't last five minutes.

Do your damn trade.

I mean, Goddess of Mercy, folks... if the Old Ways' are such irrelevant nonsense, why's a street shaman had to be out there fighting TB epidemics when Fundie docs call it a win if no one collects the full course of antibiotics?

Gods.

I mean, hey, let's look at health, here.

This doctor says science is a ritualistic behaviour he don't think about.

Too true.

Then he says Fundie Christianity is supposed to fix that.

Let's have a peek at the byline here:

"Manoj Jain is an infectious disease physician in Memphis and a medical director of Medicare's quality improvement organization in Tennessee."

Call it 'ghetto,' but that would not fly in Boston.

And that's the Lady's truth. Best we can make it.

By that, btw, I mean 'your kids.' s in your actual daughter, if you ever bothered to have one, while you were so busy trying to say how badly lesbians raise theirs... Coughing up fluids cause you couldn't be troubled to 'tax and spend' your way into *not having resistant strains of possibly 'God-given' TB to hurt little girls with nontraditional or otherwise poor parents with...

Imagine you actually had one of those daughters you seem to believe that if a woman let you anywhere near them, God demanded she bring to term.

She's coughing up sputum that ain't going away.

You go to *this* dude the 'faithful' columnist, or you go to the most scientific spork Lady put on the table for your impoverished family?

Guess what.

Not to overemphasize the point, but from the mouths of the 'faithful' quoted by someone who found out how that ain't exaclty the Hippocratic ideal"

"The man says he treats science like a religion and religion like a science..."

Would you send *your* kids to that office, ye righteous policymakers?

I mean, hey, let's repeat this:

""I have been a doctor for two decades. Medicine has become for me a ritual and a belief. It is common for me to prescribe medications and not think about how they work scientifically.

"After a lifetime of prayer, scripture reading and meditation, spirituality has become a science for me. I use logic and reason to justify my belief in the soul and God. "

So, ...Doctor...

What you're saying is that you apply the *least* credence possible to the science of medicine, but the *most* possible to any thin moralistic justification for your actions?

I've mentioned not exactly getting Dr. House's attention previously, while others claim insidious supernatural effects that must obviously come from a sexuality that full-body rheumatoid arthritis doesn't exactly translate into 'blind, Godless hedonism,' ...Why?

Only takes one doctor like the columnist here to claim it's 'all in your head,' ...to 'piously' send blood samples off to the lab on the good day you can drag your arse to the phlebotomist, if, of course, the Christian doctor didn't see your distress from being in pain, say, 'You're obviously in pain and distress, we can't test you about yer pain and distress, go to church,'

Yadda, yadda..

The man says he treats science like a religion and religion like a science...

What you expect of him?

Do I have to be the one to point out how *backwards* the below is?

Trust me, it ain't the *rich* who pay for that kind of thinking.

Guess who.

"I have been a doctor for two decades. Medicine has become for me a ritual and a belief. It is common for me to prescribe medications and not think about how they work scientifically.

"After a lifetime of prayer, scripture reading and meditation, spirituality has become a science for me. I use logic and reason to justify my belief in the soul and God. "

Gods save us from doctors like you, then.

Trust me, it don't get any worse than that.

I can give you a few examples of prayer and its positive and negative effects. My sister was diagnosed with colon cancer. She was heading into surgery the following week. My wife told my sister, who had prepared herself for the surgery and the likely chemotherapy to follow, that she had put her onto the prayer list at her church. Upon hearing that news my sister fell into a depression almost immediately. It took the whole family, plus my wife explaining that she does this for everyone who is sick, including neighborhood kids with colds, for my sister to get out of the depression. Telling someone they are being prayed for can be interpreted as an expectation to die. Depression has been shown to adversely affect recovering patients and the immune system.

When I was a child and believed in God, I was sick, very sick. I had viral pheumonia and strep throat. My hullucinations from the fevor were so vivid I remember them decades later (my favorite TV cowboy and his horse paid a visit to my bedroom!). After having my tonsils removed and still sick, though according to the doctors moving toward a full recovery, I asked my dad for a bible, while I just laid on my chest. I remember the comfort. I remember the feeling that I WAS going to be better. I remember sleeping easier, and willing to try things like eating, which was painful, but since I knew everything would turn out fine I did not resist.

Both of these experiences were the result of the mindset changing, in my sister's case to expect the result would be bad and thus depression, for me that the result would be good and thus comfort. This type of experiment has been done before in controlled conditions, the results are always the same. But that does not seem to stop each generation from trying to prove the power of God, a power that cannot be proven, only believed in. And that is why science and faith cannot coexist. If you prove faith, then it becomes science. Considering the negative impact of prayer, as your study shows and my sister's experience showed, you should be careful to introduce prayer into medicine.

The evidence will show that prayer is not better that any placebo. I hope the good Doctor will be able to be enough open minded to accept evidence even if it contradicts his beliefs.

Notable quotes:

"Lourdes et al as per Professor JD Crossan, an On Faith panelist, prove faith heals but Mary plays no part. "Miracles" are equally probable anywhere on earth but all miracles are limited in scope and limited to very few of any faith. ntgateway.com/xtalk/crossan3.txt

"Again as per Professor Crossan, Westar E-discussion group, 6/14/03, message 20213, “I said that there was hardly a single miracle I was sure of as an historical event even though I was absolutely sure that Jesus was a healer."

"Miracles do not happen except through a mental desire or faith to be cured since miracles violate natural law. If God were involved in our daily lives, cures would not be needed. You cannot have it both ways."

"Curing the sick in the NT?? There is no medical documentation of this because there was no diagnostic tools for said sicknesses in first century Palestine. And many miracles, are single attestations and were added to the NT to embellish Jesus' biography. "

"The "miracles" were added to the NT to compete with the local "voodooers of the hoodoo", the resurrection was added to compete with Roman and Greek gods and the "pretty wingie thingies" and "demons of the demented added to continue the fear and superstitions of the ancients!!!!!"

"Think infinity and recycling with the Big Bang expansion followed by the shrinking reversal called the Gib Gnab and recycling back to the Big Bang repeating the process on and on forever. Human life and Earth are simply a minute part of this chaotic, stochastic, expanding, shrinking process disappearing in five billion years with the burn out of the Sun and maybe returning in another five billion years with different life forms but still subject to the vagaries of its local star. "

"IMHO, the Singularity (if it exists) started the Big Bang. This Singularity also granted the gifts of Free Will and Future to all the thinking beings in the Universe. This being the case, the Singularity is not able to alter life and requests/prayers will not be answered. Statistically, your request might come true but it is simply the result of the varibiliy/ randomness of Nature.

So put down your rosaries and prayer beads and stop worshiping/revering cows and bowing to Mecca five times a day. Instead work hard at your job, take care of aging parents, volunteer at a soup kitchen, donate to charities and the poor and continue to follow the Commandments of your religion or any good rules of living as gracious and good human beings. And lets all hope there indeed is a place called Heaven!!! "