[Avodah] effects of relgious worship on health (fwd)

[Yitzhak Grossman]

On Mon, 1 Dec 2008 11:26:44 -0600 (CST)
Steven J Scher <sjscher at eiu.edu> wrote:

...

> to which R'Yitzchak Grossman replied:
> 
> > Let's say a study were to show that people who have been prayed for by
> > others, specifically by Jews praying to God, do statistically,
> > significantly better than those who have no such prayers said on their
> > behalf.  Assume that we can isolate all other factors, for example by

...

> An important part of this kind of a study would have to be that the choice of 
> who was prayed for and who wasn't prayed for was randomly assigned. And the 
> thing that would make this evidence convincing is a large effect -- a clear 
> difference between those prayed for and those not prayed for.

Of course.
 
> This is the big problem I have with this type of study.
> 
> What we are saying is that HaShem, simply to convince people of His existence, 
> would treat one randomly chosen group of people substantially better than 
> another randomly chosen group of people.  This doesn't sound to me like the God 
> who was willing to spare a whole city of reshaim if 10 tzaddikim could be 
> found.

We are not saying that He would do so "simply to convince people of His
existence"; on the contrary, I am saying that as long as He can be
expected to act according to the normal ways in which we are told He
acts, i.e. as a Shomai'a Tefillah, we ought to be able to measure and
quantify this effect. ...

> Now, moving out of the hypothetical:
> 
> Even if we did the study that R'YG suggests, I don't think that it would 
> come out in a way to provide clear evidence for HaShem's existence.  For 
> it to do so, HaShem has to want to very clearly demonstrate that He 
> exists.  And, in my opinion He has much better ways to do that then to 
> affect the results of some scientific study!

Again, I am not saying that we are looking for an attempt of His to
show His existence; the demonstration of His existence would be a
measurable emergent effect of His normal behavior, as Judaism describes
it.

>   - Steve

Yitzhak
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