[Avodah] effects of religous worship no health

[Steven J Scher]

>
> On Mon, Dec 01, 2008 at 11:26:44AM -0600, Steven J Scher wrote:
> : 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.

R'MB replied:
> That's how the study is being used. In reality, all the study is really
> saying is that people who take quiet time out each week to pray, or in
> the case of Buddhists to meditate -- without even necessarily involving
> any notion of deity! -- are more likely to live longer.
>

There are actually lots of explanations -- other than the existence of God 
-- that could explain studies like the one that started this discussion 
off: where people who pray are shown to have better health outcomes and 
report being happier with their lives.  (My research, as well as 
at least one other study, shows that it actually depends also on what you 
are doing when you pray).

However, the hypothetical study (first proposed by Yitzchak Grossman) that 
I am referring to in the quote above was about the effect of people prayed 
for, not the pray-ers (as Micha suggests below):

> If the study were about the people prayed for rather than the people
> praying, and one can show that the recipient's health didn't correlate to
> their own religiosity, then it would be easier to tie to religious import.
>

My problem with this was that in order for it to actually provide evidence 
(not proof... science isn't math or philosophy; it doesn't PROVE anything) 
of God's existence, it would 
have to work so that a randomly selected group of patients is prayed for, 
and a randomly selected group of patients is not prayed for.  And, 
therefore, HaShem would have to make patients have better outcomes at 
random, regardless of His plans or the zechus of the patients 
themselves.  The only reason He would do this, I imagine, is that He wants 
to provide evidence of his existence.


ME:

>> 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.
>

R'YG:

> 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. ...


Yes, He's a Shmoai'a Tefillah, but He is also an Ohavei Mishpat v'Tzedek. 
HaShem hears all prayers, but doesn't necessarily act on all of them (at 
least not necessarily in the way that the person praying wants).  I 
referred to Avram's pleading for the potential tzadikkim of Sdom to 
reference the fact that HaShem is willing to go out of His way to spare 
those who are deserving. So, what would be His reasoning for treating 
those patients who are not deserving, but just happened to be prayed for 
as part of our study, better than those who are more deserving, but were 
randomly assigned into the non-prayer group?

The only thing that I could think of is that He would do it because He 
wants to provide us evidence of His existence -- but it seems like (a) 
that's not really a good enough reason to otherwise circumvent His middah 
of justice, and (b) He has other, much more convincing ways at His 
disposal to provide this evidence if He really wanted.

This is at the root of my statemnt early on in this debate: "I find it 
very hard to imagine studies that COULD offer proof of HaShem's existence. 
What would such evidence look like?"


[I find that I have to add a clarifying note to this quote: Note that 
I use 'proof' and 'evidence' synonomously.  This is a consequence of my 
scientific training.  Its all evidence, not proof.  See above.

Also, I mean SCIENTIFIC STUDIES, rather than personal experience or 
anecdotal evidence such as that offered by Rn TK.  As several people have 
noted (including Rn Katz herself), anecdotal evidence can be interpreted 
both ways.  Personal experience is unlikely to be felt or at least be 
convincing to those who are not already inclined to seek HaShem.  Thus, 
this evidence is relevant for our individual belief, but doesn't do much 
to provide evidence to the rest of the world].