Prayer Changes Things: Pray for better reporters.
This evening, ABC news aired a piece about the ancient Kaballah- a cult-like religion that seems to have captured the attention of some celebrities in California … the latest in their quest for the religious Truth.
I wish ABC news had spent about fifteen minutes on the physical truth and checked out a cockamamie statement made by one of the leaders of the cult. He told the reporter that a Duke University study showed that prayer ” actually changed the molecular make-up of water”.
Now wait a minute- if you change the molecular make up, it seems to me that it would not be water any more. Nor does his statement hold water when you go to the Duke University official website and search “effects of prayer”. Here is the news release concerning the actual study:
DURHAM, N.C. - Cardiac patients who received intercessory prayer in addition to coronary stenting appeared to have better clinical outcomes than those treated with standard stenting therapy alone, according to researchers at Duke University Medical Center.
Their results further suggest that using rigorous scientific methods to study the therapeutic value of prayer and other noetic interventions appears feasible and warrants larger-scale, more definitive investigations. Noetic interventions are defined as “a healing influence performed without the use of a drug, device or surgical procedure,” said the researchers.
Results of the phase I feasibility-pilot, known as the MANTRA (Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic
Their results further suggest that using rigorous scientific methods to study the therapeutic value of prayer and other noetic interventions appears feasible and warrants larger-scale, more definitive investigations. Noetic interventions are defined as “a healing influence performed without the use of a drug, device or surgical procedure,” said the researchers.
Results of the phase I feasibility-pilot, known as the MANTRA (Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic
TRAinings) Project, appear in the Nov. 1 issue of the American Heart Journal. … (and it goes on -df)
It took me all of three minutes for me to log onto the internet and do the search. So why did the ABC news reporter, producer,editor,anchor..everyone let such a statement go unchallenged? Time certainly was not a factor because the piece had been taped or filmed days ago.
It appears to me that some folks got all caught up in the gee-whizzicals of mysticals. The man behind the curtain got one over on them this time.
