Ann Coulter on Missionary Work

[Topper]

I wonder if Utah hospitals have better outcomes than non-Utah hospitals because there are more priesthood blessings administered.

I remember a physician telling me about some Mormons praying over a patient, delaying his attendance to try to save the patient. It irritated him quite a bit.

[imanihonjin]

I think for people who are inclined to believe that God answers prayers it makes a lot more sense to believe that God answers prayers by giving you the fortitude and courage to endure (and in fact thrive) despite disappointments, failures, divorce, illness, death, etc. that are inherent to our existence.

Imagine a children's hospital where you have kids with cancer who are going to recover fully and go on to a normal life and other kids with cancer who are going to die. Some people I guess then believe in a God who steps in to miraculously cure certain kids and then withholds his cure from other kids. WTF?

Kids dying of cancer is just about innate biology, cells, carcinogens, genetic makeup of host and tumor, skill of treating nurses and doctors, etc. It's crazy to think God is picking winners and losers. Its also incredibly fatalistic. If people die sometimes it's because other people didn't do enough and/or screwed up. Human actions matter!

It appears that you are trying to rationalize your own position of God's role in our lives. I can't say I disagree with your position. But that doesn't mean that those who believe that God has the ability to heal and praying for that are whacko....it simply means that their view of God's role is different than the role you have outlined. There is no more basis to suggest that God will assist in giving a person fortitude and courage to endure than there is to suggest that God hears and answers prayers of healing.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I remember a physician telling me about some Mormons praying over a patient, delaying his attendance to try to save the patient. It irritated him quite a bit.

Your physician sounds like a jerk. If it were truly an emergency he should have just taken over.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I always chuckle when you forget to log out and log back in with the YOhio persona.

Is this supposed to be an insult or a compliment? I can't tell.

[Joe Public]

There is no more basis to suggest that God will assist in giving a person fortitude and courage to endure than there is to suggest that God hears and answers prayers of healing.

Sure there is. Lots of studies show that prayer, meditation, religious rituals, etc. can and do impact the psychological state of a practitioner.

[Eddie]

I wonder sometimes how much of our perspective on all of this is clouded by importance we place on the here and now.

So much is being made of death and how God could allow people to die or bad diseases to occur, etc. But if you really believe that the purpose of this life is to simply gain a body and prove ourselves, then death isn't necessarily a bad thing. So if that is God's perspective, why would he heal everyone from dying? They all have to die for the plan to work? Hell, he went to a lot of work to put a tree in the garden for Adam and Eve to eat so that death could come into the equation - why would he do something to limit that?

If you want to equate that to concern over belief in a God who could allow pain in the world, consider the eternal nature of who we are and the snapshot in time that life on earth is. Using that perspective, what is a little bit of pain for a moment if the long-term reward overshadows it so much? Just for comparison - we have no problem sticking needles in our children to immunize them. From the child's perspective, what kind of parent would allow that to happen to them? Don't they love the child? Why are they not only allowing the nurse to stick them, but actually brought them to the Dr.'s office for that exact purpose?

I know we have a full continuum of believers here on the scale of all in and all out. So this may make sense to some more than others.

I just think that if you are using bad things happening as evidence that God either doesn't care or doesn't exist, I don't think that argument works. It's all about perspective. If having those bad things happen is all part of the plan and is a very brief moment in the grand scheme of things that will ultimately be looked back on as part of the growth experience...then it isn't quite as difficult to understand why God would let those things happen.

So in my view, they really don't mean anything as it relates to a belief in God.

[imanihonjin]

Sure there is. Lots of studies show that prayer, meditation, religious rituals, etc. can and do impact the psychological state of a practitioner.

There are also studies to support prayer and improved health outcomes.

[byu71]

In Napoleon Hill's famous book "Think and Grow Rich", he places importance on prayer.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

Is this supposed to be an insult or a compliment? I can't tell.

Compliment I love YOhio.

[creekster]

Sure there is. Lots of studies show that prayer, meditation, religious rituals, etc. can and do impact the psychological state of a practitioner.

And do these studies show the impact flowed from God as opposed to being an effect of the individual's actions on himself? I think that was his point.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Compliment I love YOhio.

Phew. Thanks, man.

[Joe Public]

And do these studies show the impact flowed from God as opposed to being an effect of the individual's actions on himself? I think that was his point.

That's essentially the point I was trying to make, so I guess we're just reading his post differently.

I was saying it's been shown that "God" (i.e., religious/spiritual practices like prayer and meditation) quite often helps people gain courage, peace, joy, etc. Whether that change can be ascribed to an actual god or solely to genetics, psychology, conditioning, etc. is a separate question to me.

On the other hand, I'm not aware of any studies out there showing that an actual god hears and answers prayers of healing. Therefore, I think there is more of a basis for believing the former than the latter. If you're saying there's no difference in the basis for believing whether an actual god caused the changes in either scenario, then I think we're in agreement.

There are also studies to support prayer and improved health outcomes.

Yes, but none that tie those improvements to an actual god hearing and answering those prayers, which is (my reception of) how you phrased it. See above; we might be saying the same thing in different ways.

[imanihonjin]

That's essentially the point I was trying to make, so I guess we're just reading his post differently.

I was saying it's been shown that "God" (i.e., religious/spiritual practices like prayer and meditation) quite often helps people gain courage, peace, joy, etc. Whether that change can be ascribed to an actual god or solely to genetics, psychology, conditioning, etc. is a separate question to me.

On the other hand, I'm not aware of any studies out there showing that an actual god hears and answers prayers of healing. Therefore, I think there is more of a basis for believing the former than the latter. If you're saying there's no difference in the basis for believing whether an actual god caused the changes in either scenario, then I think we're in agreement.



Yes, but none that tie those improvements to an actual god hearing and answering those prayers, which is (my reception of) how you phrased it. See above; we might be saying the same thing in different ways.

I think we are saying the same thing.

[ERCougar]

There are also studies to support prayer and improved health outcomes.

No there aren't. At least any more than there are that show no or a negative difference. In other words, statistical noise.

[ERCougar]

I remember a physician telling me about some Mormons praying over a patient, delaying his attendance to try to save the patient. It irritated him quite a bit.

Actually, this happens pretty rarely, if ever. They almost always ask for permission or if it's a good time. It annoys me once in a while, but that's more on me than them, ie it's because of some personal inconvenience, not a safety issue.

In fact, I'd say the majority of blessings are given to patients who aren't really very sick, a fact that has considerably jaded me on health testimonies.