Can Prayer Heal?

Last class reminded me of a very important part of religion. Can the power of prayer heal, or does it at all relate to a person's health? A lot of people think prayer can heal us from any illness, especially the people that have witnessed or experienced a miracle first hand. Just because we can't explain medically, what happens all the time, does that mean if you are magically healed it was because the power of prayer healed you?

There have been many studies on this question. Duke University associate professor of medicine Dr. Harold Koenig has been studying if prayer and/or religion plays a key role in a person's health, or if it somehow relates miracle healing.

"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."

http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/can-prayer-heal?page=2

How can these studies be explained? Is it just the fact that people who are religious live healthier lives than people who don't practice any religion? Or does the power of prayer have some affect on these people? Some people who become magically healed believe prayer and/or god had some role to play in it.



Robert, for example, believes people's prayers healed his condition. Nothing medically can explain how this happened, but does that mean prayer had anything to do with it? Personally I don't believe prayer can help heal somebody. Just because we don't understand how someone magically heals doesn't mean prayer had anything to do with it.

Studies have shown that people with religion live longer though, how do we explain this. Well according to these studies religious people stress out a lot less often than people who don't practice religion. Stress definitely has a big impact on our health. So maybe religion plays a role in our overall health, but I don't think that means religion can give us miracles. We just can't explain the real reasons for these miraculous healings.

After all if we could explain everything in our world, would religion even exist?

Works Cited

Davis, Jeanie L. "Can Prayer Heal?" 26 Mar. 2004. WebMD. 20 Apr. 2009 .