From: rhinoceros (rhinoceros@freemail.gr)
Date: Sat Oct 25 2003 - 05:21:25 MDT
[simul]
It was a flawed study. Ask any spiritual teacher, psychiatrist, or memetic engineer (same thing AFAIC).
Prayers don't help the people that are prayed for. Prayers help those who are doing the praying, if at all. And possibly any indirection therof. Prayers asking God to do things don't work. Wheras those asking God to give them strength to do things, often find it.
[rhinoceros]
A flawed study? (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3193902.stm) But what it says is that prayers by others didn't help. Did you mean that it tested the wrong question? Well, it may have something to say to people who put their hopes in prayers. These people exist, don't they?
Those theologians, at least, sounded alarmed and ran to cover their bases. Notice their phrasing. They didn't admit that prayers don't work (that would be bad for their business). They only said that testing God does not work.
Also, an empirical study subject to peer review is just that. It has its own place for estalishing facts, no matter what the opinions of spiritual teachers, psychiatrists, and memetic engineers.
[simul]
We can use subjective levels:
Not committed
Just hanging out
Think it's a good idea
Committed to success
Very committed to COV's success
We can correlate each of the answers with behaviors.
[rhinoceros]
Commitment... One problem is that words are cheap. Even cheaper than subjective beliefs. Can you picture a zealot who is carrying nothing more than a flag with the word "commitment" painted on it?
Correlating commitment with actual behaviors could be interesting, but it could lead to something not so exciting, such as a daily routine of pointing fingers at cases of hypocricy...
I would stick with rating people for bringing in actual value and actual drive. People come and go, focus and value stay for a bit longer.
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