The religious method

Placebo also works sometime, with or without prayer.
So does Tylenol.
Go figure.

Cexcedrin proponentsists

No you fool! Aspirin is the One True Pain Reliever!

About 2 years ago, I was listening to the local Christian radio station (more laughs per minute than any other), and they started hawking this "St. Joseph's Cross."

They cut to a testimonial of a woman describing how she and her husband were trying to sell their house. They got a real estate agent, hosted open houses, put out ads: nothing.

Then they buried St. Joseph's cross in the front yard, and the very next month or two, their house sold.

The person had seen their ad.

And directly after saying this, she exclaimed, "Thank you, St. Joseph's Cross!"

Well, yes, Jason, God has to have something to work with so that he doesn't give away the game and destroy any meaning to real faith

something like an ad to sell your house, a painkiller to stop your headache (I prefer paracetamol) or random mutations which he can then select from in a way TOTALLY different from the way nature would do it.

Aspirin is the One True Pain Reliever!

Nothing works faster than aspirin. So take nothing.

Relaxation techniques can sometimes be effective against headache pain. I remember once on TV someone recommending to lie down in a quiet room and to relax, then count backwards in your head from 10 to 0, visualizing the numbers...upon reaching zero, next look inside the zero and visualize your headache as a raging fire, and then to imagine that fire being gradually extinguished by water or something pouring on it.

I know, kinda new-agey with the visualization stuff, which is probably unnecessary, more of a tool to focus the mind and release it from its immediate stress-related concerns. It won't work against headaches brought on by lack of food (those are the worst I ever experience, and only a good square meal really makes it go away), but against stress induced headaches, I've had pretty good success with the technique, making me less prone to reach for the aspirin (or advil) bottle.

I've found that the quickest cure for headaches, whether alcohol induced or sleep deprived, is to go for a ride on my bike. About ten miles does the trick.

Wazza, paracetamol = tylenol, other side of the ditch.

The church method can be summed up as, "The ways of God are mysteriously indistinguishable from random chance"

I hear amputation works.

Anon: Bet you heard that from Sylvia Brown... ;-)

Tylenol is a brand name and is the same both sides of the pond.

The generic names are

paracetamol (Europe) = acetomenephin (Americas)

heroin works, every time. or orgasms.

happy earth day, btw!

Must be a real shitter if you're a stigmatic and every time you try and take pills for the pain they fall through the holes in your hands.

Armchair Dissident: No, it was Doctor Gumby ;)

Quidam: don't forget the Antipodes, which also call it Paracetamol...

why is it that so many things have different names in the US?

or orgasms.

So it should really be "Please tonight, I have a headache"?

Here's my favorite "miracle" story:

http://www1.wsvn.com/features/articles/specialreport/MI75423

Apparently, God can work miracles but only if he has a difibulator handy... and a medical team to use it.

Steve: that's always the excuse I give to my girlfriends...

The only person more wrong-headed than a Tax Protester kook is a Tax Protester kook fueled with Christian zeal: Robert Beale. That story's got it all: death plots against a judge, secret "common law courts", a pretender chief justice, and... well I don't want to spoil the whole thing.

Totally agree with the relaxation method. Every time I get a headache I just close my eyes, slow my breathing and concentrate only on the air going in and out of my lungs. After about 5 minutes of this I will be slightly light headed but the headache will be gone. I hope nobody seriously prays their headaches away...

And there is a further possibility. In the very distant past I remember an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies where the plot revolved around bringing grandma's secret cure for the common cold to market, the final part of which turned out to be something like "..., and in seven to ten days, the cold is completely cured"

Trial 4: No aspirin. Pray until the pain is gone. Works every time.

David L, that is sick sick sick that you could remember that. And sick too that I recall it.

That shirt is the wrong color!

or orgasms.

I'd always been under the impression that this was a myth perpetrated by people who wanted to get more head. I assure you, it isn't true in all individuals. Maybe for stress-related headaches specifically.

I would think this was a complete joke, but while I was at Balad Air Base's Air Force Hospital in Iraq awaiting evacuation to Germany an Army chaplain came to visit me in my ward. He came up to my litter (that's 'stretcher' in Army-speak, just in case) and saw from my dog tags that my religion is listed as Roman Catholic (as they have been since I joined at 17 - I could have changed them, but that would have drawn even more unwanted attention from every chaplain I came across, so I simply left it on them), so he decided to come and talk with me. He told me - before I could even get a word in, mind you, because I was quite sedated - that the power of prayer could help ease my pain a great deal. When he finally let me join the conversation, I politely thanked him for his concern and attention, and then told him that I am an atheist. In a classic illustration of the hypocrisy I have come across with many priests (I cannot make claims about the ministers of other religions, because I haven't dealt with many...), he proceeded to tell me that "In that case, it probably won't do you much good, then." How fitting -- I was either too medicated or didn't care enough to suggest to him that it probably wouldn't matter either way, but I'm glad I did not, realizing now that it would have drawn me further into conversation with him. When I regained my full senses, I was utterly thrown by the chaplain's disdain for a soldier's personal beliefs. But then again, not only is that typical of inconsideration shown atheists by priests in my past, it is also quite representative of the Army's own treatment of those it considers to be a drain upon its resources.

(But that's a topic for a whole other blog -- just be sure to take it with a grain of salt the next time someone praises our government for improving their treatment of wounded vets since the Vietnam era.)

The only person more wrong-headed than a Tax Protester kook is a Tax Protester kook fueled with Christian zeal: Robert Beale. That story's got it all: death plots against a judge, secret "common law courts", a pretender chief justice, and... well I don't want to spoil the whole thing.

Posted by: Navin | April 22, 2008 10:42 AM

And in addition to being a scumbag himself, he also spawned the execrable Ted Beale (a.k.a. Vox Day).

Confounded experimental design, though. The author forgot the (No Prayer, No Asprin) cell. As it is, the results are confounded, and you can't get a clean estimate of the main effects and interactions.

Would religious people really claim that God uses pain to help us? Could they really be that dim?

I've been pondering God's goodness and the way God uses pain to help us, well, repent--that is, turn our life around...

That's just what I was thinking when one of your commenters said that when modern medicine (some specific instance) was used, you should also check to see whether anyone prayed for the victim. Because suddenly, after insulin was invented, people could survive with diabetes. Before that, all the praying in the world didn't save people from dying within two or three years.

Yep, prayer has you covered from all angles. It has three possible answers for any prayer: Yes, No, and Wait. No matter what happens, prayer has intervened...

It's a bulletproof system. [/end sarcasm]

A couple of weeks ago at work a guy who is an electrician was having a problem with something, I can't remember now, and I suggested he pray for it(jokingly). He seems to be a devout Christian but we've never really discussed it other than me telling him that I am an atheist. Boy, did I get dirty looks. I guess they know it won't work either, they just don't want to admit it.

One guy though, was removing some protective wrap from a stainless steel cabinet and I was helping him as I wasn't busy at that moment.Well, the stuff was pretty much a pain in the ass to take off. So I figured I'd try my "atheist jokes" on it. I put my hands together and said "Jesus, please make this f#$%ing $hit come off easier, AAAaaaAAA-men" I thought he was going to die from laughing so hard. So at least some of them can get a joke about it.

This is one that Carl Sagan discussed in his excellent 'The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark'.

Reginald #30:

That blog is time-stamped April 1.

Any chance it's an April Fool's joke?

(Damn you, Poe's law!)

Then they buried St. Joseph's cross in the front yard, and the very next month or two, their house sold.
The person had seen their ad.
And directly after saying this, she exclaimed, "Thank you, St. Joseph's Cross!"

Well, why not? When I was a kid, my sore throats and headaches were always fixed right up by St. Joseph's Aspirin.

I got this gem from "Overheard in the Office", part of the incredibly wonderfull "Overheard in New York" website:

2PM Title:I Used the Sacred Highlighter of Righteousness

Office clerk: Wait, this doesn't look right.
Manager: It has to be right -it's highlighted.
Office clerk: Maybe someone highlighted the wrong thing, because that's not
right.
Manager: I highlighted it.
Office clerk: Well, I think it may be wrong.
Manager: It can't be wrong. It's highlighted.

Prayer: The deranged supplication to nothing. And yet to the insane religious this is the epitomy of their belief in all that is encompassed by their wacko beliefs. But when tested in the strength of their belief, they more than hedge on the efficacy of that same nonsense. To wit:
If a christian or any one of religious afflicated had to go to a hospital for life saving treatment and they had the choice of a hospital with the latest medical technology and staffed with the most competent doctors and nurses, and a so- called "hospital" that does not provide all the services of a real hospital, but only offers prayers ranted by the insane over the "victim" plopped down on a cot, which one would the religious rabble choose to save their lives? And another "test". Would any of these religious slime further test their faith by agreeing to be dropped off in the middle of the Sahara Desert, a thousand miles from nowhere, with no food, water, shelter, or clothing, and no one else knowing it to be able to rescue the crud, and just with prayer to his god to rescue him from his tribulations? The answers I get from the rabble when confronted with these scenarios are a hodgepodge of the most stupid and ambiguous crap and just strains credulity. Pray for me? Oh shit, please don't!

I've always been of the opinion that, although not effective, a person saying that they will "pray for you" in the case of an illness or hardship is a nice acknowledgement that they are thinking about you.
After all, if someone were to offer "you're in our thoughts" I wouldn't snort about the uselessness of telepathy.
The only ones I definitely don't want saying that they will pray for me are my doctors.

brokensoldier #27 wrote:

In a classic illustration of the hypocrisy I have come across with many priests (I cannot make claims about the ministers of other religions, because I haven't dealt with many...), he proceeded to tell me that "In that case, it (prayer) probably won't do you much good, then."

I don't think this sounds like inconsiderate disdain for the beliefs of atheists -- it struck me as a tacit admission that prayer is basically a placebo used to help the believer feel better. If you know the pill is only made out of sugar, you won't convince yourself that you're feeling the effect. Of course, I wasn't there to hear the tone he said it in. Perhaps he was being snarky and implying that God wouldn't want to help you.

There is no consistent consensus on what prayer is actually supposed to do. It seems to mean different things to different people -- or, perhaps, all things to all people. I notice that a lot of the more liberal varieties of Christian tend to make a big fat hairy deal out of how enlightened they are in knowing that "prayer is not petitions to God; it's for the person who prays." It helps you focus, gain courage, and find resolve to face whatever happens with strength and equanimity.

Which makes a fair amount of sense -- except that then when something good happens to them they often talk about their prayer being "answered" anyway. So much for the sophisticated view which rejected prayer as "asking for things."

I think it's this ability to spin all results as positive results which bothers the scientist in us -- and confuses theists into thinking that faith is the same as hope or optimism. Attitude is one thing. But, as we see it, when you do this with facts it's just unethical. It's arrogant, because there's no way you can be wrong. If all prayers are answered, then no prayer is answered.

They don't get this. They think they're being humble and loyal. It takes a lot of self-discipline and creativity to keep thinking of excuses for God. He will be so pleased with you.

Jason F:
About 2 years ago, I was listening to the local Christian radio station (more laughs per minute than any other), and they started hawking this "St. Joseph's Cross."

remember that BBC program that Richard Dawkins appeared on a wee while ago - "The Big Questions"?
a previous episode had featured the question "does prayer work?" (ha) and an audience member said domething to the effect of:
"yes, prayer works. a while ago, i was in dire financial trouble. a group of my friends started praying for me - and eventually, another friend lent me some money. praise the lord!"

autumn #39--
I take it the same way -- unless they know I'm an atheist and it's making a point. They'll do it then with a smug sort of self-righteousness, as if they think they're one-upping me with their ability know where help and comfort REALLY comes from, and I don't. Neener neener. In which case I don't take it as well-intended, because it's not.

Autumn @ 39 No, a person saying that they will pray for me will do nothing for my recovery. If they want to think of me,visit me often, make me laugh, bring me my type of music, and make sure the staff is performing their required duties. Telepathy! Save me the burden of lashing out at this equivalent of prayer! Good grief! Are you on the right blog site? If the doctors that are taking care of you also happen to say that they are also praying for you, how can this nonsense detract from the medical and professional care provided? Now if he were to come in and say that he is now going to pray over me without the addition of the required medicine, then I will have cause for grave concern. It all depends on which application he uses that will determine my recovery; medical technology, then I will benefit; prayer only, I'm as good as dead!

Jason F:
About 2 years ago, I was listening to the local Christian radio station (more laughs per minute than any other), and they started hawking this "St. Joseph's Cross."

remember that BBC program that Richard Dawkins appeared on a wee while ago - "The Big Questions"?
a previous episode had featured the question "does prayer work?" (ha) and an audience member said domething to the effect of:
"yes, prayer works. a while ago, i was in dire financial trouble. a group of my friends started praying for me - and eventually, another friend lent me some money. praise the lord!"

(apologies for the double post)

Some studies indicate that praying for the sick actually makes them worse.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1072…

I suspect this was picked up here at the time.

Holbach, you seem to be very confused about what his original point was.

So here's your alternative prayer story:

My BIL's 2nd wife's (catlick - her 2nd marriage as well*) mother died recently, of a lingering illness. I asked my wife what charitable organization they'd want donations to, but the answer was "None, they want prayers instead". Crikey, prayers for the dead - at that point, isn't the theory that prayer is too late?

Worse yet, because my wife put in the request at the local catlick church, I got a certificate, in my name thanking me for supporting that church. Arrgh, I was so mad I could spit.

*I think catlick annullments are easier to get than formerly. Gotta keep those numbers up and those dollars Euros rolling in.

Don @ #46,

Prayer doesn't appear to do anything, good or bad.

The results that study may be caused, in part, by stress related to the oh-my-God-they-are-praying-for-me-it-must-be-really-really-bad factor.

Nentuaby @ 47 Am I? If you are referring to Autumn @ 39, I assure you I have read it several times and understood it to mean exactly as written. There is no ambiguity there, especially the"uselessness of telepathy"! There is no confusion as written, hence no confusion in my interpretation. Enlighten me.

Down went the fundy, a headache was his fate
Down went the fundy, and then the fundy's mate
Up jumped the sky pilot, looking for some pills
And tried to heal himself, from all sorts of pains and ills, ... shouting...

Praise the Lord and pass the ibuprofen
Praise the Lord and pass the ibuprofen
Praise the Lord and pass the ibuprofen
And we're all pain free

Praise the Lord and pass the ibuprofen
Can't afford to sit around a-loafin'
Droppin' "g's", insertin' apostrophin'
No more pain for me

Praise the Lord and pass the ibuprofen
Praise the Lord and pass the ibuprofen
Praise the Lord and pass the ibuprofen
And we're all pain free

The Christian archetype for this ballyhoo is, of course, The Lord's Prayer. But its contents seem to be contradictory when it comes to 1)making requests, and 2)acknowledging God's Divine Plan®.

"Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done... Give us each day our daily bread... and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." What if your request isn't part of the Plan? Should God change the Plan? It was supposedly a good Plan.

It all makes about as much sense as trying to reconcile prophesy with free will. Sometimes I think that religion proposes contradictory tenets on purpose, to feed the flock's desire for the 'mysterious'(i.e. bullshit). It's ok if you don't understand it - no one does! These mysterian memes have a high survival value in people who have little direct exposure to rational and empirical methodology.

Which is one of the reasons why the CreIDs hate science and lie for Jeeebus.

trial 4: aspirin, with or without prayer: god underpins the natural world, is not separate from it, in a sense IS the apsirin, so the effects of the aspirin are indistinguishable from the aspirin's effects, anyway...

But that's not how God is defined in the first 3 trials, is it...

@Cuttlefish --

Apostrophin' ??? I'm not worthy. I bow to your supreme poetic awesomenicity.

Can we give him a second Molly? Maybe OM^2?

Molly Emeritus?

In a similar fashion, here's another great comparison of religious/scientific thinking.

http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/archive/2007-01-15%20--%20sci…

How to sell your home by burying a cross in the front yard:

Step 1: Obtain cross. The limbs should ideally be 2 to 4 feet long.

Step 2: Consecrate, pray, sprinkle holy water or whatever other rituals are necessary for your particular brand of faith.

Step 3: Bury cross, leaving at least one limb above ground.

Step 4: Hang a "For Sale" sign on the cross.

(Note, step 2 is optional)

@ Sastra, # 40:

I was too far into morphine-land to say for sure what he really meant, so I agree with you on not knowing the true intent behind his comments. I just thought it was in poor taste for a chaplain to say such a thing to a soldier lying on a stretcher in the middle of a ward full of wounded soldiers he was supposedly there to console.

To give a counter-example, when I was in the hospital in Germany, a chaplain came by my room - this time I was fully awake and had my wits about me - and when I told him that I was an atheist, he actually engaged me in conversation and found that my loss of faith was, in part, due to the situation that had placed me in his hospital, in addition to my prior doubts. This man, and I cannot for the life of me remember his name, sat down and had an intelligent conversation with me. Instead of trying to convince me and restore my faith, he shifted the subject of the conversation from religion to overall philosophy and implored me to use my situation as a tool for introspection. He told me that times like that can either be catalysts for a downhill slide in your attitude on life in general, or they can be solemn examples that serve as warning signs along the remainder of your path in life to show you how bad things can turn should you make the wrong turn along that path. He kept religion out of the discussion and stressed the importance that I not slip into a pessimistic world-view, but rather use my experiences and the lessons I learned from them to live the best life I know how to live. The kicker? He was a chaplain of Islamic faith. I asked him why he had come into my room (my religious affiliation from my tags was also listed on my chart), and he simply said that I looked like I needed someone to talk to. I sincerely regret that - in the scope of my own experience - this man and others of his caliber are the exception to the rule rather than being the norm.

Rather than boosting my confidence in the clergy, this instead showed me that even in spite of religion and the differences it breeds, the humanism in all good people can shine through in any situation. It gives me hope for humanity as a whole, and makes me think that someday we'll be able to work out these differences and coexist. But sadly, the situation the world is in today leads me to believe that if this does happen, it will almost certainly be long after we're all dead and gone.

Reminds me of an old joke:
Partners with God

Holbach, you forgot to mention that prayer was invented by males.

Nentuaby @ 47 Am I? If you are referring to Autumn @ 39, I assure you I have read it several times and understood it to mean exactly as written. There is no ambiguity there, especially the"uselessness of telepathy"! There is no confusion as written, hence no confusion in my interpretation. Enlighten me.

-Holbach

You're clearly not the brightest lump of coal in the bucket, but read it again, will you? Autumn was using the image of someone complaining about the uselessness of telepathy after being told by a friend that "you're in my thoughts" as a way of satirizing what s/he apparently sees as the extremely literalistic interpretation of prayer's significance for a believer implicit in objecting to being prayed for. I'm not sure I want to know what you interpretation was.

Also, in contrast to your berating him/her for supposedly wanting doctors' prayers, s/he also specifically said that s/he WOULDN'T want the doctors to pray for him/her. How on earth did you fail to grasp that?!

Autumn's post was an expression of his/her personal non-objection to the sympathy and concern felt for him/her by believing acquaintances being expressed in the form of prayer. Your post, which asymptotically approaches coherence in the form of berating him/her as if s/he was advocating the effectiveness of prayer as a tool of recovery, demonstrates either a severe reading comprehension problem or a tendency to pick three words out of a post that press your buttons and fire off a reply - the appropriate analogy for this latter possibility is not "shooting from the hip" but "shooting without removing the gun from its holster."

Wait. Re-re-reading your post, Holbach, I'm not sure what you were saying about the doctors. I have a feeling this makes two of us.

Here's another xtian method: anal sex for christ.
I shit you not.

AlanWCan...

Thanks for the link. And thanks for introducing me to that soon-to-be perennial cyber page-turner....

"Fisting and God's Will"

Speaking of orgasms and aspirin. A couple of nights ago I was watching a documentary about the clitoris on SBS (Oz network) and they showed an old commercial for Aspro Clear... A man and woman in bed and the man is mixing up a some Aspro Clear in a glass of water.
Woman: What are you doing?
Man: I'm preparing a glass of Aspro Clear. Aspirin that dissolves in water and when taken can relieve mild muscular pain and headache.
Woman: But I don't have a headache!
Man: Excellent!
Woman's eyes widen.

Hey Brokensoldier, Slightly OT but I thought there were no atheists in foxholes? :-)

We've read about harassment by godbotherers of non-christians in the US military. What is you experience? Were you able to keep your beliefs to yourself or is there widespread harassment from christians in the US Army?

Alan: holy fucking crap

literally...

I like this one.

http://cectic.com/118.html

Now we have godbotherers in the jails as well. Here is a fine upstanding example of a pious Sheriff.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=4674575&page=1

"Michael Burgess, sheriff in Custer County, Okla., since 1994, surrendered to state law enforcement agents Wednesday and appeared in district court to face 35 felony charges, including multiple counts of rape, forcible oral sodomy, bribery by a public official and perjury."

bernarda:

...35 felony charges, including multiple counts of rape, forcible oral sodomy,

Unbelievable. Strewth.

Didn't this moron realise that food tastes better the first time around!

Ad infinitum: Male again. How come it's never a female? Rant all you want; this one-sided assaults and sleazy freaking behavior will always be perpetrated by the violent dominant male. This isn't evolution in force here; it is the acculturation of male force and dominance that is giving a bad name to evolution.

Ad infinitum: Male again. How come it's never a female? Rant all you want; this one-sided assaults and sleazy freaking behavior will always be perpetrated by the violent dominant male. This isn't evolution in force here; it is the acculturation of male force and dominance that is giving a bad name to evolution.

I repeat: will someone please fix that record player?

Hey Brokensoldier, Slightly OT but I thought there were no atheists in foxholes? :-)
We've read about harassment by godbotherers of non-christians in the US military. What is you experience? Were you able to keep your beliefs to yourself or is there widespread harassment from christians in the US Army?

Posted by: Shane | April 23, 2008 2:01 AM

I'm glad you brought that cliche up, because it is patently false. I treat it as an amusing commentary on the fact that when you have nothing else left to look to for comfort in an untenable situation that may end up with you in a body bag, the only other place you can look for a continued existence is up - superstitious as it may be. But I find it just as literally false as I find it satirically amusing -- to me it is a commentary on the situation, and not a truth inherent in such a situation.

As for harrassment, that is something I never ran into, unless you count the comment made to me by the chaplain I referenced in #27 above, but even though I think it was a spiteful comment, it may well not have been because I was too medicated to do much in the way of continuing that conversation further. In my experience, religion is something hardly broached during the downtime soldiers have, unless they are in a prayer group or some other voluntary assembly. When it comes time for a combat mission, most have a prayer before leaving the gate, but those who do not choose to participate are not looked down upon in the least. The religious community in the military is far less aggressive and proselytizing than its civilian counterpart - it is mostly there for support, not conversion.

And for my personal beliefs, I had my doubts before going, to the point that I considered myself a lapsed Catholic with an indifference to religion. But the religious overtones that were involved in both getting us into this war (Bush saying God chose him for the Presidency and approved his invasion) and the attack that left me in my current condition (a roadside IED planted to attack the US forces there "in the name of Allah" - as stated by the group of insurgents whose area my convoy was moving through) were the ultimate factor in my complete loss of faith.

Just to make a commentary on the cliche, I found that we (me and my soldiers) would often joke about it when we found ourselves on the receiving end of enemy lead. The kind of running joke - and of course those of us who joked like this were respectful enough not to do so around the soldiers who cherished their faith - was that, when we were in a spot where we were having to sit in a bunker or behind our humvees and wait out a momentary surge in the volume of enemy fire, someone would say something to the effect that if God came to so many in that kind of situation, it'd help if stopped some of the bullets on his way down. It wasn't meant to be callous, but rather it gave us something to laugh about while we were trying not to to get killed, which can obviously be one of those times that a laugh comes in handy...

Thanks brokenSoldier.