Well, I linked a study that had some facts in it, including that "Fifty-five percent of doctors say their religious beliefs influence how they practice medicine.", I thought you might take a look.

MB,

I am not following you here.

No.

Okay, I don't know how else to convince you that you are making many assumptions.

Relationship?

I don't know.

Demanding proof is a very high standard. There are many forms of evidence it may not be compelling to you however.

God can apparently be influenced. Faith is often a numbers game, but numbers alone don't mean anything. Faith is always the bottom line with the Christian God.

The implications are not as interesting as it appears, no more than knowing that your wife loves you and will stand by you. Knowing it doesn't take away from appreciating her love.

Lack of faith inhibits God, yes.

Well, you don't believe in God, so for all intents, he is not meaningful to you, and perhaps this inhibits him from doing what he wants in your life. He still continues to exist though, unless you adhere to the tree not making a sound when it falls in an empty forrest.

Yes, but do you actually understand the implications of that statement?

For example, many Christian business people say that their beliefs influence their decision-making. Often, when they say that, they mean that believe that their faith should drive them to behave according to certain ethical principles that are derived from their faith.

So the fact that they claim an "influence" doesn't mean anything in particular unless you probe into what that "influence" actually is. In fact, that was explicitly noted in the article:

That is, the article is explicitly saying that it's not possible to infer *HOW* beliefs and values influence how they care for patients as a result of this study. It may be better, comparable, or worse. But drawing conclusions at that time (2005) is not appropriate.

I would not be the least bit surprised if there were statements such as "I believe I'm supposed to love people" as a way that their faith influences their practice.

I have just been glossing over the theology you have been putting forward because for the most part it is good enough for MB's sake.

However, I think this is debatable.

Perhaps, how so you think?

If you're saying that love is foremost, then I can concede that, but to love God, you must believe in God, they go hand-in-hand.

Edit: I should also not that my rationale is the context of answered prayer, but I don't think it matters too much.

You should probably start paying attention before you look for bravery. It's a good order of business.

Ok, but that link doesnt show that their religious beliefs make them practice medicine worse

Reading fairly? Read the entire article. In regards to the case presented in OP it pretty much supports the idea that this might reflect a problem.

I have not seen a citation supporting your claim. It's possible that I missed it.

I read it prior to citing it and it says nothing about practice outside of that which I already objected to, that is the refusal to sedate at end of life.

The OP is not the point of discussion between you and I or the discussion that has led MB to the position where

Which he is saying about the 90% of US doctors expressing a religious belief in a report he cites.

As a thought though what does the fact that all these theists are successful in applying to medical school say about the atheists that aren't. Does it suggest that they are more rational or better empiricists than those that are selected.

I'll note that you refer to an aside and not the content of my post and consider you done with this?

Let me just save us both some time.

I don't know what you're going to cite. It might be nothing at all, in which case we'll just go back and forth for a couple dozen posts on meaningless garbage.

But I think you might actually attempt to cite a report that shows that shows a correlation between religiosity and academic performance measured by attainment of degrees (or something like that).

And my counter will be to cite a similar correlation of race and academic performance measured by the same standard. And I'll use the exact same logic to infer that whites are smarter than blacks and other minorities (except possibly Asians).

And then we'll go back and forth for a couple dozen posts on meaningless garbage as you try to defend your position anyway even though it's clearly flawed.

Please do your trolling elsewhere. You obviously haven't read the thread, and are just looking for an excuse to go into meltdown-mode.

From the article:
This is perhaps relevant in a thread about a health professional offering prayer to an elderly sick patient?

I don't see it as a sidetrack, when it is clearly a professional interpretation that religion has influenced doctors in a poor manner. Which, if I might add it again, is a far stronger claim than any I have made in this thread.

.

It is also the very practice that I claimed was objectionable when I posted it. My request for fairness was that I had acknowledged this as a valid reason to select against a theist doctor. That was the aside not the report itself.

Your claim may be less strong but it does not have the same support. Your claim was that as atheists are better at reasoning and empirical analysis they would make better doctors. I have stated my objections and a reason for my objections. I've also stated that my objections are defeated in the event of evidence being provided that atheists make better doctors.

What % of med school applicants are accepted and what does the fact these theists are being selected for med school say about their ability to reason and use emprirical analysis in comparison with the general population generally and those atheists that are unsuccessful specifically?

I like how you mock me in three consecutive posts for not citing, when cites have been presented. Next time try not blind yourself so much by your, well whatever it is, to not take a hint.

It puts your harassment of Mightyboosh into perspective though. Seriously, take a break. You shouldn't be posting here; you obviously have issues.

Not necessarily, you are forgetting that your linked study is a self-report survey. My data are based on testing of actual ability.

Why is your data pertaining to the ability of the general population more relevant than the abilities demonstrated in qualifying for and from medical school and the further training required to actually practice as a doctor?

I don't find your arguments compelling because you haven't answered this.

You're arguing that an ability to reason and analyse evidence important parts of being a doctor while denying that the process that creates doctors selects for this. Once these abilities are selected for reports about the general population lose relevance.

You can read up on the problems of self-report surveys yourself. I don't really have the patience to argue extremely basic social science method with someone who argues as if he is in a position to teach me about social science.

Again; atheists are not only overrepresented in higher education, they are increasingly overrepresented the higher it gets. Your protest fails this very simple litmus test.

That's just about the most ridiculous response I've had to a question while posting in RGT.

I'm neither referring to nor relying on a self report survey in my post.

Your continued avoidance of the question of selection of doctors through higher education while stressing the over representation of of atheists in these institutions along with your earlier denigration of newly qualified doctors belies an inconsistency that borders dishonesty.

I have to admit you have lost me now. Early in the thread you linked a self-report survey as proof there was no evidence of difference of patient care between theist and atheist doctors except in one case. That study was based on self-report, it it is not a survey of patients - but of doctors.

Obviously I'm arguing that data that actually tests for ability trumps self-report, and I'm also refuting your theory that being selected for med school should differentiate this on the basis that atheists are not just as a trend better at gaining access to higher education, they are as a trend more succesful at it since they as a trend get increasingly overrepresented as the levels get higher (meaning they either pass the rungs of competition more readily or lose faith along the way).

I have certainly not "denigrated doctors". I have no idea where that even comes from. I have stated that I don't view medical school as challenging but rather work-intensive, that is not "denigrating doctors".

Screaming foul and dishonesty seems to be all that RGT is capable of these days.

I think you have a legitimate question here. That is, intercessory prayer is now and has been throughout the history of Christianity an important and common kind of prayer. Yet under orthodox conceptions of God it is mysterious why exactly we should do it for some of the reasons you've brought up.

What I've been objecting to here is that I think you are letting the Christians off too easy here. Yes, we can speculate about various reasons why intercessory prayer might be common, including as a reinforcement of authority of the religion. However, that doesn't resolve the specifically theological question. You are giving a sociological explanation, and presumably one that Christians will typically not think is the complete story. However, note that all of the objections you raise are theological objections: if god is omniscient, then why do we need to tell him what we need? If God is going to do what he's going to do anyway, why ask him for anything? and so on. Your speculation that people pray as a reinforcement mechanism doesn't answer those questions at all and ends up just being a distraction.

I was here sketching out the reasoning behind your view, so if you don't think this reasoning is correct, please tell me tell it is supposed to go.

Yes, they are not mutually exclusive, but the answers to them are typically different. For instance, you talk a lot about how McDonalds and other major corporations create false needs or desires in people for their products through the use of advertising and social pressure. That is plausible enough as a way of explaining why so many people eat at McDonalds. However, it isn't plausible to think that this is also the motivation of the people going there. They usually aren't thinking: I'm going to go to McDonalds to fulfill a false desire placed in me through the most recent billion-dollar marketing campaign of McDonalds.

Okay. Don't see how it is arrogant or egocentric, but I'm sympathetic to the criticism.

Why have you come to think this? You've presented no evidence in support of this hypothesis (it is not the null hypothesis). If you think the ordinary theological justifications for prayer don't make sense, then you can reject the hypothesis that people pray because they are motivated by these theological beliefs to pray, but that doesn't mean that they are praying for these other reasons that you are proposing here.

For instance, I would probably challenge your main premise here. That is, yes, Christians do claim as a matter of theology that God controls all things etc. However, they also hold many beliefs and do many things that contradict this theological claim (see Jason Slote's Theological Incorrectness (PDF) for support here). Thus, the fact that "official" Christian theology so often posits an omnipotent and omniscient God in control of everything doesn't mean that Christians don't also act and believe that their prayers affect God's actions because they hold contradictory beliefs to the official theology.

The post you were responding to did not reference that survey. There was no mention of it so your response

Wasn't actually responding to anything in the post you quoted. As such it qualifies as the one of the most ridiculous responses I've had to any question in RGT.

The question I asked of you was why your data about the general population trumps the selection of doctors through medical school given that medical school will select for the very abilities you're referring to.

Or medical school and further training doesn't actually select for those abilities despite them being core to being a good doctor.

I'll bother responding to the rest in the morning.

Alternately

http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/Occupations.aspx

The already quoted Lord's Prayer follows a note on this subject: "And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." So the "your will be done" of it should be heard also in that context.

I think it's absolutely true that both the biblical and later traditions involving prayer are seemingly contradictory. But they don't really seek to lay out a complete and consistent systematics of prayer either. The only way to make it consistent seems to be to read the "in my name" part of "Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do" (John 14:13) as relating back to "in your will", which as I understand it has some basis in hebraic thinking about the meaning of a name, and especially the name of God. Obviously there are other relevant biblical passages but I think those two get to the root of the tension adequately enough.

But this is also why I think a more mature understanding of prayer should emphasize both that it's not just some things you say passively but an attitude that contributes to everything that you do -- there's a reason prayer, fasting, and acts of mercy are interconnected in early Christian practice -- and in the same vein that it's a participation with God rather than just a transaction wherein something is requested and either God does it or not, whether with intercessory prayer or any other kind