What exactly does the random number generator experiment prove – does it demonstrate the power of prayer?
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Question, what is the exact thing that can be inferred from the random generated experiments? Are they proof of the power of prayer? This is based on a comment to my earlier question, answer to earlier question about how do others' prayers affect my exam performance. So, the comment was by Avtaar Chaitanya Prabhu. The results of random number generators have been shown to change by the prayers or rather by the desires of the people.
This indicates the power of the mind basically. So, now contemporary evidence about the power of prayer and inferring from that the action of God is a little dicey. Because at the material level, we can only infer about the non-material, that there is some non-material existence.
Now what that is and how that affects the material realm, these are some things which are not to be known just by inference. If they are known by inference, unless we have some authority to evaluate multiple inferences, we cannot decide which is the right inference. Therefore, there has been a discussion.
So, first of all, this particular evidence that random number generators, so the experiment was that these number generators, they generate numbers at random. But when they are given the impetus or rather those numbers generators generated when there are people observing and desiring that a specific result comes out, then the probability of that result is increased. This has been well documented.
So, now this is called essentially paranormal phenomena. And what it indicates is that people's thoughts influence the results of some physical phenomena. So, is that what we say prayer essentially is? Well, that's what atheists would like us to believe.
That if prayers produce some results, then it is not God intervening to bring about those results. It is just the power of our thoughts influencing, maybe making us work harder or in some other way, thoughts influencing the result. Of course, how thoughts influence the result is also difficult to explain from the atheistic reductionistic framework of the world.
But at least that seems to be more acceptable to atheists than the idea of some supernatural omnipotent being suddenly breaking through the laws of nature and acting in some way to alter the results. So, this is not the most persuasive evidence for the action of God. Now, in my article on this reason to open up the masses, I have quoted different bodies of research.
So, one is quoted from, most of these bodies of research are compilations, but one is quoted from the Godly Evidence in Oxford, the Oxford Handbook of Science for Health and Religion. And both of them show how religious people have better health and recover faster from diseases. So, now what does this actually prove? Does this prove the action of God? Again, it doesn't, from the point of view of just inference of the evidence, we could also say that that is because these people believe in God, that their belief secretes some positive health-enhancing enzymes and chemicals and that's what improves the health.
So, it is their belief in God that improves health. It is not the existence of God and the intervention of God that improves health. So, when we are talking about prayer specifically, we are not talking about our belief, our mind, our thoughts influencing the result.
We are talking about a higher being intervening to alter the results in some way. So, even that, the evidence that religious people are healthier in general and recover faster than non-religious people, that, as I have quoted in that article, it doesn't necessarily prove the existence of God. It proves that belief in God is beneficial and that's why it is not the opium for the masses.
But it doesn't prove the existence of God and certainly doesn't prove the action of God as is assumed in prayer. Even Herbert Benson's research, which I have quoted over there in that article, he says that specifically, it's not just general belief in God, but if people repeat some sound vibrations when they are taking treatment, that improves their health also. And he says people recover faster if they utter some sound vibrations which give them peace and solace and strength.
And most often, people choose to utter some religious sound vibrations. So, they may chant the name of Jesus or Buddha or Allah or Rama or Vishnu or Krishna, whatever, depending on their religious affiliation. And this improves their health.
Now, again, Benson in his book, when he's asked about belief in God, his personal belief, he says this is a matter of personal, it's a very personal matter and I won't talk about that. All that I can say is that whether people want to believe or not, that's up to them. But my research documents that uttering some sound vibrations, sacred sound vibrations, helps.
So, again, whether this proves the action of God or it proves the action of the mind motivated by the positivity created by belief in God, that is difficult to say. Now, atheists often like to quote, there was a famous research in which there were people who were prayed for. So, there were somehow, there were people for whom no prayers were offered.
There were people for whom prayers were offered and they were not told about the prayers. And third was people for whom prayers were offered and they were told that prayers were being offered for them. And it was found that somehow, in that result, the people for whom prayers were offered, their results, their health improvement was better than for those whom no prayers were offered.
but the third category for those who prayers were offered and they were told the prayers are being offered, their health was somehow lower than the other two groups. It means they didn't improve, they became less sensible or rather their improvement was not as good as that of others. So now this was used by many atheists to point out the futility of prayer but subsequent researches have pointed out the flaw in the methodology because the psychology also plays a role you know it is not that all the people were at the same level of sickness and if a person is told that you are being prayed for, then what is the effect on that person that also has to be seen.
Sometimes the person may feel encouraged by being told you are being prayed for and sometimes the person may well feel more shaken, it means I am so seriously sick, will I need prayers? The current attitude towards prayer is often quite negative. There are advertisements which say if you don't have insurance then it is your time to pray. That means the idea is when nothing material is going to work, everything material has failed, then prayers are the last resort.
And this sort of attitude can create negativity in the patients also and of course that is not the only result. That is a relatively well publicized study but other studies have subsequently demonstrated contrary results also. Where people who were praying or were prayed for and knew or did not know, all those permutations, they have been positively benefited.
But again, what does this prove? Even if we have some ambiguous results, the people who were prayed for got some positive results. Then all that the atheists would like to say is that this just proves that one's mind can affect another's mind and by that you can affect another's mind. So how that happens is again not explainable by the material analysis.
But the point is that it again in and of itself doesn't prove the action of God, the intervention of God. So there are some cases where there have been documented miraculous cures. So for example, a person is having cancer and just by the power of prayer, the person's cancer has disappeared.
So it may be because of, say, the person bathes in a holy river. So in Dhritaram Prabhu's book, Human Devolution, there is a chapter on paranormal modification of biological form. And there he talks about certain lakes that are considered sacred in Europe and how bathing in them has cured people and that cure has been medically documented.
Now the inference from that, again, is it the action of God? That's what believers would like to believe. And non-believers would like to believe that it's just the action of the mind. And of course they would like to believe that there was no such action only.
That way they don't have to attribute any power to the mind also. But the fact is these sort of things have happened and they have been well documented. So all that we can infer is that there is something definitely that is there which is beyond matter.
And that is affecting matter. Now what that is, that we cannot necessarily infer. So in the case of devotees, when devotees pray for us or we pray for other devotees, is it just the positivity that is created by those prayers that is affecting? The positivity is definitely one factor.
If encouragement and if we are offered a sense of community when we are in a crisis, we know that others are praying for us and are ready to stand by us in the times of test, then that gives us a sense of strength which itself resolves our inner determination, increases our inner determination to fight against the situation and to overcome the situation. So definitely prayer will create a positive attitude within ourselves which will also affect positively our health. But beyond that, we know that prayer is also activating a higher power, the power of God, which also intervenes and contributes to producing the result.
But all that we can infer from material phenomena is the existence of some higher power. Now what that higher power is, that we will have to understand from philosophy properly. So in the case of random number generators, where there is no prayer involved at all, there is just the intention of the mind of the observer, then we can infer that this evidence proves the power of the mind.
But when there is prayer and prayer produces positive results, then we can infer a combined action of the prayer as well as the intervention of a higher being, supreme God possibly. And when there is a miraculous cure for a person when there is not even a prayer offered by anyone, there are some cases like that also, then from that we could either infer the mystical intervention of the Supreme Lord or it could also be, there are some cases where there are people with supernatural powers who might be able to cure some people also. So again what is inferred will have to vary from person to person.
And that's why as devotees we have to be cautious about what evidence from material science, especially paranormal material science we use and what is the inference that we can derive from that material evidence. So from this evidence, it's primarily the action of the mind that we can derive. Thank you.