h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Question? Is there a polite way of reminding other to engage the sensor between the brain to vocalizing ones thoughts (sorry can't find reading glasses to check dictionary)or are we just too polite to others we have been culturally conditioned to respect?

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Personally, I'd appreciate it, though of course I'd worry if I'd gone in for something realtively trivial. However, the normal thing is to ask first, which is what I did when our receptionist's daughter was having chemo recently...

Vicky
(She and her mother agreed with alacrity..)

What if the doctor (he or she) was Islamic?

Or for that matter, any other religion that is mono-theistic?

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The point is, that his/her intentions would be good. (At my brother's funeral, his Muslim landlord spoke, with the Koran on the lectern. We took it in the way it was intended, as something good. People at the funeral were Christian - Protestant (our family), Catholic (his girlfriend's family), Muslim (the ex-landlords) and not known (his Chinese colleagues.)

No one minded...

Vicky

>I'd worry if I'd gone in for something realtively trivial.<

Yeah imagine you'd gone in for the removal of a particularly convoluted in growing toenail. To see him grovelling on the floor, beside your bed, facing east, would be kind of disturbing.

You're telling me! (Not that an ingrowing toenail wouldn't be horrible aethe-wossname-ically!

I miss my spell check!

Vicky

I'd be pretty worried if I thought that a medical expert thought my best chance was prayer.

Anyway, why couldn't he wait until I'd been discharged and pray then? (tongueincheek>

Gif

I wonder if the good intentions you speak of would be considered useless by you unless the prayers were Christian? That is to say that you might consider Islamic prayer to be good intentioned but ultimately impotent? And if that is the case, would some Christian prayers be stronger than others, perhaps?

>considered useless by you unless the prayers were Christian? <

Their prayers are useless. A few years ago I saw documentary about a proper experiment that investigated the effect on longevity of extremely ill people, on those that were prayed for by Christians, and those that were not. Absolutely no statistical difference occurred.

Mind you that's just Christians. I don't think the power of prayer of other faiths has properly been investigated.. It would be quite funny actually if it turned out that the prayers of some obscure voodoo cult in Haiti turned out to work, rather than those of good, god fearing Christian folk.

Sorry have no link. The programme was quite while ago.

I got some good Google results:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12082681/

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1072638.ece

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1204481517-rO3xIcE16942wmSCkSctTQ&oref=slogin

... but then there are some studies that indicate the reverse (most are funded or run by the folks that want that result). As with most things, statistical significance can be in doubt. My favourite story is of the first *Pepsi Challenge* where they asked people which they preferred and stopped asking when the percentage was in their favour. Then there's the placebo effect, etc.

<< saw documentary about a proper experiment that investigated the effect on longevity of extremely ill people, on those that were prayed for by Christians, and those that were not. Absolutely no statistical difference occurred.>>

The point's been made that the result is exactly what would be expected - because Christianity is all about relationships - God isn't a machine, where you 'drop in a quarter, and get your result' as the song says. The Christians praying weren't actually praying for anyone, just a number on a list, someone they didn't know or even actually know anything about.

By the way, Coke any day. Pepsi's too sweet.

Oh did they that particular BBC Science Horizon programme down in the South Pacific islands?

'Relationships'? Now there's a thing

*show*

Sadly, no... It's very rare for any British programming to screen here. We're little America, like it or not.

But I have read a commentary on it, a yonk ago, or was it a bleam?

(I don't know which is which, like lakhs and crores... )

Vicky

> It's very rare for any British programming to screen here<

What's up with Kiwi TV bosses then? We make the best telly in the world.

Do we? We didn't make The Sopranos.

A related question is what we Atheists should say in place of 'I'll pray for you.' What I say is obvious enough: 'I'll think of you.' But is this the same? I absolutely don't believe that there are positive vibes emanating from my skull which are capable of making a difference. I wonder...is 'praying' more than simply 'thinking of'?

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Or The Wire, or The West Wing . . .


az

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Yes. It's bringing that person to mind before the maker of the Universe.

For whatever reason, we're instructed to pray, even though God knows already what we want. I think it's so that we'll keep each other in mind all the time...

Nevertheless, "I'll think of you", while good, isn't quite the same.

(Unless you don't believe in God, in which case, it's exactly the same...)