Good Science and Extraordinary privilege not Prayers

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Dr Kent Brantly epitomises what I detest about the religious. Here he is, saved from almost certain death by 1st rate medicine and science, and what does he attribute this to? The power of prayer and a kindly god answering those prayers. He implores us to pray for the people of Liberia so that God might save them as well. What a pathetic crock of s**t.

He is alive, not because of intercessory prayers, but because he is allowed to enter a first world country and receive state of the art care. The absolute arrogance of this person to assume that of all the people with Ebola, God has singled him and his co-worker for special attention. The obvious question that the average 5 year old should be able to formulate is, "if god can cure this disease why you and more to the point why allow the damn virus in the first place?"

Rather than imploring people to pray, why does this Fwit not ask people to get angry that people are dying unnecessarily from what now appears to be a curable illness, and demand the war mongering western countries divert military funds to saving lives.

I can hear some of you wailing "but this is a wonderful man, he puts his life in danger" etc etc, yes he does, and so do many others who do not do it for the glory of God.


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The funny thing about viruses is that they evolve to be specific to species. For people who believe that and omnibenevolent or omnipotent god creates everything, why create such an awful virus to infect people?

It'd be interesting to do a study on aircraft crashes and the percentage of people who are religious on them. Interesting not because of the results, but to see if that would affect those who did the praying or not (though of course, that depends on type of religion and plenty of other things)

I saw this too. Once again, it's what people choose to believe, despite the good work of those whose hard work went into saving his life (Doctors, vaccine workers et al). I bet they feel appreciated. And of course, the vaccine will now be used to answer more prayers.

Well I have no problem with praying. It can be very comforting. It is very narrow minded to completely disregard higher power. There's a lot a human being doesn't understand about ourselves and the nature of the universe. Who knows, maybe the universe is actually living? We have a lot of mystery before us. What irritates me more than someone recommending to poor, troubled souls they should find comfort in prayer are the ones who think they know everything, have all the answers, and are themselves the higher power. Sorry to inform them, they are still at the mercy of forces beyond their control, they are not omniscient or immortal yet so get off the ego/power trip. Most of what you see through a telescope remains unconquerable.

I do not advocate hitting people over the heads with Bibles like certain Christians but I will not deprive people of a Holy Comforter and Helper.

BS ANA, we may not know everything about the universe and its laws and yes much that we are just beginning to understand is very bizarre, but what you do not seem to understand is the more we learn the less probable the supernatural becomes, I really wish that you would stop making mystical stuff up, and actually go to the effort to learn from reality.

To be honest I am sick and tired of hearing the mantra "you guys think you know everything" continually spouted by people who seem to know f**k all, yet think they have a greater grasp of the world than is understood by people who work within reality.

Do I think a belief in prayer is harmful, bloody heck I do, especially in instances like this, this dick head is so far up his own glorification that rather than use his new found celebrity to push for change and a rational response, he is demanding more prayer.

@DentArthurDent, Ana states that recommending to the "poor, troubled souls" that they should pray irritates her. We do know a lot, but there's a hell of a lot that we don't know. Fundamental laws of chemistry, physics, psychology, etc, have been overturned or completely restructured in the last 100 years or so, sometimes more than once. One of the landmarks of a great scientist is their ability to look and listen to multiple explanations and contradictory models, ie, seek out the mysterious. Whether Ana holds mystical beliefs or not is irrelevant here. She's got a good point that we need to be as critical about what we don't know as with what we do know. (in the case of prayer, I agree wholeheartedly with you, though Ana didn't really say one way or another. She only said she's not against people being comforted by prayer (but please correct me if I'm wrong Ana))

^ I completely agree that good science follows the evidence, and that we have so much still to discover and will probably never understand everything to do with our natural world. The trouble with the mystics they have no evidence for their supernatural explanations, and yet they have the temerity to accuse those asking for rational explanations of arrogance, saying "that we don't know everything"

ANA constantly posits nonsensical rubbish, based entirely on folk lore, unfortunately she is not alone, There is a worrying trend for people with stuff all comprehension as to how we know what we know, thinking it is acceptable to make up stuff and believe it.