insomniac17 said:
That's not always true. Some people are so thankful when they hear that other people prayed for them. In my experience, these tend to be very religious people, but it touches them that so many people thought of them in their time of need, and it makes them feel better. Usually this is for someone who's sick and in the hospital, or something that's harder for people to actually help out with. (Yes, people can donate money to a sick person rather than pray. But my point is just that some people do appreciate prayers, and it does help them; at least mentally.) |
That just reminded me of an article about studies on the effects of prayers. What's interesting is that one study came to the result that when people who were in hospital for surgery were told that others were praying for them, that actually decreased their likelihood of getting healthy. On the other hand, it didn't make a difference if others really actually prayed for them or if they were only told so.
It was speculated that this effect is because if people in hospital were told that people are praying for them, it gives them a feeling of "oh shit, my condition must be worse than I thought!"
Generally speaking however, I think praying can indeed have positive effects and thus can be considered to "make sense". Because no matter if there is a god or not, it can be attributed to psychological effects, which I would suppose to be similar, yet not the exactly the same as writing a daily diary.
