October 30, 2008 • 16 mins
Studies have shown that prayer has a positive effect on individuals, but can your prayer heal someone else? Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to find out how science weighs in on the power of intercessory prayer -- and if it should at all.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
From House Stuff works dot com. This podcast is brought
to you by Go to my PC, providing fast, easy
and secure access to your PC from any web browser,
access emails, files, programs, and network resources from home, the road,
(00:23):
or anywhere there's an Internet connection. Set up takes just minutes.
Try it free? Is it Go to my pc dot
com slash stuff. I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh.
That's Chuck, Chuck Bryant, Josh Clark, not Brian. I'm Josh. Right.
We've got some listener mail claiming that Josh is Brian.
Not true. At least they got the spelling of your
(00:45):
last name almost correct without the tea they that. I
think they used the y generally. Brian. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah,
So it's not Chucking Brian, it's Chuck Brian and Josh
Clark Bryant. That's what I said. Sure, lighten up. That's
that's neither here nor there. No, it's not what it
is here and what is there is intercessory prayer. Wow,
(01:07):
it's like a bowl in a china shop. Let's go
you know. Yeah, yeah, so Chuck, I don't know how
you feel about this, but um, there there there have
been studies on prayer, right, and actually people who pray,
who who who um pray for themselves for others, but
who spent a significant amount of time praying you could
(01:27):
also call it meditating. Um, they actually lead healthier lives.
Did I read your article? Right? Well? Let me ask
you this because this is something that I was aware
of before I wrote this article. Um, and it was
really interesting to uh to to see how it's been studied.
(01:49):
But I was aware that people have been studying it,
but to find you know, what the methodologies were like
and what the results were. I mean, were you aware
that prayer healed? Is that something that you would have
accepted before you read this article? Or well? You know,
I grew up in the church, in the Christian Church,
and uh, anyone who's who's grown up in church or
has been to church like that knows that prayer is
(02:11):
very central. It's the personal conversation that you have with
with God. And uh so yeah, you're taught from early
on that prayer makes a big, big difference, right, and
and it actually does have a physiological difference or is
that taught as well or is this this a happy byproduct? No,
in my church it wasn't at least Um. They just
(02:34):
said to the type they take it results. I got you, okay. Well,
speaking of results, there have been studies that have have
evaluated people examine people who pray a lot, and they
tend to have lower blood pressure, they have they live longer, um,
their heart rate is generally uh a slower, right, they're
(02:54):
a little they're a little more laid back physiologically than
someone who doesn't pray. Um. And there's been some explanations
for it. Well, yeah, I know one that I think
makes a big difference is many people who are in
fact religious probably tend to lead healthier, cleaner lifestyles issue
things like alcohol and smoking and other things that can
(03:16):
avoiding prostitutes of the Yeah, so uh yeah, I think
that might have a lot to do it personally, It
definitely does. But we're not the only ones who thought
of that. Other people have as well and explained it
away with that. So there's been follow up studies that
took all those factors into account and they still found
(03:38):
that people who pray tend to be healthier. My My
theory is that you're meditating when you pray, you're you're meditating,
You're entering a transcendental state of meditative state, so you're
just more relaxed. And I think if you do that
enough times, your body learns to relax. Yeah, that makes sense,
That's what I think. Okay, So there's not a lot
(03:58):
of people who are I guess, debating whether or not
prayer has an effect on the person who's praying. What
is really contentious is whether or not praying can have
an effect on anyone else or anything else in the universe. Right,
And that's where we get into the real um sticky discussion.
Is ready, Yeah, I'm ready. I know. Growing up, as
(04:21):
I said, in the Christian faith, they would often, uh,
tell us if if a family member, a distant family
member of anyone in the church, we're sick, they would
call upon the church to pray for them. What do
they call this sticks? Prayer lists or prayer shoutouts require
shout I don't yeah, I don't remember, to be honest,
(04:41):
but they would prayer request for people to keep them
in their hearts and minds. Sure, yeah, and you could
actually call in and leave like a voicemail and then
you get added to the list. Right. No, No, I
don't know anything about that. I'm pretty sure I've seen
phone numbers like prayer hotlines. Okay, I kid you not, No,
I believe it. Okay, So you've got this congregation praying
for this person. Do you do you have any anecdotal evidence,
(05:03):
any story of somebody healing from that? Uh? No, I'm
sure that that probably happened here and there, but I
don't remember that stuff. Now. Well, that kind of prayer
is called intercessory prayer, interceding on behalf of somebody, maybe
asking for them to heal. Hopefully you're not praying for
them to die. That could still be considered intercessory prayer.
(05:25):
But for the most part, people pray that somebody's going
to rebound from an illness or get over a streak
of bad luck or something like that. It's also called
distant prayer because you know, you're it's not centered on
the individual or you're you're you're praying out for somebody. Um.
These have also been studied, you know. They There's been
(05:46):
some methodologies over the course of the last couple of decades,
starting with this guy named Randolph Bird, who's a physician,
and he he was the first to create this really
groundbreaking landmark study. It was eighty eight I think and um,
I think he was a cardiac physician. He uh he
(06:09):
assembled I think three hundred and fifty three different people's
um histories and he found people who were statistically inseparable,
meaning that they were the same age. Uh, they were
the same race, they were this, they had the same
heart conditions, they were on paper, they were one and
(06:29):
the same basically. Uh. And he contacted some groups. I
think it was in California where he got in touch
with some different denominations. I think they were all Christian,
but he got in touch with Baptists and Presbyterians and
Catholics and all that. And they had these groups get
together in groups of three or four and these people
would have the name of one patient yeah and UM.
(06:51):
They would pray that they they had a speedy and
um and I think effective recovery something along those lines.
And they prayed for him over the course of I
don't know, several weeks, I believe. UM. And after the
after this prayering of this praying was done, UM, the
(07:14):
the physician Randolph Bird went back and studied who, you know,
who thrived and who didn't, which should also say there's
a control group of people who weren't prayed for. Kay, yeah, yeah, right.
So he actually found that there was a really significant difference,
like a huge difference actually between the recoveries of people
(07:36):
who were prayed for and those who weren't prayed for. Um,
something like eight five percent compared to seventy three point
one percent. That's that's enormous statistically speaking, that's that's very big.
And the thing is is there was no one who
could explain away what happened um Bird's. Bird's study has
(07:59):
never been basically overturned. Um, the people who were praying
didn't know the people they were praying for. The people
who are being prayed for, we're you know, not they
There's there's nothing you can say that says, well, this
is what happened. Because that's a huge statistical difference. It
(08:19):
is that got the attention to the scientific community. So
all of a sudden, there's like a slew of of
basically follow up studies that use birds methodology. This is
the most beautiful thing about Randolph Bird, in my opinion.
He used the scientific method He used science to conduct
an investigation into something that science doesn't believe in, which
(08:40):
is prayer, intercessory prayer. And he created this study in
such a way that, um, it could be modeled like
he he said, here's how you do it. And other
people have followed the same model and they have come
up with with radically different results basically. Um. Another pretty
study was the STEPS study, which is the study for
(09:04):
Study of the Effects of Intercessory Prayer. Um, it was.
It was a huge study. It covered six different medical
centers across the US, and this is published in the
American Heart Journal. So yeah, so it was it was
pretty significant. Um. They they basically broke these groups down
into three groups. Uh, those who received prayer but weren't
(09:25):
aware of it, Uh, those who didn't receive any prayer,
and those who received prayer but and we're aware that
they were being prayed for us. Yeah. Yeah, So this
study it was, like you said, it was. It was
published in the American Heart Journal, which is pretty pretty
big journal as far as they go in in this country. Right. Um,
(09:47):
they found that those who, uh who didn't receive prayer
had about the same kind of recovery as those who
did it. Was like and even worse, those who were
aware that they received prayer actually had the worst results.
It was fifty of them had complications after heart surgery.
(10:10):
So this seems to fly in the face of the
Bird study. Yeah, it does. It's it's it's totally contradictory.
It's also pretty counterintuitive to I mean, how would prayer
be harmful? And that's actually one of the reasons why
people are investigating prayer, why scientists, why it's become kind
of a niche field of study, because it's not really
(10:32):
if if people are praying, uh, maybe we should find
out if it is in fact harmful. You. Science shouldn't
just be like, yeah, go pray, we don't believe in
that whatever. There should be investigations into it. And and
this is kind of startling. People who are aware they're
being prayed for had complications following surgery. That alone warrants
investigation into it. Right, So that that step study was
(10:57):
one of a number that have come up with. Nobody's
ever come up with the kind of statistical difference that
Randolph Bird did, Right. I think personally, Uh, I'm a
bit of a skeptic in life in general, and when
I hear about studies like this. It's to me, prayer
something that's hard to quantify statistically because people pray in
different ways, people pray for different lengths of time. Um,
(11:21):
it just I'm not sure how you could say that
this this solid group that prayed, all prayed exactly the
same in the same way and had the exact same beliefs. Uh,
it's hard to quantify. Yes, it is. And again Randolph
Bird came the closest to it. He told these people
how often to pray? You know, what to say when
they're praying, specifically to pray for Here's the problem with
(11:43):
with studying prayer is you can control these groups of
people who are praying for these heart patients or whatever
as much as you want. But if prayer is real,
if prayer does work right, and you've got somebody else
out there praying for this patient, it completely screws up
the results. Like the patient itself where they told not
to pray for themselves, I I don't know, I don't
(12:04):
I don't know. And and how how would you control that?
Would you want to control that? Apparently prayer is the
number one alternative medicine in America that tops vitamins and herbs,
which is like a multibillion dollar industry. If the best
part is prayers free of course, um, but you can't
control how much prayer. You can't say, here's ten ccs
(12:26):
of prayer, let's see if it has an effect. Um.
And you also can't you can't can't control other people
coming along behind you and saying I'm going to pray
for this person. So it's it's very difficult to study,
and not everybody thinks you should study it, right, And
this is then this is uh, these are people that
are being treated medically as well. This is not Christian
(12:47):
scientists who, from what I understand a lot of times
don't believe in medicine and they only believe in the
power of prayer to heal. Yeah, no, these were These
were people who are being treated through modern innocent and
we're being prayed for, right, So you kind of like,
I don't know, there's different doctors and different levels experience,
and so that's something you also have to take into
(13:08):
consideration as well. You can't say that everyone was getting
the exact same care and their whole life history and
whether or not these people typically recover quicker than others.
I mean, there's there's a lot of factors that weigh
in here. There are, but you could also make the
argument that all those factors would would appear in any study,
you know, and prayers just like this extra layer um
(13:30):
SmackDown basically just smack me down. Yes, sorry chucking. I
tried to do it gently. Um. But like I said,
not everybody thinks that we should be studying this, right,
and that that falls on both sides. There's obviously um
scientists who are totally skeptical of prayer and think it's
a waste of time and funding. But there's also religious
religious devotes um who believe we shouldn't be studying this
(13:54):
kind of thing either that it's folly um, that you
couldn't possibly study something like and um. One guy put
it that studying heart conditions studying the power of prayer
um is basically like asking a composer with I think
a quadrillion times the talent of Beethoven to uh to
(14:16):
compose the notes to three blind mice. Like, we're we're
getting so granular here, We're missing the big picture, right.
I would love to hear that version of three blind
man be really, really good. So yeah, ultimately the jury
is still out, and I don't know personally whether I
wanted to ever come in. I think it'd be pretty cool.
And I definitely believe that there are aspects of us
(14:40):
as humans and among the universe that science either can
explain under the scientific method or just hasn't figured out
the right methodology to apply it. Definitely don't think science
explains all and anything science can explain doesn't exist, right
And since my uh growing up in the church now
here as an adult, my belief is I'm sort of
(15:00):
it to each his own kind of guy. Now, sure,
if you want to, if you want to pray and
you feel like it has an effect on you and
your family and your loved ones, I say go for it.
If you're skeptic and you don't think that it does,
then you know, don't. Yeah, And and trying to avoid
the harmful praying, you know, where you're you're actually praying
for somebody to you know, become injured. That's just me. Yeah,
(15:22):
And I don't think that come on, So different strokes
for different folkus then fantastic. Yet, like Gary Coleman, all right, well,
coming up, Chuck is going to tell you about an
article that um satisfies the childhood fantasy of his All right, Chuck,
what's the what's the article? Then that? Hold on? I
love this. That satisfies the childhood fantasy. Right, it sounds
(15:46):
so perfect. No, no, it's not at all. It's could
I install a hidden passageway in my home? Awesome? And uh,
I think, I don't know. Maybe it's a little boy thing.
But when I was a little kid, just like hidden
passageways and tunnels and all that stuff was just the
coolest thing to me. That's Edmunds, right, Edmunds about that,
Molly Edmunds a great, great writer. Molly, you know I
haven't a hidden passage bay in my house? Going now,
(16:07):
did you pull a book down from your library? It
was We had a linen closet and for some reason,
the interior of it was painted black and there was
a door at the back of the closet and it
opened up onto the steps going down to the basement,
which immediately got you onto the other side of the house.
Bring out the gimp, Hide and go seek in my
house was awesome. It was very cool. So you can
(16:27):
read that one could I install a hidden passage away
in my home? And about five million other super cool
articles on how stuff works dot com for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Was it how stuff
works dot com? Let us know what you think. Send
an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
(16:48):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
From House Stuff works dot com. This podcast is brought
to you by Go to my PC, providing fast, easy
and secure access to your PC from any web browser,
access emails, files, programs, and network resources from home, the road,
(00:23):
or anywhere there's an Internet connection. Set up takes just minutes.
Try it free? Is it Go to my pc dot
com slash stuff. I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh.
That's Chuck, Chuck Bryant, Josh Clark, not Brian. I'm Josh. Right.
We've got some listener mail claiming that Josh is Brian.
Not true. At least they got the spelling of your
(00:45):
last name almost correct without the tea they that. I
think they used the y generally. Brian. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah,
So it's not Chucking Brian, it's Chuck Brian and Josh
Clark Bryant. That's what I said. Sure, lighten up. That's
that's neither here nor there. No, it's not what it
is here and what is there is intercessory prayer. Wow,
(01:07):
it's like a bowl in a china shop. Let's go
you know. Yeah, yeah, so Chuck, I don't know how
you feel about this, but um, there there there have
been studies on prayer, right, and actually people who pray,
who who who um pray for themselves for others, but
who spent a significant amount of time praying you could
(01:27):
also call it meditating. Um, they actually lead healthier lives.
Did I read your article? Right? Well? Let me ask
you this because this is something that I was aware
of before I wrote this article. Um, and it was
really interesting to uh to to see how it's been studied.
(01:49):
But I was aware that people have been studying it,
but to find you know, what the methodologies were like
and what the results were. I mean, were you aware
that prayer healed? Is that something that you would have
accepted before you read this article? Or well? You know,
I grew up in the church, in the Christian Church,
and uh, anyone who's who's grown up in church or
has been to church like that knows that prayer is
(02:11):
very central. It's the personal conversation that you have with
with God. And uh so yeah, you're taught from early
on that prayer makes a big, big difference, right, and
and it actually does have a physiological difference or is
that taught as well or is this this a happy byproduct? No,
in my church it wasn't at least Um. They just
(02:34):
said to the type they take it results. I got you, okay. Well,
speaking of results, there have been studies that have have
evaluated people examine people who pray a lot, and they
tend to have lower blood pressure, they have they live longer, um,
their heart rate is generally uh a slower, right, they're
(02:54):
a little they're a little more laid back physiologically than
someone who doesn't pray. Um. And there's been some explanations
for it. Well, yeah, I know one that I think
makes a big difference is many people who are in
fact religious probably tend to lead healthier, cleaner lifestyles issue
things like alcohol and smoking and other things that can
(03:16):
avoiding prostitutes of the Yeah, so uh yeah, I think
that might have a lot to do it personally, It
definitely does. But we're not the only ones who thought
of that. Other people have as well and explained it
away with that. So there's been follow up studies that
took all those factors into account and they still found
(03:38):
that people who pray tend to be healthier. My My
theory is that you're meditating when you pray, you're you're meditating,
You're entering a transcendental state of meditative state, so you're
just more relaxed. And I think if you do that
enough times, your body learns to relax. Yeah, that makes sense,
That's what I think. Okay, So there's not a lot
(03:58):
of people who are I guess, debating whether or not
prayer has an effect on the person who's praying. What
is really contentious is whether or not praying can have
an effect on anyone else or anything else in the universe. Right,
And that's where we get into the real um sticky discussion.
Is ready, Yeah, I'm ready. I know. Growing up, as
(04:21):
I said, in the Christian faith, they would often, uh,
tell us if if a family member, a distant family
member of anyone in the church, we're sick, they would
call upon the church to pray for them. What do
they call this sticks? Prayer lists or prayer shoutouts require
shout I don't yeah, I don't remember, to be honest,
(04:41):
but they would prayer request for people to keep them
in their hearts and minds. Sure, yeah, and you could
actually call in and leave like a voicemail and then
you get added to the list. Right. No, No, I
don't know anything about that. I'm pretty sure I've seen
phone numbers like prayer hotlines. Okay, I kid you not, No,
I believe it. Okay, So you've got this congregation praying
for this person. Do you do you have any anecdotal evidence,
(05:03):
any story of somebody healing from that? Uh? No, I'm
sure that that probably happened here and there, but I
don't remember that stuff. Now. Well, that kind of prayer
is called intercessory prayer, interceding on behalf of somebody, maybe
asking for them to heal. Hopefully you're not praying for
them to die. That could still be considered intercessory prayer.
(05:25):
But for the most part, people pray that somebody's going
to rebound from an illness or get over a streak
of bad luck or something like that. It's also called
distant prayer because you know, you're it's not centered on
the individual or you're you're you're praying out for somebody. Um.
These have also been studied, you know. They There's been
(05:46):
some methodologies over the course of the last couple of decades,
starting with this guy named Randolph Bird, who's a physician,
and he he was the first to create this really
groundbreaking landmark study. It was eighty eight I think and um,
I think he was a cardiac physician. He uh he
(06:09):
assembled I think three hundred and fifty three different people's
um histories and he found people who were statistically inseparable,
meaning that they were the same age. Uh, they were
the same race, they were this, they had the same
heart conditions, they were on paper, they were one and
(06:29):
the same basically. Uh. And he contacted some groups. I
think it was in California where he got in touch
with some different denominations. I think they were all Christian,
but he got in touch with Baptists and Presbyterians and
Catholics and all that. And they had these groups get
together in groups of three or four and these people
would have the name of one patient yeah and UM.
(06:51):
They would pray that they they had a speedy and
um and I think effective recovery something along those lines.
And they prayed for him over the course of I
don't know, several weeks, I believe. UM. And after the
after this prayering of this praying was done, UM, the
(07:14):
the physician Randolph Bird went back and studied who, you know,
who thrived and who didn't, which should also say there's
a control group of people who weren't prayed for. Kay, yeah, yeah, right.
So he actually found that there was a really significant difference,
like a huge difference actually between the recoveries of people
(07:36):
who were prayed for and those who weren't prayed for. Um,
something like eight five percent compared to seventy three point
one percent. That's that's enormous statistically speaking, that's that's very big.
And the thing is is there was no one who
could explain away what happened um Bird's. Bird's study has
(07:59):
never been basically overturned. Um, the people who were praying
didn't know the people they were praying for. The people
who are being prayed for, we're you know, not they
There's there's nothing you can say that says, well, this
is what happened. Because that's a huge statistical difference. It
(08:19):
is that got the attention to the scientific community. So
all of a sudden, there's like a slew of of
basically follow up studies that use birds methodology. This is
the most beautiful thing about Randolph Bird, in my opinion.
He used the scientific method He used science to conduct
an investigation into something that science doesn't believe in, which
(08:40):
is prayer, intercessory prayer. And he created this study in
such a way that, um, it could be modeled like
he he said, here's how you do it. And other
people have followed the same model and they have come
up with with radically different results basically. Um. Another pretty
study was the STEPS study, which is the study for
(09:04):
Study of the Effects of Intercessory Prayer. Um, it was.
It was a huge study. It covered six different medical
centers across the US, and this is published in the
American Heart Journal. So yeah, so it was it was
pretty significant. Um. They they basically broke these groups down
into three groups. Uh, those who received prayer but weren't
(09:25):
aware of it, Uh, those who didn't receive any prayer,
and those who received prayer but and we're aware that
they were being prayed for us. Yeah. Yeah, So this
study it was, like you said, it was. It was
published in the American Heart Journal, which is pretty pretty
big journal as far as they go in in this country. Right. Um,
(09:47):
they found that those who, uh who didn't receive prayer
had about the same kind of recovery as those who
did it. Was like and even worse, those who were
aware that they received prayer actually had the worst results.
It was fifty of them had complications after heart surgery.
(10:10):
So this seems to fly in the face of the
Bird study. Yeah, it does. It's it's it's totally contradictory.
It's also pretty counterintuitive to I mean, how would prayer
be harmful? And that's actually one of the reasons why
people are investigating prayer, why scientists, why it's become kind
of a niche field of study, because it's not really
(10:32):
if if people are praying, uh, maybe we should find
out if it is in fact harmful. You. Science shouldn't
just be like, yeah, go pray, we don't believe in
that whatever. There should be investigations into it. And and
this is kind of startling. People who are aware they're
being prayed for had complications following surgery. That alone warrants
investigation into it. Right, So that that step study was
(10:57):
one of a number that have come up with. Nobody's
ever come up with the kind of statistical difference that
Randolph Bird did, Right. I think personally, Uh, I'm a
bit of a skeptic in life in general, and when
I hear about studies like this. It's to me, prayer
something that's hard to quantify statistically because people pray in
different ways, people pray for different lengths of time. Um,
(11:21):
it just I'm not sure how you could say that
this this solid group that prayed, all prayed exactly the
same in the same way and had the exact same beliefs. Uh,
it's hard to quantify. Yes, it is. And again Randolph
Bird came the closest to it. He told these people
how often to pray? You know, what to say when
they're praying, specifically to pray for Here's the problem with
(11:43):
with studying prayer is you can control these groups of
people who are praying for these heart patients or whatever
as much as you want. But if prayer is real,
if prayer does work right, and you've got somebody else
out there praying for this patient, it completely screws up
the results. Like the patient itself where they told not
to pray for themselves, I I don't know, I don't
(12:04):
I don't know. And and how how would you control that?
Would you want to control that? Apparently prayer is the
number one alternative medicine in America that tops vitamins and herbs,
which is like a multibillion dollar industry. If the best
part is prayers free of course, um, but you can't
control how much prayer. You can't say, here's ten ccs
(12:26):
of prayer, let's see if it has an effect. Um.
And you also can't you can't can't control other people
coming along behind you and saying I'm going to pray
for this person. So it's it's very difficult to study,
and not everybody thinks you should study it, right, And
this is then this is uh, these are people that
are being treated medically as well. This is not Christian
(12:47):
scientists who, from what I understand a lot of times
don't believe in medicine and they only believe in the
power of prayer to heal. Yeah, no, these were These
were people who are being treated through modern innocent and
we're being prayed for, right, So you kind of like,
I don't know, there's different doctors and different levels experience,
and so that's something you also have to take into
(13:08):
consideration as well. You can't say that everyone was getting
the exact same care and their whole life history and
whether or not these people typically recover quicker than others.
I mean, there's there's a lot of factors that weigh
in here. There are, but you could also make the
argument that all those factors would would appear in any study,
you know, and prayers just like this extra layer um
(13:30):
SmackDown basically just smack me down. Yes, sorry chucking. I
tried to do it gently. Um. But like I said,
not everybody thinks that we should be studying this, right,
and that that falls on both sides. There's obviously um
scientists who are totally skeptical of prayer and think it's
a waste of time and funding. But there's also religious
religious devotes um who believe we shouldn't be studying this
(13:54):
kind of thing either that it's folly um, that you
couldn't possibly study something like and um. One guy put
it that studying heart conditions studying the power of prayer
um is basically like asking a composer with I think
a quadrillion times the talent of Beethoven to uh to
(14:16):
compose the notes to three blind mice. Like, we're we're
getting so granular here, We're missing the big picture, right.
I would love to hear that version of three blind
man be really, really good. So yeah, ultimately the jury
is still out, and I don't know personally whether I
wanted to ever come in. I think it'd be pretty cool.
And I definitely believe that there are aspects of us
(14:40):
as humans and among the universe that science either can
explain under the scientific method or just hasn't figured out
the right methodology to apply it. Definitely don't think science
explains all and anything science can explain doesn't exist, right
And since my uh growing up in the church now
here as an adult, my belief is I'm sort of
(15:00):
it to each his own kind of guy. Now, sure,
if you want to, if you want to pray and
you feel like it has an effect on you and
your family and your loved ones, I say go for it.
If you're skeptic and you don't think that it does,
then you know, don't. Yeah, And and trying to avoid
the harmful praying, you know, where you're you're actually praying
for somebody to you know, become injured. That's just me. Yeah,
(15:22):
And I don't think that come on, So different strokes
for different folkus then fantastic. Yet, like Gary Coleman, all right, well,
coming up, Chuck is going to tell you about an
article that um satisfies the childhood fantasy of his All right, Chuck,
what's the what's the article? Then that? Hold on? I
love this. That satisfies the childhood fantasy. Right, it sounds
(15:46):
so perfect. No, no, it's not at all. It's could
I install a hidden passageway in my home? Awesome? And uh,
I think, I don't know. Maybe it's a little boy thing.
But when I was a little kid, just like hidden
passageways and tunnels and all that stuff was just the
coolest thing to me. That's Edmunds, right, Edmunds about that,
Molly Edmunds a great, great writer. Molly, you know I
haven't a hidden passage bay in my house? Going now,
(16:07):
did you pull a book down from your library? It
was We had a linen closet and for some reason,
the interior of it was painted black and there was
a door at the back of the closet and it
opened up onto the steps going down to the basement,
which immediately got you onto the other side of the house.
Bring out the gimp, Hide and go seek in my
house was awesome. It was very cool. So you can
(16:27):
read that one could I install a hidden passage away
in my home? And about five million other super cool
articles on how stuff works dot com for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Was it how stuff
works dot com? Let us know what you think. Send
an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
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