Letters to the Editor

HNN Readers React

For HumanistNetworkNews.org
Mar. 31, 2010

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Prayer Doesn't Always Help

(Re: How Should We React to Their Prayers? Humanist Network News, Mar. 17, 2010.)

With regard to your article regarding the efficacy of prayer, one study of note recently concluded that heart patients who knew they were being prayed for following surgery actually had a more complicated and difficult recovery. The authors speculated that "performance anxiety" may have increased their stress level to the point their recovery was adversely affected. This is dialectically opposed to the proposition that prayer helps patients.

–Rhubarb Koznowski, St. Cloud, Florida