Letter: Honest effort to study effect of prayer

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 | 7:37 a.m.

In his April 6 column on religion and the scientific method, University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos seems to assume that the Templeton Foundation, whose 10-year study on the effectiveness of prayer he cites, is a skeptical organization bent on debunking the subject. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sir John Templeton is an extremely intelligent and rich philanthropist whose foundation seeks to, in its own words on its Web site, "... unite credible and rigorous science with the exploration of humanity's basic spiritual and religious quests." He and it are very actively, through grants and prizes, seeking to implement spirituality, rather than debunk it.

Such an undertaking may, indeed, be foolish, but I believe that their motives are sincere and that they are seeking to do good.

Campos confuses us somewhat about the study with his incredulousness that someone would posit an omnipotent and omniscient being that is subject to strategic manipulation. This is exactly what most religions do espouse.

Then, he flatly denies that "the slightest evidence either in favor of or against ..." could be produced by such an experiment, but he oddly qualifies the object of such evidence as being "any religious faith worthy of the name." Who decides which are worthy and which are not?

Even odder, he next states that if such an experiment did produce the desired evidence, genuine atheists (as opposed to fake?!) still wouldn't be convinced. What would that have to do with the validity of a scientific outcome? All of this leads me to believe that Campos protests too much, and, finally, he does spill the beans.

He lets on that there are "religious beliefs" as opposed to "absurd superstitions," thus bringing out his true agenda. While he doesn't tell us which of these categories his personal faith falls under, he obviously believes that the above experimenters don't have a true type of faith, unlike some people - likely including himself - who have reasonable religious beliefs.

Personally, I choose not to make the distinction, but I do greatly admire Sir John's spirit.

Bob Hannah, Henderson