I have to wonder what criteria they use for answering of prayers. Obviously if you pray for things that are likely to happen anyway, you’re more likely to be “answered” than if you pray for, say, world peace. But on the other hand, they might be referring to the mental sensation of feeling like you’ve made a connection, and you’ve received a definite answer from God, even if it’s “no.”
We would be much better off standardizing what the groups are praying for, and having a concrete way of measuring whether the prayers are answered or not, otherwise we can’t tell differences in the actual rate of prayer answering from differing rates of softball prayers and bias in interpreting results.
Polling people on rates of religious experiences, provided they’re clearly defined, would be easier than this though. The poll you linked tells us something, but not much given that they didn’t isolate any of the multiple factors that could account for different rates in reporting. It’s not really useful for the question we’re trying to answer.
The metric you used for frequency of prayer answering also seems somewhat misleading, since it weights different rates of receiving answers to prayers equally.
I agree, the data isn’t perfect. But it’s better than nothing, and it does support my conclusion—there are 14 groups. It also supports the conclusion “More-actively-religious groups are more likely to claim spiritual experiences.” But we should expect a true religion to be an active religion.
Can you go find some better data?
As for some people being more likely to say softball prayers, that would be a good reason to weight the three categories equally, because we need to adjust for that. And different levels of likelihood-to-perceive-events-as-spritual-experiences.
But okay, even if we discard that and re-weight, 9 points for the highest frequency, 3 points for the medium frequency, 1 point for the lowest frequency. (Once or twice a month ~ 1⁄3 of once a week)
As for some people being more likely to say softball prayers, that would be a good reason to weight the three categories equally, because we need to adjust for that. And different levels of likelihood-to-perceive-events-as-spritual-experiences.
Why suppose these differences manifest within religions as different frequencies in prayer answerings, but not between religions?
A cursory search didn’t reveal any applicable data, which is why I said in the first place that I didn’t think the matter had been studied before. Better to admit we don’t know, and if possible conduct the research, than pretend we have an answer based on poor or tenuously related data.
I have to wonder what criteria they use for answering of prayers. Obviously if you pray for things that are likely to happen anyway, you’re more likely to be “answered” than if you pray for, say, world peace. But on the other hand, they might be referring to the mental sensation of feeling like you’ve made a connection, and you’ve received a definite answer from God, even if it’s “no.”
We would be much better off standardizing what the groups are praying for, and having a concrete way of measuring whether the prayers are answered or not, otherwise we can’t tell differences in the actual rate of prayer answering from differing rates of softball prayers and bias in interpreting results.
Polling people on rates of religious experiences, provided they’re clearly defined, would be easier than this though. The poll you linked tells us something, but not much given that they didn’t isolate any of the multiple factors that could account for different rates in reporting. It’s not really useful for the question we’re trying to answer.
The metric you used for frequency of prayer answering also seems somewhat misleading, since it weights different rates of receiving answers to prayers equally.
I agree, the data isn’t perfect. But it’s better than nothing, and it does support my conclusion—there are 14 groups. It also supports the conclusion “More-actively-religious groups are more likely to claim spiritual experiences.” But we should expect a true religion to be an active religion.
Can you go find some better data?
As for some people being more likely to say softball prayers, that would be a good reason to weight the three categories equally, because we need to adjust for that. And different levels of likelihood-to-perceive-events-as-spritual-experiences.
But okay, even if we discard that and re-weight, 9 points for the highest frequency, 3 points for the medium frequency, 1 point for the lowest frequency. (Once or twice a month ~ 1⁄3 of once a week)
Witnesses = 36x9 + 13x3 + 14x1 = 377 points
Mormons = 32x9 + 22x3 + 20x1 = 374 points
Black Churches = 34x9 + 16x3 + 18x 1 = 372 points
Other Christians = 29x9 + 20x3 + 18x1 = 339 points
So yeah, if we re-weight, now it’s 2nd out of 14 instead of 1st.
Why suppose these differences manifest within religions as different frequencies in prayer answerings, but not between religions?
A cursory search didn’t reveal any applicable data, which is why I said in the first place that I didn’t think the matter had been studied before. Better to admit we don’t know, and if possible conduct the research, than pretend we have an answer based on poor or tenuously related data.