Studies have been done on the effect of (other people's) prayers in curing a patient. They've all shown no effect, but let's say the experiment had shown convincingly that prayers of the followers of a specific religion result in major improvements to the patients' health.
Would you still say the question was meaningless? If not, how can a question be meaningless if it depends on the result of an experiment?
It's still jumping to an unrealistic conclusion. Interesting, for sure - but it'd just mean better scientific explanation is required, otherwise it's the very definition of superstition.
What you ask is whether the question remains meaningless when confronted by strong evidence towards the existence of a godlike supernatural being that answers to prayers of a given group.
I guess the question will remain meaningless until such evidence is uncovered.
I guess the question will remain meaningless until such evidence is uncovered
I doubt people who think the question is meaningless will be looking for answers. This is one reason such "evidence" may never be available.
Another reason (a stronger one, in my opinion) is that this question is purely a matter of belief and therefore outside of the realm of science. Which may be another explanation why some people refuse to consider the question.
If it's outside the realm of science, it's no longer a question. The believer already has an answer. In fact, any answer that makes the believer happy will do, for it cannot be neither proved nor disproved.
Science folks my return to the question in the future, when there is a hypothesis to test. Right now, it can't. Trying to answer a question by throwing reason out the window cannot be called trying very hard...
Yes. "Does the act of prayer have beneficial psychological effects?" and "does God exist?" are two different questions, and I do not presume any dependence of the latter on the former.
Besides, I don't see how being dependent upon the results of an experiment has any bearing on the meaning of the question. The data collected in the experiment may be empirically valid, but the connection between the data and the question is inherently rational, not empirical, and you must already have a set of presumptive axioms in order to connect the concrete data to the abstract question.
Would you still say the question was meaningless? If not, how can a question be meaningless if it depends on the result of an experiment?