Well, people who worship God everyday, at some point of time become dependent on this special kind of power that they apparently receive from God. And, in many cases that I can name, it seems to work for them pretty well and of course they can say 'its for the best' if it doesn't.

In terms of science, we call it the PLACEBO EFFECT, which simply refers to a beneficial effect produced by the placebo drug, and that this beneficial property isn't attributed to the content of the drug, but to the strong belief or confidence of the patient in the mechanism itself. I myself have seen many a cases where mild bacterial diseases have been cured just by giving the patient literally water, saying that its the best medicine against the disease and the healing is quick. Now, I found it really unbelievable the first time I read about this, because it can really work sometimes.

Now, I would like to test something similar against the psychological edge, if any, that people get by believing in God. You all are welcome to point out any flaws below.

THE EXPERIMENT

If I ever had the chance to actually try this out, I would be pleased. So here goes

Take a 100 students, and these students must be very religious. Now, I don't know how many of you actually used to do this, or still do, but I used to pray before my exams so that I do well. So, lets also assume that these students pray very dearly before they give their exam papers.
Now, another requirement would be that these 100 selected students score almost same in every exam they give, that is, they are of equal intelligence.
Now, out of the 100 students, if somehow, I forbid or disallow 50 of them to say their prayers and write the paper. Maybe thats not possible, but say they didn't pray or simply DIDNT FOLLOW A PARTICULAR CUSTOM before their routine paper, I would like to compare the scores of these 2 groups later. Also assume that the 'luck factor' is negligible and that these students had equally worked for their exams.

Now, I don't know the results. But for me personally, I think that the students who did not follow their custom, in this case praying, MIGHT score less. Now you can apply this to anything if you think an exam is stupid.
Maybe a very religious player forgot to go to the church in the morning before a big game, as he always used to. Now I know some won't mind it, but what if they DEPEND ON IT SO GREATLY, BECAUSE I KNOW MANY WHO DO. what will his performance be like?

Richard Dawkins had showed a case where about 1800 patients, about to go coronary bypass, had been divided into 3 groups. One group received prayers and weren't told about it. The 2nd group received no prayers and didn't know about it. GROUP 3 WERE PEOPLE WHO KNEW THEY WERE BEING PRAYED FOR.

The result was that there was no difference between group 1 and group 2 people but GROUP 3 PEOPLE suffered significantly more complications than the people who did not know they were being prayed for.
The reason for this was given as the uncertainty among people who knew they were being prayed for. It made them wonder if their condition is that bad, and hence we have a slight loss of confidence, psychology comes into play.

Now, my proposed experiment is very different from this one, but the aim is the same, to test the role of psychology.

So, guys, first of all I want to know your views on the psychological face of 'A GOD'.
Next, I want you to point flaws in my experiment and the results, what you think personally.
Last, if you see something significant in the PRAYER EXPERIMENT, that I have written about at the last.

Cheers!