Determining God's will through prayer Pilot study: design & data
Sponsored link.
Design of the study:
Our survey was conducted by Email. We placed a request on our "help
us" page, asking people to take part in a study of prayer. The
survey's main purpose was explained as an assessment of "the will
of God on the topic of same-sex marriage." A secondary purpose
was to determine how certain that the participants "feel that they
have understood God's will." We mailed an identical form to each person
who wrote us asking to be included in the study. Subjects were thus
self-selected. The form asked the participant:
- Whether they were personally in favor of or opposed to same-sex marriages.
- What their sexual orientation is:
heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual.
- What is their prime religious affiliation:
Christian, Jew, Muslim, Agnostic, Wiccan, etc.
- Whether they viewed themselves as a religious liberal, "mainliner" or conservative.
- To pray about same-sex marriage, seeking Gods will on the matter.
- To wait until they had determined God's will (or had given up trying).
- To state whether they had likely determined God's will. If so, then:
- Whether they believed that God is in favor of gay
& lesbian marriages, and
- How certain they were that they had determined God's will on this
matter.
We promised to not publish any identifying information about the subjects.
The test started in 1999-JUL. At first, most of the responses were from
religious liberals. Few religious conservatives participated --probably because
very few religious conservative visit our web site. On 2000-JAN-1, we asked that
only religious conservatives reply to our survey. We terminated data collection
on 2000-JAN-27, having received 75 responses.
Sponsored link:
Raw data -- Subjects #1 to 30:
| |
Query 1 |
Query 2 |
Query 3 |
Query 4 |
Query 7 |
Query 8 |
Query 9 |
| Subject |
Their Belief |
Their Orientation |
Their Religion |
Their Wing |
Prayer Succeed? |
God's Response |
How Certain? |
| 1 |
Y |
B |
C |
L |
Y |
Y |
V |
| 2 |
Y |
B |
Satanism |
L |
Y |
Y |
C |
| 3 |
Y |
G |
C |
L |
Y |
Y |
C |
| 4 |
Y |
H |
Wicca |
L |
Y |
Y |
C |
| 5 |
Y |
H |
C |
L |
N |
- |
- |
| 6 |
Y |
H |
Unitarian |
L |
Y |
Y |
V |
| 7 |
Y |
H |
C |
L |
N |
- |
- |
| 8 |
Y |
G |
C |
L |
Y |
Y |
V |
| 9 |
Y |
H |
None |
- |
N |
- |
- |
| 10 |
N |
H |
C |
M |
N |
- |
- |
| 11 |
Y |
H |
Wiccan |
L |
N |
- |
- |
| 12 |
Y |
H |
C |
L |
N |
- |
- |
| 13 |
Y |
H |
Agnostic |
L |
N |
- |
- |
| 14 |
Y |
H |
Arican |
C |
Y |
Y |
C |
| 15 |
Y |
H |
C |
L |
Y |
Y |
F |
| 16 |
N |
H |
Meditation |
L |
N |
- |
- |
| 17 |
Y |
G |
C |
L |
Y |
Y |
V |
| 18 |
Y |
H |
Wiccan |
L |
N |
- |
- |
| 19 |
N |
H |
C |
C |
Y |
N |
- |
| 20 |
Y |
G |
C |
L |
Y |
Y |
V |
| 21 |
Y |
H |
Wiccan |
L |
Y |
Y |
C |
| 22 |
Y |
H |
Humanist |
L |
N |
- |
- |
| 23 |
Y |
H |
Neopagan |
L |
N |
- |
- |
| 24 |
Y |
B |
Atheist |
L |
N |
- |
- |
| 25 |
Y |
H |
Wiccan |
L |
Y |
Y |
N |
| 26 |
Y |
H |
Other |
L |
Y |
Y |
C |
| 27 |
Y |
H |
Unitarian |
L |
- |
- |
- |
| 28 |
Y |
H |
Atheist |
- |
- |
- |
- |
| 29 |
Y |
H |
Atheist |
L |
- |
- |
- |
| 30 |
N |
H |
C |
M |
Y |
N |
C |
Codes used:
 |
Question 1: Whether they approved of homosexual marriage when
the started filling out the survey form (Y or N).
|
|
Question 2: Sexual orientation: H = Heterosexual; G = gay or lesbian; B =
Bisexual.
|
|
Question 3: Religion: C = Christian.
|
|
Question 4: Religious wing: L = Liberal; C = Conservative; M = mainline.
|
|
Question 7: Were they successful in assessing the will of God (Y or N).
|
|
Question 8: Whether God approved of homosexual marriage: (Y
or N).
|
|
Question 9: How certain were they that they had accurately
determined the will of God: N = not sure at all; S = somewhat
sure, F = fairly sure, V = very
sure, C = certain?
|
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