Conversion

Praying Hands.

The Christian apologist Gary Habermas wrote: "Double-blind prayer experiments: where people pray for others with a terminal illness. Habermas admitted that most such experiments have not worked, but the three that he knows of that have indeed worked were cases of orthodox Christians praying for the sick."

Conversion is the changing from disbelief to faith. It is often accompanied by a change in outlook on life and a manifestation of an overwhelming love or repentance. Not all conversions are willful. Some are politically driven and cause social turmoil.

• Another person’s conversion is mysterious even to those who believe. To those who do not, it is inexplicable."

Positive personality changes and religious conversion

See also: Neoroplasticity and the ability of individuals to change their personality and Typical changeability of the Big Five personality traits

The Big Five personality traits change due to a person becoming more mature, efforts to change the personality traits or a major life change (See: Neoroplasticity and the ability of individuals to change their personality).

Personality changes due to religious conversion:

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Religious conversion is one of the life events most strongly associated with personality change, because it often reshapes someone’s identity, daily habits, values, and social world. But the magnitude of change is usually not unlimited—it tends to be moderate rather than extreme, and uneven across the Big Five traits. Average change: Studies suggest that religious conversion or increased religiosity is associated with about 0.3 to 0.7 standard deviations of change in certain traits over time. Maximum documented change: In rare, profound cases (e.g., dramatic “born-again” conversions or entry into highly structured religious orders), people can shift by 1+ standard deviation on some traits, but that’s exceptional.

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"A bell curve, also known as a normal distribution, is a symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that represents the distribution of data in statistics. Standard deviations measure the spread or dispersion of data points around the mean (average) of a normal distribution. In a normal distribution, roughly 68% of the data falls within one standard deviation of the mean, 95% within two standard deviations, and 99.7% within three standard deviations."

There is a significant amount of historical and scientific evidence that Bible reading has greatly increased human flourishing such as people's physical health, psychological well-being, character and virtue, and social connections (See: Bible reading and human flourishing).