Faith Healing

[Luddly Neddite]

If he made it that obvious, there would be no need for faith, which is what He is looking for in us. If you had any faith, you might get a glimpse of God's power but I don't think your arrogance would allow it. Too bad for you. You're your own worst enemy.

The problem, of course, is that attitudes such as yours causes children to die from preventable disease because parents will withhold competent medical care in place of prayer.

Fortunately, these cases generally wind up in court with the parents being held accountable.

This is a classic example of sloppy, uneducated fallacy posing as *information*.

May I quote you to my friends and relatives so we can bemoan the state of education in this country?

You're genuinely delusional, crazy, frootier than a nutcake.

Anyone else wanna agree with koshergrl that praying over your sick child is the way to go?

Yeees...let's listen to the guy who said this:

"...in truth, our world would be much better off if they were just lined up and shot." Luddly Dead child found on border US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

Really. Let's hear more about how much you care about Christian children, you psycho.

If you're trying to say that I wrote that about children,

YOU

ARE

LYING.

 

[Brucethethinker]

No one has ever re-grown an arm, a leg, a toe or a finger, or even part of a toe or finger....
How can that be and you still believe in faith healing?

I think there is a really simple explanation... there is no such thing as faith healing.

But that explanation could be wrong. If you think so, why?

You claim to be rational, let me try to show you the error of your thinking, by demonstrating it to you. I assume you believe in medical science.

No doctor has ever re-grown a patient's limb. How can that be and you still believe in doctors? I think I know why, because medical science is phony.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

No one has ever re-grown an arm, a leg, a toe or a finger, or even part of a toe or finger....
How can that be and you still believe in faith healing?

I think there is a really simple explanation... there is no such thing as faith healing.

But that explanation could be wrong. If you think so, why?

You claim to be rational, let me try to show you the error of your thinking, by demonstrating it to you. I assume you believe in medical science.

No doctor has ever re-grown a patient's limb. How can that be and you still believe in doctors? I think I know why, because medical science is phony.

Not entirely true in that a doctor cannot do it but the body has certainly done it.

Children have been known to regrow a finger and especially the tip of a finger. Too bad we can't figure out how to capture and channel that ability that we grow out of.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

I was wrong - a doctor has indeed regrown a limb. Very interesting that the fingerprint also "regrew". but downright amazing that the finger regrew from below the first joint because it used to believed that there had to be a bit of fingernail left.

Delray surgeon regrows man s severed finger - Sun Sentinel

Like something out of a sci-fi drama, a Delray Beach surgeon did what even seasoned scientists find amazing: He regrew a man's severed fingertip — without surgery, stitches or anesthesia.

In a technique used more commonly on less traumatic wounds, Dr. Eugenio Rodriguez applied a daily dose of pulverized pig bladder to the stump left after a horse bit off Canadian equestrian rider Paul Halpern's index finger in March, just below the first knuckle.

Within three months, the tip grew back — tissue, bone, fingernail and all. Halpern, 33, not only regained full function of the finger, saving it from amputation, but his original fingerprint returned, too, Rodriguez said.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Here's another -

Did this man really regrow his finger with magic dust Daily Mail Online

It holds out the astonishing - and seemingly implausible - prospect that new limbs and organs can be grown with the help of a mysterious

substance dubbed "pixie dust," taken from the bladders of pigs.

Read more: Did this man really regrow his finger with magic dust Daily Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Very interesting site -
Lost finger tipGet Default - amputation and regeneration Get Default 8211 amputation and regeneration

GRAPHIC CONTENT

And don't blame me for the photo -

 

[Coloradomtnman]

"
"Among the challenges to current thinking are the many documented cases of unexplained healing. Dr. Andrew Weil’s book “Spontaneous Healing” is a log of numerous cases that cannot be accounted for by our contemporary medical science.

"One poignant example was a 10-year-old boy, call him Steve, with a usually fatal osteosarcoma. This is a bone cancer usually treated by amputation of a limb. This treatment, the standard of care, was reasonably and responsibly recommended by a top cancer center doctor in New York.

"However, rather than having the recommended amputation of his leg to save his life, Steve and his parents declined this option. Instead, they chose to return to the supportive community of his family, friends and home in a remote Idaho town. There, they would let things run their course.

"In the view of his cancer doctors this was a suicidal choice, maybe even child neglect. Without treatment, he was expected to die, likely in a year or less.

"Many years later, a researcher on spontaneous healing found Steve. Despite the grim prognosis, the boy with bone cancer was in his 20s, alive and well, and cancer free.

"When the researcher contacted Steve’s cancer doctor in New York to verify the original diagnosis, she was initially greeted professionally and pleasantly.

"However, once she told him that this former patient was still alive despite not taking treatment, the doctor cursed and slammed down the phone on her.

"Apparently, the occurrence of such a surprising healing, perhaps best described as a miracle, was an unacceptable shock to his belief system."

Miracles happen in medicine Impact Newsletter December 12 2013 UTMB

Why this doesn't count as evidence in support of your position:
1. Anecdotal
2. Spontaneous remission of cancer happens across all faiths.
3. "We don't know why he was cured = God did it" is a God of the Gaps argument.

 

[Coloradomtnman]

"Various polls peg U.S. belief in miracles at roughly 80 percent. One survey suggested that 73 percent of U.S. physicians believe in miracles, and 55 percent claim to have personally witnessed treatment results they consider miraculous."

Again, the allegedly *scientific* bloc proving how closed-minded, bigoted and unspeakably stupid they truly are.

Are Miracles Real Craig S. Keener

Speaking of fallacies, this one is just that: Appeal to Popularity.

 

[koshergrl]

Oh, ok.

 

[Coloradomtnman]

"And the reports in these countries appear to be merely the tip of the iceberg. The survey did not include China, where one report from the China Christian Council over a decade ago attributed roughly half of all new Christian conversions to "faith healing experiences." Another report from a different source in China suggested an even higher figure. Clearly many people around the world experience what they consider miracles, sometimes in life-changing ways.

"What are we to make of such claims? At the very least, they testify that many people around the world today are experiencing cures in a context of deep religious faith. Numerous medical studies have shown that faith and faith communities provide a coping resource that often facilitates better health outcomes. A number of these global reports, however, exceed even our best current expectations for what "faith" can produce. In September 2010, Southern Medical Journal published an article showing that some people in Mozambique, tested before and after prayer, experienced significant recovery of hearing or eyesight. The Medical Bureau at Lourdes has long examined evidence for extraordinary recoveries.

"Most stunning to me on a personal level were sincere eyewitness claims from people that I or my wife have long known and trusted, including everything from cures of blindness to restoration from apparent death."

Are Miracles Real Craig S. Keener

Eye witness testimony is notoriously unreliable. This article does not make the claim that miraculous healing definitely exists. There are no medical studies that definitively show that it does or that definitively support that claim with any evidence.

 

[koshergrl]

Okie dokey!

 

[Coloradomtnman]

No one has ever re-grown an arm, a leg, a toe or a finger, or even part of a toe or finger....
How can that be and you still believe in faith healing?

I think there is a really simple explanation... there is no such thing as faith healing.

But that explanation could be wrong. If you think so, why?

You claim to be rational, let me try to show you the error of your thinking, by demonstrating it to you. I assume you believe in medical science.

No doctor has ever re-grown a patient's limb. How can that be and you still believe in doctors? I think I know why, because medical science is phony.

Your overly simple analogy does not follow. Doctors cure people of what they can cure people currently. There are MOUNTAINS of definitive evidence supporting this. There is no definitive evidence and little circumstantial evidence supporting faith healings. Apples to oranges.

 

[Brucethethinker]

I think there is a really simple explanation... there is no such thing as faith healing.... There is no definitive evidence and little circumstantial evidence supporting faith healings. Apples to oranges.

Then why do doctors prescribe placebos? Why does scientific method require double blind studies to eliminate the placebo effect?

 

[Coloradomtnman]

I think there is a really simple explanation... there is no such thing as faith healing.... There is no definitive evidence and little circumstantial evidence supporting faith healings. Apples to oranges.

Then why do doctors prescribe placebos? Why does scientific method require double blind studies to eliminate the placebo effect?

1. To eliminate bias.
2. Evidence shows that the mental and emotional state of the patient can have an effect on the patients' recovery. In studies this mental state, whether positive or negative, would interfere with the objective results of the study.

What's the relevance of this to faith healing?

 

[Brucethethinker]

What's the relevance of this to faith healing?

To quote from WebMD:

"Experts also say that there is a relationship between how strongly a person expects to have results and whether or not results occur. The stronger the feeling, the more likely it is that a person will experience positive effects."

In other words, placebos can work if the person taking them believes they'll work. Medical science knows this. I don't think it's likely that prayer can summons unknown outside forces, but that doesn't mean it doesn't ever work.

I've attended catholic services, and they often will read a list of people's names who need prayer for various medical conditions. I've never heard them suggest praying for someone who needs a limb to be regenerated. Do you know of anyone who has lost a limb, and prayed for it to be spontaneously regenerated? I'll assume you do, and that their prayer was in vain. Does this lead you to conclude that faith healing therefore doesn't work?

Just because something doesn't work in every case, every time, doesn't mean it never works in any case. You claim to be rational, in fact you seem to take pride in it. I suggest you're being biased against non-atheistic beliefs, and it's causing you to lose rationality.

 

[Coloradomtnman]

What's the relevance of this to faith healing?

To quote from WebMD:

"Experts also say that there is a relationship between how strongly a person expects to have results and whether or not results occur. The stronger the feeling, the more likely it is that a person will experience positive effects."

In other words, placebos can work if the person taking them believes they'll work. Medical science knows this. I don't think it's likely that prayer can summons unknown outside forces, but that doesn't mean it doesn't ever work.

I've attended catholic services, and they often will read a list of people's names who need prayer for various medical conditions. I've never heard them suggest praying for someone who needs a limb to be regenerated. Do you know of anyone who has lost a limb, and prayed for it to be spontaneously regenerated? I'll assume you do, and that their prayer was in vain. Does this lead you to conclude that faith healing therefore doesn't work?

Just because something doesn't work in every case, every time, doesn't mean it never works in any case. You claim to be rational, in fact you seem to take pride in it. I suggest you're being biased against non-atheistic beliefs, and it's causing you to lose rationality.

I'm not trying to prove that faith healing DOES NOT work in all cases because one can not prove a negative.

I'm attempting to have a discussion about conclusions based on faulty premises, flawed reasoning, inconsistent logic, unverifiable claims, and without solid supporting evidence. It is therefore not rational TO BELIEVE in faith healing. That is a positive claim that I am making in this thread.

 

[S.J.]

It's not a challenge, it's baiting.

However you want to rationalize it.

Your mocking and ridiculing proves me right.

So when someone asks pointed questions about your beliefs, that's mocking and ridiculing? That's a convenient excuse for avoiding those probing questions...

No, the mocking and ridiculing happens when your target answers your bait questions, thinking you are serious about having a respectful dialogue.

You assume you will be mocked and ridiculed for your beliefs regarding faith healing? Why would that be? Because they are deserving of such? Because, deep down, you understand that from a rational perspective, belief in faith healing is ridiculous? That believing in faith healing has no evidential basis, no logical consistency, and no sound argument?

Have I mocked you yet? Have I ridiculed you are the other responders on this thread for their defense of faith healing? Or have I simply pointed out flaws in that defense and asked questions via the Socratic method?

That you attempt to make this personal suggests that you don't truly believe that the belief faith healing can stand up on its own under critical scrutiny and so you deflect or attack the questioner in a mistakenly preemptive way so that you don't have to come face-to-face with your own doubts. I could be wrong about this but you make no attempt to show me that I am and have only attacked what you assume to be my motives.

That you come on this thread to make such weak accusations, then defend them without any solid basis to do so says more about your convictions and their basis than it does about my motivations to start this thread.

Please stop wasting my time...unless you truly wish to communicate about the OP.

Your first paragraph proves me right, once again. You deny your objective of ridiculing, then proceed to ridicule. This is why I don't indulge you, but instead call you out for your trolling. And if you think I'm wasting your time, stop responding to me. That is, of course, unless your purpose is to stir up shit and you're frustrated because I'm not taking the bait.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

What's the relevance of this to faith healing?

To quote from WebMD:

"Experts also say that there is a relationship between how strongly a person expects to have results and whether or not results occur. The stronger the feeling, the more likely it is that a person will experience positive effects."

In other words, placebos can work if the person taking them believes they'll work. Medical science knows this. I don't think it's likely that prayer can summons unknown outside forces, but that doesn't mean it doesn't ever work.

I've attended catholic services, and they often will read a list of people's names who need prayer for various medical conditions. I've never heard them suggest praying for someone who needs a limb to be regenerated. Do you know of anyone who has lost a limb, and prayed for it to be spontaneously regenerated? I'll assume you do, and that their prayer was in vain. Does this lead you to conclude that faith healing therefore doesn't work?

Just because something doesn't work in every case, every time, doesn't mean it never works in any case. You claim to be rational, in fact you seem to take pride in it. I suggest you're being biased against non-atheistic beliefs, and it's causing you to lose rationality.

I'm not trying to prove that faith healing DOES NOT work in all cases because one can not prove a negative.

I'm attempting to have a discussion about conclusions based on faulty premises, flawed reasoning, inconsistent logic, unverifiable claims, and without solid supporting evidence. It is therefore not rational TO BELIEVE in faith healing. That is a positive claim that I am making in this thread.

Faith healing can, has, and does work. Not so reliably it's prefered over conventional medicine, but when we believe things will work, they tend to ala the placebo effect. Wanna chalk it up to deities go ahead, but the effect is real. The mechanism responsible might be wrong, but that doesn't matter.

 

[ninja007]

As far as faith healing is concerned, the Catholic Church has been documenting miracles for almost 2000 years. To be canonized a saint, a candidate must have three proven miracles to his or her name. Most of these miracles are healing that cannot be explained by medical science.

There are also the thousands of documented miraculous healings at Lourdes.

Anyone who is interested in learning about miracles can check out any Catholic website.

Using Catholic websites to research whether or not miracles occur is like using UFO websites to research whether UFOs exist. Or better yet, it's like using Muslim websites to research whether Muslim miracles occur. In other wors, not credible.

An estimated 5 million people go to Lourdes annually. The success rate of healings that happen is about .0000335%. From: Lourdes - The Skeptic s Dictionary - Skepdic.com That isa smaller rare than spontaneous remission in serious illnesses.

None of those "cured" at Lourdes regrew limbs.

yep- don't forget satan performs miracles everyday. Considering how RC'ism is of satan......

 

[emilynghiem]

There are many people of faith who believe that their particular deity can and does heal people miraculously. Probably more than a few of the faithful on USMB believe in faith healing. They believe their God cures cancer, autoimmune diseases, congenital defects (such as significantly different lengths of limbs), and debilitating conditions (such as injuries that leave one crippled), blindness, deafness, diabetes - you name it. Except AIDS. No one believes their God cures the perverts, dopers, the promiscuous, or those inadvertently infected with HIV (blood transfusions are against God). There is no evidence of such healings beyond personal anecdotes and ancient writings, but that's the power of belief - it can overcome such lack of evidence.

So...

My question to them is: Why doesn't your God heal amputations? None. Zero. Never. No one has ever re-grown an arm, a leg, a toe or a finger, or even part of a toe or finger. Never re-grown an eye or had a terrible disfigurement healed. No injury or condition so visible that were it healed, it would simply be obviously miraculously healed, has ever been healed. Why not?

How can that be and you still believe in faith healing?

I think there is a really simple explanation for why that has never happened. It easily explains why visibly obvious conditions or injuries have never been healed. Because there is no such thing as faith healing.

But that explanation could be wrong. If you think so, why?

WOW!!!
Coloradomtnman
aaronleland
Tom Sweetnam
and whoever posted Thanks#4 on OP

You are so wrong you didn't even ask the Question correctly!

* Spiritual healing that is natural and proven, working WITH
science and medicine to treat the whole person is NOT
the same as fraudulent faith healing that rejects science and medicine. If you had specified what you were talking about
I would have agreed with you.

* The "God" that does the natural healing IS NATURE
it is the laws and ways our minds and bodies are
Naturally designed to heal themselves if they are not obstructed. the methods that work involve REMOVING
the obstructions blocking healing, similar to quitting
smoking so your lungs recover -- that's natural laws,
that's the "God" that brings the healing

* YES the perverts with criminal sickness and addiction
CAN and HAVE been healed with deep spiritual forgiveness
therapy and generational therapy but it can take years in the
case of real deep rooted patterns.

Again WHICH forms or practices are you even TALKING about?

* if you said you mean the false faith healing that
rejects medicine and endangers people, I AGREE
that is false practice and no one should be teaching it.
It's malpractice, negligence if not malicious abusive fraud.

But the RIGHT methods of spiritual healing can and have
been demonstrated and studied scientifically.

aaronleland and Tom Sweetnam:
The REAL spiritual healing does not reject medicine
because it works with science and natural process of healing.

You all must be talking about fraudulent abusive
practices that are not real.

Spiritual healing is different and can explain
what is missing with the false practices.

I just posted a challenge to bet GUNO this
could be proven medically with scientific studies.

Do you want to join in?
I offered to create a 10 million dollar bet online
and invite sponsors to take sides on this wager.

The benefits raised will go to the charities of
the losers' choices who have to pay in to the winners.
So we can set it up where everyone wins,
and either we prove that all spiritual healing is false
or prove the difference in what makes the false
methods fraudulent and what the effective methods
use that makes them different and work to heal people.

freespiritualhealing Resources for Healing and Forgiveness Therapy
All forms of sickness can be treated and possibly
cured, healed and/or prevented if they are caught
in time. just like most cancers can be treated if
caught in time, though some do not respond to treatment.
Same with spiritual healing but it applies to a lot broader
range of conditions than just cancer. Even family
relations can be healed, praying for one generation
and it affects the connection generation. So it has
much broader scope and impact across the spectrum
and worth pushing research to help more populations