Efficacy of faith healing.

[Magic Man]

Recently a member of our forum was hurt quite badly, Calvin.
Hes on the mend now, which is excellent news.

However some comments in the thread made me think a bit, and im hoping they'll make you think too.
Hopefully we can get a discussion going from this.

Of course the doctors deserve credit, but Lord uses these people for the good of others, often in place of "supernatural" miracles. What just went on today still is a miracle though.

This is in reply to the Doctors deserve credit; rather than praising jesus, the Doctors should be praised.

I wonder exactly what a trained surgeon - who has spent half his/her life studying medicine, working 14-hour day internships and undergoing the gnawing anxiety of accidentally killing someone every single day - would think of Donatus suggesting that it was his God doing all the hard work "through him". Do you think he or she would be very sympathetic to that point of view?

This is in reply to the previous statement, its pretty self evident what it means.




Does faith help heal? In anyway shape or form? Does god heal people through doctors/surgeons??

Discuss.

[Dayman]

If I was a doctor, I would be pretty pissed if a family thanked God for healing them. I'd rather not be thanked at all, just the patient to be healthy in that scenario.

[johnny5000]

Good people die all the time without God's intervention, and bad people survive horrible injuries that should probably kill them. And sometimes good people survive and bad people die.

This whole "God saved my life when I should have died" thing is crap. If God cared so much, the injury wouldn't have happened in the first place.

[Problem Sleuth]

God doesn't heal amputees. Discussion ended. If faith helped, the impossible could be healed. Unlikely things are attributed to faith and called miracles, which is bogus. If something physically impossible happens and they regrow an arm, THEN it's a "miracle" if doctors can't figure out how it could have happened otherwise. If it's a skilled doctor and luck, it's hardly "God intervening to save the faithful!"

[wilting]

I'm not entirely sure this discussion is appropriate given the circumstances. Even if it has been moved to another thread. I certainly don't approve of it being brought up in the original thread.

I was at the funeral of a close family friend last week and afterwords had dinner with my parents and a couple of other people who were attending. Everyone was saying the priest gave a good sermon. My Dad, knowing I'm an Atheist, asked me what I thought. I said I thought it was good, even though I found it and much of the ceremony distasteful. It was not appropriate to make a comment otherwise at such an occassion. The sermon was 'good' in context. I am aware this situation is not the same, but you get my point.

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Fact is, people who say "God works through you" flies in the face of free will.

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Calvin is doing well now, and plus this is only based loosely on his example, so I don't particularly see a problem.

[DickVanDyke]

Maybe in some abstract way it could heal the person. If the person truly believes that God will heal him/her, maybe the person will get healed through the whole mind over matter concept. I'm not a psychologist, so I'm not too learned on the subject. But God healing the person directly after getting treatment from doctors who worked half their adult lives in medical school? No way in Hell.

[Silo]

Does faith help heal? In anyway shape or form? Does god heal people through doctors/surgeons??

Discuss.

Faith CAN help heal...however in a different way than Donatus suggested. A simple, and probably to the majority acceptable, way would be that faith in whatever the healer believes can help him do his job, and strengthen him in his difficult task. Another way, that would however already be a lot more supernatural, would be a diety even influencing the healing of a person directly through the healer/the healer channeling the powers of the deity, but however in this case with the knowledge of the healer and most likely the healer calling for that help (think shaman, druid,...). However deities in my oppinion don't use a healer unknowingly as their tool to fulfill their will when they could do it directly themselves, and want so, as for example a god "guiding" a surgeon unkowningly through an operation. That's nonsense imo and only disrespect of the healers ability if he isn't a believer.

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Maybe in some abstract way it could heal the person. If the person truly believes that God will heal him/her, maybe the person will get healed through the whole mind over matter concept. I'm not a psychologist, so I'm not too learned on the subject. But God healing the person directly after getting treatment from doctors who worked half their adult lives in medical school? No way in Hell.

This shows simply a lack of understanding about the subject. I wish I could dig up a documentary I saw about Benny Hinn, a famous faith healer ("SUBSTANCE") who would make disabled people walk and gout sufferers run around. A lot of the time they would do just this, miraculously run around. And then a few days later their legs would hurt immensely because of the euphoric second breath they found, and they'd end up just as bad or worse than before. But Benny Hinn's pockets stay lined and his thoughtless followers' faith is stronger than ever.

[CtrlAltDe1337]

This shows simply a lack of understanding about the subject. I wish I could dig up a documentary I saw about Benny Hinn, a famous faith healer ("SUBSTANCE") who would make disabled people walk and gout sufferers run around. A lot of the time they would do just this, miraculously run around. And then a few days later their legs would hurt immensely because of the euphoric second breath they found, and they'd end up just as bad or worse than before. But Benny Hinn's pockets stay lined and his thoughtless followers' faith is stronger than ever.

Benny Hinn is a big money-grubbing fraud, I don't think you should even mention him or similar people in a real discussion.

[gambit]

I think faith in healing has similar effects of patriotism in war. It can be like a second wind of willpower and the body is affected by the mind. If anything a strong faith and belief in God's 'healing power' would guide someone to pull through because there is something all the more bigger than them or possibly the simple will to survive and pull through, thick or thin (in calvin((andy))'s case, pretty thick) I wouldn't attribute it to God as much as I'd attribute it to the victim's willpower and strong belief...and the doctor's willpower and belief along with his skill with the scalpel.

[Mythos]

Does faith help heal? In anyway shape or form?

Sure. It's called the placebo effect.

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Sure. It's called the placebo effect.

No, it's not. Good try, though.

[boofhead]

I believe prayer helps, otherwise why would I have had a call for prayer in my sig last night? And funnily enough, after a certain time I felt like taking the sig off, and lo and behold, we discover that Calvin has pulled through. It all depends on how you want to look at something, I guess.

Of course the doctors have a great deal to do with it, but I don't see any conflict there with acts of faith. God can equally work through doctors as any other means.

It reminds me of my aunt who died of bone cancer recently. She was unconscious for many days, and would not stir for anyone who visited her. But when a minister arrived to deliver her last rites, she stirred, opened her eyes, managed to smile at her family, received the rites, and passed away peacefully shortly afterwards. There is some connection to the spirit in all of us, in my mind, and in fact I think we are all connected by it, in a way.

Yeah, I'll cop flak from the atheists among you, but big whoopty-do. It's the way I see the world.

[wilting]

I believe prayer helps

There is some connection to the spirit in all of us, in my mind, and in fact I think we are all connected by it, in a way.

It's the way I see the world.

Your language reveals much. Particularly this:

It all depends on how you want to look at something

Some of us care more about seeing the world for how it actually is, as oppossed as how we would like it to be. Would I like to live in a world where people could be healed if we just wished for it? Absolutely! Unfortunately that isn't the way things work. Fortunately, human ingenuity, based upon observation of the world as how it actually is, has found other ways to heal people.

...I don't particularly see a problem.

Very well, I just thought it should be brought up.

[Mathias]

Of course the doctors have a great deal to do with it, but I don't see any conflict there with acts of faith. God can equally work through doctors as any other means.

I believe Shyam already said this earlier in this thread, but it seems to have gone unnoticed: God working through people flies in the face of free will, does it not?

[Metellus]

It all depends on how you want to look at something

Religious apologists tend to see things in terms of "what I believe" vs. "what you believe"; subjective reality. However science sees things in terms of objective reality, IOW what can be independently verified by many people as being true. Subjective truth is only truth in the eyes of the believer, and is therefore meaningless to nonbelievers. If it was independently verifiable that a person had gotten well through the power of prayer, anybody would believe. But it never is. Nevertheless believers jump at the chance to pin "god" onto a fortunate situation to explain their belief that he works for the good of other believers in the world.

No proof.

[Felixion]

Oh god. Wait? No, poor choice of phrase.

Oh my ing god. I don't know who "Calvin" is, or what happened to him, I'm imagining an accident involving his boyfriend, a ball-gag, a wrench, and about a gallon of vasoline. Whatever it was, if he actually believes that praying is going to heal him, who cares if he gets better? I sure as hell don't. You can all contract cancerous HIV of your leukemia and be run over by lawn-mowers for all I care.

[Magic Man]

Oh god. Wait? No, poor choice of phrase.

Oh my ing god. I don't know who "Calvin" is, or what happened to him, I'm imagining an accident involving his boyfriend, a ball-gag, a wrench, and about a gallon of vasoline. Whatever it was, if he actually believes that praying is going to heal him, who cares if he gets better? I sure as hell don't. You can all contract cancerous HIV of your leukemia and be run over by lawn-mowers for all I care.

Not quite, this is what happened.
If you're interested.

hello this is andys older brother. i am staying at his hous at the moment because he is in hospitl in a coma. this is his hompage and i see he talks here a lot so i thought you should know that he is not in a good way. i dont know if any of you are christians but any prayer would be good because he was stabbed three times. he tried to stop a group of youths from mugging another youth but they had knives. he has a brocen nose brocen ribs might have lost sight in an eye and one of his kidneys was cut open. he hasnt woken up since the attack.

thanks craig