Healed by God?

Recently, on one of the threads in here, I was involved in a brief discussion on miraculous cures. Somebody (I apologise for forgetting who) told me of a friend of theirs, who also posted on here, whose mother had been miraculously cured of a virulent throat cancer. I expressed scepticism. Some days later, the friend sent me a personal message (and I apologise for forgetting his name, too), giving me more particulars. His mother had apparently been suffering from a virulent form of throat cancer, and just when the doctors were prepared to operate, they discovered that the cancer had completely disappeared. They had no medical explanation for this whatsoever.

I asked him for references to the medical journal in which this extremely noteworthy medical episode had been documented...and received no reply.

Of course, this was credited as a "miracle" cure. So let's examine this claim.

All over the world, people with diseases, conditions and illnesses sometimes (albeit fairly rarely) go into remission, sometimes permanently, for no reason medical science can explain. Cancers disappear, and sufferers enjoy many more healthy years. No doubt many - probably most - of these sufferers had somebody praying for their health. Often, these are claimed to be "miracle" cures.

However, all that we know is that diseases sometimes disappear, for reasons we do not know. To leap from this to "God did it" is completely unwarranted. Without evidence that God did it, the rational position to take is that we don't know. There is no evidence that, indeed, God did do it.

Apart from anything else, the idea that God did it makes him look like an arbitrary sadist. All over the world, people are dying of various illnesses, a great number of them being prayed for feverishly. A very small portion of these may be spontaneously cured for no apparent reason. To believe that these were cured directly by God is to believe that God chose NOT to cure the others...for no apparent reason. This is neither rational nor logical.

I have a friend in her early 50s who lives in the United States. She and her husband are both pastors, with a large flock. Some months ago she was diagnosed with a very virulent form of breast cancer. Of course, her flock held prayer vigils, she was prayed for by parishes all around hers, as well as (of course) by her and her husband. Nevertheless, a couple of months later she underwent a radical mastectomy. As I write this, they have discovered that the cancer is still spreading. Joanne is not expected to live very long.

Now, if we believe that God heals some spontaneously, are we also to believe that he lets this woman, a God-fearing member of the faithful, die in pain when he could easily save her, despite numerous and frequent pleas that he does save her? How can any person believe in such an arbitrary and unfair god? Yet (it seems to me) this is the undeniable conclusion if we believe that God does heal some.

My position, however, remains that God does not heal anyone, nor is there any evidence whatsoever to conclude that he does.

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The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies--
Such a carriage, such ease and such grace!
Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,
The moment one looked in his face!

God healed my sprained ankle. It hurt a bit one day, and then later it didn't. The doctors don't want to publish my story in a medical journal, so I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it.

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Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.

I am told God loves me, and yet the reality of the darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. - Mother Teresa

I will believe that god has personally healed someone when they regenerate a once severed arm.

Some animals do regrow limbs. I'll believe God heals when all christians are cured of TB, MS, AIDS, cataracts, acne, astigmatism, atheletes foot and pink eye with a simple prayer, while the rest of us are left waiting for nature to take its slow course.

I might believe something is going on if christians died or were healed at a statistically different rate than atheists in the same ethnic, social, economic and geographic class.

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Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.

I am told God loves me, and yet the reality of the darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. - Mother Teresa

Something people often overlook is that cancers (among other maladies) are based on the same biochemical processes that occur in normal cells and tissues. Things that go wrong to cause tumorous growths in the first place can also go wrong within the tumors themselves. Viral RNA can mutate in ways harmful to the organism, just like host DNA. It's not like diseases are these supernaturally unconquerable monoliths once they take hold.

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It's party time for the guys in the tower of Babel
Sodom meet Gomorrah, Cain meet Abel
~Elton John


I couldn't if I tried.

Lets not forget that all evidence needs to be taken equally. That means that if a similar "miracle" happens to an atheist, then we must come to the same conclusion and say "god did it." Which kinda kills any claims that it's specifically the christian faith (or faith at all depending on the atheist) that god aims his cure wand at.

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Wei wu wei

Green faeries

Yup.

So why are people so focused on miracle cures rather than miracle killings? The evidence is at least as strong.

(Unless you believe that AIDS is a plague from God, ugh.)

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Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.

I am told God loves me, and yet the reality of the darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. - Mother Teresa

I think the "AIDS is a punishment from god for anyone who is sexually immoral" argument is funny, besides all the other flaws, apparently god approves of lesbians.

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Wei wu wei

Green faeries

No need for excessive conjecture about this topic. A thread on the believer side of the forum was used as a praise thread for those of us who have been healed by God at one time or another -->http://christianforums.com/t66095 Take a look.

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got over a cold, praise god!!