For the sake of argument, let's say God exists

[Seamus Riley]

if we take it to the next step, we'd realize that death is also a pretty severe consequence (far more severe than losing an arm or leg, I dare say), and Jesus had no compunctions bringing people (besdies himself) back from the dead.

glad you brought that up actually. i began to go into that in my previous post, but trimmed it down thinking it was basically repeating myself.

to my knowledge there are three occasions of jesus raising the dead: a widow's son, jairus' daughter and more famously, lazarus. forgive me if i am omitting any others. in the case of lazarus, he explicitly says before lazarus' death that there is a purpose for the event. in the case of the others, i liken it to the same purpose for which he healed many people: to show physically a reversal of the effects of sin. to reach people on their level in their carnal minds. there is even one occasion where he challenges listeners "what is easier, to say you're forgiven or to heal you?" after which he obliges with healing, but hoped to break through mentally with his teachings to show that concern for one's mortality is not a small thing, but concern for his immortality a much larger one altogether.

it is the christian belief that man was made to be immortal (ecc 3:11 he has put eternity into man's heart) which is why christians believe man alone among other creatures has had this historically long struggle with the concept of death beyond normal/natural survivalist instincts. and it follows that man would search for meaning beyond his natural experience.

death is as you say, a severe consequence. of sin itself, at least according to the bible. jesus came primarily to redeem, to restore man's spiritual immortality, but has compassion for the daily lives of humanity (example, when addressing the crowds, he gives the "consider the birds..." message), but didn't consider physically healing or physically raising the dead to be quite as important and had shown disappointment that many did not get this.

 

[Seamus Riley]

Not half it wouldn't.

The examples were a wife-beater reforming and not being accepted back by the wife he hurt; and someone who is...an amputee. No quantifiers.

The fact you can end up an amputee without doing anything wrong makes that a pretty massive case of apples and oranges, and I'm pretty sure an amputee who lost their limbs through no moral fault of their own would be pretty hacked off (bad choice of words, perhaps) at being compared to someone who wilfully crapped their life away.

All the apologetics being produced for these instances of "healing" are just trying to paper over the fact that the statistics are utterly against them.

actually, i never meant to imply that any particular amputee is directly responsible for his own loss of limb. if i kill you, genuinely repent and ask god for a miraculous restoration, he will not raise you back from the dead. that is the consequence. not your fault, but one that i bear nonetheless. if i'm truly repentant, it will haunt me even if god has forgiven me.

but as for you, or some amputee who lost a limb by someone else's violence, these sufferings are a result of sin itself...of which we are all guilty, biblically speaking. the natural response would lead us to imprison or kill the offender, which doesn't help much. the biblical response teaches us to forgive, which heals us psychologically from the anger and should lead the offender to repent.

both the natural and the biblical response to actually dealing with the amputee is to treat them medically, by the way. i have heard stories of non medical healing, but they're of course hard to prove. i won't begrudge anyone a miracle in their life if it so happens, but i'm pretty sure jesus gives a to doctors.

 

[Seamus Riley]

Jesus said:

Luke 5:31 And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.

Here, Jesus is clearly saying that sick people need physicians; not to mention that Luke is known as the 'beloved physician'.

the passage refers to an analogous use of medicine, which is why i chose a different one to present the view that jesus endorses medical science.

 

[Inan3]

Unfortunately and fortunately that is true. For the 99% that would rather it is best that there is someone there to help them but for the 1% who believe I will pray for them and they will be healed. I thank God for prayer because many who have been left to die by doctors who could not help them further were healed by God when some prayed for them.

Why don't you go to the ER every day and heal everybody then? Seems pretty selfish that you're not letting others benefit from your gift, and you let them suffer at the hands of doctors who don't know jack compared to you.

LH I think you missed the part where it was said that 99% would "rather". You cannot force healing upon people. They have to believe. That is why it is so important to teach and preach the gospel. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. People need to be taught first so that they can believe but then when they hear it they have to CHOOSE to believe it. Even Jesus could not do much in Nazareth His home town because of their unbelief.

 

[Seamus Riley]

Someone mentioned in another thread that a doctor will essentially tell you you're going to die if he reckons you have less than a 10% chance of recovery. So as not to give you false hope. That means that realistically one in every ten people who are told they have no hope experience "miraculous recovery". It's not the intervention of God, it's simple probability.

i know of no official practice of the "10%" rule, but i'm sure you're correct that some doctors as a matter of ethics do this and it may explain a lot of seemingly miraculous recoveries. i'm convinced that a study on the issue of "miracles" in medicine would not produce satisfactory results as whatever conclusions would be argued either on the side that questioned "well, you didn't study those people over there, maybe there were miracles there?" or the side that would say "well, we certainly can't account for how this happened, but there's no proof that it was miraculous".

 

[Inan3]

So God would've let them die too, but all it takes is a sufficient amount of prayer to force His hand -- good to know.

In actuality what it takes is faith, prayer in and of itself does not heal anyone. It is the faith behind the prayer that heals. Jesus often qualified it and said, YOUR faith has made you whole.

 

[Tomatoman]

You always put a smile on my face!

I'd hate to have to tangle with you, myself --

That would be like watching two cripples fighting.

 

[Skavau]

Unfortunately and fortunately that is true. For the 99% that would rather it is best that there is someone there to help them but for the 1% who believe I will pray for them and they will be healed. I thank God for prayer because many who have been left to die by doctors who could not help them further were healed by God when some prayed for them.

So if prayer doesn't work on someone, it is because they didn't believe hard enough (or at all).

God is apparently only interested in curing the wounds of the tiny minority of his most devoted.

 

[AV1611VET]

So if prayer doesn't work on someone, it is because they didn't believe hard enough (or at all).

God is apparently only interested in curing the wounds of the tiny minority of his most devoted.

They're called 'prayers' -- not 'demands'.

Okay with you if God answers NO?

 

[Ar Cosc]

God didn't answer my prayer, this proves he has a bigger plan!

 

[Tomatoman]

And I do consider my years of Biblical education and my 40+ years experience and walk with God a higher education than any medical student will ever get.

Wow, just think, 40+ years down the drain.

It's rather sad to see someone can live for so long and learn so little. You are, ironically, a lesson to us all.

 

[Skavau]

They're called 'prayers' -- not 'demands'.

Okay with you if God answers NO?

Or apparently if he doesn't answer at all. Call them demands or prayers, it doesn't matter as his selection criteria is beyond reprehensible. He would ignore those in dire need purely for their lack of faith or misplaced faith just to cure the ear infection of his beloved 1%.

 

[AV1611VET]

God didn't answer my prayer, this proves he has a bigger plan!

He didn't say "NO" or "WAIT"?

 

[AV1611VET]

Or apparently if he doesn't answer at all. Call them demands or prayers, it doesn't matter as his selection criteria is beyond reprehensible. He would ignore those in dire need purely for their lack of faith or misplaced faith just to cure the ear infection of his beloved 1%.

I know one prayer that's an automatic YES -- 1st time, every time, lasts forever.

 

[Nathan Poe]

In actuality what it takes is faith, prayer in and of itself does not heal anyone. It is the faith behind the prayer that heals. Jesus often qualified it and said, YOUR faith has made you whole.

Seems the only way to tell the faithful from the not-faithful-enough is to check the graveyards.

Jospeh Campbell qualified it and said, "The priests used to say that faith can move mountains, and nobody believed them. Today the scientists say that they can level mountains, and nobody doubts them."


Funny thing, getting reliable results.

 

[AV1611VET]

Today the scientists say that they can level mountains, and nobody doubts them.

I never did doubt that a scientist could level anything.

 

[Ar Cosc]

He didn't say "NO" or "WAIT"?

He never said anything to me. If he had, I probably would have a cross above my posts instead of a stylish grey brain.

 

[Hespera]

Wow, just think, 40+ years down the drain.

It's rather sad to see someone can live for so long and learn so little. You are, ironically, a lesson to us all.

yes, all that plus ten bucks will get you bagel 'n joe somewhere.

 

[Inan3]

Someone mentioned in another thread that a doctor will essentially tell you you're going to die if he reckons you have less than a 10% chance of recovery. So as not to give you false hope. That means that realistically one in every ten people who are told they have no hope experience "miraculous recovery". It's not the intervention of God, it's simple probability.

IF that be the case why doesn't the doctor say you have 10% chance of living. Why TAKE AWAY the hope? That doesn't make any sense. That is just someone trying to diminish the FACT that when a person turns to God and they ARE MIRACULOUSLY healed, (sometimes instantaneously) it demonstrates the reality of GOD.

This reasoning only demonstrates the FACT that men CHOOSE to believe. They would CHOOSE to believe a lie rather than to believe in God. That is a made up lie with no statistics behind it. You have drawn something out of a hat to disprove the miraculous.

That is how many of the conclusions are made "someone says something, then someone passes it along who likes it and thinks it "fits" in with what they want to conclude and so they pass it on and the next someone passes it along and pretty soon someone is drawing a picture and saying this is how it is and the next person sees that beautiful picture and says this should be in a science book and then a group of someones says, "hey this can fly let's do a few tests on this and see how many doctors we can find who do this" and then when they find a few they conclude it as a FACT and then they write a paper on it and it gets in the news and then the public finds out and the multitudes start to believe it and it gets copied and pasted all over the web and then someone comes on to search a little because they want to see if it is true and they are inundated with so many articles which say it is so, that they say, "SEE it is true. I saw it on Wikipedia" and they begin to disbelieve the truth and say "IT is false, just go to Wikipedia and read it" Pretty soon whole generations are following, at best, a misunderstanding of the facts. That is what I see. People just accepting conclusions without verifying or researching and in most case NOT being able to verify because there is no longer any of the ORIGINAL testing but only EVIDENCE so called, that has been tainted, dressed up and packaged to sell. Whenever anyone tries to show something different they are pounced upon and labeled as LIARS, IDIOTS, CRIMINALS and they are shunned by their peers. THUS very few dare to "rock the boat" or go against the flow, fearing their own livelihood and careers. So 'tis better to shut up and accept what EVERYBODY else believes and keep your buddies, when deep inside you KNOW something is wrong with the scenarios out there but you suppress and eventually you begin to believe it yourself and doubt all your doubts. OR as in some cases just blindly accepting and never questioning.

Why try so hard NOT to believe in a loving God who WANTS to heal people? He has only ONE requirement that you believe Him and what He has done for you. What is so wrong with that? I don't get it.

 

[Hespera]

Odd that the AMA journal records no miraculous recoveries.

I guess its a conspiracy of liars and criminals.