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How are we to explain these "miracles?"

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Phred

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John 15:7
If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

Mark 11:24
Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

Now, reading those two quotes I would take it that if you believe in Jesus Christ and if you pray for something you will get it. I want you to choose a deserving veteran who has lost a leg. I want you to get as many Christians together as you can and I want you to pray that his leg will regrow. Use all the tools available to you. Use this site. Use the 700 club. Get thousands, millions of Christians praying that this limb will be regrown. According to these among many verses it shall happen.

Let me know how that works.
 
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Heissonear

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John 15:7
If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

Mark 11:24
Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

Now, reading those two quotes I would take it that if you believe in Jesus Christ and if you pray for something you will get it. I want you to choose a deserving veteran who has lost a leg. I want you to get as many Christians together as you can and I want you to pray that his leg will regrow. Use all the tools available to you. Use this site. Use the 700 club. Get thousands, millions of Christians praying that this limb will be regrown. According to these among many verses it shall happen.

Let me know how that works.

.
Noble cause, so push our "God button". Yea, right.

And you will probably reply, "but the Bible and these verses say ..... ........."

You are the type that picks and chooses in His Word. However, it contains more than two Scriptures.

You are also the type that favors witchcraft - the snap you fingers to make it happen - except the snap your fingers is "prayer".

Or still you are one of the "name it and claim it" Full Gospel types.

Spiritual Maturity is a real thing, and so is Scriptural immaturity.

You have need to learn from the One on High. And why are you pushing to see nobel results? Are you a follower of Jesus?

.
 
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Heissonear

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No it isn't.

.
If you have been keeping up with the prior posts you would recognize that many have witnessed Power from on High that at times has ruled the natural.

You have never experienced seeing a miracle before, right? Then how can you say there is no Higher Power, something you have never seen?

.
 
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Heissonear

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This morning my keys had disappeared. I finally found them in the drawer I had turned upside down five times before already. Praise Allah!

.

What you do not understand through firsthand experience you choose to mock? Who or what are you mocking?

.
 
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Mr Strawberry

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If you have been keeping up with the prior posts you would recognize that many have witnessed Power from on High that at times has ruled the natural.

You have never experienced seeing a miracle before, right? Then how can you say there is no Higher Power, something you have never seen?

.

I'm familiar with the types of miracles they claim to have witnessed and the sort of worldview and level of credulity of those who think they have witnessed miracles. All of it's a bit dull to be honest.

That's why yours was quite interesting. You claimed to have seen a limb grow back before your very eyes. That sounded exciting. But when questioned further you became all secretive and refused to say any more. Most disappointing. But then, your level of 'spiritual intoxication' seems to be rather unpredictable. Maybe you had a blistering hangover.
 
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PsychoSarah

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If you have been keeping up with the prior posts you would recognize that many have witnessed Power from on High that at times has ruled the natural.

You have never experienced seeing a miracle before, right? Then how can you say there is no Higher Power, something you have never seen?

.

What miracle have you seen? Now I am wondering if you blocked me...
 
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Heissonear

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I'm familiar with the types of miracles they claim to have witnessed and the sort of worldview and level of credulity of those who think they have witnessed miracles. All of it's a bit dull to be honest.

That's why yours was quite interesting. You claimed to have seen a limb grow back before your very eyes. That sounded exciting. But when questioned further you became all secretive and refused to say any more. Most disappointing. But then, your level of 'spiritual intoxication' seems to be rather unpredictable. Maybe you had a blistering hangover.

.
You have something to look forward to and pursue. The One on High wants a relationship with you.

Yes, I firsthand have seen what many dearly seek and want, a real glimpse of Him and His Power. I seen a child's deformed arm grow in length and become normal over a few seconds of time. I have kept events like this a bit secretive, for many reasons. The foremost is because it was basically for those immediately involved.
 
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PsychoSarah

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You have something to look forward to and pursue. The One on High wants a relationship with you.

Yes, I firsthand have seen what many dearly seek and want, a real glimpse of Him and His Power. I seen a child's deformed arm grow in length and become normal over a few seconds of time. I have kept events like this a bit secretive, for many reasons. The foremost is because it was basically for those immediately involved.

Is it really fair for you to keep those secret if they could save souls? And is there any record of any kind of that happening beyond just your word?
 
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freezerman2000

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Proof of a miracle is living right up the road from me...
When she was a young teen,she started to experience severe headaches.
She went through an MRI(or the equivalent) and a tumor the size of a baseball was found in the very center of her brain.
It kept growing over the next month..she was terminal.
She got put on a prayer list and the headaches disappeared.
Went back to the same doctor,and he was dumbfounded.Not only had the tumor gone into remission,it had completely disappeared.The doctor could not explain why it had gone away and had so fast.Medically impossible with the limited amount of treatments she had received.
He was saved that very day.
She has never had it to come back and is now an active lady over 40 years old.
THAT is the power of prayer..
I don't have empirical proof of this happening,but it did.
I have no need or desire to lie about what happened..
 
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quatona

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What you do not understand through firsthand experience you choose to mock? Who or what are you mocking?

.
You asked if one of us had experienced a miracle first hand. I have.
What´s your problem?

Which part(s) don´t you believe:
- That this happened?
- That this was a miracle?
- That this miracle was performed by Allah?
 
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Heissonear

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Is it really fair for you to keep those secret if they could save souls? And is there any record of any kind of that happening beyond just your word?

.
Sarah, with all respect, neither of what you have mentioned is true. The reasons are many, but one is the One on High does things His Way and in His Timing and Reasons. For this reason I follow and do not lead. This is how my relationship with Him started and the way it should be. His Ways are far above our ways. Just a little.

As far as "evidence" or "record", its upon human hearts! As humans we seem to want physical evidence as "tangible evidence". This is backwards. The Spiritual Power is the substance and tangible evidence, not the lingering changes the physical realm may present. This may need further thought to grasp fully.

For example, the "physical record" does not mean much comparative to what Spiritual Dynamics that factually occurred. He did something over the natural, a demonstration that is above the natural, and a glimpse of how He is and can do. The little arm was "touched", "changed" by Him. Who He is is wondrous!

So how can a mere man mimic Him? Or "help Him out"? What through time and experience happened is He has made me a witness of Him and His Power. Otherwise, I am the same as anyone and everyone else, a person like you in this life. Everyone who seeks Him finds Him. There lies the difference. Like many before me and in our day, I am a follower of Jesus Christ, in truth.

.
 
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Mr Strawberry

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You have something to look forward to and pursue. The One on High wants a relationship with you.

How exciting. Well, he knows where I am if he wants me.

Yes, I firsthand have seen what many dearly seek and want, a real glimpse of Him and His Power.
You are indeed the lucky one.

I seen a child's deformed arm grow in length and become normal over a few seconds of time.
So where did this happen? And when? And are there newspaper reports? Medical write ups in The Lancet? How come you were in on the action?
I have kept events like this a bit secretive, for many reasons.
Indeed. One can hazard a guess at a few of them.

The foremost is because it was basically for those immediately involved.
Does the same reason apply with the incident where you saw someone shot bloodily in the chest, but then saw him immediately get up afterwards with no ill-effects?

Were you just a random passer-by in both cases? Or were these events you had to be invited to?
 
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DogmaHunter

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Proof of a miracle is living right up the road from me...
When she was a young teen,she started to experience severe headaches.
She went through an MRI(or the equivalent) and a tumor the size of a baseball was found in the very center of her brain.
It kept growing over the next month..she was terminal.
She got put on a prayer list and the headaches disappeared.
Went back to the same doctor,and he was dumbfounded.Not only had the tumor gone into remission,it had completely disappeared.The doctor could not explain why it had gone away and had so fast.Medically impossible with the limited amount of treatments she had received.
He was saved that very day.
She has never had it to come back and is now an active lady over 40 years old.
THAT is the power of prayer..
I don't have empirical proof of this happening,but it did.
I have no need or desire to lie about what happened..

I heared an almost identical story a couple weeks ago. Spicy detail: it concerned islam.

And in labs around the world, rats with cancer go into remission as well. Without praying. Is your god saving labrats?

And what about all the people with cancer that have people praying for them that DON'T heal? That DIE in the most cruel ways you can imagine?
What about those?

Your anecdote is not impressive, even if true.
 
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Phred

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Noble cause, so push our "God button". Yea, right.

And you will probably reply, "but the Bible and these verses say ..... ........."

You are the type that picks and chooses in His Word. However, it contains more than two Scriptures.

You are also the type that favors witchcraft - the snap you fingers to make it happen - except the snap your fingers is "prayer".

Or still you are one of the "name it and claim it" Full Gospel types.

Spiritual Maturity is a real thing, and so is Scriptural immaturity.

You have need to learn from the One on High. And why are you pushing to see nobel results? Are you a follower of Jesus?

.

IF you take the Bible literally...
THEN these things you now complain about should not matter.

There are many more verses in which it is promised that if you pray what you pray for shall be granted to you. Now, this little experiment isn't even praying for yourself. It's praying for a worthy person other than yourself to receive a "miracle".

Why are you now throwing around terms like "witchcraft" and such? There is no such thing as magic.

So why will a limb not regrow if you pray for it earnestly and in great numbers? This should be an everyday occurrence and proof of God's existence. Should it not?
 
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Phred

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Proof of a miracle is living right up the road from me...
When she was a young teen,she started to experience severe headaches.
She went through an MRI(or the equivalent) and a tumor the size of a baseball was found in the very center of her brain.
It kept growing over the next month..she was terminal.
She got put on a prayer list and the headaches disappeared.
Went back to the same doctor,and he was dumbfounded.Not only had the tumor gone into remission,it had completely disappeared.The doctor could not explain why it had gone away and had so fast.Medically impossible with the limited amount of treatments she had received.
He was saved that very day.
She has never had it to come back and is now an active lady over 40 years old.
THAT is the power of prayer..
I don't have empirical proof of this happening,but it did.
I have no need or desire to lie about what happened..

Now... I'm sure this is what you BELIEVE happened. The number of holes in this story are many. There is no evidence at all that it was prayer that mattered. In fact, in a recent study that ended after 10 years prayer was found to be less than useless.

So while you're certain you've made connections without evidence to do so.
 
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Phred

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FYI... link

Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer

Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers suggested.

Because it is the most scientifically rigorous investigation of whether prayer can heal illness, the study, begun almost a decade ago and involving more than 1,800 patients, has for years been the subject of speculation.

The question has been a contentious one among researchers. Proponents have argued that prayer is perhaps the most deeply human response to disease, and that it may relieve suffering by some mechanism that is not yet understood. Skeptics have contended that studying prayer is a waste of money and that it presupposes supernatural intervention, putting it by definition beyond the reach of science.

At least 10 studies of the effects of prayer have been carried out in the last six years, with mixed results. The new study was intended to overcome flaws in the earlier investigations. The report was scheduled to appear in The American Heart Journal next week, but the journal's publisher released it online yesterday.

In a hurriedly convened news conference, the study's authors, led by Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiologist and director of the Mind/Body Medical Institute near Boston, said that the findings were not the last word on the effects of so-called intercessory prayer. But the results, they said, raised questions about how and whether patients should be told that prayers were being offered for them.

"One conclusion from this is that the role of awareness of prayer should be studied further," said Dr. Charles Bethea, a cardiologist at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City and a co-author of the study.

Other experts said the study underscored the question of whether prayer was an appropriate subject for scientific study.

"The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion," said Dr. Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia and author of a forthcoming book, "Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine."

The study cost $2.4 million, and most of the money came from the John Templeton Foundation, which supports research into spirituality. The government has spent more than $2.3 million on prayer research since 2000.

Dean Marek, a chaplain at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a co-author of the report, said the study said nothing about the power of personal prayer or about prayers for family members and friends.

Working in a large medical center like Mayo, Mr. Marek said, "You hear tons of stories about the power of prayer, and I don't doubt them."

In the study, the researchers monitored 1,802 patients at six hospitals who received coronary bypass surgery, in which doctors reroute circulation around a clogged vein or artery.

The patients were broken into three groups. Two were prayed for; the third was not. Half the patients who received the prayers were told that they were being prayed for; half were told that they might or might not receive prayers.

The researchers asked the members of three congregations — St. Paul's Monastery in St. Paul; the Community of Teresian Carmelites in Worcester, Mass.; and Silent Unity, a Missouri prayer ministry near Kansas City — to deliver the prayers, using the patients' first names and the first initials of their last names.

The congregations were told that they could pray in their own ways, but they were instructed to include the phrase, "for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications."

Analyzing complications in the 30 days after the operations, the researchers found no differences between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not.

In another of the study's findings, a significantly higher number of the patients who knew that they were being prayed for — 59 percent — suffered complications, compared with 51 percent of those who were uncertain. The authors left open the possibility that this was a chance finding. But they said that being aware of the strangers' prayers also may have caused some of the patients a kind of performance anxiety.

"It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?" Dr. Bethea said.

The study also found that more patients in the uninformed prayer group — 18 percent — suffered major complications, like heart attack or stroke, compared with 13 percent in the group that did not receive prayers. In their report, the researchers suggested that this finding might also be a result of chance.

One reason the study was so widely anticipated was that it was led by Dr. Benson, who in his work has emphasized the soothing power of personal prayer and meditation.

At least one earlier study found lower complication rates in patients who received intercessory prayers; others found no difference. A 1997 study at the University of New Mexico, involving 40 alcoholics in rehabilitation, found that the men and women who knew they were being prayed for actually fared worse.

The new study was rigorously designed to avoid problems like the ones that came up in the earlier studies. But experts said the study could not overcome perhaps the largest obstacle to prayer study: the unknown amount of prayer each person received from friends, families, and congregations around the world who pray daily for the sick and dying.

Bob Barth, the spiritual director of Silent Unity, the Missouri prayer ministry, said the findings would not affect the ministry's mission.

"A person of faith would say that this study is interesting," Mr. Barth said, "but we've been praying a long time and we've seen prayer work, we know it works, and the research on prayer and spirituality is just getting started."
 
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Heissonear

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Now... I'm sure this is what you BELIEVE happened. The number of holes in this story are many. There is no evidence at all that it was prayer that mattered. In fact, in a recent study that ended after 10 years prayer was found to be less than useless.

So while you're certain you've made connections without evidence to do so.

.

Another funny one Phred. It's called Unenlightenment: what those in unbelief tend to find; it's from ever learning.

.
 
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