why a video?  i'd rather have medical records before and after.

Pretend a video is all you had.  Would you believe it, or suspect video trickery.

if a video was all i had, i'd be suspicious that a video was all i had, yes.

videos are not very good evidence. I saw a video of Fred Astaire dancing with a vacuum cleaner but i don't believe it actually happened.

If you would refuse to call the witnesses liars, and refuse to speculate that the video was altered, then what specific reason do you have for refusing to believe the testimony of such witnesses and such video?

as a believer, I would probably not even believe it myself. Consider the probability of actually having a camera set up and there being a healing at the same time - this would be even lower than the normal rate of astronomically small.

Once a pastor claimed that a daughter of a friend has herpes and then was miraculously cured but she had medical tests before and after to prove it. I thought, thats interesting, I've never heard that before. So I kept pressing him every week to call his friend and get the results to show us. After a few months he just recanted. I think it was just hearsay.

Then, at another church, a lady came in  in a wheel chair. And we prayed for her, but what I heard from God was that her back just hurt and wasnt really damaged. Some others were encouraging her to get up and walk, and then they yelled me for following her around with the chair like why dont I have enough faith. Everyone was cheering but no one wanted to really mention that she could walk before (which was verified by asking her)

So thats when I realized we really do have our heads up our asses as christians....constantly making shit up that God has supposedly done....well, I'm still a believer but I dont think God needs our help to make shit up....

so, alas, I dont really trust anyone either....a trustworthy leader of our church told me...hey, pray for a few thousand people personally and you "might" see something miraculous....but thats the frequency we're talking about....so I cant really "test" for the real frequency but its pretty damn low....

I'm with Shelly, I've heard too many lies from fundies trying to prove their point. Quite frankly, unless medical records before and after were supplied by a competent doctor or hospital I would simply assume it was just another fundy lie to con weak minded people into believing in fairy tales.

You don't even need hollywood these days, just someone with a little skill and an ordinary desktop computer.  Extroadinary claims require extroadinary proof, and with how easy such a video would be to fake these days it would not be enough proof. 

JustAnotherBeliever hit the nail right on the head with how most of these things are played out.  Luminon could learn a thing or two or millions from him.  It just takes a little skepticism, rational thought and investigation and the real reasons and explinations will come out.  That was quite a refreshing post to read, JAB.

I wouldn't limit it as you have done to christians though, humanity in general is more like it.  Many groups in all shapes and forms, not just religious groups.  Heresay, exagerations, embellishments, errors from retelling.  You'll find those things everywhere from political groups to environmentalists, lobbies of all shapes and forms.  You really have to take EVERYTHING you hear with a grain of salt so to speak.

As there has never been a scientifically supported religious 'miracle' I'd have to go with  'Trick'.

The fabrication has a benefit to the church, cult or group, that's the 'why'.

I'm determined NOT to be gullible.

Post proof of any religious 'miracle' and we'll take it from there.

Waiting............

Oh, and I know where you're going with this line of questioning.......9/11 *cough* *cough*

I compare it to fairy tales because that is what it is.  There is no rational evidence for god or jesus (as a divine being) that does not require faith and the suspension of reason.  The bible is not proof, it is nothing more than midrash.  Follow the historical and archealogical evidence for Isrealites and compare the stories in the bible to the ancients myths of Egypt, Greece and other nations throughout the Isrealite's travels and it can be shown that the stories in the bible were taken from popular myths of those nations.  As they travelled out of egypt the influence of new cultures altered those stories.  The thousands of contradictions such as four different creation stories can be related to the myths of those other cultures and their gods.

Ultimately, the church picked through all the documents they could to come up with the earliest version of the bible which would, throughout the early history of christianity, change depending on who transcribed new copies or which church authority thought of a better way to write it.  The current version of the bible is a far cry from many of the earliest writings.  Even today, fundies rethink the stories to suit their purposes.

Edit> My bad. It's like 5 in the morning here as I take a moment out from getting ready for work and I misread your entry.  Good one.

I don't think I would even need a video of it happening. As long as there was sufficient evidence that the person had no arm and there was sufficient examination that he now had a real functioning arm, I would be astonished.

There should be a long medical history of how the arm was lost and I would guess if you grew an arm back there would be extensive medical research into how it happened.

How many times have limbs miraculously grown back? How many times have things been faked in videos? With those two numbers in mind, which explanation has the higher probability of being correct? If you answer those three questions, you'll know why I wouldn't accept the video as proof of miracularous regeneration.

Two more points:

Ages ago now I saw a show where an illusionist made a real helicopter disapear in front of a live audience. Now this is not someone who claims to be magical, but someone who entertains by making tricks look magical. The helicopter even seemed slightly too long for the curtain frame they had it in. I watched it frame by frame on my VHS (told you it was ages ago), but could not work it out. Obviously I saw it on TV, so the audience could have been in on it. Either way, it LOOKED magical, but the illusionist didn't actually claim that it was magic.

There are thousands of illusionists and "magicians" around the world who make a living by doing amazing tricks in front of live audiences.

So detailed medical examination before and after the arm grew back (by an impartial 3rd party, or even better, by 2 different parties: one for before and one for after, a kind of blind study where they didn't know what it was about) would be essential. Reproducibility is also important (gods are soooo unreliable these days, think that the occasional out of the way miracle is enough, definately don't get what you pay for).

Point 2:

Even if the "miracle" was proven, the arm really did grow back, it does not prove the existence of god. It would prove that something we would describe as magical had happened and we would need to find new ways to explain it scientifically.

Just a point of order: This is a good discussion, but it does not belong in this forum, it needs to be moved, but I'm at a loss as to where to place it.

Suggestions?

I asked the thread opening question in order to demonstrate the rational basis for my contention that any given Osama-confession video can be faked with today's technology, and given the many lies and decietfulness of the Bush administration, the people who disagree with me never had a right to trust any such confession video in the first place.

How many times has Osama confessed guilt over 911 in a manner that 911 truthers and debunkers can agree on?  NONE.  So we don't have any common ground to work from, which means we act like a jury and examine the credibility of the Bush administration to see whether or not they'd be likely to fake an Osama-confession video.

How many times have things been faked in videos?  Plenty.

Why exactly should a person START OUT trusting in the authenticity of the Osama-confession videos as authentic?  Do you need to personally watch Bush and Cheney walk into a preschool class and start mowing everybody down with AK-47's before you will suspect that they have an agenda they don't wish the general public to become aware of?

Sure, we should first trust until we have a reason not to, hasn't Bush given you plenty of reason to withdraw trust in the convenient "discoveries" he comes up with that conveniently beef up his version of events?