Faith Healers
Offline I've often wondered why faith healers, especially ones regarded as genuine can't help an injured soldier re-grow his amputated leg and other more externally noticeable issues.
All the healing seems to be internal, which is a bit of a fraud because many different diseases can go into remission naturally anyway, thus negating any sort of divine intervention.
Being a former pentecostal attendee I watched a lot of failed healing. Recently I met a guy who claimed to be a healer. I asked him to fix the varicose vein n my right thigh, he said it does not work that way. If that's the case what on earth is the point? If faith healing really works it would put doctors out of business.
Now before someone says you need to have faith in the first place before you can be healed, this seems like a fallacy to me. Surely if god does love us and wants us in heaven then healing people would be a great recruitment tool.
Scotland The Brave
- Login to post comments
There really is nothing to say about "faith healing". It is a con. Anyone pulling it on others is conning them, anyone falling for it is being conned.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
^^^^^^^^^^^^
What he said.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Jack_glass wrote:
"Surely if god does love us and wants us in heaven then healing people would be a great recruitment tool."
That is a great point ~ and I would encourage you to ask repeat that statement to any other 'healers' you come across ~ especially the amputee point ---> A FUN WEBSITE
Slowly building a blog at ~
http://obsidianwords.wordpress.com/
I asked things like this in my teens when i used to attend a pentecostal church here in Scotland. I've always looked at things logically & rationally from a very young age. I like to look before I leap.
They did not like it and said it was the devil whispering in my ear to make me stray off the path. Eventually I stopped going because they could not answer my questions sensibly or support their answers with hard evidence.
I watched some healing sessions and never seen one single person get healed. If I bump into any healers or fortune tellers ect, I enjoy dismantling their system.
Scotland The Brave
Jack, I have also noticed that no one was ever healed from a "faith healing" when I was a Pentecostal. For me, the ironic part is Mark 16:16-18:
16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
In v.16, the writer points out that one must believe in order to possibly be saved. Then in v.17 and 18, the writer points out the signs that "shall" follow a believer. The last part of v.18 refers to faith healing as being one of these signs. Maybe my deductive reasoning is flawed but it seems that this passage is saying that these signs will follow someone or they aren't a believer. I think this is ironic because it damns every christian I have ever met.
You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep-seated need to believe. - Carl Sagan
Prayer has no place in the public schools, just like facts have no place in organized religion. - School Superintendent on "The Simpsons" episode #1
It's just showsmanship. They seek out people with certain problems that can be influenced by the novel nature of the experience, people with problems that can be influenced through suggestibility, so that they can show a transformation in that moment. Maybe the person doesn't feel any more wrist pain in that moment, with the euphoria of being on-stage and everything, but it inevitably returns.
Psiholog
Thanks for reading.
-jn
I am totally with you on this fraudulence of many faith healers out there. Usually they start out with good intentions, but we evangelical Christians who take the Bible and really study it and understand God's mind on these things know that good intentions are not enough. Evangelical Christianity has people commenting and speaking against these faith healers and those part of the "Word of Faith" movement. You ask the same questions we ask these faith healers.
A biblical account of miracles throughout the Bible (focusing on Jesus' miracles) were acts of God, because Jesus Christ is a person of the Trinity. Furthermore, these miracles had to do with people repenting and believing in Jesus Christ. Miracles have a direct connection to salvation of people. Figures like Benny Hinn are crooks and would be burned at the stake by Christians if this was only a few hundred years ago, to be honest and serious. The hurt and great eternal damage he is doing is worse than any murderer. Please disregard people like Hinn.
Miracles however are prevalent. Unexplainable medical mysteries and such. Yes, you can say that science just hasn't figured them out yet. There are too many of these inexplicable mysteries that have gone without explanation. As Christians, we must take all of the supernatural things claimed by supposed "Christians" with a grain of salt.
Thanks for reading.
-jn
Many, but not all? Have you any examples you would care to cite as genuine?
I'm sorry. While your censure of the faith healers warrants some adulation, I hold that the faith healers and you "evangelical christians" -- and all the religious -- are essentially all purveyors of the same product: absolutely nothing. It is the same basic model of offering glorious yet intangible and unfulfilled bounties, while demanding money in very tangible form as compensation. The faith healers are simply a more flagrant version of this exploitation of the gullible.
Miracles are only prevalent in anecdote, your gospels included. Not once has a controlled test yielded evidence of the miraculous. You effectively admitted that your belief in the miraculous rests on an argument from ignorance: if it's unexplained, it must be a miracle.
That science hasn't solved a particular mystery is hardly confirmation of the miraculous. We've only had a few centuries of scientific investigation following the Enlightenment, in contrast to 2,000 years of christian-fueled ignorance.
You would do well to do the same with your own beliefs -- or does the "salt lose its flavor" at that point?
There are no theists on operating tables.
Miracles are nothing more than examples of people not understanding reality or making things up.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
but there are faith healers claiming that they are sent by god to heal the wounded..
Interested in Dallas Roofing