Y
You
Guest
Yes, why not. Its easy to forget and take for granted that everything was created from nothing, even the little starfish.
Bohm did not say we couldn’t talk about starfish. He just said amputees.
Better theological response to "why doesn't God heal amputees?"
- Status
P
PRmerger
Guest
Well, it’s not the talking about starfish that is the problem here. We can discuss starfish if you’d like.
Starfish are pretty.
Starfish are stinky when you first get them off the beach
It’s fun to have them in your bathroom as a decoration as it serves as a reminder of fun beach vacays in the past.
However, what won’t work is saying that their growing of a limb is miraculous in the same way that an amputee growing a limb would be.
F
Flyingg
Guest
Prayers are not only to demand something, a person can pray to connect more with God and to thank him or to feel better. believers responses for unanswered prayers “it’s God’s will and he is doing the best for us”, but if it’s God’s will and he’s going to do what on his mind, why wasting time asking him to help? Does he take prayers into consideration? I think that honest prayers may help in releasing some stress or a hard time a person is going through but nothing more, If I pray I feel like talking to myself and adressing to a God that isn’t there.
P
PRmerger
Guest
Indeed!
Indeed he does. That’s why we pray, because we may effect some sort of change by our prayers that might not have occurred without our prayers.
Blaise Pascal called it God giving us the “dignity of causality.”
It is a great gift that we have be given that we can change the course of events by our prayers.
No. Prayers cause change in the course of action. God gives us that power, and responsibility.
Maybe it’s because you’re too busy to Be Still.
J
jmcrae
Guest
For the same reason that even though you already know (most of the time) exactly what your children want, it’s nice of them to ask for it politely, instead of just expecting it.
I think so, but I also think they are part of a larger equation - you or I are not the only people praying, for starters.
For example, if I am praying for sunny weather for my baseball game, but the farmers need rain, God may well decide to answer the farmers’ prayers rather than mine. And if I am praying for a particular job, but there is a more qualified person applying for it, God will answer the employer’s prayer for the best possible employee, rather than my prayer for the job. This doesn’t mean that God won’t continue to meet my needs, however - He will - just not in that exact way. And if I threaten to become an atheist if God doesn’t do this or that, then God might just say, you know what? Go ahead. I will not be blackmailed, or threatened.
Y
You
Guest
Well, they are the same, but different.Well, it’s not the talking about starfish that is the problem here. We can discuss starfish if you’d like.
Starfish are pretty.
Starfish are stinky when you first get them off the beach
It’s fun to have them in your bathroom as a decoration as it serves as a reminder of fun beach vacays in the past.
However, what won’t work is saying that their growing of a limb is miraculous in the same way that an amputee growing a limb would be.
Y
You
Guest
I like this reply. I think the purpose of life gets lost easily. Our purpose is to master ourselves so that we are able, actually able to fight our way in through the narrow door to eternal life. All this stuff we see around us in the world will not be coming with us to the next, so for a person to pray and pray using all their energy wishing for a big lump of plastic or a big lump of silica and aluminium is slightly off the wall. When what the person really needs, and which will benefit them eternally, is a kinder and more generous heart.
Its true He knows what we need even before we ask for it, that is what He said. But as ours is a relationship like father and child or between two friends the important aspect is building the relationship because that is what you want. The necessities of life are just incidental and He knows all about them already. The important thing as Flyingg said is thanking Him and asking for those more important eternal things than for temporary material stuff.
B
buffalo
Guest
Consider - a farmer prays for rain, his son prays for sun for his ball game. Which gets answered?
B
buffalo
Guest
ARTICLE 2
THE BATTLE OF PRAYER
2725 Prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part. It always presupposes effort. The great figures of prayer of the Old Covenant before Christ, as well as the Mother of God, the saints, and he himself, all teach us this: prayer is a battle. Against whom? Against ourselves and against the wiles of the tempter who does all he can to turn man away from prayer, away from union with God. We pray as we live, because we live as we pray. If we do not want to act habitually according to the Spirit of Christ, neither can we pray habitually in his name. The “spiritual battle” of the Christian’s new life is inseparable from the battle of prayer.
I. OBJECTIONS TO PRAYER
2726 In the battle of prayer, we must face in ourselves and around us erroneous notions of prayer. Some people view prayer as a simple psychological activity, others as an effort of concentration to reach a mental void. Still others reduce prayer to ritual words and postures. Many Christians unconsciously regard prayer as an occupation that is incompatible with all the other things they have to do: they “don’t have the time.” Those who seek God by prayer are quickly discouraged because they do not know that prayer comes also from the Holy Spirit and not from themselves alone.
2727 We must also face the fact that certain attitudes deriving from the *mentality *of “this present world” can penetrate our lives if we are not vigilant. For example, some would have it that only that is true which can be verified by reason and science; yet prayer is a mystery that overflows both our conscious and unconscious lives. Others overly prize production and profit; thus prayer, being unproductive, is useless. Still others exalt sensuality and comfort as the criteria of the true, the good, and the beautiful; whereas prayer, the “love of beauty” (philokalia), is caught up in the glory of the living and true God. Finally, some see prayer as a flight from the world in reaction against activism; but in fact, Christian prayer is neither an escape from reality nor a divorce from life.
2728 Finally, our battle has to confront what we experience as failure in prayer: discouragement during periods of dryness; sadness that, because we have "great possessions,"15 we have not given all to the Lord; disappointment over not being heard according to our own will; wounded pride, stiffened by the indignity that is ours as sinners; our resistance to the idea that prayer is a free and unmerited gift; and so forth. The conclusion is always the same: what good does it do to pray? To overcome these obstacles, we must battle to gain humility, trust, and perseverance.
F
Flyingg
Guest
It’s not about being busy, it’s about not being convinced of religions or personal creators, I don’t consider unanswerd prayers as a main reason to not believe.
A person can’t become an atheist by threating God to do whatever he wants , an atheist have no god to threat him, there is a difference! You are describing more a person who believes in a God and DECIDED to disobey or turn angry at him for not answering his prayers, this person would not be an atheist he would be ‘an angry rebellious believer’.
B
Bohm_Bawerk
Guest
I can’t answer. After all, I don’t know the mind of God.
T
TimothyH
Guest
I appreciate your thoughts, but your prayers would be more efficacious.I’m very sorry to hear that. You are in my thoughts.
Having lived with it since birth, it is not a big deal to me. Just gotta watch when someone throws a left hook - can’t see it coming.
-Tim-
T
tonyrey
Guest
Your faith and courage are an excellent example of how Jesus has transformed the lives of millions of persons who would otherwise have lost hope. Amputees do not sprout new limbs because we cannot follow His example if we are compelled to believe prayer is always effective. We exist in order to choose what to believe and how to live. That is the only way we can demonstrate what we are truly worth and whether we are capable of unselfish love…I appreciate your thoughts, but your prayers would be more efficacious.
Having lived with it since birth, it is not a big deal to me. Just gotta watch when someone throws a left hook - can’t see it coming.
-Tim-
L
lisahiku
Guest
I am going to go out on a limb here and play devil’s advocate…
back in the day BEFORE psychiatric drugs, sanitariums were FULL of mentally ill people with very little hope of leading a normal life.
God did not heal THEM.
Now with antipsychotic drugs available, people with mental illness can lead a normal life or somewhat normal life.
Some might argue that the antipsychotic drugs were sent by God. BUT the fact remains,
before their availability, people were in sanitariums in very sad circumstances NOT being healed by God.
back in the day BEFORE psychiatric drugs, sanitariums were FULL of mentally ill people with very little hope of leading a normal life.
God did not heal THEM.
Now with antipsychotic drugs available, people with mental illness can lead a normal life or somewhat normal life.
Some might argue that the antipsychotic drugs were sent by God. BUT the fact remains,
before their availability, people were in sanitariums in very sad circumstances NOT being healed by God.
P
PRmerger
Guest
Not sure what your point is here, lisa. Jesus himself, 2000 years ago, did not heal every single malady that he countered. That was not his reason for coming.
A
Arizona_Mike
Guest
Jesus did, in fact, heal the mentally ill, in addition to exorcisms of spirits.
Are you sure there have been no cases where the mentally ill have not been healed by the miraculous intervention of God?
The problem is that for a doctor who is helping consider a case for beatification, mental illnesses, which are not easily defined (have you been following all the furor over the classification of mental illnesses for the new DSM-V?), often go into remission for causes that can’t be scientifically identified. They won’t even bother to look at a case where non-divine remission has happened in other cases. The scientific bar is set VERY high when identifying a miracle, so mental illnesses are not even considered. This does not mean a miracle did not happen, it just means the bar is set so low or the criteria are so easily met for a cure that it won’t be considered as evidence in the case for a postulant.
Many people are healed from mental illnesses for reasons that are not correlated with drug therapy. These cures are often associated with prayers on the part of the afflicted, or for the afflicted. I would suggest that the files of Alcoholics Anonymous would give you several million cases to populate your data sets, for a start (alcoholism is a mental illness, as you know), which is intimately associated with prayer and resorting to “a Higher Power.” The evidence for the superiority of faith-based therapies for addictions over secular therapies is acknowledged but not easily explained within the medical community.
Here’s an article from the very secular Wired Magazine on the subject: Secret of AA: After 75 Years, We Don’t Know How It Works: wired.com/magazine/2010/06/ff_alcoholics_anonymous/
A
Arizona_Mike
Guest
The postulators who are assigned to investigate each candidate for sainthood almost always look at interventions that are medical (with only one recent exception with which I’m familiar), and the consultants (over 60) for the Sacred Congregation of the Causes for Saints are extremely experienced medical doctors, almost all of whom are professors at a medical school or directors of university clinics (the current president is Dr. Rafaello Cortesini, Chief of Surgery at the University of Rome Medical School). They will only examine physical injuries or organic diseases, and will exclude from consideration anything that could be argued to, even possibly, have a psychosomatic cure, which includes all mental illnesses, paralysis, blindness, etc.
They won’t even examine a case until the local diocese has conducted its own investigation, which means that the diocese must collect sworn testimony from the patient and from every doctor, nurse, and technician (whether theists or not) connected with the case. They have to take a signed statement from every witness and family member to ensure that no one invoked the name of anyone for intercession but the candidate for sainthood - that includes Jesus and Mary. Otherwise, the case will be dismissed as evidence for sainthood. Two doctors then have to do a complete physical examination and provide sworn statements that the illness is comletely gone and that there is no chance of a relapse. Until all this is done at the local level, the Vatican won’t even look at the case.
After a review of all that evidence the Sacred Congregation still disqualifies 90 to 95% of the cases because the documentation isn’t sufficient or for other reasons. The Vatican’s medical board, the Consulta Medica, then reviews the cases, and eliminates about half. Then a board of nine theologians reviews the case to see if the case demonstrates clear causality between prayer and the result. If 2/3 of that board votes yes, it goes to a tribunal of bishops and cardinals, who have to vote by a 2/3 majority, then it goes to the Pope, and it is his call.
Very little (any?) “scientific” evidence in academia goes through a process of review that is so rigorous. The cases that are approved are so thoroughly vetted and so beyond what is medically possible that I consider them good evidence for God, and for a God that intervenes supernaturally in some cases, such as the overnight regeneration of skin from third-degree burns over the entire body.
An example of cures of mental illness would include those attributed to the intervention of the Venerable Matt Talbot, a blue-collar Dublin dockworker whose miraculous intervention against alcoholism and other drug addictions through fasting and ascetism resulted in over a thousand sworn testimonies that were sent in support of his sainthood when the Blessed Pope John Paul supported his candidacy for sainthood. All were disallowed by the Congregation, because only the healing of a physical ailment could be verified using scientific principles.
That doesn’t mean the thousands - probably millions - of cures of mental illnesses aren’t miracles. Talbot himself, although not yet a saint, has nevertheless been honored by being declared the patron saint of alcoholism by the Vatican. He is known throughout the world, especially in Ireland, the U.S., and Poland, and you can find statues of him everywhere.
*“Three things I cannot escape: the eye of God, the voice of conscience, the stroke of death. In company, guard your tongue. In your family, guard your temper. When alone guard your thoughts.”
catholicireland.net/pages/index.php?nd=68&art=513
They won’t even examine a case until the local diocese has conducted its own investigation, which means that the diocese must collect sworn testimony from the patient and from every doctor, nurse, and technician (whether theists or not) connected with the case. They have to take a signed statement from every witness and family member to ensure that no one invoked the name of anyone for intercession but the candidate for sainthood - that includes Jesus and Mary. Otherwise, the case will be dismissed as evidence for sainthood. Two doctors then have to do a complete physical examination and provide sworn statements that the illness is comletely gone and that there is no chance of a relapse. Until all this is done at the local level, the Vatican won’t even look at the case.
After a review of all that evidence the Sacred Congregation still disqualifies 90 to 95% of the cases because the documentation isn’t sufficient or for other reasons. The Vatican’s medical board, the Consulta Medica, then reviews the cases, and eliminates about half. Then a board of nine theologians reviews the case to see if the case demonstrates clear causality between prayer and the result. If 2/3 of that board votes yes, it goes to a tribunal of bishops and cardinals, who have to vote by a 2/3 majority, then it goes to the Pope, and it is his call.
Very little (any?) “scientific” evidence in academia goes through a process of review that is so rigorous. The cases that are approved are so thoroughly vetted and so beyond what is medically possible that I consider them good evidence for God, and for a God that intervenes supernaturally in some cases, such as the overnight regeneration of skin from third-degree burns over the entire body.
An example of cures of mental illness would include those attributed to the intervention of the Venerable Matt Talbot, a blue-collar Dublin dockworker whose miraculous intervention against alcoholism and other drug addictions through fasting and ascetism resulted in over a thousand sworn testimonies that were sent in support of his sainthood when the Blessed Pope John Paul supported his candidacy for sainthood. All were disallowed by the Congregation, because only the healing of a physical ailment could be verified using scientific principles.
That doesn’t mean the thousands - probably millions - of cures of mental illnesses aren’t miracles. Talbot himself, although not yet a saint, has nevertheless been honored by being declared the patron saint of alcoholism by the Vatican. He is known throughout the world, especially in Ireland, the U.S., and Poland, and you can find statues of him everywhere.
*“Three things I cannot escape: the eye of God, the voice of conscience, the stroke of death. In company, guard your tongue. In your family, guard your temper. When alone guard your thoughts.”
- The Venerable Matthew Talbot*
catholicireland.net/pages/index.php?nd=68&art=513
K
kubark
Guest
The whole “why won’t god heal amputees?” issue is simply a rehash of Satan’s attempt to tempt God. The fallacy here is confusing God for a Cosmic Genie. If a superhuman, supernatural intelligenct personal Being exists, we cannot just test for omnipotence because omnipotence isn’t the Being. Materialists and Hedonists are always tempting God to perform miracles, usually after their sins have brought them misery. One must be pure of heart in order to “see” God.
B
Bohm_Bawerk
Guest
I understand that you can not tempt or test God. Indeed, it’s laid out clear in the Bible: “Do not test the LORD your God as you did at Massah” (Deuteronomy 6:16). I’m a former Catholic, so I know the “do’s and don’ts”. It’s because of this verse in Deuteronomy that I disagree with fellow atheists that we should subject prayer to an experiment; as in, test the efficacy of prayers in laboratory conditions. It doesn’t work that way.
The underlying theme in my thread is why we haven’t seen an amputee healed in modern times. Even if just once.
K
kubark
Guest
I am reminded of an old prophecy made by Father Nectou in the 18th century: “When those things come to pass which will bring on the triumph of the Church, then will such confusion reign on earth that people will think God has permitted them to have their own contrary will and that the providence of God is not concerned about the world. The confusion will be so general that mankind will not be able to think aright, as if God had entirely withheld his providence from mankind, and that, during the worst crisis, the best that can be done would be to remain where God has placed us, and persevere in fervent prayer.”
- Status