Why Does God Not Cure Amputees? (pt 1 of 2)

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Every now and then I visit an atheist forum. Not long ago atheists raised the old question “Why does God not cure amputees?” and I responded as follows to at least 3 atheists on this forum.

I would appreciate if you let me know what you think.
ATHEIST 1
Of course, there is always the famous question that needs asking.
Why does God hate amputees?

ATHEIST 2
Everyone else apparently gets Lourdes miracles - cancer sufferers, the lame, gout patients, itchy skin, chronic sneezers, and so on. But for some strange reason God never grants amputees their wishes. No miracles for them.

Of course there is also the obvious fact that healing amputees is verifiable, difficult to fake, and immune to the placebo effect.

ATHEIST 3
why hasn’t God cured any amputees?

Why does God not cure amputees? The Lourdes cures are always of diseases that sometimes go into spontaneous remission. Amputees never get remission. So why does God ignore them? They flock to Lourdes; it’s not like he lacks opportunity.

RESPONSE
Here we go with the old amputees argument again!
Now what are amputees?
Man inflicted loss of limbs! Isn’t that what amputate means?
It is a stale argument if one man causes injury or otherwise to another man, why doesn’t God heal the victim/patient.
Why doesn’t God intervene in every piece of suffering?
Have you caused suffering to another?
To fix the problem are you suggesting that God removes all those who cause suffering?
The many diseases that are cured miraculously (such as those at Lourdes) are not man inflicted.

ATHEIST 1
The “old” amputee argument is old because it has not been successfully countered. You have apparently decided that God only heals “non-man-inflicted” conditions (hmmm, someone needs to tell the amputees that troop to Lourdes that they are wasting their time then). So let’s drop the word “amputees” and include ANY person missing a limb, even congenital birth defects (not thalidomide babies: man-inflicted).

RESPONSE
I haven’t tried that hard and I see you have already had to make a concession on your expectation of God.

By definition, if science can NOT explain how it was cured then
• it was a lucky accident
(which is the atheist explanation of the Big Bang. You and I are the result of an accident)
OR
• it was a miracle.

No one tells the amputees that they will grow a limb at Lourdes.
Why do you say that and hide behind such throw away lines?
So do I now assume that a birth defect (which now appeals to mans view of perfection) is your reason for not believing in God?
In other words are you saying “Today, I don’t like autism, tomorrow downs syndrome. I will keep adding to or changing my list as I see fit.”

ATHEIST 1
Why doesn’t God ever replace missing limbs?
Why does he work only in the very fields of “miracles” that might NOT be miracles (i.e. that might be a rare - but not unknown therefore not miraculous - spontaneous remission) and avoid the field where it clearly WOULD be a miracle: limb re-growth?
I base my beliefs on evidence: if the evidence suggested limbs were being re-grown, I would believe the evidence.

RESPONSE
What if an amputee gets healed, would you believe then?
I will answer for you – NO.
You would explain to all of us that the photo’s were doctored, the witnesses are not credible, it was one of those rare spontaneous re-growth events etc…

ATHEIST 1
But you are darn right I would want the photos and witnesses examined very closely! It is simply much more likely that someone has arranged a hoax than that the laws of the universe have been bypassed.

RESPONSE
But what if you couldn’t find a flaw in the evidence? You will be at a fork in the road my friend!
 
ATHEIST 2
(and sorry to jump in here, ATHEIST 1)
*“Now what are amputees? Man causes the loss of limbs! Isn’t that what amputate means?” *
So what of people who lose their limbs to gangrene, diabetes, cancer, accidental trauma? These are certainly not cases of ‘man causing loss of limbs’

Unfortunately, as the rest of your argument is based on this premise, it falls in a heap, particularly when you say: “The many diseases that are cured miraculously are not man inflicted”. Yup. And neither is amputation most of the time.

"What if an amputee gets healed, would you believe then? I will answer for you â€" NO. You would explain to all of us that the photo’s were doctored, the witnesses are not credible, it was one of those rare spontaneous regrowth etc…"

Well, if science could not back it up (which it currently cannot: science is only in the very early stages of limb regeneration techniques) and credible scientists were saying ‘we are absolutely baffled as to how this could happen. It makes no sense according to every skerrick of medical knowledge we have’ (which is not the case with spontaneous remission of certain diseases, that which you would label “miracles”), then yes, I might find myself believing.
But it’s not like god can cure amputees, so that hypothetical is, sadly, irrelevant…

RESPONSE

Maybe I should have more explicit, by the term “man caused”.

I was meaning you go to a doctor and he chops off your leg to save your life – due to gangrene, diabetes etc…, with a 100% expected outcome – the doctor chops off your leg and you instantly become an amputee.

I know of two people personally one who smoked and NEVER got lung cancer, the other who NEVER smoked and did catch lung cancer. So smoking is not a perfect 100% cause and effect that a person will contract lung cancer.

Going to the doctor to have your leg chopped off is 100% predictable.

So for the atheist to ask why does not God heal amputees, is like asking why doesn’t God intervene in any or all “HUMAN CAUSED” (see context above) injury/accident/operation.

Now that I have clarified it I still believe the argument stands

ATHEIST 2
"Maybe I should have more explicit, by “man caused” I was meaning you go to a doctor and he chops off your leg to save your life “due to gangrene, diabetes etc…
With a 100% expected outcome the doctor chops off your leg and you instantly become an amputee”

Uh-huh. What about amputation in-utero?
You know, when tissue gets wrapped around a developing foetus causing blood flow to extremities to be restricted resulting in a child born without arms or legs (or both. I watched a doco last night that showed a young man who had been born without any limbs).
Hardly “man caused”!
You seem to be ducking around the whole point of the amputee issue. Some people are born without arms and legs. This cannot possibly be blamed on a human-caused condition. God never miraculously heals them; he apparently only sticks to diseases that - surprise, surprise! - have occasional rare cases on record of spontaneous remission.

RESPONSE

Born without limbs is not “amputation”.

So when athiests ask “Why doesn’t God heal amputees?”, they actually mean babies that are amputated in utero. Is this right?

ATHEIST 2
“Born without limbs is not “amputation”.”
Um, yes it is:
"Congenital AMPUTATION: the absence of a fetal limb or fetal part at birth. medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/congenital+amputation

“So when athiests ask “Why doesn’t God heal amputees?” they actually mean babies that are amputated in utero. Is this right?”
I was just pulling you up on your erroneous assertion that amputations are “always” caused by man. They are not.

RESPONSE
Ok, 99.9999999% of amputees are caused by man – my mistake

ATHEIST 2
The “man-made” amputations are in their hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions. God has not cured a single one. Not ONE. That is the problem people like ATHEIST 1 and myself have with “curing the sick”.

RESPONSE

I repeat – your position extends to the principle involved.

If one man causes injury or otherwise to another man, either on purpose or by accident, why doesn’t God heal the victim/patient.

Are you suggesting that God (the God you would like to see?) should intervene in every piece of suffering/accident/surgery?

Have you caused suffering to another?

To fix the problem are you suggesting that God removes all those who cause suffering?
 
I generally just fob off the atheists with this:

Healing a limb is a blatantly obvious sign of divine intervention of some degree [or deity]. If it was knwon 100% that person A with no legs thanks to a car accident and then suddenly they grew back, and it was said it was “God” who did it, and it could be proven beyond any doubt that no other incident healed the limbs, then a lot of people would beleive in God, not out of love for Him, not out of a willing cchoice, but out of fear and awe. That’s not a good reason to beleive in God. We shoudl beleive in him because we love him and want to please him, not because he magically fixed some guy’s stumps.

Medical illnesses, blood disease, cancers et cetera, if they are suddenly cured, its a lot more secretive, less obvious, still requires a strong element of faith, which the sudden regrowth of limbs would negate.

As it stands, i wouldn’t say the majority of amuptations are man made, my experience is that they are from general stupidity resulting in accidents, or just accidents.
 
vera_dicere said:
I generally just fob off the atheists with this:

Healing a limb is a blatantly obvious sign of divine intervention of some degree [or deity]. If it was knwon 100% that person A with no legs thanks to a car accident and then suddenly they grew back, and it was said it was “God” who did it, and it could be proven beyond any doubt that no other incident healed the limbs, then a lot of people would beleive in God, not out of love for Him, not out of a willing cchoice, but out of fear and awe. That’s not a good reason to beleive in God. We shoudl beleive in him because we love him and want to please him, not because he magically fixed some guy’s stumps.

Medical illnesses, blood disease, cancers et cetera, if they are suddenly cured, its a lot more secretive, less obvious, still requires a strong element of faith, which the sudden regrowth of limbs would negate.

As it stands, i wouldn’t say the majority of amuptations are man made, my experience is that they are from general stupidity resulting in accidents, or just accidents.
Click to expand...
Why then are the miracles Jesus performed not of this type? The loaves and fishes, walking on water, water into wine, raising the dead are all in the “growing new limbs” category.
 
If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire.

And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna.

And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna, where ‘their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’

Mark 9:43-48
 
Danuska said:
Not so long ago I read a story that indeed there was one case of healing of this type. Amazing en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Calanda
Click to expand...
It doesn’t matter how much evidence of miracles is produced those who are determined not to believe will not believe as a matter of principle. It would succeed in making their scepticism look foolish…

It would be interesting to know** how** they attempt to explain away all that documented evidence…
 
Danuska said:
Not so long ago I read a story that indeed there was one case of healing of this type. Amazing en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Calanda
Click to expand...
I’ve heard of several but hadn’t thought of them as truly exceptional as far as divine intervention goes, so I didn’t take any special note of them. I’ll post back with sources if I come across any more. As far as why there are only miracles that can be explained away, the miracle of the sun at Fatima was witnessed by over thirty thousand; be they religious, secular, or atheist. The statue at Akita weeped, perspired, and bled 101 times over a period of a few years in the 1970s. The blood was medically tested and was authentic human AB. This all happened in the presence of secular witnesses and there was no evidence of falsification (I.e. there were no pumps to produce tears.) and if i recall rightly it was even recorded on video.
 
Danuska said:
Not so long ago I read a story that indeed there was one case of healing of this type. Amazing en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Calanda
Click to expand...
Interesting link. But I think the skeptics would be right to question why this particular case is so obscure. I’ve never heard of this case until now. Why now? It’s not that I haven’t looked. And this supposedly happened almost 400 years ago. Isn’t there anything more recent? If we assume this story is authentic, we could ask what was so special about this person. Nothing in this article suggests that he was even a Christian, much less a person of extraordinary faith. What if it turned out that the story is true but the person happened to worship Zeus or some other pagan god?

I find stories like this somewhat interesting but I see no evidence that such a thing ever actually happened. I will keep my eyes open for any additional evidence.
 
I certainly to do see lost 17th century documents as ‘evidence’. There are also other questions causing doubt. Given that this happened, where is the body of this lucky man? When do many other corpses were preserved for religious reasons, why not this one? There seems to be no report by the Archbishop to Rome. Surely there would be one? And if God did this once, why only once?
 
tonyrey said:
It doesn’t matter how much evidence of miracles is produced those who are determined not to believe will not believe as a matter of principle. It would succeed in making their scepticism look foolish…

It would be interesting to know** how** they attempt to explain away all that documented evidence…
Click to expand...
I attempt not to ‘believe’ anything. By that I mean ‘believe’ in the sense of ‘faith without evidence’. I attempt to conclude that things are facts (or not). Show me a re-grown limb following prayer in conditions which exclude fraud, replicate it, and I will conclude on the balance of probabilities that a miracle has taken place. As with all scientific conclusions, I will be open to the ‘fact’ later being disproved. If it is real it is real, and should be able to be shown to be real.
 
Hokomai said:
I attempt not to ‘believe’ anything. By that I mean ‘believe’ in the sense of ‘faith without evidence’. I attempt to conclude that things are facts (or not). Show me a re-grown limb following prayer in conditions which exclude fraud, replicate it, and I will conclude on the balance of probabilities that a miracle has taken place. As with all scientific conclusions, I will be open to the ‘fact’ later being disproved. If it is real it is real, and should be able to be shown to be real.
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Your irrational demand for** visible** evidence overlooks the fact that you cannot even demonstrate to anyone that your mind exists… How can we be certain you are not just a collection of atomic particles blundering blindly through space and spouting nonsense? 😉
 
Godmachine said:
Interesting link. But I think the skeptics would be right to question why this particular case is so obscure. I’ve never heard of this case until now. Why now?
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I listened to a talk by Roy Shoeman (available online), a Jew who converted to Catholicism. At one point he said something like, well in the old days of Exodus God performed those great miracles, it’s a pity that those days are gone. And then he heard of Fatima miracle. He was shocked that he had never heard of it - being non-Catholic it was equally obscure to him as well although still quite recent and very well-documented.

Or another miracle, one of the many by St Padre Pio. The woman, Gemma di Giorgio, is still alive I believe. She was blind when she was a kid, she was healed, but the thing is that she had no irises in her eyes. She still does not have them yet she sees freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2698893/posts yet you will not really hear of her unless you’re a fan of St Padre Pio or something.
 
Hokomai said:
I certainly to do see lost 17th century documents as ‘evidence’. There are also other questions causing doubt. Given that this happened, where is the body of this lucky man? When do many other corpses were preserved for religious reasons, why not this one? There seems to be no report by the Archbishop to Rome. Surely there would be one? And if God did this once, why only once?
Click to expand...
Here are some thoughts on why God does not do this more.

Sin and pain exist for a reason. Many of the saints prayed to suffer, such as St. John of the Cross, one of the very few doctors of the Church. St. Padre Pio and St. Francis of Assissi received the stigmata due to asking for it. If God wants us to desire suffering, then why would he spend all his time relieving suffering? God is all-powerful; he had the choice to prevent the amputation from happening in the first place; thus, why cure a problem that he allowed to happen in the first place? God seeks for us to endure suffering for the sake of eternal life; the more suffering in this life, the more glory in the next. MERIT.

Healing does exist, but we will eventually die anyways so it is always temporary and incomplete in this world. Miracles are intended more as a way of strengthening faith than as a real mechanism for ending suffering; God wants us to use science and medicine for the most part.

The focus on cures for amputees is not a holy focus. It is not a focus that imitates the saints, one that will lead to the highest possible unification with God in the next life. We are supposed to serve God due to gratitude for all that God has given us. The focus on a cure for amputee focuses on God serving us. It says: I refuse to do what you say unless you do a miracle in the way that I want it done.

Proof that God can do one miracle should be enough proof that God can do another. We know that Einstein can add 2+2 so should we ask him to prove that he can do 2+2 just because we haven’t seen it. So for some people, who refuse to look at other forms of proof that God has provided, the focus on the amputees is sinful pride. For others, who have seen other forms of proof and still doubt, it is a genuine inquiry.

The holy focus is primarily on his Son, Jesus Christ, and secondarily on Mary, the Virgin Mary. (See: True Devotion to Mary to see how focusing on Mary focuses us on Christ) Not a focus on ourselves. The most powerful miracles then - the one that God wants us to focus most upon - are those that focus on Jesus Christ or Mary. By this logic, it makes sense that we hear of Jesus healing an amputee in the Garden of Gethsemane. If we believe that Jesus existed and what is in the Bible is true, we believe that Jesus heals amputees.

What was different about this guy who was healed from others? He was holy.

Looking at wikipedia:
(1) “In his torment,” the witnesses would later say, “the young man called upon the Virgin of the Pillar, unceasingly and with great fervor.”
(2) For the next two years, he made his living through begging.
(3) Every evening he would ask the servants in the sanctuary for a bit of the oil that burnt in the lamp and use it as ointment to rub in the stub of his leg, with the conviction that he would so be able to draw the aid of the Virgin upon him.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Calanda

We have the book of Job. After suffering, Job’s wife wanted him to curse God. That is the normal response. This man, in his torment, called out to the Virgin Mary. That is even better than calling to Jesus due to humility. See True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin. He then went begging after losing his limb without bitterness or loss of faith. So many people are faithful fairweather friends. For two years, he performed an action to ask for the help of the Virgin. So he has more faith than a nonbeliever even though he has experienced suffering; he had the faith that Mary could heal him.

As for God’s part, perhaps there are many holy people who suffer. However, I doubt it. The vast majority of people do not attend Church weekly and do have premarital sex; both of which are mortal sins that condemn you to Hell if done with full consent. We don’t even have to speak of venial sins. Thus, most people who are suffering deserve their sufferings, and their sufferings will alleviate the guilt of their sins. So of the truly holy who are few, perhaps there are many who have sufferings that God will not heal. Yet, God has repeatedly led his truly holy saints to grow in love for suffering; thus, most people who are holy want God’s will, not theirs, so they are perhaps unlikely to pray so deeply for healing.

God must have had a deeper purpose with this particular case.
 
As for your atheist questions. They are two thematically.
(A) “Of course there is also the obvious fact that healing amputees is verifiable, difficult to fake, and immune to the placebo effect.”

Was God’s Eucharistic miracle for Theresa Neumann - she lived only on the Eucharist- verifiable (verified in Autobiography of a Yogi by someone who wasn’t even Christian as well as medical commissions), impossible to fake, and immune to the placebo effect? Yes. Does this miracle focus attention on us or on Jesus Christ? It focuses attention on Jesus Christ. ** If it meets all the criteria: verifiable, difficult to fake, immune to placebo, why do atheists ignore it? ** So it seems that perhaps the reason is because God thinks healing amputees would not direct focus of attention in the right place. It is the opposite of faith to refuse to believe based on sufficient evidence.

(B) “So why does God ignore them? They flock to Lourdes; it’s not like he lacks opportunity.” There is a reason for this, but it seems that great faith is rare, God does not heal most diseases, and amputees are few in number. On great faith being rare: it is harder to heal an amputee than other diseases - certainly harder for science - thus it may require more faith. They may be very likely to flock to Lourdes. However, people are praying for all sorts of things - happy marriages, end to cancer, etc. etc. If you were to compare the % of people that God has healed of cancer with the % of amputees healed, would it be different? Or does it just appear different because there are 5 million cancer suffers while 4 amputees, and so 4 healings of cancer makes it appear that God heals cancer more than amputation?
Anyways, one aspect of faith is the acceptance that God is more wise than we are and accepting mysteries, so requiring having an answer to one’s question to have faith is not the deepest faith. “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”
 
tonyrey said:
Your irrational demand for** visible** evidence overlooks the fact that you cannot even demonstrate to anyone that your mind exists… How can we be certain you are not just a collection of atomic particles blundering blindly through space and spouting nonsense? 😉
Click to expand...
Well, I don’t overlook these issues, although I would not call them ‘fact’. I am unsure if there can reasonably be anything called a ‘mind’. I think it is most likely understood as an abstraction meaning the functioning of the brain and related organs. I am, of course, a collection of particles in space, although I am not sure if I am ‘blundering’ through it. My progress is not entirely blind, in that I am able to predict results, and observe them. by restricting my expressing of views to those based on observation and replication I am able to minimise the amount of nonsense spouted. This is a part of what rationality consists of.
 
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