For those who believe in the power of prayer...

[OCNewbie]

This is a great story. I think you're right to hope/wonder about what God wants for you after having kept you around .

Why so secretive? God performs a miracle, saves someone's life, and then they're left to wonder "why me"? And just like the prayer thing, this person, a believer, will from that point on constantly be trigger-happy in attributing the next good thing (or number of good things) that happen to them in their lives to the "why" part of why me. If you're trained/taught (by being told "God has a plan for you, that's why you're alive") to believe that there's a reason that you lived, beyond the hard work, and implementation of the skills of the medical team that saved you, without any structured guidelines as to what qualifies as the answer to the "why me?" question, then, literally, ANYTHING positive can be attributed to "God's plan".

It's as if people that don't go through such traumatic life/death scenarios, but still experience these same, supposedly affirmative life events that the person who survived experiences are getting the exact same treatment. How can you then, logically, attribute these experiences (such as the birth of a child, or any number of other reasons) to the "why" part of "why me" ?

 

[OCNewbie]

You have admitted you would likely be dead without advances in medicine so instead of singing the praises of god you should instead be singing the praises of man. Perhaps mentioning the doctors and nurses who helped you through it.
<snip>
It seems to me crediting god discounts man and is that what we should be doing? If everyone thought that way I shudder to think of the society we would live in.

I totally agree with this. A boy, not yet 10 years-old, decides he wants to be a doctor when he grows up. He works hard throughout grade school, graduates valedictorian of his high school, gets a full ride at college, goes through medical school, etc. He has spent many years of his life trying to achieve his goal, because he wants to utilize his intelligence and knowledge to help others when they need it most. Then, after all that hard work, and time invested, something that most people can't do, or the sacrifice is just too great, when the doctor finally sees the fruits of all that, in the form of saving a life, the recipient of that work praises an imaginary god, and apparently completely dismisses (or denigrates to a large degree) the life-long commitment that man has made, which is what really saved that other man's life.

"But, but... there's this book!"

 

[zanejohnson]

damn something i said sure riled em up lol

 

[Dr. Zaus]

damn something i said sure riled em up lol

You have a sense of meaning and purpose in your life... a horrible sin against nihilism.

The same god who unleashes/allows terrible diseases upon the earth? the same god who mercilessly kills or allows the killing of countless innocent people each day?

God lets us be who we are; without diseases etc. we wouldn't be who we are and God wants us, just as we are.

To actually believe that same god has bothered to spare you is actually a terrible way to think.

Try stepping back sometime. Anyone who says that same god has bothered to spare them, and actually believes it, to rational people, is a psychotic, and in our current society it is accepted. We accept psychotic irrational thinking. Even us atheists we tend to just ignore it.

Those doctors who said thank god are discounting themselves, or they are just trying to be kind. It doesn't mean they really think god had anything to do with it.

When you think positively in any way you are usually being irrational (people over-estimate their abilities consistently); except that it IS rational, because it's pragmatic (high-self efficacy is the #1 predictor of success).

plying with kids now, no time for arguing nietzsche.

"God is dead" - nietzsche
"nietzsche is dead" - God

 

[Nintendesert]

damn something i said sure riled em up lol

Because we live in a culture of the self. From Facebook to Twitter people believe they are the most important thing and only their selfish wants and desires matter.

They can't accept that they can belong to something greater than themselves and that their passions and needs aren't the most important thing in the universe. They only strive for more self adoration.

There are age old theological questions being posed here by people thinking they are unique in that view. Saints have asked those same questions. The earliest doubter of everything was an Apostle. There's nothing wrong with doubt, but I doubt many would want to read a book or go talk to a person educated in theology to get their answers. They are afraid and instead congregate in places like this where their hate can be pooled together in big anti-God circle jerks.

Prayer isn't about changing the world around us, it's about changing US. Our reactions and our hearts. When homes were burned down in Colorado someone explained it as the difference between someone hating God for doing this to their home, falling into a hole of despair and anger vs. someone that went out and thanked the Firefighters for trying to help them and being thankful that they even still had their lives. It is as simple as the optimist vs. the pessimist. Optimistic people live longer, are healthier and happier in life, there is power in an emotionally healthy human. There is power in the placebo effect and in all this there is power in hope and there is power in prayer.

Zane could have started blaming God and hating him for his ordeal, he could have falling into despair, misery and depression over all of this. Instead he's thankful for his life and what he has now and comes out a better person. The prayer was for Zane, and Zane consists of more than just his leg.

 

[zanejohnson]

^ that's grace, right there.

thank you

 

[OCNewbie]

There is power in the placebo effect and in all this there is power in hope and there is power in prayer.

There may be power in prayer, but there's no reason to believe it has anything to do with a god.

My original post was trying to determine to what extent God plays a direct role in the healing process, or in answering prayers. Do they believe there is actual supernatural intervention? For instance, in situations of recovering from disease, does god multiply white blood cells more rapidly than they can normally multiply? Are there tangible effects of God's influence when a prayer is answered?

 

[JEDIYoda]

So what's the deal then with all the people who've got some serious illness, with plenty of people praying away, and they suffer an agonizing death anyway. Blessed be God's glorious will?

So how do you know that it is God`s will that everybody be healed?

 

[PieIsAwesome]

Still waiting for prayer to regrow limbs.

No to false consolation.

 

[zanejohnson]

Still waiting for prayer to regrow limbs.

No to false consolation.

we'll be able to do this one day with science! your prayer is answered!! eventually..

 

[Jeff7]

For the most part, this isn't true today.

Placebos are getting more effective. Drugmakers are desperate to know why.

Actually: real problems, real physical problems, are influenced by placebo/faith in something. If this wasn't the case then we wouldn't need double-blind placebo control group trials for things like heart-desease. Indeed, the double-blind part is to keep the faith of the administering person from having an influence (which it does!)

...And that's the problem I was talking about; your example shows why it's twice as problematic. You need the double-blind stuff to develop a mask so you can filter out the impact of the placebo effect. It can cloud the judgement of the person doing the testing, and their interpretation of the results, and it can produce false positives or false negatives in the person on the receiving end of the test. So, again, the placebo effect is in the way.

What I find most ironic is how ignorant your post is.

You should look at the power of affect as it relates to healing and then try your hand-wave of "not appropriate" for something that is mighty powerful in helping.

Don't be ignorantly hateful.

We seem to have different ideas of "healing" and "helping" then. If someone's got cancer, and I can make them feel better, or do something that will actually work to destroy the cancer cells, I'd take the latter option. The idea then is that they won't rely on the placebo effect to make them feel better, but they will actually be better.
But, I guess at this point in time, a sizable chunk of what we've got for cancer is just to make the person feel better, while we try to figure out how the hell to kill out-of-control cells without killing the person they're in.

So how do you know that it is God`s will that everybody be healed?

I'd say that that's not an issue, except that the Christian idea of God is that he's 100% benevolent and loving.
The Greek gods had all kinds of colorful and interesting characters who'd screw with people just for their own amusement. But all those characteristics got mashed into a single deity, who's been assigned the properties of being all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, unchanging and timeless, and yet who is also vengeful, and wants his followers to respect, love, and fear him. They've created the God of Schizophrenia.

 

[SlowSpyder]

So how do you know that it is God`s will that everybody be healed?

If God is going to implement his will regardless, what does prayer do?

People pray, if they heal they praise God. If they do not get better or are dying, they claim it is God's will.

It is a coping mechanism, you're dying so you want to believe you're going to go to heaven and live in paradise forever with all your dead loved ones. Eternity is a looooong time, think about how long forever is. Billions and billions of years are just a blink of the eye when compared to infinity. But God can judge if you're worthy for infinity on this 70 some years on average, many times people don't even get that 70 some average years. Young children that have done nothing good or bad that die.

And I'm judged because I have original sin, because a woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat a magic forbidden apple. So now I have to praise God and his son (He didn't like peopple praising other gods, he is a jealous God who says he loves us, but then tells us love is not jealous... ) to save me from himself.

From what I'm reading, the prognosis for flesh eating bacteria is not great, about 30% of those who get it die. But that means it is also far from a miracle if you make it through.

Zane, I do not believe one bit that any kind of divine intervention saved you. In my opinion medical science saved you. We'll probably simply disagree on this, and that is fine. Either way, I'm really happy for you, that you're healed now, I know you have a little girl who needs you.

 

[pelov]

You guys aren't listening... Clearly his leg got better, therefore god did it.

Now if only he can help me find my remote

 

[Retro Rob]

Just because people rarely survive what you went through and that must mean god exists is a terrible argument. It is more of a testament to the hard work of countless people who actually exist or have existed.

When I was younger I was in a car wreck without my seatbelt on and the windshield luckily held me in. If I had been flung out of the car I'd probably be dead or disabled. I attribute that "miracle" to man. Smart people figured out how to make better glass that does a great job of keeping people in cars during wrecks.

It seems to me crediting god discounts man and is that what we should be doing? If everyone thought that way I shudder to think of the society we would live in.

Do you credit the bad things to man too?

Funny, because I see many people utter this setiment (which I understand) and give man praise. But when something bad happends (than man equally cause) here comes the anit-religious zealouts blaming God. If man can cause good, why not credit them with the bad that they cause? Because they do.

I just hope you give credit and discredit where it's due.

 

[Retro Rob]

The same god who unleashes/allows terrible diseases upon the earth? the same god who mercilessly kills or allows the killing of countless innocent people each day?

Interseting point. I tend to think that the people who spread disease and kill people are the ones to blame for it. Not God.

As far as allowing and being blamed for that? I used to think that. Until I thought about something.

When your children grow up, they can become whatever they want in life even if it's a killer, drug abuser and so on. We can't blame the parents for that because they were allowed to be what they wanted to be in life.

God has the power to stop it? True, he does. But he also give us free will. How we use/misuse it is totally up to each person. It's not like God didn't provide people something to live by, but most people disgard the Bible for various reasons. So, not folllowing the instruction book results in us not doing things correctly, and causes others and ourselves to suffer. Not God's fault.


So, can we really blame God if we (1) choose to do bad things to others, (2) ignore the Bible.. the book provided to guide us (3) completely ignore the fact that the Bible says the world is under Satan's control?

I just took time to really think about that and come to a more reasonable conclusion.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Interseting point. I tend to think that the people who spread disease and kill people are the ones to blame for it. Not God.

As far as allowing and being blamed for that? I used to think that. Until I thought about something.

When your children grow up, they can become whatever they want in life even if it's a killer, drug abuser and so on. We can't blame the parents for that because they were allowed to be what they wanted to be in life.

God has the power to stop it? True, he does. But he also give us free will. How we use/misuse it is totally up to each person. It's not like God didn't provide people something to live by, but most people disgard the Bible for various reasons. So, not folllowing the instruction book results in us not doing things correctly, and causes others and ourselves to suffer. Not God's fault.


So, can we really blame God if we (1) choose to do bad things to others, (2) ignore the Bible.. the book provided to guide us (3) completely ignore the fact that the Bible says the world is under Satan's control?

I just took time to really think about that and come to a more reasonable conclusion.

If we were to follow the bible, the "instruction book", society would be a lot more violent than it is today. There is a lot of death in the instructions in the bible.

 

[Retro Rob]

If we were to follow the bible, the "instruction book", society would be a lot more violent than it is today. There is a lot of death in the instructions in the bible.

I knew this was coming.

Those are history lessons, how God dealt with his people back then. Granted, there was a lot of war and things going on and I won't disagree with that.

When you think about it, a lot of those nations were destroyed becasue they tried to elimate God's people... the Jews. It's recorded history. Secondly, there was promised Land that He promised to them. Those who occupied those lands weren't going to just leave. So you may wonder why God had to destroy them? False worship, refusal to acknowledge the true God, resulted in that. It's not like they didn't know about him. They did, and tried to fight, and lost.

That really has nothing to do with today, though, in a sense that people should pick up arms and fight. If you read through the OT, it was recorded to show the Jews their history and how God delt with them. It was not and is not an instruction book on what people should do today. I know religion does that, but you won't find anything in the Bible that shows God instructing people to fight and kill today. They do that on their own.

From a moral standpoint, it's our instruction manual. In fact, the OT has the Ten Commandments, telling people what and what not to do. Jesus gave further commands to love nieghbor as self, do on to others as you want done to you, etc. These are the commands to follow, becasue they are designed for "true" Christianity, which was founded by Jesus which comes down to our modern era.

God no longer has land to give to his people, there are no longer nations at this point trying to destroy God's people. When they tried, (like during the days of Hitler) they failed.

 

[tcsenter]

Yeah, the leg isn't really impressive. I've seen worse. Looks like you barely lost any muscle and it was mostly subcutaneous and outer fasciitis. 3 month recovery is good, just not miraculous.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I knew this was coming.

Those are history lessons, how God dealt with his people back then. Granted, there was a lot of war and things going on and I won't disagree with that.

When you think about it, a lot of those nations were destroyed becasue they tried to elimate God's people... the Jews. It's recorded history. Secondly, there was promised Land that He promised to them. Those who occupied those lands weren't going to just leave. So you may wonder why God had to destroy them? False worship, refusal to acknowledge the true God, resulted in that. It's not like they didn't know about him. They did, and tried to fight, and lost.

That really has nothing to do with today, though, in a sense that people should pick up arms and fight. If you read through the OT, it was recorded to show the Jews their history and how God delt with them. It was not and is not an instruction book on what people should do today. I know religion does that, but you won't find anything in the Bible that shows God instructing people to fight and kill today. They do that on their own.

From a moral standpoint, it's our instruction manual. In fact, the OT has the Ten Commandments, telling people what and what not to do. Jesus gave further commands to love nieghbor as self, do on to others as you want done to you, etc. These are the commands to follow, becasue they are designed for "true" Christianity, which was founded by Jesus which comes down to our modern era.

God no longer has land to give to his people, there are no longer nations at this point trying to destroy God's people. When they tried, (like during the days of Hitler) they failed.

God sure seems like a vengeful asshole, then. He doesn't get his way so he throws a tantrum and destroys entire cities. I'm really supposed to worship him? He killed all those people who in some way harmed his choosen people, but yet just sat there during the Holocaust.

And there is plenty in the bible that tells us to kill others.

 

[pelov]

That really has nothing to do with today, though, in a sense that people should pick up arms and fight. If you read through the OT, it was recorded to show the Jews their history and how God delt with them. It was not and is not an instruction book on what people should do today. I know religion does that, but you won't find anything in the Bible that shows God instructing people to fight and kill today. They do that on their own.

From a moral standpoint, it's our instruction manual. In fact, the OT has the Ten Commandments, telling people what and what not to do. Jesus gave further commands to love nieghbor as self, do on to others as you want done to you, etc. These are the commands to follow, becasue they are designed for "true" Christianity, which was founded by Jesus which comes down to our modern era.

God no longer has land to give to his people, there are no longer nations at this point trying to destroy God's people. When they tried, (like during the days of Hitler) they failed.

You are a very special kind of stupid. The kind that rationalizes which of god's words to obey and which to toss out.

If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death.

I suppose that only applies to jews. Maybe that was the jewish god and your god is different? Peaceful and kind, understanding and benevolent.

It does beg the question of why we should listen to either considering you can so easily discredit the old testament god.

I hope you don't plan on doing any yard work today. I might just stroll by and stone you to death....

 

[Retro Rob]

And there is plenty in the bible that tells us to kill others.

I'd like to see that.


If you mean "us" as in "today" (modern era), then I would really like to see it.

 

[Retro Rob]

You are a very special kind of stupid. The kind that rationalizes which of god's words to obey and which to toss out.

Eh, you're entitled to that.

People normally critisize what they don't understand.

 

[pelov]

I'd like to see that.


If you mean "us" as in "today" (modern era), then I would really like to see it.

You can't do that...

god, assuming you actually believe in that shit, means you can't question it. It's a perfect being with eternal words. If you can discredit the old testament

2 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

13 Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you.

14 Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.

15 Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.

16 Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.

17 It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.

then why can't someone just as equally discredit just the new testament? Why can't they discredit both?

You can't pick and choose what to obey and what to neglect. Because in doing so there is no validity for either case or any case at all. It's just "I think because reasons" and that's it.

 

[sandorski]

Do MakePrayer(x)
If Outcome(y) = MakePrayer(x)
Writeln("Goddidit!")
else Writeln("God has other plans")

 

[Retro Rob]

You can't do that...

god, assuming you actually believe in that shit, means you can't question it. It's a perfect being with eternal words. If you can discredit the old testament



then why can't someone just as equally discredit just the new testament? Why can't they discredit both?

You can't pick and choose what to obey and what to neglect. Because in doing so there is no validity for either case or any case at all. It's just "I think because reasons" and that's it.

You can discredit both if you want. Your choice, their choice.

Simple.