The Reality of Miracles

[Waffle Dem0n]

Tsuki katgirl

Mmph...the religious people like that on TV are ignorant. They believe in God and absolutely nothing will stop them.

My brother and I were watching TV in the morning, and this religious dude named Ernest Angely came on. He was selling books about how the lord helped him(I think that's what it was about.. not sure.) and he was giving away free 'miracle water'. If you put the water all over yourself and prayed or something like that, God would heal you. He claimed it could heal diseases, like Cancer even. what a load of bull....
Uh...yeah. Anyone else see this guy?

That ain't as bad as the guy who said you could cure(not prevent; cure) cancer, with your diet.He also claimed your diet causes, and can solve, muscular dystrophy, and a slew of other nearly-impossible to cure diseases.  

[Sanguvixen]

Blasphemize

I hate it when religious people thank God for what other people did. For example, I knew one person who lived through breast cancer and people were thanking God for it. I don't think they should be thanking God. They should be thanking the doctors and whoever else helped her survive.

That is true...give thanks to the right people. Not an invisible, made-up friend.

 

[Dande_Lion]

Yes, I remember once when I was at work, and I saw a customer coming towards the end of the day, and I felt bad for her, so I stayed open a few minutes longer. When I told her that I'd help her and she would be my last customer of the day, she said, "Thank you, Jesus!" and told me how she'd prayed to make it on time.

I thought about telling her that my name wasn't Jesus and I changed my mind and was closing, but I mentally rolled my eyes and helped her.

But does it strike anyone as sad that the 700 club people who refuse to accept the parts of science that they don't like (like evolution), will give medicine invented by science to people and call that a miracle?

On the one hand, it's badbadbad, but on the other hand, it's a "miracle" when you can use it for your own gratification.  

[Dathu]

What I like is how whenever something good happens, it's from god, but whenever something bad happens, it's either an accident, force of nature, or the work of The Devil. Which, of course, raises the question of why an all powerful god would let the devil run amok.  

[IVIalice]

I have seen shows on tv that have supposed miracle healings and the people would shake and fall down to fake a force acting in them or something like that.

A video that shows many examples of this..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXOEAz46vMk

I've actually seen an instance during one of these kind of shows where there would be this old woman with cross eyes and when the man went to heal her she would try and hold her eyes straight but they would just cross again and I found it very funny to see the reason why most of the issues with these people cant be seen with the naked eye.  

[Im A Little Pea]

If I were one of the people who collected the money, or one of the doctors who saved the child's life, I'd be seriously offended by this.

I have a patient who's like that. She keeps saying how she's thankful to god for keeping her alive, when it's actually her diet, medicine and good efforts from her doctor. I'll never get used to those comments.  

[ReDValKyRiE13]

HA!!!

This just reminded me of a study done in 2006 by a group of six medical centers:

(Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts; Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota; St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, Florida; Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C; and the Mind/Body Medical Institute)

to investigate the effects of intercessory prayer on post-op complications in heart surgery patients.

Not only did they find that intercessory prayer was ineffective in reducing complications, but patients who were aware that they were receiving prayer actually had HIGHER rates of complication than those who were unsure of their receipt of prayer AND THE GROUP OF PATIENTS THAT DID NOT RECEIVE PRAYER ACTUALLY HAD THE LOWEST COMPLICATION RATES OF THE THREE GROUPS.

Harvard Medical Journal: Intercessory Prayer Study

NIH.gov Abstract: Intercessory Prayer Study  

[Dathu]

ReDValKyRiE13

HA!!!

This just reminded me of a study done in 2006 by a group of six medical centers:

(Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts; Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota; St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, Florida; Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C; and the Mind/Body Medical Institute)

to investigate the effects of intercessory prayer on post-op complications in heart surgery patients.

Not only did they find that intercessory prayer was ineffective in reducing complications, but patients who were aware that they were receiving prayer actually had HIGHER rates of complication than those who were unsure of their receipt of prayer AND THE GROUP OF PATIENTS THAT DID NOT RECEIVE PRAYER ACTUALLY HAD THE LOWEST COMPLICATION RATES OF THE THREE GROUPS.

Harvard Medical Journal: Intercessory Prayer Study

NIH.gov Abstract: Intercessory Prayer Study

So then every time someone says "I'll keep you in my prayers" they are ******** up my survival rate!!! scream  

[Daffodil the Destroyer]

The Episcopal church I grew up in does a really huge food bank for the homeless and other poor folks in my city and I sometimes go help them out with stocking the new shipments and stuff. Being Episcopalians, normally they aren't too irritating with their God-speak, but last time one woman in particular just couldn't stop gushing about how every time we run out of one thing, God sends someone in with just what we needed, etc. How about the people that are bringing these items right on schedule? If you follow the same routine for long enough, of course you'll eventually end up bringing the items at just the right time! XD

Ugh. Not everything is a ******** miracle.

 

[ReDValKyRiE13]

Dathu

So then every time someone says "I'll keep you in my prayers" they are ******** up my survival rate!!! scream

Well, not necessarily.

One of the reasons proposed for it, aside from the crappy "well, maybe others were praying for the non-prayer group or maybe they just weren't praying correctly..." excuse is that perhaps many of the complications in the prayer group arose simply because the idea that "god will take care of it" contributed to patient complacency where tending to their own health was concerned.

From an anthropological view point it seems like a decent explanation. People have been known to cause (or aggravate) their own complications for a number of reasons and complacency is a biggie. In this case, it simply becomes a problem of intercessory prayer having a negative psychological affect on patients, as they sit back believing that someone/thing is going to take care their health for them. It would require further testing to establish a causal link between the two though.

I'll try to find the original article I read about it where the author looked at a few social hypothesis for the study's results.  

[Celestial Fireflies]

Sanguvixen

Blasphemize

I hate it when religious people thank God for what other people did. For example, I knew one person who lived through breast cancer and people were thanking God for it. I don't think they should be thanking God. They should be thanking the doctors and whoever else helped her survive.

That is true...give thanks to the right people. Not an invisible, made-up friend.

Yeah. My dad's family once lost the keys to the car, and being very religious, they all (except my dad) began praying about the keys. My dad, on the other hand, looked for and found them. Their reaction? "Praise the Lord! Thank you Jesus!" rolleyes And what, exactly, did "Jesus" do? "Tell" my dad where they were? Make the keys magically appear where he was looking?  

[Krolas]

Its not really miracles that "heal" people. There are other things like Placebo.  

[B1g_crunch]

A "miracle" is the event of something unlikely occuring. When something has extreme odds against it occuring (say 15,000,000,000,000,000,000:1) it's deemed impossible. When that 1 comes up out of all other possible outcomes, it is a "mircle". With the proper circumstances in place, something impossible becomes more likely, but when unassisted, it's EXTREMELY rare to see.  

[=X-Sparker + AquaKiller=]

You are absolutely right, it's not god who
healed them, but the people.
But will they listen? No. If you argue with them and say
that it's not god who saved the children, but the people
who brought the medicine, they'll just say that,
"Oh it was god who motivated these people
to go get the medicine, which was developed by scientists
who are equally motivated and guided by god. Their actions
are all in god's plan, blah blah blah."

They're too brainwashed with that bullshit and they're
too dumb to find out the truth. Just avoid these kinds
of people as best you can.

 

[Labtech Soosh]

You wanna know what I say? Screen them before the injections.
If any ONE person says "Oh god told me to come here" or "This is a miracle from the lord" then deny them access from the supplys.