Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Sunday's religious debate....death....

But here are plenty of claims of God healing. But not one amputee? Ever? Surely there must be some worthy out there.

If prayer resulted in the regeneration of a lost limb, faith absent proof would disappear, and that's the kind of faith that pleases God the most. He will accept the Doubting Thomas variety (Thomas had to first place his hand inside Christ's wound after the resurrection before he would believe), but prefers the other.

As the son and grandson of amputees I have wondered the same thing. Or why doesn't He raise another body like that of Lazarus that has been dead for three days?

The answer is that Jesus and the Apostles performed gifts that were Signs,indisputable evidense to anyone other than a fool.
Healing today is an answer to prayer but it is not intended purely as a miraculous sign.

God chooses to perform miracles that give skeptics a little room to doubt. Even the story of my healing can be dismissed by a skeptic as a spontaneous remission,which are documented to occur now and then. I am impressed that my spontaneous remission came immediately after intercessory prayer as outlined in scripture in the New Testament book of James. Another man,being a skeptic still has enough room to attribute my miracle to something other than answered prayer. If God healed an amputee or raised the long dead,it would constitute a Sign and for the time being God has chosen not to act in that manner.

What is interesting is that even when He has performed miracles that are clearly signs,people have still refused to believe despite what they have seen with their own eyes.

God will not suspend your free will to believe or not,that is the summation of what I have written which I believe accurately reflects scripture and experience.

But I think it was a very good question.

Britt

I've noticed that too - God only "heals" in the way that any statistical analysis of spontaneous self-healing can happen to any animal studied. Fact is, even with mice - some mice with huge tumours have them vanish. When it happens to a mouse a scientist concludes he looking at what might be a very rare case of self-healing (lucky mouse - he might say to himself) - but when the same happens to a human - it's a miracle!

My Mom was one of those people - declared "terminal" due to an incurable bladder cancer on my 22nd birthday. The radiation hadn't worked. She was given a short time to live. Thinking she had "nothing to loose now" she went on a MEGA-vitamin regime I concocted for her after a lot of research in the medical library. The odds were almost infinitesimal it would work. She lived until 10 years ago. The Dr. (a Christian man) called my mother's case a "miracle". I think the 15 to 20 grams of Vitamin C every 24 hours might have changed the acid/base situation in her bladder - and at the (along with the other vitamins) boosted her immune system.

Fact is, with some humans, and any other mammal, in some rare cases - tumours do shrink and vanish.

God NEVER heals amputees, never re-grows eyes in people who've had them poked out, never heals decapitations, grows new kidneys in people who've lost them, - the list goes on and on. He never does what is scientifically "impossible". Hmmm - I wonder why?

Along the same lines - when an aircraft is in difficulty - and through monumental good luck, and pilot effort, and hundreds of hard-praying people - it lands safely - many will break into a chorus of "Hallelujah" and "Praise God" - and forever after refer to the time God "saved them".

People in planes that crash and kill everyone on board - never get to do that. I guess they (unlike the first bunch of people) were unworthy.

Even with the airplane example - ever notice how God never gets involved in saving people in airplanes - when the wings come off at high-altitude?

All this so-called healing is visceral only, wouldn't you agree?

Gibberish sounds good to fools who consider it wisdom.

Not sure what you mean by visceral,it has a number of definitions. Be more precise Councelor.

Britt

I couldn't agree with you more!!

Every time you call Isaac "counselor" I'm reminded of Robert Deniro in Cape Fear.

If there's proof, it not faith, so faith absent proof seems redundant.

faith (fth)
n.
Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief, trust.

A mere "deep down feeling" or a gut-feeling". The doctor in you really thought I was speaking of body organs!!! grin

Hawkeye, I just can't wait till you're an official "counselor"


At least I didn't say you reminded me of Deniro's role!!!

Exactly.

In the original, the word that's translated "faith" in the English Bible means something far different from what a boy defined as "believing what you know ain't so."

"Faith" is a deplorable "translation." Even worse are the crazy "meanings" that are so often ascribed to it.

I think that the Apostle Paul wrote it best and I can't say it any better.

Therefore we do not give up; even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. So we we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen; for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4: 16-18

Oh no Bob,what happened to me was not an emotional event. Albumin,is a protein in blood which is not supposed to leak into your urine. It only does so in large quantity when your kidneys are in some kind of serious trouble. My urine was full of the stuff for days and I was headed for dialysis,it was real.

I was healed at the moment of the prayers of the pastor and his elders. I felt it,but the diagnostic tests confirmed it. They kept me around a day or two in the hospital and finally let me go home because I wasn't sick anymore. In Systemic Patholgy,I learned that spontaneous remmissions like mine do occur in lab animals and humans. They are rare unexplained events. The skeptic is free to place my recovery in that category should he desire,but Bob,I was there. I know how those men prayed and how I was healed.

I would be glad for you to come to Alabama,we'll make it a deposition and you can ask me about it under oath. You are free to confirm the results with a polygraph if you like. Be a good way to meet you and take you hunting,I like you already.

Either way,I am telling the truth but I bet you know that much about me already. You are after all,a very good lawyer.

Britt

So a question for all of you atheists, agnostics, etc......What would it take for you to change your opinion on the subject?

Your God inviting me to a Barnes and Noble book signing might get me to thinking!

JGR

I think their hearts are so pride-hardened that only a mighty miracle from God would be the only thing that could cause them to change. Sorta like Saul.

Pray for 'em anyway, though.

As a former agnostic let me answer that by saying that all one really needs is a rational reason to make a single leap towards the idea of of God. It's really about living ones life with hope and optimism in the light of the "known" evidence, it's simply finding a reason to say "I believe".