Summer means no religion or politics?

[Vince Twelve]

Jim, forgive me, I don't wish to ask you to repeat yourself, I've been paying some attention to this thread, but not reading each word, so I may have missed it.  Exactly who was it who gave you the licence?  All that I can remember reading was that it was a higher ranking member of your church.  Could you be more specific?

-What is his position within the church?

-What denomination is this church?

-What country do you live in?

I'm only asking to satisfy my curiosity, not to attempt to discredit you.  Also, just so that no one misinterprets your beliefs or your practice of prayer healing, could you answer these questions?

-Do you recommend faith healing to your family and friends?

-How do you find people to heal via prayer?  Do they seek you out?  Do you advertise?

-Do you do this often, or just whenever an acquaintance seeks your help?

-Do you recommend people seek medical help along with the prayer healing, or is the faith sufficient?

-If someone has true faith, can their prayers heal any malady?

-If your prayers fail to heal someone (do they ever??), do you return their money?

Edit: And by the way, I promise that I will seek out information from a catholic church here.  Your answers will partially help me know to ask the right questions.  Thanks.

[Lionmonkey]

That's actually completely different.

There has never been any non-anecdotal evidence of prayer healing.  If you know of any, let me know.  The problem with all the anecdotal evidence that a faith healing advocate might supply, is that it's all very lightweight.  If faith healing is used in conjunction with medical attention, how do you know that the prayer is what did it, and not the demonstrably effective drug or medical treatment?  Sometimes illnesses go away by themselves.  How much can be better explained by a placebo effect?  I can however demonstrate faith healing not working.  Unless you think they were just doing it wrong.

On the other hand.  I know that a flashlight works because when I flip the switch, the light comes on.  It's completely observable and verifiable.  I say the light is on because flipping the switch connected a circuit between the batteries that is heating a filament that gives off light as designed due to years and years of experimentation and observation.  Would you argue that the light could be caused by something else?
  Or that perhaps the light is not, in fact, on, and it is only that I think the light is on that makes it give off illumination?

All right, let's expand on this. Let us remember our all-favorite coin. It is equally possible that it lands with heads or tails up. But actually, there's another chance. There's a chance that it lands on it's side. It is quite possible but I doubt that many people enough have witnessed it to stop being anecdotical. This is far from being the only example of a situation where there's an additional outcome you may have not even thought about. The world is full of deus ex machina. So, a scientist sees a coin alternately landing with heads and tails up, makes an axiom "A coin lands either with heads or tails up" and constructs a whole science out of it with a lot of technology derived from it. And the technology works. Until the coin lands on a side. It may happen in a year. Or in a trillion years. Or much much later. I mean, what is the existance of humanity compared to all of the time. It's much much less than a grain of sand in a galaxy.

As for the whole thing about why the axioms underlying the behavior of our universe work as they do, that just goes back to the creation of the universe.  Science does not yet explain several things, and you're free to fill in the gaps with goddidit.  I won't criticize anyone for doing so.

Why goddidit? I'd personally prefer "quantum mechanics did it".

  But know and understand that that is at least as big of a leap in logic as just calling those axioms and basing a system of knowledge and understanding on them.

My point is: If there is a chance it isn't true, why believe that it is? Knowing that this chance exists for everything.

All of that has already been covered in this thread.  So:

On a side note, someone who's not as lazy as I am should create a chronology to document how the topic of this thread changes from post to post and set on fire anyone who makes them repeat.

Consider yourself burned at the stake. 

Aww, I'm such a bastard to myself sometimes.

What can I say?

Go to a church, and ask where can you witness a miracle healing and/or prayer healing.

The people in the above mentioned article didn't have faith as it seems. They may have said that they do but that doesn't mean it's true.

I pray when I'm sick, and it works every time. I did it about 10 days back. So how can I not believe that there is God? Is it merly a coindence that happened the last ~20 times I did it? Or did the holy unicorn did it?

I still don't get how holy intervention is a better explantaion than many many others, including placebo, medication, or even our beloved magic unicorn.

While we're still vaguely on the topic, just of pure curiosity: I read somewhere that catholic church demanded that all christians use their real names as usernames in the Internet. What's your opinion and do you obey?

Oh and about prayer healing: Do you know what is the exact reason you must take money for that?

[Jim Reed]

Jim, forgive me, I don't wish to ask you to repeat yourself, I've been paying some attention to this thread, but not reading each word, so I may have missed it.  Exactly who was it who gave you the licence?  All that I can remember reading was that it was a higher ranking member of your church.  Could you be more specific?

-What is his position within the church?

-What denomination is this church?

-What country do you live in?

I'm only asking to satisfy my curiosity, not to attempt to discredit you.  Also, just so that no one misinterprets your beliefs or your practice of prayer healing, could you answer these questions?

-Do you recommend faith healing to your family and friends?

-How do you find people to heal via prayer?  Do they seek you out?  Do you advertise?

-Do you do this often, or just whenever an acquaintance seeks your help?

-Do you recommend people seek medical help along with the prayer healing, or is the faith sufficient?

-If someone has true faith, can their prayers heal any malady?

-If your prayers fail to heal someone (do they ever??), do you return their money?

-

A man gave it to me after I asked him to do it. He has no position in church that I know of. He has a licence from the church. He has a wife and children. He has a proven ability of prayer healing (he prayed for me a number of times), and some other abilities. He is of catholic religion as far as I know.

I don't wan't to disclose my country name if it's not necessary.

Very few people know that I do this kind of work. Even less ask for me to pray for them. I don't devout much of my time thinking about it either. I like to be dumb and happy. I think more about soccer than it =D

I don't go advertising about this much. (But, Jim, what about this thread? =D)

I don't have anything against doctors. Medicine heals, too.

I don't pray-heal others much, as I gained the licence this winter. I did pray-heal myself before winter, though.

Any malady? Fever, the flu, hip, nerve and heart problems thus far that I've prayed for or witnessed.

No prayer of mine was left unreplied after I gained faith. On a side note, I don't pray anything besides "Our father...". Hmm...on one ocasion I asked for Jesus's help, for myself, directly and was helped.

Sometimes I help health problems without prayer, using only my knowledge and skill.

[Vince Twelve]

Lionmonkey,

I still don't see how your argument makes knowing that science works the same as knowing that prayer healing works.

Basically you're saying that "Science works even though the coin might someday land on it's side" is the same as "Faith healing works because the coin might someday land on it's side."

Jim,

Again, your answers aren't nearly as detailed as I was hoping and aren't much help on my quest to learn more about your faith healing beliefs and ability.  I'm not trying to be insulting here, but I want to let you know my thoughts based on our conversations so far.

As a naturally skeptical person, your lack of detail or clear answers makes me think that your generalities are covering up for your own doubts or contradictions in your beliefs.  I'm not stating that as fact, just saying that it is what my skeptical logic leads me to believe.  I also have serious doubts about the authority and the intentions of the person who gave you this licence.  Based on the information presented to me so far, I believe him to be a charlatan.  I don't believe that you are ill-intentioned, but I believe you to be mislead by this man.  It's not the believe that faith can help with healing or well-being that bothers me, but the accepting (or requiring) of remuneration strikes me as unconcionable. 

Again, I'm just telling you my personal beliefs based on the information I have so far.  I have sent an email to a representative of a catholic church asking to direct me in the direction of someone who can answer my inquiry.  I'll keep you updated.

[MrColossal]

I think if you refuse to take a solution that God has given for and instead ask him to give you things. (Like refusing medicine) Then he will not give it to you because it is not really faith.  You can give a child medicine and still pray.

What if modern medicine was given to us by the devil? How do you know it wasn't? How do you know it's God's solution?

[Nathan]

What if modern medicine was given to us by the devil? How do you know it wasn't? How do you know it's God's solution?

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (James 1:17)

I don't see any way that saving someone's life can be seen as a bad gift, it is a good gift.  To expand more on this point

Matthew ( 16-18 )
" By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?  Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit."

Jesus says directly here that a bad tree cannot bear good fruit, therefore the devil which by definition is an entity that works for evil cannot bear good fruit so it is impossible that any sort of innovation that causes good things can come from the devil.

(I don't read the bible very much).

Why?

[Vince Twelve]

Oh if only life were so black and white as that tree thing!  Life would be so much easier!  What's with all the gray, world? Huh?

[Nathan]

Oh if only life were so black and white as that tree thing!  Life would be so much easier!  What's with all the gray, world? Huh?

The fact is that there are very many things that are completely a neither a completely good tree or bad tree.  Every person in existence for example.  People are capable of doing evil things and good things. 

Here is a verse that seems to apply to this:

Matthew 19:17
"Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments."

Since we are talking about whether something like medicine could come from the devil the answer would be no because he is one of the few completely bad trees, and therefore is incapable of doing good things.

[MrColossal]

What if modern medicine was given to us by the devil? How do you know it wasn't? How do you know it's God's solution?

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (James 1:17)

I don't see any way that saving someone's life can be seen as a bad gift, it is a good gift.  To expand more on this point

Matthew ( 16-18 )
" By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?  Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit."

Jesus says directly here that a bad tree cannot bear good fruit, therefore the devil which by definition is an entity that works for evil cannot bear good fruit so it is impossible that any sort of innovation that causes good things can come from the devil.

What if I told you modern medicine was a direct contributing factor into me not believing in God? That's pretty bad right? What a great trick the devil pulled to draw people away from god.

Is all modern medicine good and from god? What about Embryonic Stem Cell research? What about things that are bad but we thought were good? Did god give us full frontal lobotomies? Doctors really thought they were doing good with those but oh man...

[Nathan]

What if I told you modern medicine was a direct contributing factor into me not believing in God? That's pretty bad right? What a great trick the devil pulled to draw people away from god.

Is all modern medicine good and from god? What about Embryonic Stem Cell research? What about things that are bad but we thought were good? Did god give us full frontal lobotomies? Doctors really thought they were doing good with those but oh man...

I didn't say that the devil could have no part in modern medicine I said that he could not have produced something that is good.  Sure there are parts of medicine that are bad, but the point I'm making is that if there is a medicine that is going to save someone's life I don't see how it could be seen as a bad thing.  

But wouldn't you say that there are plenty of people who have come to faith after nearly dieing and being save by medicine?  I'm sure there are plenty of good things that have caused people to continue or perhaps switch to not believing.  For instance someone evangelizing could make someone feel uncomfortable and therefore push them away but that doesn't mean that what was done is a bad thing, it really is the decision of the other person how to react to a good thing.

Does modern medicine contribute to you not believing in God?  

[MrColossal]

Modern medicine, science, history, biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy and other various sources all get together and make up my lack of faith in any deity, sure.

However, I don't know if my point is being made clear enough... I guess I'll ask a more direct question, what has the devil done recently?

[Nathan]

Simply put I don't know, I also don't know what God is doing.  Sorry I can't answer your question.

I find it interesting however that people talk about the Devil like he is some sort of super powerful thing when really he is weak compared to God.  A person sinning does not come from the devil but from our natural sinful tendencies which I suppose indirectly came from the devil but resulted as a direct action of a person.  It doesn't matter what the devil does if people resist him.

[MrColossal]

Shouldn't you be very interested in what the devil is trying to do because not everyone will resist him? Can the devil interfere with humans? Can the devil talk to humans? Can the devil start a forest fire by making lightning strike a tree? Can the devil give someone cancer? Can the devil start a forest fire which happens to burn down a house but turns out the owner had a huge insurance policy on the house and now they get millions of dollars? What if it's in God's plan to give North Korea nuclear weapons but the devil has tricked the leaders of other countries into thinking it's a bad idea? If God does it it isn't bad so you can't say North Korea getting nuclear weapons is a bad thing. You can't say anything is a bad thing because you don't know if it's part of god's plan or not, right?

I just want to say that I have ALWAYS wanted to ask someone questions like these and I thank you a lot for taking time to answering them!

[Nathan]

If any of my answers don't seem complete enough please ask me to elaborate

Shouldn't you be very interested in what the devil is trying to do because not everyone will resist him?

I would say that it isn't important to worry about what the devil is trying to do, it is important to do good things.
There is very little I can do to stop what the devil is attempting to do, I can only pray  and try to lead by an example of doing good things because once again it is ultimately up to people what they will do.

Can the devil interfere with humans?

As I have said, it is up to the individual.  If you mean can he interfere with them on a physical level then let me site the book of Job, sorry it's a bit long to get the full idea:

Job (1:6-12)
 One day the angels  came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them.  The LORD said to Satan, "Where have you come from?"
     Satan answered the LORD, "From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it."

 Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."

 "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied.  "Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.  But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face."

 The LORD said to Satan, "Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger."
     Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD."
(Job  1:6-12)


Satan then went on to take away everything that Job had all very very very very quickly.  After all this Job bowed down and worshiped God saying


(Job 1: 20)
     "Naked I came from my mother's womb,
      and naked I will depart. [c]
      The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
      may the name of the LORD be praised."

Once again sorry this answer is so long, but from that I would say that the devil is not able to interfere directly with people not because he lacks the ability, as he did all the things he did very quickly but because he does not have permission to do anything.

Can the devil talk to humans?

I would definitely say yes he can.  From what I have read in the bible I think that what God has given permission for the devil to do is to tempt people, because people have to be able to make the choice to do what God wants or not.  Otherwise there would be no free will, and therefore no meaningful obedience to God.

For instance:  In the garden of eden the devil came to Eve and told her that she should eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  At first she said no but then the devil lied to her and eventually she gave in and ate the fruit.  

But as the common saying goes "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."
So it seems he doesn't use methods like this very often, but it seems he does possess not only the capability but the permission.

Can the devil start a forest fire by making lightning strike a tree? Can the devil give someone cancer? Can the devil start a forest fire which happens to burn down a house but turns out the owner had a huge insurance policy on the house and now they get millions of dollars?

Once again, if he has permission and ONLY if he has permission.  I don't know why God would allow the devil to do these things and most likely he wouldn't but if he did, I am sure there would be a reason.

What if it's in God's plan to give North Korea nuclear weapons but the devil has tricked the leaders of other countries into thinking it's a bad idea? If God does it it isn't bad so you can't say North Korea getting nuclear weapons is a bad thing.

I have to say here that while there is a plan that God has it does not mean that people don't have free will, people can make horrible decisions and do horrible things.  Ultimately I would have to say that I don't what god's plan is or even how he decides what it is.

You can't say anything is a bad thing because you don't know if it's part of god's plan or not, right?

Matthew(22: 36-40)
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

If you love God and you love your neighbors as you love yourself then you will do good things.  

To clarify:  If you love God then you will do what he wants and will be devoted to him.  You will follow his commandments or at least try to, and you will try to help other people.

If you love your neighbor as you love yourself then you will try to do good for people.  

As long as you are following these two commandments you will be doing good, not to say that it is impossible to do good without  these two commandments.  But anything that results from loving another person (putting themselves before you) is something good.  

Sorry for the long post.  Hope it helped.

I just want to say that I have ALWAYS wanted to ask someone questions like these and I thank you a lot for taking time to answering them!

I am happy to help, ask as many questions as you like!

[Jim Reed]

Lionmonkey:
If I pray what Jesus said to pray, or say: "Jesus, save us.", and get help, what should I think? It was a placebo? The unicorn did it? On two occasions help came as the words left my mouth exactly. -...forgive us for our sins... / -Jesus save us. On other occasions it came while I was sleeping.

Real names are a tricky bussiness. I don't know why the church 'demands' we use them. I don't use my real name. I don't allow myself to be photographed, if I can help it, either.

I don't know exactly why my rules say that I need compensation. I do have an opinion. But It'll stay with me on this matter.

Vince:
How can he be a charlatan, if his prayer healing works? It worked on me several times.

If you don't understand anything, ask more specific questions, please.

Nathan:
Why should I read the bible often?

[Khris]

Jim Reed, why don't you try this: next time you've got a fever, don't heal yourself by praying.
Just wait how long it takes for your body to recover on its own.

Also, have a look at this site, please: http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/

[Jim Reed]

Kris, starting from the link at the page you offered, I saw that the author claims that prayer healing is coincedence.
I saw it work a number of times. How large that number should be to prove that it's not coindence?

[Khris]

The important point is that

God never "answers prayers" if there is no possibility of coincidence.

Anecdotal evidence is useless. I could make any number of bold claims and cite lots of people who have witnessed the same thing. That doesn't mean shit. Science disregards anecdotal evidence for a reason.

Now: I claim that if you eliminated the possibility of coincidence, your prayer healing will never work. So all you have to do is to create a situation in which the patient getting better must be the result of your prayer healing.

Should you ever find yourself in such a situation, please pray, pray, pray. I know what is going to happen, but you'll know, too. That's why I'm telling you this: there's no way to convince me that you have supernatural powers, because you don't. You just need to realize this and stop fucking people over for money just because some asshole said so.

[Jim Reed]

Kris, you are being insulting on purpose.

If you don't believe in God, It's your choice. But courtesy is not a matter of religion.

[Khris]

Believing in God has nothing to do with fucking over sick people for money.
So what if you lost your license for doing it for free?
Your hard earned powers won't suddenly stop working, right? And isn't that license verbal anyway?

I don't accuse you of deliberately taking money for something that has no effect. The sad thing is that you think it does have an effect.
But guess what happens if dowsers are tested for the first time and the results clearly show they can't find the bottle holding water instead of sand with a better chance than that of guessing right?
They are devastated. They actually believed they could find water by holding sticks.

As soon as supernatural claims are tested in a controlled environment, all the claimed powers mysteriously stop working, EVERY TIME, WITHOUT FAIL.

Understand that your prayer healing stuff isn't any different just because it makes use of a popular superstition. It can be tested using science, and if it were, you'd probably actually be very surprised. Because you seriously seem to believe that you mumbling stuff does anything except shit.

If I'm insulting, it's because I'm angry. Knowing that people like you exist, people who believe random superstitious nonsense without a shred of evidence indeed makes me really angry. I'll chill now.