On so-called ''Miracles''...

[Baruch]

I was scammed by faith healers a long time ago. I learned my lesson, and yes, I now dismiss miracle stories as baloney. I may look at cases of these stories but only to see if they're novel malarkey.

Doctors call this bed side manner.  Your cure is partly based on your confidence in the doctor.  Hence ideological defense of Dr Fauci.  I have been scammed myself. but it was always my gullibility at fault.

[Unbeliever]

I see miracles as nothing but lies and delusion. I see stage magicians perform what many would call miracles if they don't know it's a trick . But magicians don't generally lie and say that God did it.

[Blackleaf]

I've found that the majority of "miracles" are stories made up by someone, who has no witnesses to corroborate with. These are easily dismissed. However, it's also true that when you're primed to see miracles everywhere you go, you will see ordinary coincidences as miracles. When I was a teenager, there was this youth camp thing. The leaders of the camp were teaching about how to pray for messages from God, as well as how to do faith healing. This was rather unusual to me, because I was used to faith healers just expecting you to give them money for them to heal you, not for them to teach you how to do it yourself. During this event, they paired us up, had us take turns laying hands on each other, closing our eyes, and praying for God to tell us what the other person needed. When I did that, I saw an image of a woman in a rocking chair, sitting motionless in a dark room. I shared that with him, and he told me it was his mother, who was going through a divorce and was distancing herself from others. I, of course, saw this as a sign. And I prayed for God to give me some advice. Nothing came. Since that time, I had tried multiple times to replicate the technique, to get some kind of message from God, with no success.

Now that I no longer believe, I see that "miracle" for what it was. A coincidence. Maybe when I was over at his house before (some people from church would play games at his house on occasion), I picked up on some subtle sign that his mother wasn't doing well, and then that came out when I was praying. Either that, or God just likes fucking with people. I mean, why would he tell me about this guy's problem and then go silent, unless he was just a dick?

[Baruch]

I see miracles as nothing but lies and delusion. I see stage magicians perform what many would call miracles if they don't know it's a trick . But magicians don't generally lie and say that God did it.

Stage magicians are gods ;-)  I love their acts!

[Jagella]

I reserve judgement over miracles, insofar that I've yet to see one.

I judge miracles as nonsense. If I'm wrong, then I invite people to prove I'm wrong.

They're also easy to define out of existence if you mean something that defies nature.

I'm not completely sure what a miracle is, but I generally use the Bible to provide examples and assume miracles are supposed to be like those examples.

Most stuff that people mean, when they say miracle, can be explained by natural causes.

I've seen people mistake natural phenomena to be miracles. Since no miracle has ever been proved, I assume that many miracle stories are based on those misinterpretations.

[Paolo]

I don't know, I don't believe in miracles, but I believe in skepticism, so when I saw this I had my doubts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ojey48UmkA4&t=413s

In this video of a supposed 'miracle', one commenter remarked: ''I have to ask how to prove it that was true? Can he heal most of disabled persons or only this one actor? This question isn%u2019t about God just for this man''. To which someone else said: ''You can see the atrophied muscles in his legs. You can't fake that. Someone with those proportions can't walk. I had my doubts clicking on this vid too, but this is a true case of a miracle happening on camera''.

Am I too gulliable, or even we skeptics get sometimes trapped in little corners? 

[Blackleaf]

I don't know, I don't believe in miracles, but I believe in skepticism, so when I saw this I had my doubts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ojey48UmkA4&t=413s

In this video of a supposed 'miracle', one commenter remarked: ''I have to ask how to prove it that was true? Can he heal most of disabled persons or only this one actor? This question isn%u2019t about God just for this man''. To which someone else said: ''You can see the atrophied muscles in his legs. You can't fake that. Someone with those proportions can't walk. I had my doubts clicking on this vid too, but this is a true case of a miracle happening on camera''.

Am I too gulliable, or even we skeptics get sometimes trapped in little corners? 

They help him stand, stabilize him, and let him hold on to the pastor while he shuffles his feet forward a little. Then when he gets too tired, they help him sit back down. The man ended up the same as he began: weak and frail. I'm not impressed. Nothing but hype. Let's see his muscles change shape immediately after prayer, becoming strong and healthy enough to walk without aid. Then I'll be impressed.

[Mike Cl]

I don't know, I don't believe in miracles, but I believe in skepticism, so when I saw this I had my doubts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ojey48UmkA4&t=413s

In this video of a supposed 'miracle', one commenter remarked: ''I have to ask how to prove it that was true? Can he heal most of disabled persons or only this one actor? This question isn%u2019t about God just for this man''. To which someone else said: ''You can see the atrophied muscles in his legs. You can't fake that. Someone with those proportions can't walk. I had my doubts clicking on this vid too, but this is a true case of a miracle happening on camera''.

Am I too gulliable, or even we skeptics get sometimes trapped in little corners? 

Yeah, you are too gullible.

[Baruch]

I don't know, I don't believe in miracles, but I believe in skepticism, so when I saw this I had my doubts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ojey48UmkA4&t=413s

In this video of a supposed 'miracle', one commenter remarked: ''I have to ask how to prove it that was true? Can he heal most of disabled persons or only this one actor? This question isn%u2019t about God just for this man''. To which someone else said: ''You can see the atrophied muscles in his legs. You can't fake that. Someone with those proportions can't walk. I had my doubts clicking on this vid too, but this is a true case of a miracle happening on camera''.

Am I too gulliable, or even we skeptics get sometimes trapped in little corners? 

Doctors are gods, they know what every cell in your body is doing (not).  A human body is very complicated.  Psychosomatic assistance (bedside manner) or self hypnosis (patient confidence) are real things.  It is harder to recover from an injury or illness ... if the people around you, are preparing your funeral, or your doctor tells you, you have a week to live!  So what is a skeptic?

What happens with humans is psychological and physiological.  You can accept materialism as a dogma, and say that all of that is because of quantum mechanics (spooky action at a distance).  A materialist who denies the psychological, is a poor doctor.  It doesn't matter, in your recovery, if the brain is the source of all things psychological or not.  Your car repair guy, doesn't need to be a quantum mechanic to fix your car, he simply needs to be good at fixing cars.

There are cases of unexplained improvement or recovery in patients.  The doctor doesn't know why.  And not knowing why, means you don't know why either.  You can psychologically attribute it to anything you want (if you are the patient).  If you aren't the patient, you know less than nothing.

[SGOS]

I've heard faith healing can be effective against masturbation.

[Baruch]

I've heard faith healing can be effective against masturbation.

Is that why your hands are hairy? ;-)

[Jagella]

Am I too gulliable, or even we skeptics get sometimes trapped in little corners? 

If you believe that anything "miraculous" happened to the man in the wheelchair, then yes, you are gullible. I was through the faith healing scam too, only I cannot walk at all or even stand up. A faith healer I saw blamed me when his "miracles from Jesus" were not substantiated. He told me that I didn't really believe Jesus could heal me, and the proof was my continued inability to walk.

Faith healing is quackery of the worst kind adding insult to the injury it inflicts on it victims. It should be outlawed as a threat to public health. It hasn't been outlawed because Christian myths are more important to people in our society than the respect and the dignity of disabled people.

[Jagella]

They help him stand, stabilize him, and let him hold on to the pastor while he shuffles his feet forward a little. Then when he gets too tired, they help him sit back down. The man ended up the same as he began: weak and frail. I'm not impressed. Nothing but hype. Let's see his muscles change shape immediately after prayer, becoming strong and healthy enough to walk without aid. Then I'll be impressed.

Note that as far as we can tell nobody in that video spoke up to say what you posted here. The "healing" could not have more clearly failed. The faith of those Christians was evidently not shaken one bit by proof that their belief in miracles has failed miserably at least once.

If I had been present there and then I would have told the man in the wheelchair that he was being lied to and being fed false hope. He should learn to live with his disability the best way he can, but more than that, he should value himself as the worthwhile man he is--great things that Christianity fails to deliver on.

[Baruch]

Note that as far as we can tell nobody in that video spoke up to say what you posted here. The "healing" could not have more clearly failed. The faith of those Christians was evidently not shaken one bit by proof that their belief in miracles has failed miserably at least once.

If I had been present there and then I would have told the man in the wheelchair that he was being lied to and being fed false hope. He should learn to live with his disability the best way he can, but more than that, he should value himself as the worthwhile man he is--great things that Christianity fails to deliver on.

I wouldn't want you as my doctor, but I wouldn't want you to lie to me either ;-)

[Mike Cl]

Note that as far as we can tell nobody in that video spoke up to say what you posted here. The "healing" could not have more clearly failed. The faith of those Christians was evidently not shaken one bit by proof that their belief in miracles has failed miserably at least once.

If I had been present there and then I would have told the man in the wheelchair that he was being lied to and being fed false hope. He should learn to live with his disability the best way he can, but more than that, he should value himself as the worthwhile man he is--great things that Christianity fails to deliver on.

That's the thing with christians (and other theists), facts and thinking matters not to them.  You can 'prove' something to them and they still will not believe you.  You can throw trumpites into that mess, as well.  Facts matter not................