Best evidence for healing through prayer

[wigginhall]

I has definitely worked for me. I was in a very bad place with Depression last year and it was instrumental in bringing me back to normal. It is very interesting as it does feel as though you are talking to yourself but a different self if that makes any sense.

It's a technique I use a lot now for all sorts of things. I was interested to hear if this is a similar type of experience that some religious people have when praying. Are they really talking with God or their inner selves?

The Jungians have gone to town on this, and talk to all kinds of inner selves or 'objects'.   For example, a lot of people have an inner critic, (a bit like Freud's super-ego), anyway, it is possible to fight back against its attacks and criticisms.   Jung himself of course postulated a kind of inner God or Self, which is at the centre of the psyche.   I'm not sure that there is a centre actually.   But then the mystics tend to say that the centre is everywhere, which is cute.

[ippy]

No the problem here is the caricature view that anti theists hold.
You are the likes of person that tells the likes of me what I am believing.

StillI suppose it saves you the trouble of listening.

I'm more inclined to think of myself as anti Ju Ju thing in the sky than an antitheist as religion's mythical mystical and superstition base is about as realistic as having a real Ju Ju in the sky.

ippy

[Hope]

I think prayer can have a placebo effect from time to time. There is no evidence any deity is on the end of a prayer line. But just supposing there was, why doesn't it respond positively to all prayers for healing, instead of very few? Wait for the excuses made on god's behalf!

Could it be that folk like you, who don't believe in the phenomenon are too busy trying to provide other, non-scientific, evidence for 'spontaneous healing' to realise that it has been prayer at work?

[Hope]

I'm more inclined to think of myself as anti Ju Ju thing in the sky ...

So that is something we both agree on, ippy.

[Shaker]

Could it be that folk like you, who don't believe in the phenomenon are too busy trying to provide other, non-scientific, evidence for 'spontaneous healing' to realise that it has been prayer at work?

No, it couldn't. We're the ones wih a methodology for evaluating these claims, remember (and prayer comes up woefully short when put to the test). You continue to tout spontaneous healing as some grand mysterious thing, ignoring what's already known about it (linked to by me, twice, so unread, misunderstood or ignored by you)  and what that raises for areas of continued research. The busy part that you refer is busily tryng to find out how the world actually works - that's what science is for and what scientists do.

I would ask what your methodology is for realising that prayer works but I know better. And now so does Stephen Taylor, who came to the forum seeking an answer to that very question and now realises that he's never going to get one.

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

Could it be that folk like you, who don't believe in the phenomenon are too busy trying to provide other, non-scientific, evidence for 'spontaneous healing' to realise that it has been prayer at work?

Well then let's have:

1) a clear example of someone who has been healed directly by prayer.

2) What methodology you have used to determine that some non-natural agency was at work.

You can use the scientific method for number 1. It is the perfect tool.

No idea what you use for (2). I came out of hiding and started a thread specifically for you to enlighten us.

[Rhiannon]

Hope, didn't you have an incident of healing at your church? A young person with a fractured wrist  IIRC.

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

Hope, didn't you have an incident of healing at your church? A young person with a fractured wrist  IIRC.

Actually I am prepared to forget point number one for now. Let us pretend that a clear link has been made between healing and prayer.

How would we know that a divine agency was at work? This is the key point for me. Hope and others like to use (a very poor version) of the scientific method to justify step 1, but even if they did how do they get to "it was God what done it", rather than we don't know how it works.

[Gordon]

Could it be that folk like you, who don't believe in the phenomenon are too busy trying to provide other, non-scientific, evidence for 'spontaneous healing' to realise that it has been prayer at work?

How do you know (as in having knowledge) this?

i see you are suggesting we are commiting the negative proof fallacy: we aren't, and that is your specialty.

[Rhiannon]

Actually I am prepared to forget point number one for now. Let us pretend that a clear link has been made between healing and prayer.

How would we know that a divine agency was at work? This is the key point for me. Hope and others like to use (a very poor version) of the scientific method to justify step 1, but even if they did how do they get to "it was God what done it", rather than we don't know how it works.

This interests me because my driving instructor told me that her son fractured his ankle playing football. When she took him to have a repeat X-ray a few days later it had gone. Apparently it's not unusual for the bones of young people to appear to be fractured and then tbe fracture spontaneously disappears.

I should point out that no prayer was involved in this incident.

[ippy]

So that is something we both agree on, ippy.

Hope I see your old habits haven't gone away, where I posted all of the next small paragraph:

"I'm more inclined to think of myself as anti Ju Ju thing in the sky than an antitheist as religion's mythical mystical and superstition base is about as realistic as having a real Ju Ju in the sky". 

Your post only included this part of my original post:

"I'm more inclined to think of myself as anti Ju Ju thing in the sky than an antitheist".

Why was that?

ippy



 

[ippy]

This interests me because my driving instructor told me that her son fractured his ankle playing football. When she took him to have a repeat X-ray a few days later it had gone. Apparently it's not unusual for the bones of young people to appear to be fractured and then tbe fracture spontaneously disappears.

I should point out that no prayer was involved in this incident.

I was praying England would beat Wales at rugby yesterday is there any signfigance in that, it looks like I was answered?

ippy

[OH MY WORLD!]

"...the same yesterday, today and forever."
 
Absolutely, but we don't know all there is to know about God's ways to begin with.

"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and our children..."   Deuteronomy 29:29

[Leonard James]

"...the same yesterday, today and forever."
 
Absolutely, but we don't know all there is to know about God's ways to begin with.

"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and our children..."   Deuteronomy 29:29

A.A.Milne wrote better childrens' stories than those dedicated to your "God" ... and Alfred Noyes better poetry.

[Bubbles]

A.A.Milne wrote better childrens' stories than those dedicated to your "God" ... and Alfred Noyes better poetry.

I hope you are not implying those writers are rubbish.

Alfred Noyes is one of my favourites.

 

The highwayman,  a childhood favourite

The Highwayman
BY ALFRED NOYES
PART ONE

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.   
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.   
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,   
And the highwayman came riding—
         Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.


http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171940

[ippy]

"...the same yesterday, today and forever."
 
Absolutely, but we don't know all there is to know about God's ways to begin with.

"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and our children..."   Deuteronomy 29:29

How do you know Woody and if you think you do know what have you got that would or could back it up, if you can't back up this, at the moment, asserted knowledge, why should your words on this be accepted as anything more than something you've decided to believe without, as I suspect, anything that will back it up.

All the best with your imaginary lord Woody; ever thought of taking up Ju Juism?

ippy

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

Well then let's have:

1) a clear example of someone who has been healed directly by prayer.

2) What methodology you have used to determine that some non-natural agency was at work.

You can use the scientific method for number 1. It is the perfect tool.

No idea what you use for (2). I came out of hiding and started a thread specifically for you to enlighten us.

Any chance of finally getting an answer Hope?

[Leonard James]

I hope you are not implying those writers are rubbish.

Of course not, my dear. As I said, I consider them far superior to the writers of the Bible ... in spite of their claim to "divine inspiration". 

[Leonard James]

Any chance of finally getting an answer Hope?

 

But answer came there none!

[OH MY WORLD!]

ippy,
I'm still waiting for you to produce a Klingon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CayMeza487M

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

ippy,
I'm still waiting for you to produce a Klingon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CayMeza487M

I'm still waiting for an answer to #66. I think you have more chance of bumping into a Klingon on Blackpool prom than I do of getting an answer

[ippy]

ippy,
I'm still waiting for you to produce a Klingon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CayMeza487M

Now there's the difference between you and me Woody Chop Chop, I'm fully aware that I'm playing the silly arse with my imaginary Star Trek and the Klingons.

ippy