Week 8: Does God heal today?
Ah yes, good old faith healing. Works about as well as homeopathy.
Part 1: The Talk
No Gumbel for this one fortunately.
The speaker starts of by rattling out a few anecdotes about healing, one member of this church was healed by God apparently. I don't doubt the truth of many of these stories you always hear, people naturally recover all the time.
One thing I do like to ask however, what about perfectly healthy people who just drop dead randomly. A big one in the news at the moment is Fabrice Muamba, who everyone is wishing a speedy recovery to. These happen a lot too, about the same amount as miracle recoveries. All they show is that the human body is incredibly complicated, being a biology student I know this. If the recovery happens while someone if being prayed for that doesn't mean that the praying caused it, cum hoc ergo propter hoc.
"You may be thinking of televangelist healers, punching people in the face in God's name. That isn't the only way, or even the most common way God heals."
I should bloody well hope not, Peter Popoff was a televangelist and exposed as a fraud, it does not surprise me Christians want to distance themselves from this guy.
When the adrenaline, and other hormones, is rushing people can overcome great pain. Add the Placebo effect to the equation and you have what look like miracles.
In the discussions I share an anecdote about my friend/team-mate/housemate who was stupid enough to stand on a nail and not notice.
"Physical healing is not the only way God heals, he heals people spiritually."
Ah yes the spirit, that unmeasurable, undefinable and generally undetectable argument from ignorance.
"He can heal through words of knowledge."
Now this is something I have never encountered before, apparently God passes down words of knowledge to people in the congregation, they write them down then read them out and people can see if they apply to them. Sound familiar?
"God gives some people, like doctors, healing abilities."
You're shitting me? Now he's just inserting God in wherever he can to make sure God get's the credit. What about the years the doctor spent in Med School? Or the researchers spending years developing treatments?
"God gave Nicky Gumbel the ability to tell people about Jesus."
Yet Nicky still sucks at it.
