A true christian is needed

[worship-your-mother-she-i]

Gospel of Mark, chapter 16, verse 16, 17 and 18'

'He who believes and is baptized will be saved but he who does not believe shall be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe in my name. They shall cast out devils, they shall speak in
tongues, they will handle snakes and if they drink poison it will not hurt them and they will lay hands on the sick and they will recover'.

question 1:why then does a christian die from snake bite?

question 2:If a christian drinks poison by mistake will he die or not die?

question 3:Will any christian come with me to a hospital to cure sick people by his touching them?Its not for testing god,but for helping sick.

[Amadeus]

That passage in the Bible is not referring to all Christians all the time. It is just telling the reader that we will see God work miracles through Christians. Some denominations have tried the snake biting thing, but they are a bit extreme! I have seen prayer heal people, and many people have survived when they, by logic, should have died, but I have never seen anyone touch someone and heal them instantly. That isn't saying that those things in the passage aren't possible, just uncommon. However, Christians do tend to believe that there will be more miracles in the end times.

[potwalloper.]

I have seen prayer heal people, and many people have survived when they, by logic, should have died

Presumably this was as part of a double-blind study whereby there was a large control group who were not prayed for and a large group (who had the same condition) who were prayed for and an objective measure was used to determine the degree of "healing"?

If this was not the case how did you demonstrate causality in this instance?

What were the external variables (eg environment, diet, activity, other treatment etc) and how were they controlled?

The reason I ask is that you appear to be saying that prayer as an external force could act upon these individuals in a physical sense and address medical conditions.

Whilst there have been studies done on belief systems and the body's ability to heal these appear to be no different to the placebo effect.

[Amadeus]

These are instances in my own life. These were cases where the doctors themselves proclaimed the healing a miracle, and a significant number of people were praying for the patients.

When I was a baby, there was a hole between the ventricles in my heart. The doctors expected it to heal itself, but they said that how quickly it healed was definitely a miracle brought on by all the prayer my family and their church was offering up.

My grandfather had intestinal problems for YEARS. Horrible pains and bleeding. He wouldn't go to the doctor. When he finally went to the doctor, they found colon cancer. They scheduled a surgery, and knew they would have to do a colonoscopy, but they didn't know how far the cancer had spread. It should have eaten through the colon wall by then. The doctor prayed with my grandpa before the surgery. My grandparents' neighbors heard about my Poppa. They began praying, and told their relative, who went to her congregation. She attended a Very large church with something like 5,000 people in their prayer chain. She had them pray for Poppa too.
The doctors were AMAZED to find that the cancer had stayed on the surface of the colon and had not spread except a little way on each side. They did have to remove the rectum and part of the colon, but they were able to get all the cancer out. The Doctors only explanation was all of the prayer--a true miracle.

These are only a couple of cases, but if I ask my family for more I could probably find dozens.

[dangerdan]

since you are in the mood for sharing personal experiences…

My parents were incredibly religious. They did missionary work in the Philippines for literally years. Dad was a pastor much of his life for a number of churches. Both lovely folk. I respect them immensely. Kind, caring, deeply loving and shared a very happy marriage.

My mother was diagnosed with colon cancer.
There were literally thousands of people praying for her from many churches.
She died.

My father was diagnosed with leukemia.
There were literally thousands of people praying for him from many churches.
He died.

If you’d like me to elaborate, send me a PM.

Ok, putting emotional aspects aside, the long and short of it is that there has been no statistical analysis to show that prayer has any kind of miraculous effect, only a placebo effect. Do you not think this rather odd?

[Arch]

since you are in the mood for sharing personal experiences…

My mother was diagnosed with colon cancer.
There were literally thousands of people praying for her from many churches.
She died.

My father was diagnosed with leukemia.
There were literally thousands of people praying for him from many churches.
He died.

Ok, putting emotional aspects aside, the long and short of it is that there has been no statistical analysis to show that prayer has any kind of miraculous effect, only a placebo effect. Do you not think this rather odd?

First Id like to give my sympathies for your lost

Secondly I whole heartedly agree with you, the bible itself even says that the righteous die early while the wicked linger... if quote needed I can get it.

Christians also profess that their fate is already determined, GOD or life has already determined when they are going to die. Thus already admitting that prayer doesn't change anything. If you are going to die at 33 then you are going to die at 33 no illness will take you before 33 and no prayer will save you at 33.

Lastly, let take the bombing of the world trade center on 911. Many escaped and many died. There were I am sure some who died who were more righteous or better people than some who survived. Also I am sure those people prayed for God to save them.

How then to we reconcile that these good people were not saved;

1. We can't say all of them were bad or evil, what of children that die.

2. We can't say they didn't pray for help, majority of America believes in God and is christian.

3. If we say it was meant for them to die that day that negates the power of prayer because, if a person survived it wasn't because they prayed. It was because it wasn't their day to die. The fact that those who did die prayed and still died shows that prayer doesn't change your fate. If prayer decided who would die and who would not then everyone that prays to God upon dying would be saved.

4. Your own bible says god doesn't not have any respect of person, so he is not choosing who prays to answer based upon who you are.

So then the questions remains how do we reconcile this belief with actual reality?

How does god decide who's prayers he is going to answer and who's prayers he won't answer?

Why does the bible say the righteous die early, while the wicked linger?

If heaven is a better place and this world is wicked why do Christians pray to stay here anyway and why would saving a person be a good thing for God to do?...the bible does say you should cry when a baby comes and rejoice when a person dies.

Wouldn't it be better for god to stop all the pain and hurt of this world for those dying instead of saving them and continuing their plight here on the evil realm where Satan is GOD?

[Piper Plexed]

I have had two inexplicable medical happenings in my life, 1st was 5 inches of tendon eaten away by staff infection and surgically removed just to re-grow & re-attach itself. Shocked the heck out of the Orthopedic! 2nd was reversal of a Subdural Hematoma within 5 hrs. of the first cat scan. The Neuro Surgeon was just as pleased as the Orthopedic, Dr's just love it when they are not required to intervene.

One case of medical prayer not being answered was a baby in the family suffered and died of Birth Defects.

All prayers were ended with Thy Will be Done, as I do not presume to know really what is best for those involved I can only know what I believe is best.

I do know, in the case of the baby that I must acknowledge that if he had lived, maybe that wouldn't have been in his best interests, though we all desperately wanted him in our lives.

I have asked for help and received it and also been denied, it is not my place to question why though to know that I have been blessed. I love and miss the baby, I treasure walking and do not complain of the pain and I love and thank God for my son every day.

I do not pray often and the above three are the only times in my life that I have soul searched, prayed and felt connected to God.

To me the litmus test for Christianity is not snakes or poison, there is no do A or B and C will happen. It is a way of life and faith which either one does or doesn't, without judgment of others only self, really to love others and self.

[worship-your-mother-she-i]

That passage in the Bible is not referring to all Christians all the time. It is just telling the reader that we will see God work miracles through Christians. Some denominations have tried the snake biting thing, but they are a bit extreme! I have seen prayer heal people, and many people have survived when they, by logic, should have died, but I have never seen anyone touch someone and heal them instantly. That isn't saying that those things in the passage aren't possible, just uncommon. However, Christians do tend to believe that there will be more miracles in the end times.

why does this passage refer only to christians of old times?have the new christians gone down in their faith or what?Prayer heals people can be accepted only if all devout christians escape from illnesses.If not it means only partiality on the part of god.If the things in the passage are uncommon but possible,prove it.There will of course be miracles in end times.But who will be there to see it?

[potwalloper.]

Surely the issue here is that all religious belief in faith and prayer as a mechanism for healing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Evidence that supports the prayer healing concept is accepted and passed on to others. Evidence that opposes this is largely ignored and forgotten.

There are millions of people who die of disease every year. Very few appear to have had a "miracle" recovery. There are many explanations for these recoveries which range from incorrect diagnosis on the part of the doctor (doctors are not perfect) to the placebo effect.

Whilst it would be wonderful if we could believe in divine intervention and use this to address our problems the lack of any evidence to support this as a credible means of healing people means that this simply does not work.

The main problem with faith healing as a concept is that it allows people to prey upon those who are the most vulnerable in society - people who are chronically ill or their relatives - and it introduces a degree of avoidant behaviour that means they do not seek proper medical assistance when they should and die as a consequence.

If I produced a new drug and subjected it to testing that was based upon anecdotal evidence, and ignored most of the results of testing the drug, the litigants would queue up outside the courtroom when the drug failed to work. Faith healing or prayer is no different.

Dangerdan - please accept my sincere condolences for your loss - I know what it is like to lose a loved one.

[Piper Plexed]

Surely the issue here is that all religious belief in faith and prayer as a mechanism for healing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Evidence that supports the prayer healing concept is accepted and passed on to others. Evidence that opposes this is largely ignored and forgotten.

There are millions of people who die of disease every year. Very few appear to have had a "miracle" recovery. There are many explanations for these recoveries which range from incorrect diagnosis on the part of the doctor (doctors are not perfect) to the placebo effect.

Whilst it would be wonderful if we could believe in divine intervention and use this to address our problems the lack of any evidence to support this as a credible means of healing people means that this simply does not work.

Ya know I would agree with that well if it didn't happen to me maybe a bit more background will help to support my case. I was born with an inverted club foot and had 7 operations through the age of 12. The last operation was to lengthen my Achilles tendon. It was considered pretty simple surgery and necessary to allow maximum range of motion to the foot. Well I developed a post surgical staff infection. When we cut the cast we found that it was quite extensive and I was immediately admitted to the hospital. I spent at least 4 months in the hospital all the while trying to control the infection. At one point they had to go back in to clean out the wound and I was awake for this, 5 inches of infected tendon was removed. It was a big Gaping hole 5 inches long and an inch wide. I did start to heal after that. We were then told that in the future we could try to rebuild the tendon using a piece of tendon from elsewhere in my body though the prognosis was poor. I was then told that I would be unable to walk without a leg brace. Well to make a long story short at one point I started to sneak around w/o my leg brace on, got caught and was taken to the Dr. the next day. Well low and behold the tendon had grown back. Somehow the bottom of the tendon had attached to the scar tissue which they guess allowed a guide line to re-grow the tendon through to the heal. Dr. G was shocked and really couldn't explain how the two tissues (skin and tendon) were able to attach let alone how the tendon was able to refurbish itself though it is there and I can feel it. Well I am 39 now with a funny looking foot, a really really ugly scar with a tuck in the skin where the two tissues attach and suffer arthritis in the rebuilt foot.

One thing I am sure is that it was not a misdiagnosis on my Dr.'s part, I could consider the placebo thing and chalk it up to isn't the mind and human body amazing in it's ability to adapt though as far as I know I am the only person to have been able to do this, or I am quite blessed.

It really is a matter of perception, as much as so many are willing to say that they have never been blessed, I may say that maybe they never stopped to notice.