Faith Heaing?

[POI]

This thread is a spin-off for the already created topic "Prayer"....

The Bible instructs that God grants prayer requests - i.e. (Matthew 7:7), (Matthew 21:22), (Mark 11:24), (John 14:13-14), and (John 16:23); to name a few....

Let's assume the provided faith healer is genuine, and is a true believer. Many faith healers travel from place to place, and apparently offer cures for many, or at least claim to...

Why won't the faith healers ever seem to bother trying to pray for the regrowth of an amputated limb, or pray for the removal of someone's cerebral palsy, or pray for someone's child to no longer have downs syndrome? Or do they? And when they do, do they already know God will not answer the call, as instructed in the Bible?

Or is it because:

A. The faith healer knows God does not cure these particular conditions, and hence, the faith healer does not bother praying for the removal of them? Which begs the follow up question; why does the faith healer know this?
B. The faith healer does pray for the reversal of these conditions, and when these conditions always perpetually continue, the faith healer states "God has not answered (yet)"; even though the unfortunate recipients of these conditions will die with these conditions?
C. Faith healers know, deep down, they are a fraud, and are doing this for other reasons?
D. Other?

In line with Scripture, it seems to me quite odd that God is claimed to answer prayer, time and time again, but always skips over amputees, cerebral palsy, and downs syndrome.?.?.?.?

[Eloi]

One of the fundamental issues that materialistic philosophy deals with is the order in which matter and consciousness arise. For an atheist, matter comes first and then thought ... Materialists apply this principle to the existence of God; They claim that there cannot be someone who creates the Universe before the Universe itself.

This topic reminded me of that issue. THERE IS the action of thought on the human body (and its psyche) and the most obvious example of this is the psychosomatic effect that ideas can have on the human mind on one's own or someone else's body. For example, women who are obsessed with being pregnant without being pregnant and all the effects of a real pregnancy appear on their body ...

Healing "by faith" of some healers and religious works that way many times. It is a real phenomenon, and because the mechanism that generates it is more or less known, it does not prevent it from continuing to look like a miracle.

Although the biblical miracle accounts of Jesus make much mention of the faith of the one who made the request for healing, it was not with this kind of knowledge that Jesus healed. He really had a power from above, because he was able to heal even people who were not present at the time his loved one made the request to Jesus.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Eloi in post #101]

Healing "by faith" of some healers and religious works that way many times. It is a real phenomenon, and because the mechanism that generates it is more or less known, it does not prevent it from continuing to look like a miracle.

What is the mechanism? Are there any documented examples of someone actually being "healed" by a faith healer or via religious actions (and not just empty claims of such that themselves are believed on faith)?

[Eloi]

[Replying to Eloi in post #101]

Healing "by faith" of some healers and religious works that way many times. It is a real phenomenon, and because the mechanism that generates it is more or less known, it does not prevent it from continuing to look like a miracle.

What is the mechanism? Are there any documented examples of someone actually being "healed" by a faith healer or via religious actions (and not just empty claims of such that themselves are believed on faith)?

Of course. That's the way the placebo effect works. Don't you know how placebos are used in medicine?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Eloi in post #103]

Of course. That's the way the placebo effect works. Don't you know how placebos are used in medicine?

I know how the placebo effect works in medicine, but how does this relate to a claim that faith healing actually has ever worked? Or are you saying there is no actual healing occurring but people just think they have been healed, so in effect they are?

I can see that (in a stretch) working for some kind of psychological issue where the person's thinking could be changed through dialog with a faith healer type (ie. a sort of therapy, although I wouldn't call that "healing"), but not for someone with a physical problem like being paralyzed, or having a terminal cancer, or something that cannot be fixed by a placebo effect under any circumstance. No amount of "faith healing" (or placebo effect) can work for these people.