More On Why God Won't Heal Amputees
I recently blogged on the very interesting question, that I had never really focused on before: "Why won't god heal amputees?". That is, why is it that when people pray for miracles to occur, it is always something like curing a disease, or receiving some money, or something like that? Why don't we ever see miracles in which the prayers of amputees have been answered? And to the extent people don't pray for amputees to have their limbs miraculously return (or grow new like a starfish can do), why not?
Well, tonight I discovered a website with the name WhyWon'tGodHealAmputees.com. There is some very interesting content here, including chapter five of the online book at this site. This page has lots of good material, including the following that gives other examples that are just as powerful as the example of amputees:
Amputees are not the only ones either. For example:
- If someone severs their spinal cord in an accident, that person is paralyzed for life. No amount of prayer is going to help.
- If someone is born with a congenital defect like a cleft palate, God will not repair it through prayer. Surgery is the only option.
- A genetic disease like Down Syndrome is the same way -- no amount of prayer is going to fix the problem.
Or what about this. What if we get down on our knees and pray to God in this way:
Dear God, almighty, all-powerful, all-loving creator of the universe, we pray to you to cure every case of cancer on this planet tonight. We pray in faith, knowing you will bless us as you describe in Matthew 7:7, Matthew 17:20, Matthew 21:21, Mark 11:24, John 14:12-14, Matthew 18:19 and James 5:15-16. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
Then I went further and checked out some of the videos from this same group at YouTube. Several are interesting, but this one is the most relevant here. It is called "10 Questions That Every Intelligent Christian Must Answer". The first of the 10 questions is why doesn't god heal amputees?, and then other key questions follow. The people who wrote the script for this video (and the others they produced) sure don't pull any punches!
Labels: religion
posted by Thomas R. Stone @ 12:01 AM
5 Comments
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5 Comments:
tom, you are right the video doesn't pull any punches. i can't imagine they get a lot of converts with that approach. interesting stuff.
Tom, really hard line athiest materialism - nothing new but the preachy fundamentalist style.
Problem is understanding how athiests justify using their brains to figure all things out? If life began as a blind, automatic process, with no purpose in mind obviously our brains were never INTENDED to draw intellegent conclusions!
Steve, I don't understand your comments and question.
First, what you are calling "preachy fundamentalist style" can instead just be described as asking important, good questions of believers. Questions that beleivers don't have good answers to really: why don't they pray for amputees to grow their arm back, or if they do, why does it NEVER happen? Why is that?
Second, atheists don't need to "justify" using their brains to figure things out (nobody needs to justify this, not just atheists). Humans have brains that provide a rational faculty for "figuring things out" -- that is just a fact of reality. It doesn't need to be "justified" -- you are begging the question. Do we also need to justify the facts that we can use our arms to lift things, or use our legs to walk, or use our stomach to digest food? No.
I agree that "our brains were never intended to draw intelligent conlusions" -- because here the intentional stance is that of some external entity doing the intending (you are implying that "something" must have "intended" our brains to function to draw intelligent conclusions). Again, to say this is begging the question -- it assumes a God (or something) that "intends" some purpose for living, physical beings -- or in this case, our brains. Atheists don't believe this assumed premise.
The process of regrowing a severed limb would be much too painful for the human mind. The
amputee would suffer major shock and trauma during this process, and would probably die
from the shock, or possible heart-attack. >> This is why God won't heal amputees.
Does God hate amputees, does he single them out, or is it a cruel test of faith?
Certainly not, he is avoiding a great deal of pain and suffering by not healing them.
When we hear of God curing cancer and many other illnesses, we know he is healing the
pain and suffering, not causing it.
God is glorious!
Life is more precious than an amputated limb.
Who said anything about "regrowing"? We are talking miracles here! I said "miraculously" heal. The whole point here is that people pray for miracles for recovering from cancer -- but why not to have an arm miraculously appear when they wake up in the morning? Why limit the request to "regrowing" a limb -- afterall, the supernatural god being prayed to is supposedly all powerful, and isn't constrained to only regrowing limbs -- it could just "make it so".
Or what about the other cases sited in my post: spinal cord injuries, down-syndrome, or cleft palate? There are plenty of things like this that a.) no one has ever claimed a miracle has reversed, or b.) that people frequently pray for a miracle from a supernatural being (god) to fix for them. The question is... why is that? And this is rhetorical question... the point is to pose this as a reductio ad absurdem of belief in miracles, the supernatural, etc.
Further, your second point is an example of something that is all too common amongst believers in gods -- praying to them and thanking them for "healing", but not blaming them for the bad things in the first place (e.g., the cancer). This ranges from major things like diseases, to lesser things like when both teams pray for victory in a big game, then the winner thanks god or Jesus afterwards, but the loser never is seen on camera saying "I guess God refused my prayer" or "Jesus apparently love the other team more". Gimme a break.
I do agree with you that "life is more previous than an amputated limb" -- that seems pretty undeniable.
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