A Faith Healing.
What do you call 12 people laying hands on a person, praying for the healing of a scrape on his elbow so that the 80+ people watching this demonstration can be convinced of power of God and of Jesus’ name?
An opportunity for a very public failure.
Turns out this event actually happened, and the person with the scraped elbow was yours truly, A Thinking BUM, on Wednesday night.
Honestly.
I participated in a debate with a 6th year biology graduate student on the topic:
Are There Good Reasons to Believe in the Physical Resurrection of Jesus?
I was arguing "No." (in case you were wondering).
At the end of the audience participation section, several people started claiming healings of various kinds, miracles that they had seen etc.
In an attempt to nip this kind of talk in the bud, I said, "There are several places through scripture. Matthew says if you have faith of a mustard seed you can say to this mountain, move from here to here, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. Along with John 14:14 saying "Anything you ask in my name, I will do it." All of this talk of healings sounds like nonsense to me. But here, I have a scape on my elbow. Pray and heal it right now, or stop this nonsense talk of faith healings." — I said essentially that, but it wasn’t so caustic.
I got a different response than I was expecting.
Not only did my debate opponent agree, about 8 or so other people that were with him came up and did a "laying on of hands" on me.
In front of everyone. They prayed for a full minute.
In case you’re wondering, they completely failed to heal my elbow.
It was clear, specific, public, and undeniable.
Either Jesus was lying, and "anything you ask in my name, I’ll do it" — or Gospel of John, Matthew, etc., misquoted Jesus.
Perhaps the verse in the Bible should be amended so that it reflects the truth. Perhaps put a little footnote* that says:
* — "anything" doesn’t mean "anything" it means "anything" except for a thing that’s supernatural that occurs when a skeptic is taking a look at the claims.
As expected, a complete, undeniable proof that Jesus was lying did nothing to dent the faith of those involved.
I also expect my scraped elbow to heal in the next month or so… whether people pray for it or not.
What was the response of the audience?
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Well, while they were praying, I would say most people were embarrassed about the situation… That so many people were “willing to make fools out of themselves” as I heard one person say later. I think most Christians, and non-Christians in the audience were cringing a bit at the display. After my elbow was not healed, the audience seemed… well, not surprised. My debate opponentwanted to know if it at least felt better — no, it felt the same. So there were probably a number of Christians who felt disappointed, but there wasn’t much of a reaction otherwise.
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Your elbow didn’t heal because you were trying to test God. Duh.
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See, it’s people like that who give Dungeons and Dragons players a bad name. “My D&D Paladin can use Lay On Hands once per day for 1d8 healing, so why can’t -I-?!”
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The devil has already claimed you, so Jesus is backing off. See you in Hell.
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It also says not to put God to the test. He is not your trick pony. Playing games wont get you anywhere. Seek humility and honest pursuit of understanding by reading the whole and seeking the true meaning rather than the parts with narrow vision.
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If I am not mistaken, I remember one of them saying that he/she would have no problem praying for an amputated limb to grow…that I would like to see.
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“It also says not to put God to the test. He is not your trick pony. Playing games wont get you anywhere. Seek humility and honest pursuit of understanding by reading the whole and seeking the true meaning rather than the parts with narrow vision. [^MS]” So how would you alter Jesus’ words in John 14:14 so that Jesus isn’t lying?
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“If I am not mistaken, I remember one of them saying that he/she would have no problem praying for an amputated limb to grow…that I would like to see. [An Atheist]” You are not mistaken. AND one of them said that there was documented evidence of someone’s feet growing back.
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It is not a matter of altering the words, it is altering your understanding. You seem not to have noticed He has and had a lot of followers everyday who could try your little ‘trick’. Peter and plenty of others ask for things they are refused to His face. What you think He meant was not in fact the meaning of that passage. It is deeper than that.
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But your interest seems to be in petty narrow interpretations, like a politician who if his opponent says, ‘Let’s go to the well.” replies he either means, ‘Let’s all jump in.’ or ‘They went that very minute.’ when later on something else is said indicating they went to have a meal at an inn nearby. The passage, as I have said, does not mean what you think it means.
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While any reasonable person confronted with a speech lets the speaker communicate what he intends to communicate rather than putting words in that speaker’s mouth. That is how life works.
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With the fairness you treat others, so shall you be treated. Remember that, and try to seek the deeper meaning. If you treat a serious subject as this with ill will don’t complain if you are served with the same — I doubt you’ll like receiving such a treatment as you are now giving.
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LOL! That is funny, you know “gOd’s” absolute refusal to answer any of my well meant prayers is one HUGE reason that I gave up on religion. Better to believe that there is nothing at all than that there is some grand father figure that doesn’t care! lol.
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if people pray for your elbow, you will get performance anxiety and actually, your elbow may very well fall off.or so says a study my dad shared with me.were fervent atheists, anyway..
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While it is true that it says not to test gOd it is also peculiar that he refuses to work while anybody’s watching. What about people who pray in Jesus name for help and get none? How many genuinely christian amputees are still legless despite their prayers? Give me a break. This discussion reminds me of my favorite atheist quote ever; “the invisible and the nonexistent look the same.”
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