Many people speak about Miracles

"In the case of cancer, there are occasionally spontaneous remissions. If one of these happens under the time frame of a "healing," it will seem to be a miracle. For lesser health problems, there is the placebo effect - the mind is sometimes a powerful aid to healing and if one believes strongly enough that healing will work, it sometimes does. This phenomenon is still not well understood. What is dangerous, however, is feeling better temporarily and attributing it to "healing," when in fact no healing has taken place, and the patient will eventually get worse."

"Many people attribute to miracles that wich can be explained naturally. For instance my sister-in-law says it was a miracle her mother stopped smoking. My husband however tells me it was because he, as a little boy, told his mom that when he grew up he was going to smoke just like her. "

" Now, what constitutes seeing a "miracle"? Had you no knowledge of atomic weapons and witnessed the explosions over Japan, would you not see those as miracles? Just because we view things as miraculous does not mean there isn't a natural explanation that is just not understood by the individual. Many majicians may be viewed as performing miracles if the viewer does not understand that slight-of-hand is being used."

"I come from the heart of the bible belt and I've seen first hand how people are lead to believe that if these so called "healings" do not come about
then it isn't gods will.Conversly, if you are"healed" it is the will of god. Obviously a no lose proposition for the faithhealer. Many of these modern tent revivalists "heal" psychosomatic dis-eases that are easily mistaken as legitimate. People in these healing ministries believe,for the most part, what they are told or expect."

"In the occassional miracle tent crusades in this area and in church services, with the laying on of hands etc. supposed demons being expelled from some of them. I've seen and know many the people laying claim to god healing them. Much fanfare at the time but the reality of the matter is this. These same people who still live in this village are still as sick as ever, some of course have died. These are the same people who came down to the front of the church or tent and claimed the healing power of god had come upon them. These poor people who got caught up in the emotional hype of the night were victims of hyper active suggestion. There are some people in all walks of life whether religious or atheist who go into remission. This is as yet not understood but is leading more and more to positive suggestion."

"There was a popular faith healer, some time back, named Kathryn Kuhlman. At the time I lived in Los Angeles, she would fill the enormous Shrine auditorium, and her "healings" were numerous. People on crutches and in wheelchairs suddenly had bodies that could do extraordinary things, for all in the audience to witness.

A family member of mine, who was a nurse, told me that their emergency room had to put on extra staff for the few days following each of Kuhlman's visits to town."

"All religions have miracles. It makes them more appealing and helps explain anything we don't know. Most of the christians I know are apt to call anything good that happens to them a miracle. Charismatic churches teach that everything is a work of god or the devil. I challenge anyone to come up with someone that has lost a limb and had it regrown from a miracle. Why would this be any more difficult to god then healing cancer? Thing is, you won't find it. Any lead you get on a miracle like that dissapears when you chase it. If something like this did happen it would be HUGE news. Any doctor would be blown away to see that."

"Faith healers bury their failures... literally. The dead don't get to give testimonials about how God smote them down. The terminally ill who believe in such generally continue to cling to hope to the end, so they're not going to say anything to tick off the big cheese. And chronically ill people who eventually lose faith don't usually draw a large audience to hear their non-testimony of non-healing. So we usually hear only about the "successes." Anyone have any impartial statistics on faith healer success ratios compared to spontaneous remission rates? Hmmm... I wonder if it could be exactly equal be some strange coincidence."

" Does it not surprise anyone that when god has delivered a "miracle", everyone hears about it and everyone praises him, but the 9,999,999 other times when he does nothing, nobody notices or say that it is his "divine will"? Seems the odds of this god delivering a miracle are the same as that of the "miracle" occuring naturally. How convenient." (My own contribution)