Why won't God heal amputees?
I found a link to this on No Man's Blog. It's pretty funny. It asks the question "Why won't God heal amputees?" For an atheist like myself, the answer is easy: because she doesn't exist. But it's a harder question for people who do believe in the ability of prayer to heal the sick. If prayer can move God to put someone's cancer into remission (and many claim it does have this power), why can't it regrow a lost limb?
I admit this is a pretty cheap shot and I suspect most Christians and other theists have a more sophisticated understanding of the power of prayer than one that would be challenged by this question. They understand that prayer can affect things in our mind and spirit (which can have an effect on our immune system and our bodies' well-being), but not actually bend the laws of physical reality. Faith doesn't actually move mountains all by itself. If it did, mining companies would keep a few devout people on the payroll and use them to help look for new deposits of ore.
But many people do not have such a sophisticated understanding of prayer. They really think it can do anything. And it is fun to mock these people. Neener neener neener.
I admit this is a pretty cheap shot and I suspect most Christians and other theists have a more sophisticated understanding of the power of prayer than one that would be challenged by this question. They understand that prayer can affect things in our mind and spirit (which can have an effect on our immune system and our bodies' well-being), but not actually bend the laws of physical reality. Faith doesn't actually move mountains all by itself. If it did, mining companies would keep a few devout people on the payroll and use them to help look for new deposits of ore.
But many people do not have such a sophisticated understanding of prayer. They really think it can do anything. And it is fun to mock these people. Neener neener neener.
Comments
A good explanation, but does this not contradict the doctrine of God's omnipotence?
it depends on how you define "heal". Yes, I suppose so. God can do anything...as long as we are free to twist the definition of "anything" to accommodate any outcome whatsoever.
But I think when people claim that prayer has "healing" powers, they don't just mean that it "heals" us mentally. (Heck, even I think prayer could have psychological benefits, which could lead to physical improvements of a certain kind.) They really think it can heal the underlying physical ailment.
But on some level, I think even most devout believers wouldn't expect prayer to be able to regenerate a lost limb. What bothers me is that they don't take seriously what this implies about their beliefs about the limits of the power of prayer.
I have a theory that at some level, everyone knows supernaturalist religion is bunk. That's why you have sayings like "The Lord moves in mysterious ways": they give you an excuse to turn off your brain when some difficulty comes up.
I think the notion of the rewards and punishments in the afterlife is driven by the need to justify God's goodness in the face of all this worldly evil. A theist can say that all these worldly evils will be rectified in some final judgement or afterlife. And a used car salesperson can promise you that the vehicle is good for another 100,000 miles. But that don't make it so.
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!
I am the fucking God, man!