Faith Healing

Simple topic:

In your opinion is "Faith Healing" real and legitimate, or a hoax? Can a person really be healed by Faith, Grace, Prayer, and the 'laying of hands' alone? Can a congregation, regardless of Religion, have healing bestowed on a person by their God with collective prayer?

Follow up question:

If you are of the opinion that you believe, or perhaps know, that "Faith Healing" is real, would you yourself go to a Faith Healing Hospital (if they existed) or currently employ only Faith Healers in lieu of a Medical Hospital which uses medicine and surgery for your personal healthcare? Have you prayed away an illness or serious injury (broken or sprained limb, for example)?

Originally posted by MF DELPH
Simple topic:

In your opinion is "Faith Healing" real and legitimate, or a hoax?

Real and legitimate in SOME cases. Not most, perhaps not even many.
But some cases.

Originally posted by MF DELPH

Can a person really be healed by Faith, Grace, Prayer, and the 'laying of hands' alone?

Laying of hands all by itself has a powerful effect even without Faith, Grace, and Prayer, depending on what ailment we're talking about.

Originally posted by MF DELPH

would you yourself go to a Faith Healing Hospital (if they existed) or currently employ only Faith Healers in lieu of a Medical Hospital which uses medicine and surgery for your personal healthcare?

Depends on the situation.
Most things, I'd probably go to a Medical Hospital, and would definitely not rule them out for Faith only options.

Originally posted by MF DELPH
Have you prayed away an illness or serious injury (broken or sprained limb, for example)?

I suspect I have, but it's difficult to say.
The body isn't under lab conditions in general ...

Hard to isolate reasons for quicker or more complete than expected recoveries without fairly rigorous structure in place to determine such things ...

Originally posted by MF DELPH
Simple topic:

In your opinion is "Faith Healing" real and legitimate, or a hoax? Can a person really be healed by Faith, Grace, Prayer, and the 'laying of hands' alone? Can a congregation, regardless of Religion, have healing bestowed on a person by their God with collective prayer?

Follow up question:

If you are of the opinion that you believe, or perhaps [b]know, that "Faith Healing" is real, would you yourself go to a Faith Healing Hospital (if they existed) or currently employ only Faith Healers in lieu of a Medical Hospital which uses medicine and surgery for your personal healthcare? Have you prayed away an illness or serious injury (broken or sprained limb, for example)? [/B]

No! Faith healing is not real. However, the power of the mind over the body can be remarkable. It is possible that if you believe that you have received healing from your god, that just maybe enough to heal you. The placebo effect has been documented, and is real. There is no reason to believe that the placebo effect cannot be induced by the believe in faith healing.

Originally posted by MF DELPH
Simple topic:

In your opinion is "Faith Healing" real and legitimate, or a hoax? Can a person really be healed by Faith, Grace, Prayer, and the 'laying of hands' alone? Can a congregation, regardless of Religion, have healing bestowed on a person by their God with collective prayer?

Faith healing is a hoax and can be quite predatory (See: Stephen Turoff) so I really, really detest it. I essentially place it under a similar category to psychic healers and all other assorted quackery.

Follow up question:

If you are of the opinion that you believe, or perhaps [b]know, that "Faith Healing" is real, would you yourself go to a Faith Healing Hospital (if they existed) or currently employ only Faith Healers in lieu of a Medical Hospital which uses medicine and surgery for your personal healthcare? Have you prayed away an illness or serious injury (broken or sprained limb, for example)? [/B]

You can't know it's real though, can you? It's like "knowing" ghosts are real. You can think or believe as a matter of perspective but you don't know, especially if there's no evidence.

You're asking people if they've prayed away illness or serious injury but the question assumes that doing the aforementioned act is plausible and real when it isn't.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
The placebo effect has been documented, and is real.

The placebo effect is a real thing, yeah, but whether you can take something that otherwise wouldn't work and "want" it to work so it does is another matter entirely.

Delph knows my answer to his OP, so I won't bother answering it directly. But placebo affects are interesting to me.

There are harmless placebos and harmful ones. Differentiating between them can be tricky. Like, I know a guy who swears by acupuncture. It's a straight-up placebo, but I wouldn't say that to him because there's a benefit for him. But what if his reliance on acupuncture precludes looking into a recurring problem that will result in a loss of money and quality of life in several years? Then it's murkier.

Similarly, if people want to pray? Fine, w/e. Further still, if they want to pray for their own ailments to be cured, and forsake traditional medicine, that's fine. But the line gets crossed when their ailments could affect others (contagious, etc.) or if they're endangering a child through it.

So it's a case by case thing. I come down incredibly hard on this stuff when there are predatory tactics that prey on the gullible or uneducated. But many cases aren't nearly as diabolical.

Originally posted by The Renegade
The placebo effect is a real thing, yeah, but whether you can take something that otherwise wouldn't work and "want" it to work so it does is another matter entirely.

How is that different from the placebo effect? You take a sugar pill that you think is a real drug and it has an effect; is the same as, you have someone put their hands on you, and you think it is going to work, and it does. Same thing! The power to heal your own body is all in your head. Of course there are limitations.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
How is that different from the placebo effect? You take a sugar pill that you think is a real drug and it has an effect; is the same as, you have someone put their hands on you, and you think it is going to work, and it does. Same thing! The power to heal your own body is all in your head. Of course there are limitations.

I mean that the placebo effect is real but it genuinely working, I'd say, is unproven. You notice it's always with things that CAN go away, like with bacterial infections, colds, and even some types of cancers that aren't considered as dangerous. However, if I put my hands on a broken ankle? Gave a pill to a mentally challenged individual to make him "better?" Suddenly, the placebo effect seems to have rather enormous limitations.

It's always practiced with illnesses or disorders that have the potential to die down or go away. It's correlation as opposed to causation, in my opinion.

Originally posted by Digi

So it's a case by case thing. I come down incredibly hard on this stuff when there are predatory tactics that prey on the gullible or uneducated. But many cases aren't nearly as diabolical.

Exactly. I don't see most cases as overtly harmful or invasive. However, for the most part? I detest it because it promotes the potential for well-being when people could be seeking more effective solutions via modern medicine or other proven remedies.

I wouldn't obviously say that, for example, someone suggesting ginseng for a cold is as bad as a "healer" saying he can rub some oil on you and eliminate tumors. However, I feel like it also depends on the severity of the illness and so on. If I see a dude legitimately telling someone to turn away a doctor for faith healing, especially for a serious illness? That's when the gloves come on.

-Edit-

Originally posted by The Renegade
I mean that the placebo effect is real but it genuinely working, I'd say, is unproven. You notice it's always with things that CAN go away, like with bacterial infections, colds, and even some types of cancers that aren't considered as dangerous. However, if I put my hands on a broken ankle? Gave a pill to a mentally challenged individual to make him "better?" Suddenly, the placebo effect seems to have rather enormous limitations.

It's always practiced with illnesses or disorders that have the potential to die down or go away. It's correlation as opposed to causation, in my opinion.

Degrees of effectiveness was not my point. However, a pill will never mend a broken ankle, placebo or not. Broken bones are healed by the body. Sense the mind is in control of the body, it might be possible to increase this natural healing of the body through belief. Now I am not talking about instantaneous healing, that's not real, but if you believe that you are going to heal, you might just speed up the process.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Degrees of effectiveness was not my point.

I didn't really say it was, to be honest. I was discussing the issue relevant to the thread while addressing you.

My point speaks to how convenient and non-observable this supposed "mind over body" brand of healing is. It falls under faith healing, to me, not because it's religious-based faith in nature but rather because it is faith-based, nonetheless. I see little difference fundamentally.

However, a pill will never mend a broken ankle, placebo or not. Broken bones are healed by the body. Sense the mind is in control of the body, it might be possible to increase this natural healing of the body through belief. Now I am not talking about instantaneous healing, that's not real, but if you believe that you are going to heal, you might just speed up the process.

Of course it won't. I don't think a sugar pill or any other placebo would heal anything else out of it's realm either. That's the thing. It's easy to get caught up and say, "Oh, he used his mind!" I just think the body is rather effective at performing self maintenance and it has nothing to do with any assorted optimism or other related thought.

See, for me, I don't see a difference. I've seen plenty of individuals who were quite pessimistic come out of an illness quite quickly. I don't think recovery has anything to do with thought. At all. Unless we're discussing certain mental illnesses or perhaps stress, thought has little to no influence on other biological mechanisms.

My problem is that you've seemingly asserted that faith healing can help the recovery/healing process because it acts as some sort of accessory to "mind over body" healing. I completely disagree with that, is all. I think there both the same animal with one stressing that God is the influential factor and one being yourself. Both seem fantastical, however.

Originally posted by The Renegade

I didn't really say it was, to be honest. I was discussing the issue relevant to the thread while addressing you.

My point speaks to how convenient and non-observable this supposed "mind over body" brand of healing is. It falls under faith healing, to me, not because it's religious-based faith in nature but rather because it is faith-based, nonetheless. I see little difference fundamentally.[/B]

And you think that is a negative? At least that is my impression. I think if science could harness faith-based (placebo effect) healing, then we would have one more tool (a powerful tool) in our tool kit to fight disease.

I think it can be a negative, of course. It inspires a sense of hope where it may not exists and doesn't prepare people, especially for more serious diseases, to deal/handle with it properly. Also, in the case of faith healing and "mind over body" healing specifically, there are many instances where people avoid medicine and formal diagnoses altogether, which can endanger them.

I'd say that's a negative.

Originally posted by The Renegade
I think it can be a negative, of course. It inspires a sense of hope where it may not exists and doesn't prepare people, especially for more serious diseases, to deal/handle with it properly. Also, in the case of faith healing and "mind over body" healing specifically, there are many instances where people avoid medicine and formal diagnoses altogether, which can endanger them.

I'd say that's a negative.

Sure there is a negative, but there is also a positive. Sometime, take a look at the positive.

Your positive, unfortunately, is hypothetical. My negative is a daily reality, especially in developing countries.

I look at combating faith healing and other assorted quackery as my positive. That's just my position.

Originally posted by The Renegade
Your positive, unfortunately, is hypothetical. My negative is a daily reality, especially in developing countries.

I look at combating faith healing and other assorted quackery as my positive. That's just my position.

You are wrong! I'm not talking about quackery. On that point we agree. It is the fact that you can't see any positive at all that makes you just like the people who can't see any negative. You are proceeding by faith. Faith in this case is that there is no positive. There is a positive and negative to everything.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
You are wrong! I'm not talking about quackery. On that point we agree. It is the fact that you can't see any positive at all that makes you just like the people who can't see any negative. You are proceeding by faith. Faith in this case is that there is no positive. There is a positive and negative to everything.

Wrong about what, though? My positive is different from yours. You arrogantly proclaiming I don't "have any" because I don't share yours is nonsense.

I didn't say there wasn't a positive. I said YOURS was hypothetical, obviously referencing your statement about science "harnessing" faith-based healing or MOB healing.

So, take it easy.

Originally posted by The Renegade
Wrong about what, though? My positive is different from yours. You arrogantly proclaiming I don't "have any" because I don't share yours is nonsense.

I didn't say there wasn't a positive. I said YOURS was hypothetical, obviously referencing your statement about science "harnessing" faith-based healing or MOB healing.

So, take it easy.

Now you are the problem. You do not have to attack me for challenging your beliefs. I have not done anything arrogantly, nor have I proclaimed anything. I also never said you didn't have any, whatever.

My opinion about science is not hypothetical. Doctors are already trying to figure it out. Look it up.

How dear I insinuate that there could be anything positive in something called faith. You are the one who should take it easy.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Now you are the problem. You do not have to attack me for challenging your beliefs. I have not done anything arrogantly, nor have I proclaimed anything. I also never said you didn't have any, whatever.

I didn't attack you. You came off as arrogant. If you wish to take it as an attack, that's rather unfortunate.

You said I didn't have any? You directly said that I asserted there wasn't any, seen here:

Faith in this case that there is no positive.

Unless you were talking about a pet cat? Perhaps it was a bird?

you can't see any positive at all

You alienated me from this perception of positiveness because I did not share your idea for what constitutes as "positive" and "negative" in this discussion. You came off as quite arrogant in doing so.

Doctors are already trying to figure it out. Look it up.

That is sort of what makes it precisely what I said it was. You did too. Check it out:

I think if science could harness faith-based (placebo effect) healing, then we would have one more tool (a powerful tool) in our tool kit to fight disease.

How dear I insinuate that there could be anything positive in something called faith. You are the one who should take it easy.

I wasn't challenging that generally, though. I was fairly specific in what I was criticizing.

Originally posted by The Renegade
I didn't attack you. You came off as arrogant. If you wish to take it as an attack, that's rather unfortunate.

You said I didn't have any? You directly said that I asserted there wasn't any, seen here: [/B]

Originally posted by The Renegade
Unless you were talking about a pet cat? Perhaps it was a bird? [/B]

Originally posted by The Renegade
That is sort of what makes it precisely what I said it was. You did too. Check it out: [/B]

Originally posted by The Renegade
I wasn't challenging that generally, though. I was fairly specific in what I was criticizing. [/B]

Originally posted by Shakyamunison

Again I have no idea what you are talking about.

I think we've exhausted our positions on this and this pretty much sums up our conversation.