Spiritual Healing?

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marl

marl

marl

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A friend of mine who is a Christian and regular Church goer, suffers from depression and also has intense pain from migraines.

Amongst his circle of Christian friends are a few who tell him things like

'depression/illness is of the devil....' they tell him that if his faith was right, then God would heal him. Every now and again they pray with him and he tells me that they are noticiably disappointed when he tells them that he feels no better.

I'm not a Christian myself, and i tell him that i don't believe in spiritual healling, and that there is, to the best of my knowledge, absolutely no evidence to support it. He himself, at the age of 55, agrees with me, and says that he has never ever seen an example of such healing.

However, he still listens to these 'friends,' and i think they are making him worse as he is now beginning to question his faith/worthiness and wonder if perhaps he is being punished by God! For example, he is on several tablets for pain/depression. Just recently one of these people convinced him that if he prayed to God, God would give him the strength to immediately stop taking them. Needless to say after a couple of days without the tablest he was in a bad way!

So, do any of you guys know of any examples of spiritual healing which can be supported by concrete evidence.
 
well the way i see it, and this is completely IMO:

i see faith healing as a kind of placebo, and the reason it isnt 'working' on him is because he dosnt fully believe in it. This 'healing' gives you and your body the will to get better which will increase your chances of getting better.

im not saying that if he were to believe in it it more he would get better, he really should see a doctor obviously.

(im also not stating here whether i believe in god or not, thats an entirely different matter)
 
if he is a genuine christian and takes the Bible as truth then he should know that faith healing is a lot of crap!

Christians believe that on the cross Jesus paid for the sins of the whole world - past and present and so all sins committed are already paid for. All they are asked to do is confess there sins to God and ask for repentance. In no way can sins/wrongdoing/lack of faith etc etc be blamed for illness.
 
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marl said:
A friend of mine who is a Christian and regular Church goer, suffers from depression and also has intense pain from migraines.
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Sucks to be him.

marl said:
Amongst his circle of Christian friends are a few who tell him things like

'depression/illness is of the devil....' they tell him that if his faith was right, then God would heal him. Every now and again they pray with him and he tells me that they are noticiably disappointed when he tells them that he feels no better.
Click to expand...

It doesn't sound like they're helping the problem. It also sounds like their faith is noticeably lacking too. If they were straight with God, they would understand that sometimes God doesn't fix things when asked (valid answers to prayer being yes, no and wait) and also wouldn't put the burden on him. It could just as much be their lack of faith that is hindering his healing.

marl said:
I'm not a Christian myself, and i tell him that i don't believe in spiritual healling, and that there is, to the best of my knowledge, absolutely no evidence to support it. He himself, at the age of 55, agrees with me, and says that he has never ever seen an example of such healing.
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It seems less prevalent these days, and I'd say part of that is that people don't believe in it. If you don't believe it, you can't very well sincerely pray for it, can you? Plus, we tend to overlook healing by way of medicine as being purely science, without necessarily giving credit to God for his hand in allowing us to understand how to use science and whatnot to heal people.

marl said:
However, he still listens to these 'friends,' and i think they are making him worse as he is now beginning to question his faith/worthiness and wonder if perhaps he is being punished by God!
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That's completely unbiblical. Tell him to read John 9:1-3. Suffering and sickness are not a punishment from God for sin. They may be a consequence of it, but that's not the same thing.

marl said:
For example, he is on several tablets for pain/depression. Just recently one of these people convinced him that if he prayed to God, God would give him the strength to immediately stop taking them. Needless to say after a couple of days without the tablest he was in a bad way!
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I'd say his friend is a bit of a wally. God could very well choose to heal him by way of the medicine, so it's unwise to drop it just like that.

I'm not saying it's not possible that God could heal him dramatically enough that he could drop the pills altogether, but given his shaky faith and his friends shaky faiths, I'm not sure anyone around him actually believes it could be done.

marl said:
So, do any of you guys know of any examples of spiritual healing which can be supported by concrete evidence.
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No, and you won't find any, because if it had concrete evidence it wouldn't require faith to believe in it. It's the same reason that tests don't show whether prayer works. God says not to put him to the test, so it's not surprising that things go awry when we try.
 
ringo747 said:
if he is a genuine christian and takes the Bible as truth then he should know that faith healing is a lot of crap!
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Um... what? That's completely at odds with all of the gospels and the book of Acts and a whole bunch of other books too. What are you trying to say?
 
rookie said:
well the way i see it, and this is completely IMO:

i see faith healing as a kind of placebo, and the reason it isnt 'working' on him is because he dosnt fully believe in it. This 'healing' gives you and your body the will to get better which will increase your chances of getting better.

im not saying that if he were to believe in it it more he would get better, he really should see a doctor obviously.

(im also not stating here whether i believe in god or not, thats an entirely different matter)
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The ironic thing being, of course, that no-one understands how the placebo effect works anyway...
 
vonhelmet said:
No, and you won't find any, because if it had concrete evidence it wouldn't require faith to believe in it. It's the same reason that tests don't show whether prayer works. God says not to put him to the test, so it's not surprising that things go awry when we try.
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I don't quite understand that - were the prayers to have an effect, surely we could observe that effect? in which case it can be studied. If God didn't want us to know of his actions (and shatter the need for faith) then why did he bother with things like burning bushes and the like?
 
yeah but that was miracles. I know christians believe that God can heal them etc as an answer to prayer, however, this has nothing to do with faith or whatever. It is purely as an answer to prayer is it not?
 
ringo747 said:
yeah but that was miracles. I know christians believe that God can heal them etc as an answer to prayer, however, this has nothing to do with faith or whatever. It is purely as an answer to prayer is it not?
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Is spiritual healing not a miracle then, what with it being the intervention by God so things don't run according to physical laws?
 
ringo747 said:
if he is a genuine christian and takes the Bible as truth then he should know that faith healing is a lot of crap!

Christians believe that on the cross Jesus paid for the sins of the whole world - past and present and so all sins committed are already paid for. All they are asked to do is confess there sins to God and ask for repentance. In no way can sins/wrongdoing/lack of faith etc etc be blamed for illness.
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Careful. You're seeing black and white where there are many shades of grey. There are many varieties of Christianity, and they share much in common but belief in current healing and the miraculous ranges from "it stopped with the first apostles" to "it's happening regularly now".

Think about it - the Bible says that Jesus practiced healing, repeatedly telling people that "your faith has made you well". He wasn't able to perform so many miracles in Nazareth because of the lack of peoples faith. He then sent out his disciples to do the same. The book of James says something like the "the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well". If Christians believe the Bible, surely they should be praying for healing? Where in the Bible does it say that healing wouldn't continue?

I'm fortunate enough to have seen the difference in a close family member after receiveing prayer for a persistant knee problem (15 years). Full range of motion returned and pain free in the space of a couple of days (funnily enough - not instantaneous). I've prayed (a slighly rude / disrespectful prayer actually) for my own healing of a hand injury and had pain stop instantly. Placebo? Maybe, but it was better than any painkiller I've tried. I've heard much more impressive stuff but we're getting into "friend of a friend" territory and I'd rather steer away from that.

Seen plenty of people have no difference after prayer for healing too (including my own prayers) so I'm not claiming to have found a magic formula or anything. Worst example was I was praying (remotely, not with her) for a lady in her 30s (mother of two young kids) to be healed from cancer and just got a strange urge to read various Bible verses about death. I found out a couple of days later that she died later that evening. Once you do believe in healing prayer (and a loving, interventionist God for that matter), it makes that kind of thing particularly tough. Why should God heal one person and not another? If that kind of thing doesn't make people question the whole concept, you've got to wonder what goes on in their head.

The OP's friend has me worried though. Mental illness is a delicate matter and not one for amateur dabbling. I'm all for praying for it to be healed but withdrawing treatment etc is just silly. That's a call for the doctor to make and it's worrying that people can be so irresponsible. My take on it is to remember that even Jesus had scars after the resurrection. You could heal the root cause of depression but the habits and thought patterns might still be there and require treatment.

Another example less spectacular example from me- a few weeks ago I pulled a hamstring. A freind prayed for it to be healed and I've had no pain since. I'm still going to built up the strength gradually before I start sprinting.

'Concrete' evidence for miraculous healing is difficult. I could tell you a lot of stories from people I trust or could point towards a few books but I suspect you're after a scientific study or similar? I'm not aware of anything particularly good or conclusive. The internet's rife with unreliable stuff so I'd be very hesitant to point to any of it without some knowledge of who put it there and why. It's a flippant comment but, given the news this week, show me 'concrete' evidence that Prozac works.

The other thing is what is your definition of healing? A favourite question from some Atheists on this is "why doesn't god heal amputees?". Healing is a natural process. Limb regeneration (for humans) is not. I can point to several examples of healing, some of them dramatically quickly, seemingly attributable to prayer. I've not heard of someone having a limb regenerate or being cured of cerebral palsy, for example. I wouldn't presume to say that God couldn't heal these things but if happens it's very rare.

It's very difficult to "sort the wheat from the chaff" with these things. There are a lot of sheisters about. Second hand stories aren't much good either as a lot of Christians "want to believe" in that kind of thing.
 
ringo747 said:
yeah but that was miracles. I know christians believe that God can heal them etc as an answer to prayer, however, this has nothing to do with faith or whatever. It is purely as an answer to prayer is it not?
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Prayer rather depends on faith. You can't pray for something you don't believe God can do.

In other news, the post above this one is excellent.
 
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