http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/No doubt, some of you have seen this amazing site. For those who haven't, I suggest a read. I'll quote a bit:
"Why won't God heal amputees?" may seem like an odd name for a Web site. The reason for choosing it is simple: this is one of the most important questions that we can ask about God.
Unless you take the time to intelligently analyze this situation, [a miracle in your life] looks ambiguous. How can we determine whether it is God or coincidence that worked the cure? One way is to eliminate the ambiguity. In a non-ambiguous situation, there is no potential for coincidence. Because there is no ambiguity, we can actually know whether God is answering the prayer or not.
That is what we are doing when we look at amputees.
Think about it this way. The Bible clearly promises that God answers prayers. For example, in Mark 11:24 Jesus says, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." And billions of Christians believe these promises. You can find thousands of books, magazine articles and Web sites talking about the power of prayer. According to believers, God is answering millions of their prayers every day.
So what should happen if we pray to God to restore amputated limbs? Clearly, if God is real, limbs should regenerate through prayer. In reality, they do not.
Why not? Because God is imaginary. Notice that there is zero ambiguity in this situation. There is only one way for a limb to regenerate through prayer: God must exist and God must answer prayers. What we find is that whenever we create a unambiguous situation like this and look at the results of prayer, prayer never works. God never "answers prayers" if there is no possibility of coincidence. We will approach this issue from several different angles in this book, but Chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8 are particularly important:
* Chapter 5 - Why won't God heal amputees?
* Chapter 6 - Why do you need health insurance?
* Chapter 7 - Why can't you move a mountain?
* Chapter 8 - Why do bad things happen to good people?
The fact that prayers are never answered when the possibility of coincidence is eliminated meshes with another fact. If we analyze God's responses to ambiguous prayers using statistical tools, what we find is that there is never any statistical evidence for prayer. In other words, when we statistically compare prayer to coincidence for explaining any situation, they are identical. You can see the same effect in the following prayer. Let's assume that you are a true believer and you do believe that God cures cancer. What would happen if we get down on our knees and pray to God in this way:
Dear God, almighty, all-powerful, all-loving creator of the universe, we pray to you to cure every case of cancer on this planet tonight. We pray in faith, knowing you will bless us as you describe in Matthew 7:7, Matthew 17:20, Matthew 21:21, Mark 11:24, John 14:12-14, Matthew 18:19 and James 5:15-16. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
We pray sincerely, knowing that when God answers this completely heartfelt, unselfish, non-materialistic prayer, it will glorify God and help millions of people in remarkable ways. If God cures cancer, then this is an easy prayer for an omnipotent, all-loving God to answer.
The fact is, what this prayer does is remove ambiguity. As soon as we do that, we see the true nature of "God." There is no way that a coincidence can answer this prayer, and, sure enough, the prayer goes unanswered.
If you look at the data, you can see exactly what is happening here:
* When we pray to God about any non-ambigous situation, God never answers the prayer.
* When we analyse any ambiguous prayer using statistical tools, we find zero effect from prayer.
In other words, every "answered prayer" truly is a coincidence, nothing more. "God" doesn't "answer prayers" at all. The belief in prayer is pure superstition. Non-ambiguous prayers (like those of amputees) show us, conclusively, that the whole idea that "God answers prayers" is an illusion created by human imagination."
Community Forum
Show Posts
? I went to my fifth concert last night--so fun!
? I went to my fifth concert last night--so fun!