I said the "doctors" failed. I did not mention science. But since you mention it, science has often been wrong.

Of course, you can say its "self correcting" (although you could not, in principle, ever know that for sure) but that does not do anything for the victims who have already suffered.

So, in their case, "science" failed.

Mike,
If praying was what was needed to cure your relative, then why blame medicine?
Did you take legal action? If so, who did you bring the case against? The hospital, the doctor, or anyone else?
If you didn't take legal action, could you have? And who do you think was ultimately responsible? The doctor who refused to take the case for whatever reason, your relative for not finding a doctor who would, the hospital or medical group that the doctor is associated with for setting insurance and financial policy? The insurance policy for not covering your relative's condition? Who? and why?

1. I didn't claim that prayer was the only thing needed. My relative went to the doctors first, but they abandoned her for reasons I have mentioned; she turned to her own faith, not a faith healer or anyone else.
2. No.
3. Not applicable.
4. Not applicable.
5. Yes.
6. The doctor and the medical group; my relative used her best efforts, as did the family, but could not find one, since time was running out. It was not a coverage issue. Why? Greed, among other things.

Now, some questions for you.

Who are you blaming? Me? The Victim? Someone else?

There is no evidence that the outcome would have been different had you not prayed. Why default to the position that you "know" prayer works rather than you do not know if prayer works?

Wow! More questions. I answer all the questions Henry asked, he ignores mine, and then here you come with some more.

However, I took no default position. Rather, your arguments against prayer take an Unfalsifiable Position, because no matter what proof were offered, you would just assert an alternative position.

So what it comes down to are your presuppositions, which in turn are going to affect how you view the circumstances in the first place.

If you take the position that this can all be explained by natural processess, then no matter what happens you can claim it is the result of, you guessed it, natural processess.

Or, if they are unknown, you will assert they are Unknown Natural Processes.

You ignore many of our questions as well. You also often pretend that things went unanswered when detailed answers were clearly provided.



You claimed to "know" that prayer works.



When you believe that there is meaning in prayer, you will find an answer, whether there is one or not. When you prayed and your friend recovered, it was an act of God! Had your friend not recovered, then no doubt it was all part of God's plan and He works in mysterious ways for a greater purpose.

Obviously, I do not know the details of the case of your friend, but I imagine that your friend recovered over time as opposed to instantly being healed. In terms of duration and stages of recovery, the process probably resembled what many other patients in similar situations go through. There was no God-snaps-his-fingers and your friend was all back to normal moment.

As for falsifiability, the news story in the original post can be viewed as a horribly unethical experiment to directly test the efficacy of prayer. Such an experiment can be repeatedly carried out and then we could crunch the numbers. No doubt it will show that more lives are saved when people have access to doctors than exclusively to people praying for them.

Here is a link to other attempts to study the efficacy of prayer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficacy_of_prayer

Mike, ~6 hours elapsed between asking me questions and than stating that I was ignoring you. Do you really think that's reasonable, especially on the weekend? Do I have to login every hour to make sure you haven't asked me something?


Your position is that prayer worked. You don't know that because your relative could have just as likely recovered on her own. My arguments against prayer working is based on the fact that prayer has never been shown to have measurable effect in overcoming illness. If prayer was effective you could provide a scientific study that showed how a statistically significant greater recovery rate was observed amongst prayers vs non-prayers for the same exact treatment. That study doesn't exists, so I don't pretend that it does. You, on the other hand, insist that it does work, with zero evidence to back you up - just a feel-good anecdote. When a study is conducted that shows the efficacy of prayer, I will get behind it and so will doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, etc - all of whom would LOVE to find a cheap way to cure disease.

Once again, it somes down to my presuppositions, which are backed by evidence. Your presupposition is based on nothing but a fanciful wish.

Yes, until evidence shows otherwise.


I'm not blaming anyone. I'm just trying to understand the situation, because something isn't adding up...

Back in this thread, (http://www.kcfs.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1468), you said this:
and,

Thats doesn't sound like, or,


Whats the real story?

You are conflating different posts, talking about different situations: please cite the dates and times of the posts you are quotemining.

But, in brief, I did have a relative harmed by medical techniques, and they were not healed. In fact, they are dead. I will never forget how we were treated by the establishment.

But I did have a relative who experienced healing.

And in the later case, no matter what proof might be offered, you would dismiss it. THAT is the "real story".

Ahhhh. That clears up some confusion. Explains your bitterness, too. And I was not quote-mining, I was quoting. Please learn the difference one of these years.

But.... you have no proof to offer. If you actually had proof that would be wonderful. And I know what you said is the "real story." The real story would be that you have no proof and I would accept it if you did. The "real story" is that if you had proof but I would dismiss it.

I can't post the Medical Records I have, but perhaps we could meet in person and go over them.