There’s been a long history of skeptics refusing to accept divine “healings” because those healings are precisely the sort that could occur spontaneously. We never see the type of cure that would be truly miraculous. In “Seeing and believing“, my strident New Republic article that ticked of all the accommodationists, I recount this possibly apocryphal story:
After seeing the objects cast off by visitors to Lourdes, Anatole France is said to have remarked, “All those canes, braces and crutches, and not a single glass eye, wooden leg, or toupee!”
David Barash, the resident Gnu at the accommodationist-riddled Chronicle of Higher Education, takes up the issue in his latest post, “Does God hate amputees?” He’s writing about the beatification of Pope John Paul II—the penultimate step to sainthood. Beatification requires one documented “miracle,” and the Catholic Church found it in a French nun who prayed to John Paul and recovered from Parkinson’s. A bit of Googling showed Barash that similar recoveries have happened without divine intercession.
Barash then wonders, as did Anatole France, why God can’t cure stuff like severed limbs, plucked-out eyes, or even lopped-off heads. He’d apparently missed (as he admits at the end) one of the most famous atheist websites, Why Won’t God Heal Amputees?, which deals not only with that burning question, but also about the efficacy of prayer in general. I suspect most of you have seen this, but if you haven’t it’s worth a browse. It considers all possible religious answers to the question, and demolishes every one. There’s simply no good answer to that question, for if God can cure Parkinson’s, there’s no reason why He can’t regrow a limb. The only explanation is that God doesn’t perform miracles, i.e., there’s no theistic god.
There are two other points to make about the road to sainthood. First, beatification and canonization used to require a quasi-scientific procedure in the form of a “devil’s advocate” (advocatus diaboli), a Church-appointed official who would argue against a candidate, questioning the “miracles” and so on. (Beatification requires one verified “miracle,” canonization two.) This procedure, which began in 1587, was, ironically, abolished by John Paul himself, and by so doing he managed to move a spate of people closer to God. As Wikipedia notes:
This reform changed the canonization process considerably, helping John Paul II to usher in an unprecedented number of elevations: nearly 500 individuals were canonized and over 1,300 were beatified during his tenure as Pope as compared to only 98 canonizations by all his 20th-century predecessors, which has led many to question the validity of the process and whether all of those canonized today are deserving of the recognition.
Second, the process of canonization itself, whereby an individual becomes a saint, actually confers on that person a divine status, for saints (unlike those beatified) are supposed to be able to communicate directly to God. That’s why people pray to saints, and of course there are particular saints for particular professions or issues. If you have an earache, for instance, it’s most efficacious if you pray to St. Polycarp; if you’re a compulsive gambler, you pray to St. Bernardine of Siena.
Now the Catholic Church maintains that they’re actually not conferring sainthood on people, but recognizing sainthood. But that of course presumes that their ludicrous vetting somehow helps them instantiate God’s will. And it leads to testable hypotheses: are prayers answered more often if you pray to a saint than to God alone? And if you have cancer, will you be more likely to be cured if you address your ministrations to St. Peregrine Laziosi? We all know the answer.
Hey, is that a riff on “does god hate women?”? If so, how flattering.
Sorry OB. Plenty of reason for you to feel good but the site “Why does God Hate Amputees” has been around since 2006, three years before your book. It got renamed to “Why Won’t God Heal Amputees”, presumably to widen the appeal.
I didn’t realize this before but that site was started by Marshall Brain, the founder of HowStuffWorks.com and the hugely popular YouTube video “10 questions that every intelligent Christian must answer”. I had no idea that he had such an impact – I wonder why he’s not more active in the atheist events, blogs & conventions.
I didn’t realize he started it either — how neat that the How Stuff Works guy is the WWGHA guy!
Thanks for the info.
To tout my state a bit–he lives in NC, too. I was surprised that he was the same guy when I first found out, too.
*That’s* who made the WWGHA site?? I had NO idea. Well, how cool is that! With AR– thanks for letting us in on that:-))
I didn’t realize this before but that site was started by Marshall Brain, the founder of HowStuffWorks.com and the hugely popular YouTube video “10 questions that every intelligent Christian must answer”.
His video sure has some cheesy audio for a guy that knows how stuff works. And no, it isn’t the microphone. It’s the reverb, or what I like to call “cheeseverb”. It sounds like he’s recording in the freaking bathroom or something. Lol, put some carpets in there or something.
I thought Ophelia was referring to the article by Barash, not the older and unrelated website…
“why God can’t cure stuff like severed limbs, plucked-out eyes, or even lopped-off heads.”
Oh, but he did!
Once.
A long time ago.
In a poorly documented case.
Maybe.
Saint Winifred.
There’s also the ‘miracle’ of Calanda
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Calanda
From Barash’s article:
“If masturbation is the epitome of safe sex, beatification—and presumably canonization as well—represents its theological equivalent: Good clean fun.”
I like this guy already. Nothing will tweak Catholics like comparing their theological circle-jerks to that which they consider sinful.
There was a pretty good interview recently on NPR, wherein Robert Siegel, following up on a typically exasperating Morning Edition piece by Barbara Hagerty about the Catholic church’s investgation of a supposed medical miracle, asked the doctor whom the church had quizzed about the matter what it had been like:
SIEGEL: Have you ever had an experience like this, like the interview by the team from the church who is trying to see whether this reflected the intercessionary powers of a candidate for sainthood in the church?
Dr. RUBENS: I can honestly say I’ve never gone through that before.
SIEGEL: And what was it like? You know, I guess a variation on rounds, reporting what happened.
Dr. RUBENS: It was very different. As an academic, we oftentimes are constantly challenging each other in our thinking and the literature and the evidence. And they were the consummate professionals. They were going at this in a very regimented, almost evidence-based methodology.
And I can honestly say that I don’t think I’ve ever been in front of a true devil’s advocate before.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SIEGEL: That’s the person who is the one who is arguing against…
Dr. RUBENS: That’s right. It was a skeptic in a priest’s habit.
SIEGEL: This is where the phrase devil’s advocate actually comes from.
Dr. RUBENS: That’s right.
SIEGEL: Well, what did you tell them? I mean, were you on guard not to be too much the rational scientist here, not to be too much the non-Catholic in the room, or how candid were you?
See the rest here: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/22/135638553/was-one-boys-unexpected-recovery-a-miracle
I highly recommend reading Geoffrey Robertson’s “The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuse”.
They should make JP2 the patron saint of pedophiles.
What is especially galling is that god does perform these miracles for other species, like salamanders. What has he got against us?
Maybe the salamanders aren’t as sinful and wicked.
Or — gasp — it’s the devil’s work.
And cheerleaders… ?
Hah! Poor Claire. I can think of better ways to be shown the love of a god…
I heard that God doesn’t perform miracles of any sort because then it would undermine faith. Faith is essential for our development or something.
Which makes me ask: were Jesus’s apostles denied salvation because they witnessed miracles? And of course, are salamanders leading unfulfilled, undeveloped spiritual lives?
I work in cancer research and have occasionally sat in on clinical case meetings where someone diagnosed with and ‘incurable’ cancer has suddenly been found to be completely free of disease.
In noi case did the physicians see this as a case of a ‘miracle’ happening. Instead they have acted very nervous about the whole thing – the reason being that in every single case a careful review of the original diagnosis samples reveal that the patient had a reactive disorder or a benign tumor. In other words there is a measurable false positive rate for cancer diagnosis and these ‘miracles’ could all be attributable to simple misdiagnosis. The apparent ‘cure’ did not occur – the patient never had the disease.
Needless to say the medical team was always wary to actually admit a misdiagnosis to the patients concerned (after all they had frequently been put through a very nasty course of chemotherapy that might cause secondary cancer in years to come!). Most doctors in this situation were content to allow the patients to assume there had been some sort of miraculous recovery.
This experience of mine makes me suspect misdiagnosis is at the root of very many of the publicised cases of recovery from incurable diseases.
Very interesting. But what is “reactive disorder”?
It is an immune reaction where there is T cell infiltration into a tissue which results in a release of various cytokines with the end result that you have in inflamed lump of tissue. This often ‘looks’ like a small tumor and it needs careful screening to ensure that it is one or the other. The screening is usually done by carrying out a biopsy and using antibodies against tumor antigens to see if these are present – for example tumors often give positive results when a p53 antibody is hybridised to a slide biopsy. T-cell antibodies are also applied to check whether it is a reactive condition.
Thank you, Sigmund. Very clear, understandable explanation. I think I get it:-)
Or a flat-out misrepresentation, as in Suzanne Sommer’s pseudo-cancer (seemingly, an insect-vectored inflammatory condition.
Wow. Consider the ethics of concealing the misdiagnosis and the possible ramifications…
A bit of Googling showed Barash that similar recoveries have happened without divine intercession.
You can’t prove those other recoveries were not due to divine intercession. Ha ha!
Christopher Hitchens was the devil’s advocate in Mother Theresa’s beautification which he described as “representing the Evil One, as it were, pro bono”.
Hitch should be sainted after he’s gone. His miracle is I never thought atheist books could sell so well!
Then we could all hang St Christopher medals around our necks, with the atheist A on the obverse, lol!
There’s a bad joke in that, but I won’t go there…guess ‘lookism’ bothers me enough not make a joke even at M.T.’s expense…(I’d be happy to make other jokes about her, though!)
I just hope they recognize sainthood for an individual capable of metaphysically relieving seasonal allergies and sinus pressure.
Geez I’d pray to that one myself.
+ 2 !!!!!!!!!!
(& LOL)
The thing that nauseated me about saints & miracles back in the day when I was still a Catholic on the road to Heresy; was the sheer cynicism of the Church. This is all about wowing the peasants; nothing less, nothing more.
Knowing full well that the more educated and intelligent members of the Church can see this cheap parlour trick for what it is; the Church provides the ultimate claw-back clause (at least among the more affluent university-town parishes) that Catholics are not required to believe or accept these miracles. It’s handy for waving away skeptical questions; and it’s done without a shred of embarrassment at the double set of books it so blatantly keeps.
To paraphrase Eric Mac ‘s phrase, “for those who have peeked behind the curtain.”
It’s the sheer bald-faced deceitfulness of it: the knowing wink to the educated members of society that acknowledges it’s all bollocks (to use the technical term); and the cynical and deliberate manipulation of the story when told to those the Church regards as “simple” enough to buy stories of magic tricks and hokey rituals.
I believe the phrase is ‘some people have to be helped along on their way to God’.
They have a dismissive expression for it: “popular piety”.
No! Really? Gah!
Jerry
I’m not convinced that prayer can be tested as a scientific hypethesis…and fear that everytime we say we can, we elevate prayer as something significant rather than something that is nonsense.
What is the scientific “control” against a group of praying “spoilers”…people who might be simultaneously praying for the exact opposite of the proposition being tested? (They could be hidden away in the depths of darkest Kansas)Call it the equivalent of “radar scrambling”. Sure, we can continue on the presumption these groups don’t exist…but how would we control for the fact that they might exist?
Barry
“hypethesis”?
Yep, prayer is definitely hyped! 😉
/@
Scinetific tests of intercessory prayer:
“A 2006 “Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP)” led by Harvard professor Herbert Benson was by far the most comprehensive and rigorous investigation of third-party prayer to date.[20] The STEP, commonly called the “Templeton Foundation prayer study or “Great Prayer Experiment”, used 1,802 coronary artery bypass surgery patients at six hospitals. Using double-blind protocols, patients were randomized into three random groups, but without measuring individual prayer receptiveness. The experimental and control Groups 1 and 2 were informed they may or may not receive prayers, and only Group 1 received them. Group 3, which tested for possible psychosomatic effects, was informed they would receive prayers and subsequently did. …
Major complications and thirty-day mortality occurred in 52 percent of those who received prayer (Group 1), 51 percent of those who did not receive it (Group 2), and 59 percent of patients who knew they would receive prayers (Group 3). Some prayed-for patients fared worse than those who did not receive prayers.” [Wikipedia]
“Scinetific”. … and the misspellings continues!
I am reminded of an online forum post a few years ago, where somebody claimed to have personally witnessed miracles. It seems that one of his friends had some badly decayed teeth, and they had been miraculously healed. Even more miraculous, the healed tooth was of gold.
I posted a comment that dentists are able to make crowns that are very realistic. But somebody else came up with the killer response: why would God use gold rather than natural enamel?
I work with jewelry. A couple months ago, I get a call from a guy asking if we can test for the karat of gold. I tell him sure. Bring the piece in. Then he says that he thinks his cross is turning into pure gold. I explain how sometimes lower karat gold can get oxidized and turn more brassy looking – hence resembling pure gold. No, he truly believes it’s turning into pure gold. I tell him that’s impossible. Then I ask him what HE thinks is happening to his cross. He says “obviously a miracle!”. I tell him to come in and talk to the manager (lol…just for kicks). The next week we get a package from the guy with the “miracle cross”. The return address? The state mental hospital. I kid you not.
I lol’ed irl @ this story =D
This was kinda the abridged version too. He also thought his sterling silver chain was turning into gold.
There was another time a customer brought her crucifix in…Jesus had fallen off the cross. So I had to write on the repair envelope “Solder Jesus back on cross.” Then I told her, wait…maybe he doesn’t WANT to be soldered back onto the cross. We actually had a good laugh.
Yes, isn’t it funny how starfish, who apparently don’t pray, can grow arms back. Or how sponges can recover from a blender without apparent prayer.
But, the ‘crown of creation’ can’t even pray to re-grow the leg that was caught in the gears of a combine.
Was it a Gay combine?
ROFL.
Thank you, Barry.
The Crown of Thorns – Acanthaster planci – halleluja!
That is a badass starfish.
/not sarcasm
God’s perfectly designed reef destroyer.
(Let’s face it, he did a damn good job making bad creatures…lots of them. Give him at least some credit.)
/sarcasm
they know that canonisation is bullshit and just a political game, i know the cleric who must search for miracles for canonisation of a negro by the Independence Declaration of Congo in the sixties during the reign of John XXIII. He told me he must find a few wonders by asking ridiculous questions so the deluded where quick to recognize a miracle. of course he returns to rome with the wanted wonders.
Why are you identifying the ‘race’ of the candidate for sainthood?
“Negro”? *side-eye*
Reply to Colin as well as Allie–my take on pittage’s story was that it was the church calling for the racial quota, as it were.
Also, in the 60’s, ‘Negro’ was still in wide use. Sometimes we slip into old habits when we reminisce…
Perhaps I’m being too generous, but I think the post could be taken that way…
Is there competition among the saints?
“If you have an earache, […] you pray to St. Polycarp; if you’re a compulsive gambler, you pray to St. Bernardine of Siena” but whom do you pray to if you are a gambler with an earache? Are they holy enough persons to accept you ask for somesaint else’s help or are they upset at your denouncing their weaknesses?
I’ve often wondered about this… now that JPII swelled the ranks, there are way, way more saints than there used to be, surely there are some that just aren’t used anymore. Will it eventually stop once every little township gets its own saint?
Yes, spare a thought for unemployed saints! Whoever handled the smallpox file must be getting pretty bored by now. Sort of a celestial Maytag repair man.
In India they have a whole god you pray to against smallpox, she must be feeling a bit left out of things too. I think they gave her another disease.
Perhaps both can be switched to AIDS. The Church does all it can to encourage that virus, maybe all along that’s been a ploy to keep saints busy!
You must mean goddess mariamman who is also in charge of measles and chickenpox! Quite an obscure goddess with little fan base but some of these fans refuse vaccination because they consider measles as a ‘visit from the goddess’!
Or every minor inconvenience. For healing in the event of a stubbed toe, pray to Saint D’oh! For those women who suffer from hairy forearms, a quick prayer to Saint Nair should do the trick.
Maybe some past Saints can be re-trained to tackle the tasks of more modern life; heavy traffic, restless leg syndrome, no bars on your mobile, etc.
Or PARKING, I could really use a saint that would get me a parking spot!
Take a drive through Quebec and you see villages, creeks, hillocks, and almost every turn in the road named after saints you’ve never heard of.
Makes you wonder if the efficacy is a bit too diluted.
Some uses of “Saint” in Quebec translate to “Holy”, though.
But yes, even that aside, they’re everywhere.
Yes – so there is natural selection among saints! I suppose we should say saint memes (or mnemes if you prefer).
A few years ago I appointed myself chaplain to a Skeptics conference and blessed them in the name of St Thomas.
I suppose as more Saints accumulate, the decision as to which one to go to will get harder.
“No, St MaryLou is only the patron saint of renal carcinoma at Stage 4. For the other stages you should have been using St. Leroy…”
And to get the whole beatification/canonization/sainthood thing rolling some Catholic has to pray to some dead Catholic who is not YET a saint? Sounds pretty risky to me. Do they just pray to random stiffs and see what happens? Does one try this if one has a condition for which there is, as yet, no specified saint? I guess someone has to go first. If you end up praying to some dead person who doesn’t make the sainthood cut, you’re kinda screwed. (Of course, if you pray to anyone you’re kinda screwed).
There’s one figure I’ve seen a couple of times – don’t remember where the first time, but I think there was a similar one in Demon Haunted World.
Rate of spontaneous healing at Lourdes : 1 / 75,000
General rate of spontaneous healing: 1 / 50,000
With miracles like those, who needs enemies?
The first thing I wondered was; if Pope John Paul II created so many saints, isn’t this a form of college grade inflation? If I was a pre-Pope John Paul II saint, wouldn’t I feel cheesed off that the intrinsic worth of my sainthood was being demeaned by increased number of undeserving recently elevated saints. And I’d be having more trouble getting my drinks in the saints’ bar in heaven, owing to crowding.
And then I realized increased numbers of nonexistent entities is still zero.
But only if you multiply!
Or divide, as religions are wont.
In other words, it all adds up to a negative.
At the end of a news story on the beatification of John Paul (it was either the BBC or the Guardian), there was a poker-faced little sentence that said that the French nun who supposedly recovered from Parkinson’s disease was ill again and it seemed that her disorder might not be, or have been, Parkinson’s at all. I’m afraid that, despite feeling sorry for the nun, I laughed. But what do they do in such a case: de-beatify the proposed saint and shovel the bits back in the coffin?
I think there is now, all of a sudden, a Canadian saint, as well as an Australian one, and the English have John Henry Newman on course for sainthood (somebody somewhere – I seem to recall it was a nun, no doubt under instructions, claims to have been cured of something). The Vatican under Pope Ratzi is obviously on a ‘keep-the-buggers-happy’ publicity offensive.
Incidentally, Newman was almost certainly gay, and the Roman Catholics are growing ever more stridently anti-gay, so why not have someone who claims to have been cured of that ‘objective disorder’ in consequence of praying to John Henry and make the new saint the patron of those who ‘suffer’ from homosexuality?
Ah, but don’t you see? She was sick with both diseases, but JP2 only cured the Parkinson’s. You can’t prove that isn’t true! We’re still counting it as a miracle!
[/vatican]
Newman, who was reformist, was worried he might be considered a candidate for sainthood so he made sure his body was buried with acidic soils around it so when they finally did decide to beatify him when the pope came to the UK last year, when they dug him up there were no bones for relics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_Newman
He also made sure he was buried in the same grave with the man he loved.
So had any bits been left, they might have picked the rong bloke’s. That would fuck up the celestial machinery!
And the bastards dug him up again and separated them!
Though I don’t believe in anything after death, I do believe, other things being equal, in respecting a dead person’s wishes, especially vis-à-vis the one they loved. I can’t say why.
I don’t think there was much to separate – at least I hope not. I hope they were wonderfully intermingled in the grave in a way they probably felt unable to be in life. Yes, I agree entirely about last wishes: there doesn’t seem to be much reverence apparent in a refusal to respect someone’s dying wishes – but of course the Vatican’s interests are at stake, so they ride roughshod over merely human sentimentalities…
It’s just the most ridiculous thing when churches alter their official dogma. Why wouldn’t god have revealed it in its full and correct firm to begin with?
Good Catholics might argue that “of course we correct and perfect our knowledge of all things god-y as we go along. Just like any other area if knowledge.”
OK. But that means all past canonizations were the result of an imperfect process? Have all you absent-minded Catholics been praying to St. Anthony mistakenly? Perhaps he wasn’t meant to be a saint?
Good gravy, I need to recalibrate my typing fingers.
“if you’re a compulsive gambler, you pray to St. Bernardine of Siena”
I’m confused, do I pray to her to help stop me gambling or to help me win?
+2!!
🙂 laffing…
Prof, we will all pray to Albertus Magnus for you!
I learn more things from having to Google Dominic’s references…!
Who gnu?!
Ditto that! (thanks for posting the results of your googling, Diane!)
Which reminds me…I meant to credit Wikipedia (natch!) for that…
I was raised in a Catholic home. We’d say prayers to Saint Anthony whenever something was missing. We’d find what was missing and credit the prayer.
I wonder if getting so many “hits” on prayers to saints leads Catholics to truly believe they will get help on life’s more important problems.
You should have tried some other saints or demons to see if they were equally as good! Seriously, it demonstrates how The RC faith is not monotheistic.
Matt, you probably don’t even need to get a high rate of hits for a belief to develop. People tend to forget misses & remember hits – this is crucial for psychics and most alt med practitioners to succeed.
But it seems that it doesn’t just occur in humans. B.F. Skinner showed that pigeon appear to develop “superstitions” trying to link certain behaviours to certain rewards.
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Pigeon/
The 8th International Symposium on Genital Integrity was held in Padova/Padua, of which St Anthony is the patron. It seemed fitting. (His relics, in the Basilica, include his vocal organs. Creepy.)
Are you sure it was only his vocal organs, given the subject of the symposium? And would it not perhaps been more suitable to have held the symposium at some place associated with Origen? Next time, perhaps…
Beatification requires one verified “miracle,” canonization two.
This is part that gets me. We’re talking miracles and violations of the laws of physics and a complete metaphysical breakdown of all epistemology…
but we can still rely on simple arithmetic.
Wasn’t it a monk who realized that 2 * infinity = infinity? Don’t the Catholics even listen to their own guys? I mean, once you’ve violated physics one time, why not violate it Fish Bicycle times?