From I Fucking Love Science’s Facebook page, via reader Susan:
Psychics will start winning the lottery when God starts healing amputees.
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Atheism-of-the-gaps; argument #117
May 10, 2014 • 10:26 am
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
No faith healers in hospitals because they’re so valuable and in demand that they just cost too much to keep on staff, right? That or those “scientific” doctors just won’t let them in.
Can’t be because everyone knows they’re total frauds. Benny insists that he’s not a con man and Benny’s a man of God, so we know he’d never lie.
Totally trustworthy.
“Cause Jesus he knows me
And he knows I’m right
I’ve been talking to Jesus all my life
Oh yes he knows me
And he knows I’m right
And he’s been telling me
Everything is all right”
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God DOES heal amputees, provided they’re lissamphibia.
I, obviously, am not lissamphibia.
Or lizards, which regrow amputated tails — bones, muscles and all.
Why does God love the “lower” vertebrates more? Might they be the ones made in God’s image?
David Icke has just woken up.
Ah, is his regeneration complete?
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I hadn’t noticed if his surface had died. Well, more than skin normally does.Has Icke died? To popular applause, including the real aliens in Westminster.
Actually, it’s pretty clear that god loves insects inordinately. Or perhaps bacteria. People, not so much.
Not bones unfortunately: regenerated lizard tails have cartilage instead
Correction is correct.
“Might they be the ones made in God’s image?”
Cthulhu.
I’d always thought that the bones don’t actually re-grow, but get replaced as a cartilaginous rod.
I was under the impression that the lizards which detach and re-grow their tails do so under voluntary control, not as a result of trauma.
The salamanders (loose sense) OTOH, can regrow traumatically amputated limbs. As I understand it. I know that people are studying this for a variety of pretty obvious reasons, but I don’t follow it in any detail.
You can see some great things on this website;-)
You should read the depressing number of comments on the IFLS post trying to defend faith healing. Here’s a sample, but the volume of such comments is truly depressing:
Larry Scholten: Faith healing does occur, but not for profit, notoriety or pride nor on schedule.
The world of $cience and spirituality remain divided, yet at their intersection we may find great truth and power. Science is finding that thought has a push, thoughts are things… experiments in quantum physics suggest this. And the U.S. government has been studying psychic phenomena for years. My own experience with psychics has been profound. There have also been unexplained instances of spontaneous healing. Just sayin. Science is all about keeping an open mind. As always, there will be the Mulders and the Scullys, but I believe.
Reiki practitioners work/help in hospitals sometimes. And many nurses and doctors are Reiki practitioners themselves.
Benny Hinn the dude in this picture. . . Meh, he’s so so, I would never go see him. BUT Katherine Kuhlman, his mentor, was the real deal.
faith healing is all about receiving, not forcing healing on people who dont believe they are going to get healed. just saying.
Sylvia Brown has been doing this in Hospitals for 40 years.
‘Blessed are those who have faith in those things unseen.’ If you want proof meet him, ted shuttlesworth, in person then you will know
Yep, un-scriptural charismatic crockery.
Matthew 17:20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. ”
And on and on it goes. People so desperately want to believe obvious bullshit. Perhaps I am taking the wrong tack trying to resist it. Maybe I should take a cue from Hubbard and figure out how to profit from it. 😉
That is truly depressing. A whole wide world of people just begging to be taken advantage of. A paradise con-men.
A paradise for con artists.
As far as I know, no fathie has ever moved a mountain, let alone a small hill. Guess their faiths must be smaller than a mustard seed.
“$cience”
Because there’s no better way to become fabulously wealthy than to become a scientist.
Humans do regenerate a little, but it is no miracle. For example limb regeneration is restricted to just the tips of fingers and toes, as shown in these gross pictures
Very cool ( if gross).
Our current (incomplete) understanding of the human processes of limb generation (NOT re-generation) is insufficiently good to allow us to (deliberately) stop it, or start it.
This statement of fact does not preclude us acquiring appropriate knowledge in the (possibly near) future.
Do people not understand the additive nature of science, or do they resort to “God of the Gaps” arguments?
I’m sure everybody here has seen this before…but, if not:
Tim Minchin’s Storm
Cheers,
b&
Brilliant!! I had never seen this.
I’m late to the North London dinner party, but thank you Ben, Storm was brilliant.
and it even had a cat!!
Unfortunately, faith healing, especially in the form of reiki and similar “energy modalities” is making big inroads in American hospitals. Hospitals are increasingly market-driven and many will bring just about any quackery in if they, or more specifically their marketeers, believe it will generate a bit more revenue.
I suspect that we’ll have snake oil options soon enough…
Doesn’t that charlatan Dr. Oz’s wife do reiki during his surgeries?
To Oz or to the victum?
To the victim:-)
“Do” is supposed to be a transitive verb. So reiki, otherwise known as “hand-waving” is not “done” to anyone or thing..
Performed around?? How does one say it correctly?
…yes, there’s that “market religion” too.