A question for those who believe in faith healing

It depends on the definition of faith and how its used.

Many people have faith that if they go to their doctor that some kind of healing will result.

One could have faith that a plaster will help heal a cut.

Some have faith that the laying on of hands will have a healing effect.

Faith healing doesn't only refer to the more outlandish examples.

So, yes, a great many people actually believe in faith healing and quite possibly you do, too.

 

Sheesh, equivocation fallacy turned inside out.

Everyone knows what "faith healing" is, and its not "faith that aspirin will help a headache".

 

The definition I use is similar to the one I find on the internet, "Healing achieved by religious belief and prayer, rather than by medical treatment", "Faith healing is healing purportedly through spiritual means" and so on. Do you have another definition?

I could possibly stretch it to think that placebo is technically faith healing, but even that is pushing it.

A plaster doesn't help a cut because you have faith in it. As far as I know, a plaster doesn't help heal a cut at all, it just makes sure it doesn't get infected or otherwise disturbed, as well as making sure you don't make a mess with your blood. Regardless, its healing powers or features do not in any way depend on spirituality, religious belief and prayer or anything else that I wouldn't call "medical treatment", even in a stricter sense.

 

Everyone does not know what "faith healing" is if it's undefined and only assumed.

I have a fairly keen idea what you might mean when you write "faith healing" but since the only actual information in your post above is what you believe it isn't, and even that I can take issue with since I believe that faith healing does indeed encompass the notion, or belief, or the taking on trust, or faith that aspirin will help a headache, than we're still left with a hole in our communication.

 

The previous poster seemed to address this.
Websters seems to agree with him.

Definition of FAITH HEALING

: a method of treating diseases by prayer and exercise of faith in God
—faith healer noun

If you choose to use the term in a way that is strictly personal to you, you're right, the conversation grinds to a halt.

 

Personally I have no particular definition of what "faith healing" is.

I have seen some dodgy youtube videos of fake pastors healing the sick, does that count?

If a plaster makes sure a cut doesn't get infected or otherwise disturbed then in what way is it not helping a cut heal? I would think it obvious that it does help and when I apply a plaster I do trust, or have faith, that it will help heal.

I wouldn't ascribe its healing powers to God but if I believed in God (another entirely undefined and, indeed, undefinable thing...but for the sake of argument...) then I might well believe that the plaster was a divinely inspired invention.

Anyhow, the simple act of believing that the laying on of hands will produce some kind of healing effect is something I've witnessed. Whether it's couched in religious or spiritual affectation or not seems to make little difference except to the people involved. The important component is the belief that it will work.

 

I thought everybody did?



Placebo Effect

- a beneficial effect, produced by a placebo drug or treatment, that cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient's belief in that treatment.

 

suture self, as the doctor kit says

 

Unless someone wants to believe all the people in the ancient and medieval world are lying, faith healing and miracles are the means in which God used so Christianity could be spread throughout the world. Shrines were chapels which contained a glorified saint's relics, and they still exist in the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic world. People would go to revere the saint and to be healed...that is if they were suffering from some sickness. If one should ask why God would heal them through the intercession of a certain saint and not directly through prayer, it was so He could edify them by exemplifying the virtue of the saint, as well as to reinforce their faith.

Do people really get cured, yes they do and I could mention quite a few places where this occurs. One is the Church of Saint George in the city of Lod/Lydda in Israel. Muslims also make pilgrimages there when in need, and because of their reverence for Saint George, they rarely if ever destroyed the churches which were dedicated to him. What is unusual though is that cures existed also in the pagan world, and the tokens which were once offered to the pagan witch doctors, continued later on in the Christian world, so it is not unusual to see gold images of body parts which had been cured by a saint's intercession hanging on their icon.

Today these other cures are called magic, and they also exist in the Mediterranean world as well as the Near and Middle East. One could ask then what is the difference, well the cure from the intercession of a glorified saint emphasizes the heroic virtue of the Christian saint, and the other doesn't. More than likely it draws a person away from God and into a world of demonic superstition.

Anyway this is how I see it.

 

Are there any examples in the Bible of those kinds of cures?

 

Not only could they be lying, they could be ignorant. They could be mistaken.

But isn't it telling that in the age of actual photographic and video evidence, the number of verifiable miracles has suddenly dropped to zero? There has never been an independently verified miracle. And given the track record of faith healers, I'm not about to take the word of the sources the catholic church vetted that it has happened in the past.

Citation needed. You keep hearing these stories, but have they ever been verified? Why hasn't anyone claimed the James Randi prize? Those million dollars sure could spruce up the altar.

 

The bible has "examples" of a lot of things that didnt happen.

But to answer your Q, no, there are none that meet the criteria that I mentioned.

- - - Updated - - -

Same reason they cant seem to catch Batboy, and, same reason Elvis and Nessie
are so elusive.

 

Well, everyone else have a particular definition, and that'll be the one you'll find all over the internet. It certainly includes dodgy pastors.

You're right, I didn't write that the way I thought it. What I meant is that it does not actively heal the wound. Nevertheless, I make a point out of stating my argument regardless of this aside. There is still a point though in that the fact that you believe a plaster will help is not in itself the main reason it helps. You can vividly deny the features that help healing and still be protected by the plaster.

Not sure what you mean here. Sure there are those who believe that all inventions are divinely inspired.

I already agreed that placebo works. However, it is not what we refer to when we use the word faith healing. A definition is (by definition) what a word means. The fact that you can produce a different interpretation of the words that make up the word has little impact on that.

 

Ok, I've posted this before, but for clarity, I'll post it here too, even though you're banned, which means it'll probably not spark a discussion.

The definition of faith healing hinges on religiosity, spirituality, prayer or another few things, which can be found in the definitions that have been posted (and some that have not). Placebo does not fit into that definition, which means that I was not talking about the Placebo effect in my statement. In fact, I have brought up and accepted the Placebo effect in previous posts.

 

hmm missed that. a sock puppet? who?

 

Possibly, but I believe even sock puppets deserve whatever answers I can give. Luckily, the veracity of my arguments do not rely on the honesty of the opposition.

 

There are several definitions of what placebo is, too!

Something which produces a psychological as opposed to a physiological result being the only one I know which honestly honours a real-world benefit. The other definitions are progressively less kind to the process and people involved.

I have a friend who leads, for want of a better description, spiritually based groups. There's no religion involved, save, perhaps, for an exploration into religiosity if the moment demands it. It's not possible to rationally describe how or what she does during these groups without it becoming some hocus-pocus along the lines of 'she is moved by spirit'. Her work certainly includes both faith and healing and there's no question that at the end of the 10 day process participants are energised, expanded, and filled with life. Some have gone on to make a distinct and positive difference in their lives and communities, others simply to be far happier with themselves. It doesn't 'wear off', these people are permanently changed and always for the better. They're also not 'broken' to begin with, it's not a therapeutic process per se, although, like her occasional explorations into religiosity, it can be present if needed in the moment.

If truly pushed, and she has to be truly pushed, she would describe herself as a consciousness teacher.

When someone speaks about 'faith healing' that's my understanding of it since that's what I know from personal observation and experience so I find it impossible to subscribe to the idea that faith healing is something we mostly all agree upon and is considered false.

What the dodgy pastors we see in youtube clips do I'd describe neither as faith based nor healing but more what I believe they are - scams dressed in religious finery designed to extract money from the credulous. They're an affront to both faith and healing.

 

Examples of what Taikoo asked for? Examples of miracle cures recorded and authenticated in a major medical journal? No, I don't think so. You have made the mistake of thinking that a few doctors who work with the Catholic Church are representative of the medical establishment in general, and rigorous medical journals in particular.

They are not.

 

There are certainly variations on a theme, but none of them describe anything quite as different as your definition of faith healing. The definitions disagrees on exactly where the line should be drawn, whereas your definition of faith healing takes a completely new approach to the word's meaning. Whether or not a definition is kind is hardly a good reason to disregard a definition. Placebos can be described both as just a medicine which has that psychological effect or an important part in testing medicine and I'm sure a lot of other things. None of these definitions are unkind, and if they were, that doesn't give us a reason to disregard it.

Can't you see that the same problem pops up again here? You use the words faith healing to mean something else than everybody else does. Not even your consciousness teacher friend calls what she does faith healing. Only you do. Having had the personal experience doesn't mean you can make up your own words for it. I have a personal experience of oranges, but I can't call faith healing an orange, can I?

This is called equivocation, you're using a non-standard definition.

 

I don't. My definition includes but isn't limited to the thing which everyone else narrows it down to.

 

placebo effect can't heal a missing limb...

 

Sure, but definitions don't necessarily stay true when you broaden them. If I say "I change the definition of 'car' to include oranges", that doesn't mean that "some cars are fruit" makes sense to anyone else. The point of language is that definitions are the same for all involved. If you do not use that, what you're typing is not English.