Posted on 12/25/2022 3:02:47 PM PST by SeekAndFind
[EXCERPT ONLY]
In 2009, on a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, the Browns flew to Mozambique to investigate the healing claims of Global Awakening and Iris Global, two ministries focused on healing and revival. They brought audiometry equipment and eye charts to test people who requested prayer for deafness and blindness. The sample size was small — they tested 24 people — but they found statistically significant improvement beyond placebo effects and hypnosis.
“I was standing right there next to this woman who could not tell how many fingers were held up when you were a foot in front of her,” Candy Brown told me. “Then five minutes later, she’s reading an eye chart with a smile on her face.” She and her colleagues published the results in The Southern Medical Journal — not a prestigious publication but a respectable one with peer review — and she drew on the research for her 2012 book, “Testing Prayer.”
Skeptics complained about the Browns’ methods and field conditions. They pointed out that the hearing tests were in a noisy setting, there was no control group and test subjects would naturally want to please those who prayed for them by showing results. “That simple trick explains why both hearing and sight appears to have dramatically improved among these poor, superstitious villagers,” one critic declared. (The study explained in detail how the researchers did their best to weed out false data.)
If you want to evaluate people’s experiences at a revival in rural Africa, you probably need to give up on double-blind studies in a perfectly controlled environment. But let’s imagine for a moment that researchers could meet such standards (and that an all-powerful deity humors us and submits to this scrutiny). They might persuade skeptics that something strange happened. But is there any evidence that would persuade a nonbeliever that God was behind it — that we do not live in a closed system in which all causation is a matter of natural laws?
Prove to someone else the existence of a God? Nope. I don’t need to. I don’t want to. My belief in God is for My Spirit and no one else’s. If I am wrong...I don’t care. My life is better this way and I personally know the difference. Don’t believe in a God? Living like there is none? You better be right. Good luck.
Atheism requires a stunning level of “head in the sand” denial of reality.
Why? It is impossible that unimaginable complexity and design could spontaneously arise solely from time plus blind chance.
I recall a biologist comparing the inner workings of a cell (any cell) with the vast infrastructure of a major metropolis, including electrical, water, sewage, roads, communications, etc.
The same biologist concluded by admitting that this limited understanding only begins to scratch the surface, and that we only know about 3% of what is going on inside a typical cell.
The book of Genesis provides the only eminently reasonable explanation: “In the beginning God created...”
M But. ore and more it seems that people's new religion is "science". They also create "science" to suit their agendas.
And people like that don't believe in miracles unless it backs up their agendas.
I do. Accept a miracle on faith, Praise God for it, and don't second guess it.
I don't personally think that a Catholic congregation seeing a stain on a wall should call it a miracle, but I would never ask them to prove it to Science.
We are all Doubting Thomas’s.
Wasn’t the 69 Mets good enough for them?
Agreed 👍
.
Funny that in the last two days I watched testimonials from 2 Christians——
Keith Green and Nicky Cruz.
The takeaway was the True Proof was in their Transformed lives by the
Love of Jesus.
Changed Lives.. Yuppers.
RE: Accept a miracle on faith, Praise God for it, and don’t second guess it.
Then there’s the other issue — How do you know that the miracle is from God seeing how Satan can mimic miracles ( Exodus 7:8-10, 2 Thessalonians 2:9 ). So, don’t jut accept a miracle when you see it. KNOW THE SOURCE.
As a believer, there is no such thing as a “ miracle “. Miracles are for unbelievers, “ unexplained “ healings, events, etc…is simply what our creator does for his much loved mankind.
Matthew 19:26 - But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.
Luke 1:37 - For with God nothing shall be impossible.
Luke 18:27 - And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.
When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the Pharisees decided to kill him. (Jn 11)
Miracles happen all the time. However, after a short time, most people forget about them. Only a few people that are aware of this forgetfulness can remember them, and only then if they have made some effort to remember.
Making this worse is that miracles tend to be “one-shots” in a given place and time, and with only certain people.
It might not be. It also might be. Depends on what it is.
Unexplained is not a synonym for miracle. Never thought about miracles that way. Yhere are a lot of things that fall into the unexplained category that would never automatically place them into the miracle category.
Mark 9
23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
My daughter, a hard core believer in multiple gods is now a full-blown Christian. I have prayed over and over for God to show her the way. She texted me this morning excited about the church sermon she just left
This happened almost overnight. I can think of no other explanation.
Hurray! That’s wonderful!
If your looking for a miracle your likely to be deceived.
How about: Overly excited, or even "ditzy" daughter?
How about we touch bases again with the daughter in, say, 30 years and see whether it "stuck?"
And by the way: This wouldn't qualify as a "miracle" in any case because we see absolutely no abrogation of Natural Laws. I.e.: There is nothing here that Science can't explain that Science would normally claim able to explain!
Regards,
By first faking being unable to read an eye chart (or count the number of fingers being held up)!
Easy-peasy!
Regards,
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