How do atheists explain faith healing?

Question

HAVE THEY SEEN DVD'S OR DOCUMENTARIES WHERE PEOPLE ARE HEALED IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST,HOW DO THEY EXPLAIN THAT? I MEAN PPL STANDING FROM WHEEL CHAIRS AND BEING HEALED FROM BLINDNESS?

Answer 1

They won't be able to explain it away. But that won't stop them trying. ;)

--World peace through the teachings of Jesus Christ--

Answer 2

Faith healing could be explained by mind over matter, or the power of suggestion. If you tell yourself that you will get better, have a positive outlook, medical science has shown that you are more likely to have better results. In fact, the life expectancy of people who have an overall optimistic view of life is longer than those with a pesimistic view.

I am not stating that I am an atheist. However, these are simple medical research findings that could be one way of addressing the question.

As far as the specific question above about faith healing and people standing from wheel chairs and being healed from blindness, I would need to see some independent research to show that they are actually healed.

Answer 3

I am not an atheist but I have my doubts about a lot of faith healing. Problems on with cancer or other diseases can often be chalked up to misdiagnosis.
Rather than looking like fools or being sued, the wise but incompetent doctor better say, praise the Lord. What a miracle! Also people in the Cathoilic church have said the saints, and now even the last pope caused their cure after praying. This is certainly ludicrous to some other Christians but it is more or less on the same level as the healing and revival meetings in other denominations; mind you years of investigation are required in the Catholic church before a miracle is accepted as such.

For traumatic injuries, not once in my life time have I ever seen a para or quadrapeligic be able to get out of the wheel chair and walk after any prayer or blessing. I'll revise my way of thinking the day I see it.

Michael Kelly

Answer 4

I am not an atheist but i know they will say placebo effect. A placebo effect is when you have the belief something will heal it heals faster because your body actually produces more antibodies and other things to heal. This can come in the form of a sugar pill or prayer. For me i dont really think thats a good proof of a God because tons of people have prayed and then just died anyways :( There are some that strangely got better but its still not enough to be over the top sounding.

Answer 5

This does not answer the question. But it is a response to some of the previous answers.
I have heard that there are men on TV that call theirselves faith healers. I have also heard that the are obviously just putting on a show.
I have seen real healings. I have seen cancers and other thing that were on an z-ray one day, gone the next. I have seen a couple of dead men get up and walk, after the emts said it was too late. I met a man whose Glass eye feel out while he was praying and he couldn't get it to go back in. It wouldn't go back in, because he had a new eye where it came from. I also met a family who was doing missionary work in a foreign country. During a church service, gunmen came in and said they would kill any who stayed on stood up for this Jesus they spoke of. They opened fire and no one was hurt. So the gunman ran out screaming. After the men left the people who had been shot at looked at each other. They saw that many of them had bullet holes in their clothes. Although their clothes were full of holes, none of them had so much as a scratch on their bodies. Yes, I believe it.

Answer 6

Faith healing and spell casting are both called the power of suggestion. If a person is really sick, a faith healer can convince him that he is cured. Of course, the cure doesn't last very long.
The other case is the person who has an imaginary ailment ( there are a great many of them ). These people can be talked out of their sickness by a clever person. The power of suggestion.
There has never been a case where a person had a serious ailment, proven by modern hospital tests, who was cured by prayer. That is, a repetition of the tests show the disease to be gone.
Also, a person can put a curse or spell on another through the power of suggestion, if the victim believes it's possible.
Belief is a strange thing.

Answer 7

My first reaction if I were to see one of these DVDs is that it was an act. Like another answerer stated, if the blind had really been healed, it would be international news.

My first reaction if I were to see this happen in real life is that it was the result of a placebo affect. If someone believes something enough, their mind can convince them that it is real. Our minds are much more powerful than we know. We use less than 10% of our minds so imagine what we could do if we tapped into the rest.

Answer 8

I'm a Christian fundamentialist and I don't believe in these modern faith healings. It is
the position of historical Protestantism that miraculous
healings, tongues and direct prophesy was for the time of the
Apostles. Hebrews 1:1-2 tells us that God speaks in different
ways at different times - but now speaks to us by his Son. As
it says in the WCF chapter one; "those former ways of God's
revealing His will unto His people being now ceased."

Of course, when I say miraculous healings, I am not including
normal/natural means that God uses to heal us and certainly
the elders should pray for the sick that they will be whole
again. When I say miraculous I am speaking of God putting
aside the basic laws of science and healing us.

These so called "healings" that are done by the Papists and
on the local "charismatic" TV station - are not miraculous.
They are mostly unseen and unverified ailments. There are
no withered hands being restored, no blind people from birth
receiving sight, no four-day-old decomposing dead corpses
being raised from the dead.

There have been reports that people have come back to life.
But note that many of these reports come from a backward
third-world nation and lack reliable verification. I believed
these accounts are simply untrue or embellished. Even if
there was a so-called 'dead' person raised, it could be
because of an erroneous diagnosis. There are times when
some will look dead and yet may be still alive. Consider a
CNN report where emergency workers declared a women
dead mistakenly on Saturday – and a few hours checked her
again and she was alive.

"She was pronounced dead at the scene at 2:21 p.m. and the
technicians left the scene. However hours later, an
investigator from the medical examiner's office sent by police
determined Foster was still alive, authorities said. He called
911." (February 11, 2002 CNN)

If you prayed for her after she was pronounced dead you
would think she was raised from the dead, when in fact the
diagnosis was in error.

Then there is the matter of chicanery. The ‘minister’ takes a
person that has one leg shorter then the other and lengthens
the shorter leg. Before I was a Christian, I worked for a while
as a magician. This is one of the simplest and oldest illusions
in the book. While it is hard to believe, there are those that
will use such wicked means.

Instead of looking for signs and wonders we should be
looking for the greatest healing of all. That is the healing of
our sinful hearts. Even those that were raised from the dead
during the Apostles times eventually died. Everyone dies
sooner or later. We need to consider our spiritual condition
and seek God’s healing before it’s too late.

Answer 9

You actually think that crap is real? Are you mentally disabled?

Have you ever watched pro-wrestling? These big guys pretending to beat the crap out of each other.... These "faith healing" ceremonies are basically the same. It's all a SHOW put on by evangelists to milk the feeble-minded of their precious cash.

Do you believe everything you see on TV? If you do, i have something to sell you!

It's also the power of the mind. Have you ever read about people with multiple personality disorders? One personality has a disease and the other personality does not... the body manifests the disease for the separate personalities. That is the power of the mind. If you believe hard enough that you've been healed you could very well heal yourself. There's nothing divine about it! It's got nothing to do with christ.

Answer 10

frauds and shams aside ... the human mind is an amazing tool that can generate damaging or healing effects on the body. not that a paraplegic can will themselves into getting out of a wheelchair but "faith healing" can have therapeutic properties b/c if mind believes enough sometimes the body does too. even medical science begins to notice the correlation.

Answer 11

What you just said is so completely ridiculous I can't even believe I'm wasting my time answering this question. My grandmother used to watch Benny Hinn when I was little and even then I thought that stuff was a crock. Those people in wheelchairs could walk before they were "healed". The same goes for the people pretending to be blind. All that stuff is, is a scam to get money out of poor ignorant christians willing to believe anything. Geez if I told you I had some beach front property in Oklahoma would you buy it?