My Journey with Prostate Cancer and what I believe to be God incidents.

User

Posted 06 Jun 2019 at 06:21

An interesting article on a large-scale research project to determine the power of prayer on medical recovery:

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html

“Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers suggested.”

“The patients were broken into three groups. Two were prayed for; the third was not. Half the patients who received the prayers were told that they were being prayed for; half were told that they might or might not receive prayers.”

“Analyzing complications in the 30 days after the operations, the researchers found no differences between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not.

In another of the study's findings, a significantly higher number of the patients who knew that they were being prayed for — 59 percent — suffered complications, compared with 51 percent of those who were uncertain. The authors left open the possibility that this was a chance finding. But they said that being aware of the strangers' prayers also may have caused some of the patients a kind of performance anxiety.”

Cheers,

Chris

User

Posted 06 Jun 2019 at 08:50

Thanks Chris for this study, which I, as a thinker, take note of.

The first miraculous healing I experienced was 51 yrs ago - a deaf guy I laid hands on at the end of a meeting in Toulouse. That was “hands on”, in a spiritual “faith ambience”. I've been in on some dramatic “healings at a distance”, but my experience is that it's more common for folk to get healed instantly (or feel a definite change in their symptoms) in the street/supermarket, on the bus or even in church when there's personal engagement.

The point about performance anxiety is really important. It comes out in this very free translation (from the Aramaic) of John 16:23-4

All things that you ask straightly and directly from inside My name you shall be given. So far you have not done this. Ask without hidden motive and be surrounded by your answer. Be enveloped by what you desire, that your gladness be full.

If that hidden motive is some kind of “performance anxiety” - be it to please someone praying for you or to impress folk who are watching...in fact any motivation except love, then forget it baby!

Where does that leave me, taking note of the survey? I'll still offer to pray for people on social media, but encourage them to personal engagement with me or the person praying for them. Blessings - David

User

Posted 06 Jun 2019 at 10:10

Sorry Andrew for being a bit indirect - your questions deserve clear answers
Why do you think that your god has singled you out for such preferential treatment, while 'he' allows so many thousands of children to die awful deaths from cancer?

As a thinker, I'm a non-dualist. Like St Paul I believe that "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him" and that I and God are one. Not because I'm special - anyone can get in on that one-ness.

So I'm going to take my share of the blame and responsibility, along with God. The miracles I've had on me, and that have happened when I've prayed for people over the past 50 years have been down to me and down to Him (no separation). I prayed and got people to pray for me when I had skin cancer and eye problems - getting healed was a real faith-battle each time, but it happened. It was my decision...and the love of friends and family who cared and prayed for me.

More miracles like those would happen if more people prayed like that.

So why do others not get healed? I don't know, but I'm going to do all I can while I'm alive to bring healing to as many as I can in the world by 1. Giving to medical and research charities. 2. Caring for the environment and encouraging healthy living 3. Using my time, faith and relationship with God to be part of the answer to "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven" - and that will include praying with/for people I meet in the world (real or virtual).

In my days as a lecturer, twice I had to teach courses in Philosophy of Religion (reluctantly). Involving of course "The Problem of Evil". We can go into that privately, if it would be helpful, but 2 quick things. 1. Evil poses problems for those who believe in God...but denying God doesn't solve them. They come back as "The Problem of Good" 2. Looking at suffering in terms of "classical x=x/A is not non-A/ a>b>c then a>c logic" is a blind alley. Best suggestion I have is to look at Gregg Braden's "The Divine Matrix" https://www.facebook.com/148725225302229/photos/braden-gregg-the-divine-matrixpdfbetween-1993-and-2000-a-series-of-groundbreakin/477356639105751/

Which, of course, raises the obvious follow-up question:

Could your miracles be simply a combination of luck and good medicine?

You might call this a cop-out, but as a non-dualist, I don't distinguish between miraculous healing and conventional medicine in my thinking - God is in them both. The distinction is that I'm not claiming to be a doctor, just a guy who prays for people, some of whom get healed. I'm just as glad when someone gets well through medicine as I am when there's an instant miracle. Taking liberties with St Paul (1 Corinthians 13)...if it ain't love, forget it baby!

Best I can manage for now, but friend me on FaceBook or Messenger (only one David Derrington in UK) - David

User

Posted 07 Jun 2019 at 08:58

Religion will be the death of mankind - long live atheism!!

User

Posted 07 Jun 2019 at 09:51

Originally Posted by: Online Community Member

Religion will be the death of mankind - long live atheism!!

Religion has already accounted for many more deaths than atheism ever did: even if you count Stalin as an atheist (by no means certain), his tally pales into insignificance compared to the old testament.

But atheism is becoming 'the norm', partly as organised religion discredits itself with such arrogance and ignorance, partly as it's hard to justify our tiny blue planet lost in the extremes of a minor galaxy in a tired universe being somehow 'The One'.

Interestingly, it's only where religion is actively opposed, even persecuted, that it thrives: hence the recent rise in militant Islam, after centuries of slow decline, the temporary rise in Russia after 50 years of suppression (declining again now the heat is off). No accident that Rich American Born Agains nurture the unlikely claim Christianity is 'persecuted' to create a fake climate for growth.

But all this is irrelevant to PCa, as well as most people's daily lives, so it's my last in this thread! ;-)

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