He's the one who gave the order "be fruitful and multiply". He's had plenty of opportunity, and Thor knows, enough reason to say "stop" or at least "slow down"
Well, then that's on Jesus. He was supposed to have come along and ended it by now, wasn't he? I swear, the guy gets crucified 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘮𝘯 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 and now he can't keep his appointments for shit...
Theistic version of The Randi Effect - all us durn atheists are just flat out blocking god from doing cool things just by hanging around and getting our atheist cooties all over everything.
I’m with Hemant on this, the miracle being so completely useless that god has to be the worst. There is so much going on in the world that an onmibenevolent god should correct, an omnipotent god can correct, and an omniscient god would correct, and even any god who claims love for its creations would do something about. But this god is filling a bowl of crackers so the worship ceremony can continue. How self serving. How does this help anyone? This miracle doesn’t feed the hungry, house the homeless, protect the vulnerable, alleviate pain, end suffering or anything else. It is simply a miracle for serving the god. Fuck any god who does this type of miracle. Good thing it really doesn’t exist and this isn’t really a miracle.
Thank goodness god didn't magically increase the amount of useless stuff, like transfusable blood or food for hungry families or a few thousand acres of rain forest or something.
So I'm guessing someone in charge of this sort of thing heard the priest say that they were running low on hosts & they went and refilled from the bag in the pantry unnoticed. Now they are probably all conflicted because they started this silliness; but at the same time they don't want to embarrass the priest.
That’s then”don’t assume malice” take on it. The cynic in me thinks it happened as you said except that the person who did it was intending the circus surrounding the miracle in order to get attention and money for the church.
OT : I learned something yesterday but I wasn't sure if I should talk about here or not. After insisting for several days DM finally learned why she was kept in the hospital. Her cancer meds are destroying her kidneys. She will have to start chemo at the end of this month.
I had a non Hodgkin's lymphoma back in 2003 i think it was... Nearly killed me, tons of chemo.... But by the look of me now, you'd never know... Mr. Muscles... 💪
I was lucky. The only cancer I developed was a basil cell carcinoma. Killed it before it got worse. Luckily, it's one of the easiest forms of cancer to treat and beat.
Getting old keeps you on your toes. Especially if you've enjoyed good health for pretty much the totality of your existence until now. Little things that you've never experienced for 6 or 7 decades start to crop up and you think: "Uh-oh."
I know the feeling, back surgery, hand surgery, hernia surgery, stitches in my head from fighting in my youth, vitrectomy in my left eye.. anxiety,..... However I'm fairly built at the moment (things can change quickly) but I'm at the gym daily...
"Church officials may also review any available video and test the remaining wafers for differences in composition between them and other Communion hosts"
Like, after careful inspection, do they all contain human DNA? If so, could we use modern gene-cloning techniques to generate a twin Jesus? And what lucky gal would get to carry the pregnancy to term? Heck, they could run a $10-a-pop lottery for the honor and make yet more millions of completely unearned loot.
Man, how times have changed. Used to be the miracles were raising people from the dead, curing blindness ... and killing fig trees. Now they're slumming to the point where it's a miracle when someone miscounted the number of lousy-tasting wafers in a box.
Between the orcas organizing against the yachts and the titanic tourism tragedy (it is a tragedy, just not the one that should be getting the most attention) I think the universe is drowning pigs.
I always thought the loaves and fishes miracle was really just people doing what they always do when the food is running low at an event.
So, a crowd gathers at an event and it's clear the food provided isn't enough. Do the people just go hungry? Maybe some do. But a group of women (think church ladies) would gather, assess what was needed, and then quietly go get more food. Likely they'd be quiet about it, not wanting to draw attention, or to be seen as criticizing the men for not providing enough in the first place.
It should have been a parable about human generosity and humility. Not a magic trick.
You've never read anything about how they investigate the miracles at Lourdes? (My dictation software translated it as Lords – which is a different thing altogether – then when I wrote this just for a laugh, it said Lourdes. Some days you just can't win.)
The least they could do is make them bacon-flavored, or something... might even help with the whole suspension-of-disbelief thing when they mumble the magic words.
A real mystery is occurring in homes across the planet - the fact that once one button is placed in a drawer there will soon be a myriad of others the next time you open said drawer. Soon you’ll find buttons in drawers that you never put a button in. When things go bump in the night that’s buttons making whoopee. The evidence for sacrament whoopee is wafter-thin. But BRP (Unknown Button Replication) is a world wide phenomena. The truth is in someone’s drawers!
My work is done here. I first read that story in a volume titled “The Hugo Winners Volume II” and I found it quite charming and worthy of its accolades. I especially love that line: "Oh, that one. Old Frenchy? Why, I put him out to stud!"
My hypothesis, which I call the Law of Sock Conservation, is that there are a fixed number of socks in the Universe, and whenever I find only one sock of a pair in my dryer it's either because its mate has teleported into YOUR dryer or one of yours has teleported into MINE. Supporting this hypothesis is the companion Phenomenon of Sock-Valence Magnetism, which states that socks are attracted only to dryers that already contain the same size of sock.
I'm seeking funding to investigate these hypotheses more rigorously.
But does your Siri account for the octopods of Sirius 4? Or the nonopods of the fourth moon of rigel 7. I bet it doesn't. So no funding for you, unless you can convince George Soros to stop funding communists and do something worthwhile. But I doubt it.
We have children dying, people being slaughtered, men going missing in deep sea submersible and are probably dead by now and the best this mighty god can do is refill wafers at some church. If that is the best this joker can do, I have more faith in prison gangs than I do this so-called god.
These hosts are Jesus’ cancer. Cancer replicates itself unchecked, the hosts replicated themselves. These hosts had to be the cancer parts of Jesus. Some folks get the heart hosts, some the lungs, some the skin or bones, this box was the cancer.
To this god, maiming people, killing kids is of the utmost importance. But to show he really cares, every once in two centuries, he will refill a wafer cabinet with a few bags. You know, to show he really cares.
Supposedly one of the reasons the dopes dislike "woke tampons" is because that's what trans women supposedly use. They're too ignorant to be able to realize how ignorant they are.
Does journalists ask politicians the price of a bus/tramway/metro ticket or of bread (baguette de pain for us) ? The answers are often cringeworthy here, mosts of them are not only disconnected from reality, they live in another universe.
Occasionally. This is an old one. Bush Senior was at a grocery store and was amazed by the bar code reader. They had been in widespread use for at least 10 years.
The leader of our Libertarian party swore blind that reusable shopping bags would cause – I think 3 deaths a year or something, because blood from meat products would leak into the material. Both my supermarkets had been operating with leak free meat packs for some time. He should have asked his maid.
To be fair, he probably doesn't have a maid as such. We don't tend to do that sort of thing. He probably uses a cleaning service of some sort though. 🙂
How many haters wouldn't be able to recognise a trans woman if she bitch slapped them ? I know I am unable to and it doesn't matter for me since we both are women.
They pick the most outrhere examples of trans people they can find, and then ridicule them because they're out there. It's kind of a noticeably revolting thing among the many revolting things they do.
This is a squirrel misdirection. Not that folks are spending any time or energy on condemning the church for its many crimes, but they do these things to keep the focus on the magic and off the reality. Even if it is an honest belief the wafers multiplied, the church leadership’s attention on this “miracle” is designed to keep the congregations enthralled. They even said as much.
“The possibility that the receptacle may have refilled itself during a March 5 service has kindled fascination among the faithful.“
It’s a fucking tent revival, healing the sick and lame in front of a crowd to collect donations. But the sick and lame are all ringers and part of the circus. (Rewatching My Name is Earl and they did an episode on faith healers, it’s amazing how so many folks can broadcast that this crap is a grift and still so many people believe it anyway.)
I would urge anyone who hasn't read John Loftus's anthology, 'The Case Against Miracles' to do so. It is an excellent read. I am simply not wired for the kind of magical thinking religion requires. Especially Catholicism, that I was force-fed it from birth. Take away magical thinking and special pleading, and very little remains of any religion.
Miracles throught the ages:
4000 bce: God creates universe.
1500 bce: God divides sea so millions of his favorites can cross without getting their feet wet.
30 ce: God raises dead people.
2023 ce: God puts extra crackers in a bowl.
Wow. Amazing. /s
What is they all have the same amount of evidence, Alex.
Believers think that sheer passage of time infers upon the text magical properties.
"That was a different time." Covers a multitude of sins. Quite literally.
Jazzy used to give us that "It was a different time" when she wanted to defend something horrendous like Christians owning slaves.
You do realize, she's likely not banned on Substack like she was on Disqus. Of course, there's the question of if she is smart enough to find us now.
I'm sure we'll give her a warm reception if she does find us. *winkwink*
She won't last long if she does. All it would take is one screenshot of her stylings before Hemant would bring the banhammer down on her.
Law of diminishing returns? Lowered expectations?
This is the RCC, so... gotta find a way to make everyone feel 𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘵𝘺 about it... oh, I know!
Population growth- there are so many humans now, Gawd just doesn't have as much magic to spare for each of us anymore! 𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘶𝘭𝘵!
He's the one who gave the order "be fruitful and multiply". He's had plenty of opportunity, and Thor knows, enough reason to say "stop" or at least "slow down"
Well, then that's on Jesus. He was supposed to have come along and ended it by now, wasn't he? I swear, the guy gets crucified 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘮𝘯 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 and now he can't keep his appointments for shit...
Well, I'm fruitful every chance I get. To date no multiplying, though.
Keep practicing. It could happen. I saw this documentary where a top bottomed for his boyfriend on their anniversary and got pregnant.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3300442/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
This is the kind of imbecility that made me give up on American gay-themed movies.
Theistic version of The Randi Effect - all us durn atheists are just flat out blocking god from doing cool things just by hanging around and getting our atheist cooties all over everything.
That things stain, y'know!
Atheists are boron in Yahweh's reactor.
I have boron with my calcium supplements
I'm occasionally accused of being boron. Especially when I make bad puns.
...I'll get me coat.
Off to the punitentiary with ye!
if ur coat get wrinkled just dont irony you might burn ur leg.
Running out of pixie dust?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3flv5nWZgII
Knew somebody would post this. :)
"Predictable" is my middle name. 👹
I'm not predictable; I'm dependable.
I thought it was Mildred 🤔
You forgot the one where he appeared on a toast.
Or on potato chips.
Dog butts
Well, Dog IS backward for God. :)
God is a backwards dog, you say? 😉
They share 99.9% DNA
Or the one(s) on tortillas.
Yeah, Jesus is a Mexican name. :)
Yeah, Jesus is one of my brother's employees at his flooring company. Nice guy.
Except it's pronounced "Hey Zeus"
That's where he got the crackers.
And Mary on a grilled cheese.
Phil Collins appeared on toast, too:
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1235553870660074&set=a.114616346087171
I get "You must log in to continue."
FacePALMbook.
I have a different message "Le lien que vous avez suivi est peut-être rompu, ou la page a été supprimée".
FB sux like that.
After logging in I got this message "Sorry, this content isn't available right now"
When I get those, I think I messed up the link address.
Sure enough, I do an edit and the content appears.
You left out appearing on toast.
I’m with Hemant on this, the miracle being so completely useless that god has to be the worst. There is so much going on in the world that an onmibenevolent god should correct, an omnipotent god can correct, and an omniscient god would correct, and even any god who claims love for its creations would do something about. But this god is filling a bowl of crackers so the worship ceremony can continue. How self serving. How does this help anyone? This miracle doesn’t feed the hungry, house the homeless, protect the vulnerable, alleviate pain, end suffering or anything else. It is simply a miracle for serving the god. Fuck any god who does this type of miracle. Good thing it really doesn’t exist and this isn’t really a miracle.
Why didn't the miracle working god step in to stop a priest from raping a child?
Minor detail.
When you're in charge of the motion and vibration of every last atom and molecule in the universe, you have to order your priorities.
So stop the priests atoms from moving. Do the world a favor.
In this case there may be another explanation - church attendance is dropping.
Thank goodness god didn't magically increase the amount of useless stuff, like transfusable blood or food for hungry families or a few thousand acres of rain forest or something.
Priorities, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8HT6Ux8FM
LOL!
So I'm guessing someone in charge of this sort of thing heard the priest say that they were running low on hosts & they went and refilled from the bag in the pantry unnoticed. Now they are probably all conflicted because they started this silliness; but at the same time they don't want to embarrass the priest.
It's the most stupid of "miracles"!
I was thinking it was a bit of a prank on the head priest that ended up getting way out of hand.
That’s then”don’t assume malice” take on it. The cynic in me thinks it happened as you said except that the person who did it was intending the circus surrounding the miracle in order to get attention and money for the church.
OT : I learned something yesterday but I wasn't sure if I should talk about here or not. After insisting for several days DM finally learned why she was kept in the hospital. Her cancer meds are destroying her kidneys. She will have to start chemo at the end of this month.
Dammit, anything I say is bound to be trite – but here's hoping.
Good luck to you both. May it give you many more wonderful years with her.
Daaaamn. So sorry to hear this.
I lost my mother to cancer, so I have a good idea what both of you are going through. You're in my thoughts (NOT prayers).
I had a non Hodgkin's lymphoma back in 2003 i think it was... Nearly killed me, tons of chemo.... But by the look of me now, you'd never know... Mr. Muscles... 💪
I was lucky. The only cancer I developed was a basil cell carcinoma. Killed it before it got worse. Luckily, it's one of the easiest forms of cancer to treat and beat.
I'm glad you are good my friend
Thanks. You, as well.
Getting old keeps you on your toes. Especially if you've enjoyed good health for pretty much the totality of your existence until now. Little things that you've never experienced for 6 or 7 decades start to crop up and you think: "Uh-oh."
I know the feeling, back surgery, hand surgery, hernia surgery, stitches in my head from fighting in my youth, vitrectomy in my left eye.. anxiety,..... However I'm fairly built at the moment (things can change quickly) but I'm at the gym daily...
Take care of each other and let us know if we can do anything. Even if it's just being a sounding board.
So sad. Please keep us posted. 8^(
I hope things go well.
OT
A US court has stricken down Floridumb's transgender health rule that banned state Medicaid payments for transgender healthcare.
That's the second time a state court has struck down anti-trans laws, after Arkansas. Anyone think that the fools will get the message?
NAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Let them go on denying reality. So much more gratifying when their hatred gets slapped down at the federal level.
"Church officials may also review any available video and test the remaining wafers for differences in composition between them and other Communion hosts"
Like, after careful inspection, do they all contain human DNA? If so, could we use modern gene-cloning techniques to generate a twin Jesus? And what lucky gal would get to carry the pregnancy to term? Heck, they could run a $10-a-pop lottery for the honor and make yet more millions of completely unearned loot.
Man, how times have changed. Used to be the miracles were raising people from the dead, curing blindness ... and killing fig trees. Now they're slumming to the point where it's a miracle when someone miscounted the number of lousy-tasting wafers in a box.
Whoop-whoop.
And lest we forget thrusting demons into pigs and drowning them in the ocean.
Between the orcas organizing against the yachts and the titanic tourism tragedy (it is a tragedy, just not the one that should be getting the most attention) I think the universe is drowning pigs.
Unfortunately, the universe is completely indifferent to human and animal suffering. (And if there are any god(s), they are too)
I know that, but it sounds cooler to say it’s the universe rather than shit happens.
It's like the glass is half full or half empty. You can look at life as "star dust" or nuclear waste. Just perspective.
And likely pissing off the pigs' owner!
That owner was counting on his black forest bacon breakfast. Jesus denied him of that. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
Hmm. You know, I've seen a lot of that 'taketh away' bit, but not much of the 'giveth' part. One might be forgiven for wondering about that.
That's the truth!!
I always thought the loaves and fishes miracle was really just people doing what they always do when the food is running low at an event.
So, a crowd gathers at an event and it's clear the food provided isn't enough. Do the people just go hungry? Maybe some do. But a group of women (think church ladies) would gather, assess what was needed, and then quietly go get more food. Likely they'd be quiet about it, not wanting to draw attention, or to be seen as criticizing the men for not providing enough in the first place.
It should have been a parable about human generosity and humility. Not a magic trick.
But it's the magic trick that opens the wallets. Grifters gotta grift.
Human generosity is also a virtue a grifter could work with.
Oh dear Zeus, the church ladies will bring enough potluck that there's enough left over for 3 times as many people.
Yeah, really. And Jesus standing there all oblivious to the point that he thinks he popped off a miracle without noticing. smh.
And they'll exhort all the single guys "take some home with you, you can have it later."
"Are you eating enough? You're too thin! Take another fish, go on."
I still don't see what they're investigating. There's no actual eyewitnesses and no possible physical evidence after the fact.
That's not even discussing the things that any rational person would say should be investigated before this.
https://www.zentaur.org/memes/hermione_priorities.gif
Who said anything about "rational?!?" Their idea of investigating mostly consists of waving their hands and pulling absurd ideas out of their rectums.
You've never read anything about how they investigate the miracles at Lourdes? (My dictation software translated it as Lords – which is a different thing altogether – then when I wrote this just for a laugh, it said Lourdes. Some days you just can't win.)
Despite all the humans making a living thinking they're writing software, it's written by gremlins.
Offhand I'd say even that is too flattering.
Rational went out the door with "in the beginning".
Proof that baseball is the oldest sport - "In the big inning, God created the heavens and the earth."
Evidence means nothing to a Christian
A box of 1,000 wafers are like $17.99. So god saved the church like $20 bucks. Surely the divine can do better than that.
The least they could do is make them bacon-flavored, or something... might even help with the whole suspension-of-disbelief thing when they mumble the magic words.
Make them blood flavored, that way the illusion it is turning to blood with be a bit more real to them.
Cue voice over "We've exchanged the regular host for our new Accurate Host. Let's see what happens."
Apparently, I watched entirely too much television as a child. Yikes. :P
I expect meat flavored hosts would be seen as too on the nose. 😏
Hey, if you're gonna center your death cult on ritual cannibalism, the 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵 you can do is make the crackers taste like long-pig.
Maybe they do, have -you- tasted non-baby humans? 😳
Several, but I'll confess I only tasted the outside, and they were still breathing at the time, so...
lol
Vegan hosts made from cells of the Messiah?
Hey, vegans have already enough of a bad reputation without your input 😝
Nah, too much science for them to swallow 😁
A real mystery is occurring in homes across the planet - the fact that once one button is placed in a drawer there will soon be a myriad of others the next time you open said drawer. Soon you’ll find buttons in drawers that you never put a button in. When things go bump in the night that’s buttons making whoopee. The evidence for sacrament whoopee is wafter-thin. But BRP (Unknown Button Replication) is a world wide phenomena. The truth is in someone’s drawers!
Go read Avram Davidson's short story “Or All The Sea With Oysters”. You can find it at https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine-1958-05/page/n49/mode/2up?view=theater
You made my day. Thx for the link.
My work is done here. I first read that story in a volume titled “The Hugo Winners Volume II” and I found it quite charming and worthy of its accolades. I especially love that line: "Oh, that one. Old Frenchy? Why, I put him out to stud!"
You're probably the type of person who knows what happened to the socks in the dryer, aren't you?
My hypothesis, which I call the Law of Sock Conservation, is that there are a fixed number of socks in the Universe, and whenever I find only one sock of a pair in my dryer it's either because its mate has teleported into YOUR dryer or one of yours has teleported into MINE. Supporting this hypothesis is the companion Phenomenon of Sock-Valence Magnetism, which states that socks are attracted only to dryers that already contain the same size of sock.
I'm seeking funding to investigate these hypotheses more rigorously.
But does your Siri account for the octopods of Sirius 4? Or the nonopods of the fourth moon of rigel 7. I bet it doesn't. So no funding for you, unless you can convince George Soros to stop funding communists and do something worthwhile. But I doubt it.
The MIB will soon put a sock in any efforts to propagate the L.S.C. theory.
*FLASH!* What was I saying moment ago?
The Dryer Triangle?
I've witnessed the same miracle but with bread ties.
https://images.app.goo.gl/RND2VG1hjG8BaghHA
I suspect it's related to hangers.
https://www.mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=1938
Then why can I never find a hanger. Or does it only hold true for *gasp* wire hangers?
“No wire hangers!” - Joan Crawford, Mommie Dearest. Mommie knows best.
We have children dying, people being slaughtered, men going missing in deep sea submersible and are probably dead by now and the best this mighty god can do is refill wafers at some church. If that is the best this joker can do, I have more faith in prison gangs than I do this so-called god.
He also gives cancer to kids, so.....
These hosts are Jesus’ cancer. Cancer replicates itself unchecked, the hosts replicated themselves. These hosts had to be the cancer parts of Jesus. Some folks get the heart hosts, some the lungs, some the skin or bones, this box was the cancer.
To this god, maiming people, killing kids is of the utmost importance. But to show he really cares, every once in two centuries, he will refill a wafer cabinet with a few bags. You know, to show he really cares.
The name of the guy who restocks the pantry is named Jesus.
Jesus said if you ask God sincerely for what you want, he'll give it to you.
What kid asks for cancer?
Precisely the point. Jesus has a wonderful plan for everyone.
OT- Welp, I guess New York Republicans will have to start boycotting the subway: https://apnews.com/article/transgender-pride-wagenblast-subways-genderaffirming-f3f185e9a606e2340905e3d7f765e8b7
Yup, the voice behind the MTA's subway announcements is... a trans woman (or, one might say... a 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴 woman)! Cue incoherent screaming.
"Trains woman" cued incoherent groaning. : )
I was just having a little pun.
That's all well and good, but don't you know that "real women" wear anti-woke tampons?
https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1669367572880404480
These MAGA halfwits have gone too loony for any sort of scientific measurement. I swear, they make even flat earthers seem almost sane and reasonable.
"Be feminine, not feminist,’"
DM grandmother had no trouble being both.
By the way, for conservative women they show their knees and tights a lot.
PS : I am jealous of Joan, she doesn't have to bother with tampons, cups and pads 😏
Supposedly one of the reasons the dopes dislike "woke tampons" is because that's what trans women supposedly use. They're too ignorant to be able to realize how ignorant they are.
Is Joan the Dork a trans women? (I didn't know)
Yes. She is a good and fun woman to know.
Absolutely.
My fiancé is trans. Her visa is approved and I am bringing her back with me at the end of September from Thailand. The process was a long one.
HUH?!?!? Just what in the ever-loving hell ARE anti-woke tampons? They're wads of cotton, FFS. How is this even a thing?
Loony keeps getting exponentially worse. This is like acid-trip level of loony.
The subway is for peons. Republicans plague the poor taxi drivers.
Does journalists ask politicians the price of a bus/tramway/metro ticket or of bread (baguette de pain for us) ? The answers are often cringeworthy here, mosts of them are not only disconnected from reality, they live in another universe.
Occasionally. This is an old one. Bush Senior was at a grocery store and was amazed by the bar code reader. They had been in widespread use for at least 10 years.
Barcodes have been in use in every big name convenience store for about 30 years, IIRC.
The leader of our Libertarian party swore blind that reusable shopping bags would cause – I think 3 deaths a year or something, because blood from meat products would leak into the material. Both my supermarkets had been operating with leak free meat packs for some time. He should have asked his maid.
What makes you think we wouldn't have said if he *had* asked his maid?
To be fair, he probably doesn't have a maid as such. We don't tend to do that sort of thing. He probably uses a cleaning service of some sort though. 🙂
Jordan Klepper might, but I don't think I've seen a 'mainstream' report do that.
How many haters wouldn't be able to recognise a trans woman if she bitch slapped them ? I know I am unable to and it doesn't matter for me since we both are women.
They pick the most outrhere examples of trans people they can find, and then ridicule them because they're out there. It's kind of a noticeably revolting thing among the many revolting things they do.
This is a squirrel misdirection. Not that folks are spending any time or energy on condemning the church for its many crimes, but they do these things to keep the focus on the magic and off the reality. Even if it is an honest belief the wafers multiplied, the church leadership’s attention on this “miracle” is designed to keep the congregations enthralled. They even said as much.
“The possibility that the receptacle may have refilled itself during a March 5 service has kindled fascination among the faithful.“
It’s a fucking tent revival, healing the sick and lame in front of a crowd to collect donations. But the sick and lame are all ringers and part of the circus. (Rewatching My Name is Earl and they did an episode on faith healers, it’s amazing how so many folks can broadcast that this crap is a grift and still so many people believe it anyway.)
It's the other guys who are grifting. *Our* guy is legit!
I would urge anyone who hasn't read John Loftus's anthology, 'The Case Against Miracles' to do so. It is an excellent read. I am simply not wired for the kind of magical thinking religion requires. Especially Catholicism, that I was force-fed it from birth. Take away magical thinking and special pleading, and very little remains of any religion.