And that guy was on the podium as if the answers were a definite something⸺yet, these stories about there being absolute years of these children not seeing their time is ridiculous.
Oh dear. Something's gone very wrong with church in America if that's the reputation that Christians have there. It's very sad .. and very puzzling to us Europeans.
Exactly. That's not something a qualified neurologist would say. In fact, if ANY doctor said that they'd be sued into oblivion. Given today's medical advancements and therapies, many paraplegics have walked again. Are those miracles too? Medical miracles, perhaps.
This is much needed reporting to help dispel this bullshit.
Personally, I am a paraplegic of 18 years. My specific diagnosis is 'complete' paraplegia, as opposed to incomplete. Mine is complete because I suffered a fall out of a window, landing directly on my spine on top of a 4x4 board, that crushed my T10 - T12 verts and smashed my spinal cord like a tube of toothpaste.
As you correctly pointed out, there are many different viral related afflictions that can also cause temporary to permanent paralysis. Even after direct injuries, one can become paralyzed from the waist down temporarily due to the significant inflammation around the spinal cord. As that inflammation recedes however, it's no longer squeezing those nerves and normal function returns. His transverse myelitis likely caused this same loss of function. Then, as the weeks and months pressed on and he healed, the inflammation receded and function returned.
Also, 18 years ago when I was injured, they had already been developing stem cell injections that were used as soon as possible after an injury occurred. Those treatments, oftentimes along with surgical procedures to alleviate the initial pressure and swelling, if administered soon enough have been proven to help restore the neural pathways and return function. However, even if they work it can take weeks or more often months to fully take effect.
Considering that his paralysis wasn't caused by a direct physical injury to the spine but rather a neurological disorder similar to what MS causes, his chances of recovery were better than someone who suffered a direct physical injury. Also, they now have far more advanced treatments to help restore function and initiate healing than they did when I was injured. Conveniently, as you point out, they didn't reveal any of that.
Regardless, God didn't heal his paraplegia. If anything did it was science and luck. If God really wanted to heal his paraplegia he could've just prevented him from being exposed to whatever viral or bacterial infection or affliction triggered the transverse myelitis in the first place. Then, there'd be no paraplegia to heal in the first place. But, grifters gonna grift. Forget about all the innocent children God allowed to die brutal deaths on the very same day this jackass was able to jump again.
Also, one more thing to add. His feeling and ability to stand and jump wouldn't have returned instantly in that moment. It would've gradually been returning at least weeks before that moment. After just a few months of paralysis alone, if function returned you would still need to gradually regain the ability to walk and jump. Physical therapy would likely still be needed.
This means that he was likely gradually standing and moving for weeks prior to that moment and that they very likely waited until he could stand and jump to wheel him into that church. In other words, it was most certainly pre-planned for the spectacle...
Yeah I found it weird that they showed pictures of him getting ready to walk to church. Clearly his recovery doesn't match a "faith healed during the service" narrative timeline, he was greatly recovered before he even set foot in the church.
Why did he go to the hospital instead of the church for his original issues? God healed him AFTER he had medical interventions powered by science? I guess god likes to take credit for the work of scientists and their research, and medical professionals and their skills. He intervenes AFTER all their work, and gets all the credit. People are nuts!
James Randi's 'The Faith Healers' is also very good and sometimes entertaining and sometimes infuriating when he recounts the harm perpetrated by these "healers".
Further to that: The Faith Healers kindle edition is only 78 pence from Amazon UK. I don't know about other countries but it might be worth taking a look wherever you are.
Well, even if there weren't a plausible natural explanation for his recovery, it still wouldn't be proof of God. It would be "proof" that a medical oddity occurred.
Because there would still be paralyzed people. There would still be paralyzed Christians. There are still families living in charity housing near hospitals where their children lay suffering from cancer.
You would still need to take that leap of faith to conclude that God chose to heal this one man and leave the majority of people suffering, including his own followers and innocent children.
You can say "mysterious ways" all you like, but it's still a matter of faith, even if a plausible explanation didn't exist... especially if a plausible explanation did not exist.
Because I wish it were true. I wish that I could have magical healing powers that would take away people's pain and illness. I wish I could clear out the children's hospital a few miles away. I beg any deity that might exist to grant me the power to heal with a touch or a word. I would make converts with every healing from the families of those children who can leave their hospital beds and go home and live a normal childhood. I would never ask for money.
I wish I lived in that sort of world, but I don't have those powers. And you can come up with reasons why I don't live in that world, but those reasons outside of my natural limitations of the laws of nature, are a matter of faith and always will be.
I've said it many times: Lourdes has seen people leaving behind walkers, crutches, and wheelchairs. I'd be willing to bet that never once has a prosthetic been discarded.
Exodus 20:5 – "You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation ...
Every child with a disabling disease may be completely innocent but their grandfather or great grandfather pissed off God for some reason. (according to Bible believers) Nice guy. 😒
You have to have drunk the kool-aid a bit to even see this as 'credit'. What sort of God only rewards the absolute tip-top amount of fervent prayer? That is not at all consistent with omnibenevolent, loving, merciful etc. It is consistent with a being that is transactional and petulant. (Case in point....)
Considering that Yahweh answers prayer in the affirmative roughly with the same frequency as random chance, any praise he gets is barely deserved, if deserved at all.
Paralysis and muscle spasticity of spinal origin looks like a symptom and probable cause of that symptom. When the spinal muscles relax back to normal, the paralysis going away seems normal.
Why can they never produce evidence? We ask for medical records as evidence and they think that one small part of one page of discharge instructions counts as all the records we need. Nope. We need the full diagnosis, the full discharge papers, all the notes from physical therapy, all the doctors notes, and what medications are being used, as a start.
And wheelchair users aren't necessarily unable to walk. I have a friend who goes grocery shopping with me. Most of the time, she uses a cane or leans on the cart, but when her pain is bad enough, she uses a mobility scooter.
Further Thought: How often has the body's ability to heal itself over time been taken as a miraculous occurrence? I suspect far more often than even these apostolic Christians would want to admit.
What a horrible scary thing to go through. I wish Austin the best in his recovery.
The church needs to sit down and shut up. The people writing in for prayers and miracles for themselves are proof, not of god’s grace, but the cruelty and evil the church’s actions lead to. Because when this church can’t cure their ailments, it will have been the miracle seekers’ fault and not the church’s false claims. How much false hope and utter devastation can a person go through? And what medical interventions might be postponed or abandoned because of this church’s claims convinced the ill person to trust god over medicine?
Amputees can’t be cured by god. It’s sick to blame them for this fact. Fuck outta here with that bullshit.
From the prognosis section of the Merck Manual entry on acute transverse myelitis:
"Some data suggest that approximately one-third of patients recover, one-third retain some weakness and urinary urgency, and one-third are bedbound and incontinent (1)."
So, we don't know what caused the myelites which caused the inflammation that caused the paralysis, but the evidence shows that with treatment, he had a one in three chance of regaining normal function, a 2/3 chance of recovery in general, and only a 1/3 chance of permanent paralysis. I learned this from a 2 second Google search clicking on the first reputable source that came up. Liars for Jesus lying? Must be a day ending in "y".
The problem with that is that it is too complicated and loaded with medical jargon, never mind guarded by prudent medical uncertainty. These believers want their answers SIMPLE, in line with their beliefs, and utterly CERTAIN.
Approximately the same recovery rate for my diagnosis (congenital hip displacia) in fucking 1954: 1/3 would never walk, 1/3 would walk with no problems ever, 1/3 somewhere in between with treatment. I fell into the third category. Of course, methods have improved in the last seventy-mumble years. It's normally diagnosed at birth now, and treatment begins immediately, with much better odds of full function. If we'd gone with the church, I'd likely be much worse today. (Footnote: "healing services" at my parents' catholic church, did diddly-squat, though I did witness a couple of excorcisms. The RCC used to be a lot wierder than it is currently.)
"did witness a couple of excorcisms" Cool, with today's cell phone cameras and A.I. video editors, would love to see a few recent ones on Instagram. 🤔 🤪
This was back before the Earth's crust cooled, so I have no idea if what I witnessed would be similar to current practices. Also, these were CATHOLIC exorcisms, conducted in Latin (yes, I really am that old; my parents' church was pretty much Latin-only til 1969-70, the year before I ran away to go to college.) So, long before cell phones or hand-held video cameras were even a twinkle in some inventor's eye. Even if such videos were available I wouldn't care to watch--too likely to trigger my religious trauma. But, you do you.
In one of Bart Ehrman’s books, IIRC, he discusses the doubting Thomas episode. It appears to have been a later addition to the text. Ehrman speculates that it may have been added because Jesus’ promise to return soon was getting old and doubt would have been the natural human response. So let’s throw in a doubting story with “evidence” of his resurrection.
I loved those Ehrman books. They made so much sense of what bibles made senseless.
If there's one thing I truly do believe these charlatans can (and do!) cure with their phoney-baloney dog and pony show... it's the obesity of a willing mark's wallet.
Christians lie so much that it's virtually impossible to believe anything they say.
We aren't responsible for that being so. They did it to themseslves.
Thus their love of Trump. So simpatico.
I'm still trying to get answers about MAGA, and supporting complete ignorance in easily the worst president we've ever had.
And their response to skepticism and demands for evidence just proves that they lie to themselves as well.
Bingo.
This ^^^^^
Worse than heroin addicts with the lying
Bingo. These days, if a devout christian told me the sun rose this morning, I'd look out the window to check.
And that guy was on the podium as if the answers were a definite something⸺yet, these stories about there being absolute years of these children not seeing their time is ridiculous.
Oh dear. Something's gone very wrong with church in America if that's the reputation that Christians have there. It's very sad .. and very puzzling to us Europeans.
𝑆ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑜 𝑎𝑑𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑢𝑟𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑠𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑡𝑜𝑙𝑑 ℎ𝑖𝑚 ℎ𝑒’𝑑 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑘 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑎𝑦 𝑛𝑜𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑢𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑒𝑥𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑠, 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑖𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡’𝑠 ℎ𝑜𝑤 ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑡.
"It’s likely he may not recover full function" somehow becomes "he is doomed to never walk again". They will cherry pick 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴.
Exactly. That's not something a qualified neurologist would say. In fact, if ANY doctor said that they'd be sued into oblivion. Given today's medical advancements and therapies, many paraplegics have walked again. Are those miracles too? Medical miracles, perhaps.
Agreed, "medical miracles" without divine intervention.
In God We Trust? 😆
This is much needed reporting to help dispel this bullshit.
Personally, I am a paraplegic of 18 years. My specific diagnosis is 'complete' paraplegia, as opposed to incomplete. Mine is complete because I suffered a fall out of a window, landing directly on my spine on top of a 4x4 board, that crushed my T10 - T12 verts and smashed my spinal cord like a tube of toothpaste.
As you correctly pointed out, there are many different viral related afflictions that can also cause temporary to permanent paralysis. Even after direct injuries, one can become paralyzed from the waist down temporarily due to the significant inflammation around the spinal cord. As that inflammation recedes however, it's no longer squeezing those nerves and normal function returns. His transverse myelitis likely caused this same loss of function. Then, as the weeks and months pressed on and he healed, the inflammation receded and function returned.
Also, 18 years ago when I was injured, they had already been developing stem cell injections that were used as soon as possible after an injury occurred. Those treatments, oftentimes along with surgical procedures to alleviate the initial pressure and swelling, if administered soon enough have been proven to help restore the neural pathways and return function. However, even if they work it can take weeks or more often months to fully take effect.
Considering that his paralysis wasn't caused by a direct physical injury to the spine but rather a neurological disorder similar to what MS causes, his chances of recovery were better than someone who suffered a direct physical injury. Also, they now have far more advanced treatments to help restore function and initiate healing than they did when I was injured. Conveniently, as you point out, they didn't reveal any of that.
Regardless, God didn't heal his paraplegia. If anything did it was science and luck. If God really wanted to heal his paraplegia he could've just prevented him from being exposed to whatever viral or bacterial infection or affliction triggered the transverse myelitis in the first place. Then, there'd be no paraplegia to heal in the first place. But, grifters gonna grift. Forget about all the innocent children God allowed to die brutal deaths on the very same day this jackass was able to jump again.
Also, one more thing to add. His feeling and ability to stand and jump wouldn't have returned instantly in that moment. It would've gradually been returning at least weeks before that moment. After just a few months of paralysis alone, if function returned you would still need to gradually regain the ability to walk and jump. Physical therapy would likely still be needed.
This means that he was likely gradually standing and moving for weeks prior to that moment and that they very likely waited until he could stand and jump to wheel him into that church. In other words, it was most certainly pre-planned for the spectacle...
Yeah I found it weird that they showed pictures of him getting ready to walk to church. Clearly his recovery doesn't match a "faith healed during the service" narrative timeline, he was greatly recovered before he even set foot in the church.
Yeah, it would've kinda lost its appeal if they exposed the fact that he experienced a gradual recovery over weeks or months, right?
Time-release miracles! Mysterious ways. Yadda yadda.
Pre-planned and recorded for maximum PR exposure, of course.
I was depressed but the power invested in atheism saved me. Where's my praise? 🤣
Why did he go to the hospital instead of the church for his original issues? God healed him AFTER he had medical interventions powered by science? I guess god likes to take credit for the work of scientists and their research, and medical professionals and their skills. He intervenes AFTER all their work, and gets all the credit. People are nuts!
He was hedging his bets. Shows a distinct lack of faith on his part.
“You know the reason that we don’t see many amputees healed?”
Many? Hell, I’d settle for one!
I mean is that guy seriously claiming God can regrow limbs if you pray hard enough?
That’s how I understood it. And I’ve no doubt he can cite second hand accounts about it happening.
"My sister's cousin's best friend's neighbor said it happened therefore it must be true!"
I thought they were healed if they receive new bionic type limbs. I guess that didn’t count.
Many limbs have been regrown through faith.
Alas, the most faithful among us are all salamanders, starfish, and crustaceans.
I would encourage people to read, "The Case Against Miracles" by John Loftus. He and other contributors lay waste to the whole idea of miracles. .
James Randi's 'The Faith Healers' is also very good and sometimes entertaining and sometimes infuriating when he recounts the harm perpetrated by these "healers".
Further to that: The Faith Healers kindle edition is only 78 pence from Amazon UK. I don't know about other countries but it might be worth taking a look wherever you are.
I just got it for free, but I also have Prime. Amazon, not Optimus.
[But turning it into proof of God...]
Well, even if there weren't a plausible natural explanation for his recovery, it still wouldn't be proof of God. It would be "proof" that a medical oddity occurred.
Because there would still be paralyzed people. There would still be paralyzed Christians. There are still families living in charity housing near hospitals where their children lay suffering from cancer.
You would still need to take that leap of faith to conclude that God chose to heal this one man and leave the majority of people suffering, including his own followers and innocent children.
You can say "mysterious ways" all you like, but it's still a matter of faith, even if a plausible explanation didn't exist... especially if a plausible explanation did not exist.
Because I wish it were true. I wish that I could have magical healing powers that would take away people's pain and illness. I wish I could clear out the children's hospital a few miles away. I beg any deity that might exist to grant me the power to heal with a touch or a word. I would make converts with every healing from the families of those children who can leave their hospital beds and go home and live a normal childhood. I would never ask for money.
I wish I lived in that sort of world, but I don't have those powers. And you can come up with reasons why I don't live in that world, but those reasons outside of my natural limitations of the laws of nature, are a matter of faith and always will be.
I've said it many times: Lourdes has seen people leaving behind walkers, crutches, and wheelchairs. I'd be willing to bet that never once has a prosthetic been discarded.
Lourdes was closed during covid.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Once again, their god gets all the undeserved credit for something that isn't supernatural in the slightest.
Meanwhile, that same god gets none of the blame for all those children in pediatric cancer wards. Where are his miracles then?
𝐵𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑛? 𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡'𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡?
-- Stephen Fry
Here's what:
Exodus 20:5 – "You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation ...
Every child with a disabling disease may be completely innocent but their grandfather or great grandfather pissed off God for some reason. (according to Bible believers) Nice guy. 😒
You have to have drunk the kool-aid a bit to even see this as 'credit'. What sort of God only rewards the absolute tip-top amount of fervent prayer? That is not at all consistent with omnibenevolent, loving, merciful etc. It is consistent with a being that is transactional and petulant. (Case in point....)
Considering that Yahweh answers prayer in the affirmative roughly with the same frequency as random chance, any praise he gets is barely deserved, if deserved at all.
Paralysis and muscle spasticity of spinal origin looks like a symptom and probable cause of that symptom. When the spinal muscles relax back to normal, the paralysis going away seems normal.
Why can they never produce evidence? We ask for medical records as evidence and they think that one small part of one page of discharge instructions counts as all the records we need. Nope. We need the full diagnosis, the full discharge papers, all the notes from physical therapy, all the doctors notes, and what medications are being used, as a start.
And wheelchair users aren't necessarily unable to walk. I have a friend who goes grocery shopping with me. Most of the time, she uses a cane or leans on the cart, but when her pain is bad enough, she uses a mobility scooter.
Because obviously that evidence would blow gigantic holes in their narrative so they're doing everything they can to hide it.
Further Thought: How often has the body's ability to heal itself over time been taken as a miraculous occurrence? I suspect far more often than even these apostolic Christians would want to admit.
The podiatrist had to remove my toenail after an injury. Guess what? The Lord growed me back another ‘un! Y’all join in for my facelift prayer!
“Lord, I am affected by a bald patch!”
You ain't alone!!!
Why is it that when it falls off our heads, it sticks to our backs?
https://youtu.be/Ssq8wHAx4nE?t=86
What a horrible scary thing to go through. I wish Austin the best in his recovery.
The church needs to sit down and shut up. The people writing in for prayers and miracles for themselves are proof, not of god’s grace, but the cruelty and evil the church’s actions lead to. Because when this church can’t cure their ailments, it will have been the miracle seekers’ fault and not the church’s false claims. How much false hope and utter devastation can a person go through? And what medical interventions might be postponed or abandoned because of this church’s claims convinced the ill person to trust god over medicine?
Amputees can’t be cured by god. It’s sick to blame them for this fact. Fuck outta here with that bullshit.
𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑟𝑒ℎ𝑎𝑏 𝑠𝑎𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑛𝑜 ℎ𝑜𝑝𝑒, 𝑛𝑜 𝑓𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑢𝑝 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡.
More likely dismissed from rehab saying that's all we can do, the insurance won't pay for more sessions, keep doing the exercises at home.
From the prognosis section of the Merck Manual entry on acute transverse myelitis:
"Some data suggest that approximately one-third of patients recover, one-third retain some weakness and urinary urgency, and one-third are bedbound and incontinent (1)."
So, we don't know what caused the myelites which caused the inflammation that caused the paralysis, but the evidence shows that with treatment, he had a one in three chance of regaining normal function, a 2/3 chance of recovery in general, and only a 1/3 chance of permanent paralysis. I learned this from a 2 second Google search clicking on the first reputable source that came up. Liars for Jesus lying? Must be a day ending in "y".
https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/neurologic-disorders/spinal-cord-disorders/acute-transverse-myelitis?gclsrc=aw.ds&&network=x&matchtype=&keyword=&creative=&device=m&devicemodel=&placement=&position=&campaignid=18699200289&adgroupid=&loc_physical_ms=9005554&loc_interest_ms=&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=18699201795&gclid=CjwKCAjwwrPVBhA1EiwAv_YO-clzVKzxDn_N0bPhkT6yoY1Ql3iKJfNju3ul0dH8QLcMouEkM5hwohoCgloQAvD_BwE
The problem with that is that it is too complicated and loaded with medical jargon, never mind guarded by prudent medical uncertainty. These believers want their answers SIMPLE, in line with their beliefs, and utterly CERTAIN.
Being RIGHT isn't even a consideration.
Approximately the same recovery rate for my diagnosis (congenital hip displacia) in fucking 1954: 1/3 would never walk, 1/3 would walk with no problems ever, 1/3 somewhere in between with treatment. I fell into the third category. Of course, methods have improved in the last seventy-mumble years. It's normally diagnosed at birth now, and treatment begins immediately, with much better odds of full function. If we'd gone with the church, I'd likely be much worse today. (Footnote: "healing services" at my parents' catholic church, did diddly-squat, though I did witness a couple of excorcisms. The RCC used to be a lot wierder than it is currently.)
"did witness a couple of excorcisms" Cool, with today's cell phone cameras and A.I. video editors, would love to see a few recent ones on Instagram. 🤔 🤪
This was back before the Earth's crust cooled, so I have no idea if what I witnessed would be similar to current practices. Also, these were CATHOLIC exorcisms, conducted in Latin (yes, I really am that old; my parents' church was pretty much Latin-only til 1969-70, the year before I ran away to go to college.) So, long before cell phones or hand-held video cameras were even a twinkle in some inventor's eye. Even if such videos were available I wouldn't care to watch--too likely to trigger my religious trauma. But, you do you.
"likely triggered" Sorry, only for nothing more than pure entertainment that IMO religions provide. Thanks 🤔
𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑘 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝐽𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑔𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠.
"Proof" of persecution!
You’re not supposed to ask questions. You’re just supposed to believe blindly.
Hell, even Thomas wanted proof.
Thomas was way ahead of his time.
"Thomas" or "Didymus" either meaning "twin" but no detail is given of whose twin brother he is. Could he possibly be the twin brother of...........
Yes, I do know it's fiction.
In one of Bart Ehrman’s books, IIRC, he discusses the doubting Thomas episode. It appears to have been a later addition to the text. Ehrman speculates that it may have been added because Jesus’ promise to return soon was getting old and doubt would have been the natural human response. So let’s throw in a doubting story with “evidence” of his resurrection.
I loved those Ehrman books. They made so much sense of what bibles made senseless.
Well, it's only natural to 👀 at a nekkid lady riding a horse.
Any more like that and you'll be sent to Coventry.
If there's one thing I truly do believe these charlatans can (and do!) cure with their phoney-baloney dog and pony show... it's the obesity of a willing mark's wallet.
PT Barnum once remarked "The bigger the humbug, the better that people will like it."
He could easily refer to these willingly gullible rubes as proof.