Faith Healing?

[ShadowTemplar]

Skinwalker: You are missing out a fifth possible explanation: Mass psychosis. We had a very bad case in the Scandinavian countries, where people were accused of crimes that they had never committed, because people started ’remembering’ things that had never happened, and could certainly not have happened. On a similiar note, during the witch-hunts of Northern Europe, some people started confessing to witchcraft that they knew themselves that they were innocent of, for the simple(minded) reason that they wanted to get burned in order to get purified. Faith creates strange behavior in people…

Originally posted by FunClown
[B]The evidence I have is of conversations with people who have either been healed or who have known someone who has.

One anecdote is worth nothing. Ten anecdotes are worth as much as one. And a hundred is worth as much as ten. In the words of Shermer, Skeptic of Scientific American.

Originally posted by FunClown
[B]A few examples doesn't really disprove a theory either.

Depends on the theory. Such broad dismissals of theories as that one tend to be engineered to suit the specific needs of the current debate.

Well, Science is also a human fallibility in that case, because science was created and/or enhanced by humans. People believe in carbon dating,for example, yet they have no clue how old something really is, because there is no exact proof telling the age of the object.

This echoes the proposal of a psychologist, that all perception was based solely on the point of view of the observer. This forced a scientist from a real field of science to submit a paper full of fine-phrased nonsense to a psychology journal... Which went on to get published... So much for the 'science' in psychology.

I personally wonder how many of those cancer patients were miss-diagnosed. I mean, once it reads ‘terminal cancer’, you aren’t likely to go to the doc every 14 days to check up. And even the best scanners have margins of error that significantly influence the chance of them being right, when they diagnose ‘terminal’.

[Homuncul]

FunClown:
Homuncul, maybe the priest is one of those people too?

Donno, didn't notice but now I remember that he was freaky. But I blame it on the atmosphere he has to work in. Not easy ya know to save people possessed by demons.

I remember the only time I was possessed by one when my mommy gave birth to my brother. I knew it was very bad for her part.

Regarding faith healing I think all types of observations concerning this subject and similar subjects can be generalized in a scientifically prefered sentence: "human being is still a mystery".

Personally I believe that all this faith healing, Acupuncture healing, Ki healing are one in definition that this "sacred" energy that humans emmit (I prefer thinking of Ki) and can not be implicitly measured is common attribute of conscious mind. It's just we yet have no appropriate technology to measure it.

Still I remember an article discribing how scientists tryed to locate this energy in Ki healers and they noticed that on some electromagnetic frequencies at least 20/40 ki healers emitted while healing, 10 times as intense as normal people do. So you see it's also 50-50 that these are no fakers and devices for measurements don't lie about the rays.

The other aspect of it is which way a man goes to become a such a healer. I'd much rather be a ki healer than a commonly understood faith healer because of their world view preference.