Who Would Jesus Heal, and How?

Phil Davis said "Jesus healed through prayer and through the power of God."

Maybe he did, and maybe he didn't. One thing I feel certain about is that no one other than Jesus can bring about healing through prayer.

As some clever but insightful person has said, "All prayers are a request fot a miracle." Jesus reportedly prayed, "Let this cup pass from me." but it didn't.

Phil never really says he is for or against stem cell research, but he implies that other ways (prayer) for curing disease are better. Stem cell research may not turn out to give us as many new potential cures as some scientists think, but if if gives any it is worth doing.

And maybe we should all just start praying that the scientists will get it right.

Prayer DOES NOT cure Alzheimers, diabetes, or Parkinsons.

"The stem cell controversy wouldn't exist if some very serious incurable diseases were not at the center of it."

The writer makes a point worthy of notice. And then he provides information as to how he approaches the subject - serious incurable diseases. It is rare to find any intelligent dialogue on the problem itself. You would think that if everyone of us just went to doctors and provided for those that can't afford it then we would all be fine. But that is clearly not the case. I really appreciate broadening the dialogue to include better questions and thought provoking answers.

Why would you even ask a Christian Scientist what they think about stem cell research? You should expect nothing other than this kind of tripe. Davis should not even be given a voice in the public sphere. As a CS practitioner he denies medical treatment to sick children while praying for them. Essentially, he abuses children for a living and scams ignorant adults into thinking he can help them with his magic thoughts.

Mr. Davis mentioned that pleading prayer or prayer of petition isn't CS prayer. Haven't studied CS long, but in the short time practicing it (crash course to start by reading Bible, Mrs. Eddy's works and CS periodicals) experienced "miraculous" healings, brought back from the depths of despair, if not death. Failure to heal may come less from lack of faith and more lack of technique. So far, the CS technique has worked for me reliably and consistently.

I've been a Christian Scientist for 35 years and yes, many prayers have been answered. That's WHY I am a Christian Scientist. I remember my first "answer". I was crying and frantic and pregnant and worried that my child would inherit a likely hereditary disease from his father. Then I thought, "I'll get quiet, be calm, and listen for a message from God."(That was a new way of thinking about prayer for me.) Very soon, the name "Melchisedek" popped into my head. I knew I'd heard it before. I looked it up in the Bible and found that he was a priest of Salem "without ancestry." That may not seem like an answer to this prayer, but I got a message: my child, too, was God's child, without human ancestry. He was a spiritual idea created by God. Seem dumb? He was in perfect health and has remained so for many years. This is just one simple example of answered prayer. It was immediate and I felt it's truth. You might say, "Well, he would have probably been okay anyway." Maybe so, that doesn't matter to me. What matters is that an answer I could understand and relate to came immediately. That was the beginning of a quest to learn more about prayer. The study of Christian Science hasn't failed me. I don't always get it, but I get it often enough that I keep coming back.

Jesus was a reform and reforming Jew. He would have been aware of Jewish tradition around this issue. Therefore, to have any idea how Jesus might have approached this the best thing to do would be to visit Rabbi Sapperstein's comments on this forum. He is a Reform Jew, fully conversant with Jewish tradition. Otherwise, how can you have any idea how Jesus would have viewed this issue.

Jesus was a reform and reforming Jew. He would have been aware of Jewish tradition around this issue. Therefore, to have any idea how Jesus might have approached this the best thing to do would be to visit Rabbi Sapperstein's comments on this forum. He is a Reform Jew, fully conversant with Jewish tradition. Otherwise, how can you have any idea how Jesus would have viewed this issue.

An interesting post and one I would expect from one of my kids -- prior to their teen years.

You don't really want to review the gazallion number of prayers that have gone unanswered do you?

Let's start by counting how many prayers of the 6 million Jews that died during WW II went unanswered?

Or how many prayers went unanswered during the black plague?

Even today, how many churches every week, pray for world peace?

You may want to believe in the power of prayer but any objective view would make anyone who hasn't checked out their ability to reason, conclude that the only useful purpose that prayer performs is to make the people doing the praying think they are doing something.

I watched a friend of mine die from pancreatic cancer. Every week at choir practice, we circled up and prayed for people in need. During the 14 months from diagnosis to her death, we prayed first that god would cure her and later that god would inspire her physicians until we prayed she would be comforted as would her family.

My friends in the prayer circle would never admit that they were losing faith. But the nature of the prayers changed as her condition deteriorated.

I long ago, abandoned any thoughts that there was anyone up there listening.

"So, we--the ones who actually have the power to thing reasonably and rationally--have to read this tripe if we choose..."

Hyjanks,

I don't disagree with the content of your message as it speaks to Christian Science beliefs. However, your comment which I've quoted above is both senseless and absurd.

Senseless because "having" to do something and "choosing" to do something are contradictory. Absurd because you don't "have to" read this or anything else. You choose to come to -- and engage with -- a blog dealing with world religions. What do you think you're going to read here?

If you don't wish to read "this tripe," don't come to this forum.

Another day, another On Faith column, and another essayist who insists that his god is not generic; that he or she is the Top Critter and that he or she has all the answers.
You know, I could accept this drivel on a basic level if the purveyors of such nonsense would admit that there's is one god of 10,000 or so that have existed in the minds of men since the dawn of written history. But, of course, no such recognition is ever forthcoming.
So, we--the ones who actually have the power to thing reasonably and rationally--have to read this tripe if we choose and either look at it humorously or sarcastically or as an example of pathos--never seriously.
Mr. Davis, I feel all cuddly about your suggestion that the power of prayer can cure. The question is: How powerful does it have to be to cure and, more importantly, if it worked how come your particular god seems to be disinterested in your thesis--owing to the sheer numbers of sick and dying people on the planet? You'd think that after 2,000 years of pleading to your particular god that he would have gotten the message by now.
Your god, like every other god invented by man, is a figment of a perverted imagination. Come to that conclusion and we can all work together to try and solve the immense problems facing this planet using reason, logic . . . and love and respect for all humans, not just those who happen to believe in Jesus' phony miracles.