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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: How are modern miracles authenticated?
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Really? I'd have thought it was an extremely moderate position. My personal position on this is extreme: I believe that, if a doctor has a reasonable and good faith belief that an experimental procedure may work, informed consent should indemnify them. I recognize that society at large doesn't, as yet, agree with me, so I take a moderate position.
There's my mis-communication here, I meant the position of deterring clinical trials and talking about false hope was an extreme position and I've rarely come across it. I've often come across the opposite where doctors think a trial isn't needed because they already "know" that a treatment works and no further proof is required. Which is often false confidence, although not always.
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Declaring a potential cure or treatment to be "false hope" isn't a sober assessment, it's prejudiced, in the strict sense of prejudging the evidence.
Most of the time I think that's right. I would very rarely if ever use the term "false hope" (except perhaps for the situation where research has been done, there is no basis to believe a particular treatment works and yet everyone goes along with it anyway).
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pimple:
You appear to rely on your undoubted expertise in medicine to validate some expertise in "what all/some/most doctors think/do. That is, what you think al/most doctors should do, they do.
I hope I'm not claiming that. In the paragraph you quote I am talking mostly about what should be said/done and what power individual doctors actually have rather than stating what everyone does in fact do, and certainly not claiming I know what everyone thinks.
Although having said that I have spent quite a lot of time in clinical trials and in persuading doctors and patients to take part in them.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Philip Charles
Ship's cutler
# 618
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Posted
Weird, irrational, unscientific things happen. One poster described them as magic. If there is a Godly effect, the the magic is part of the miracle; if no Godly effect then it is just magic.
Take the Resurrection as an example. The Gospel accounts make it clear that the risen Christ had a massive Godly effect on his followers, Mary and the gardener. The disciples in the locked room. The road to Emmaus. The followers' relationship with Jesus played a vital role in their post resurrection experiences.
What if one of the thieves rose again instead? The effect on his friends would have been very different from those of Jesus' followers. Jesus' rising from the dead makes possible the massive change that took place in his followers - this is the core of the miracle of the Resurrection.
There can be miracles without the magic. The story of the goose early in this tread is one example. Another is how my wife who is in this case illogical, unscientific, irrational but still sticks by me despite her education. A kind of reverse Hosea.
To me much of this thread has been a discussion about magic rather than miracles, but nonetheless an interesting topic to many. However, I prefer to debug some of my software.
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There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
Posts: 89 | From: Dunedin, NZ | Registered: Jun 2001
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by pimple:
You appear to rely on your undoubted expertise in medicine to validate some expertise in "what all/some/most doctors think/do. That is, what you think al/most doctors should do, they do.
I hope I'm not claiming that. In the paragraph you quote I am talking mostly about what should be said/done and what power individual doctors actually have rather than stating what everyone does in fact do, and certainly not claiming I know what everyone thinks.
Although having said that I have spent quite a lot of time in clinical trials and in persuading doctors and patients to take part in them.
I guess I misheard then. Will go back to enjoying the argument in respectful silence!
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Philip Charles:
Weird, irrational, unscientific things happen. One poster described them as magic. If there is a Godly effect, the the magic is part of the miracle; if no Godly effect then it is just magic.
Take the Resurrection as an example. The Gospel accounts make it clear that the risen Christ had a massive Godly effect on his followers, Mary and the gardener. The disciples in the locked room. The road to Emmaus. The followers' relationship with Jesus played a vital role in their post resurrection experiences.
What if one of the thieves rose again instead? The effect on his friends would have been very different from those of Jesus' followers. Jesus' rising from the dead makes possible the massive change that took place in his followers - this is the core of the miracle of the Resurrection.
There can be miracles without the magic. The story of the goose early in this tread is one example. Another is how my wife who is in this case illogical, unscientific, irrational but still sticks by me despite her education. A kind of reverse Hosea.
To me much of this thread has been a discussion about magic rather than miracles, but nonetheless an interesting topic to many. However, I prefer to debug some of my software.
This is really interesting. Could you expand a bit on the "massive change" the resurrection provoked in Jesus' followers?
[ 09. January 2015, 15:11: Message edited by: pimple ]
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
The question is - who needs to authenticate them in the first place? If something happens to an individual, they have (i) the material facts, and (ii) the experience. If they have experienced it as a miracle, then unless they need to then demonstrate it to someone else, there is no need to authenticate anything.
I've personally met people who have had remissions form various physical and mental illnesses after prayer in circumstances which were, lets say, medically unexpected. Complete and sudden cessation from long term drug habits with no physical withdrawal symptoms, reversal of osteoporosis, etc. It's enough for the individual that this happens. If also there is medically documented evidence for healing, that's about as far as you can go - by saying this was medically unexpected. In a professional doctor's opinion and experience, this does not usually happen, if at all. Interpretation of the meaning of that event is then up to individuals.
If you want some more institutionalised validation, I guess the bar of "proof" would be much higher than is necessary to satisfy an individual, but the bottom line would still be the same - this outcome is not to be expected in the normal course of this illness.
There are a quite a few such cases with medical documentation. Mitchell May is a classic example - the re-growth of catastrophically damaged joints and largely stripped muscle and nerves in the leg without major surgical intervention (he just had an infected sliver of bone removed) is not medically explicable - and it's well documented. This kind of thing is outside normal medical experience - so if it happens repeatedly, maybe some attention needs to be given to it. Attention is being given to it in medical research an training colleges in Russia and Latin America, but so far in Europe we seem to be offended by the idea of something inexplicable and unpredictable happening. Times will change.
[ 10. January 2015, 14:57: Message edited by: itsarumdo ]
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Mitchell May is a con man.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
I assume that's a direct quotation from the Quackwatch archives? I've at various times attempted to clean up some pages on Wikipedia on spiritual healing to get some facts (yes - facts) on there. One page had been taken over by a multilevel marketing company. So I altered it. Then it was scalpeled down to a few totally bland statements because the resident "experts" on Wiki couldn't believe that some events (which incidentally are recorded in press film archives) actually happened. So wrt to any kind of real documentation on what are called miracles here, the www is the last place to get accurate information.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Nope.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Philip Charles
Ship's cutler
# 618
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Posted
quote:
quote:
Take the Resurrection as an example. The Gospel accounts make it clear that the risen Christ had a massive Godly effect on his followers, Mary and the gardener. The disciples in the locked room. The road to Emmaus. The followers' relationship with Jesus played a vital role in their post resurrection experiences.
quote:
This is really interesting. Could you expand a bit on the "massive change" the resurrection provoked in Jesus' followers?
Software debugged and working.
The short answer, the change must have been massive or the Church would not exist today.
A longer answer. God became human and God works through us humans. Jesus' followers had been somewhat changed though their contact with Jesus, but his resurrection while building on their previous experience was a total game changer. But wait,there is more to come; there was a reorientaion to follow. This is the importance of the period up to the Ascension. But hang on, that's not all; the Holy Spirit empowered them at Pentecost. In short the Resurrection was part of a process, but by far the most important part.
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There are 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
Posts: 89 | From: Dunedin, NZ | Registered: Jun 2001
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