Why doesnt God heal amputees just headaches?

Why doesn’t God heal amputees?

There are many people who claim to have been healed by God, they say they were healed from things like headaches, high blood pressure, unknown pain, psychological issues, and even cancer. (see notes below)

But it’s *never* something utterly clear, indubitable, undeniable like an amputated leg visibly growing out in front of eyewitnesses. Surely with billions of people who own a camera phone, we would have at least one video of such a miracle?

Why don’t we?

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a. There are cases where people who are not praying for a miracle, or don’t even believe, go into spontaneous remission from their disease. Our bodies heal themselves, many diseases have a % remission rate, which means some people will just recover naturally. Sure it *could* be a miracle, but it could also be the body healing itself.

b. There are cases where doctors think something is cancer, and a few months later exams show no cancer, the patient thinks he is healed. Sure it *could* be a miracle, but it *could* also be misdiagnosis, doctors aren’t always right, they occasionally do make the wrong diagnosis.

c. There are cases where peoples psychosis affects their body (for example there is even a girl who became paralyzed because of emotional trauma), later regained her ability to move after counseling -reported by Dr. Josef Breuer). This *could* be a miracle, but it could also be psychosomatic/placebo related “healing”.

d. There are cases where people have a low chance of survival, like with certain cancers (notice low does not equal zero % chance) then they undergo many surgeries, treatments, and because of the hard work of people, they survive. This *could* be a miracle, but it could also be the medical treatment working.

All of these kinds of events *could* be miracles, or they *could* be completely natural. There is no way to prove for certain, you still have to take it on pure faith, but with an amputated limb that grows out in front of witnesses, it would be hard evidence for miracles.

If health is a gift from God, why is it correlated with naturalistic means?

If health is a gift from God given to those who pray for it, why is the health and longevity of a people directly linked to the quality of healthcare in that nation not their religion/lack of?

For example, Congo, one of the largest Christian nations, with 95% of its inhabitants identified as believers, has an average life expectancy of 49. (1, 2)

On the other hand, Northern Europe, which includes large populations of atheists (estimated upwards of 60% in some Scandinavian nations) has an average life expectancy of 81. (2, 3)

If health comes from prayer, why do the third world faithful die young, while the faithless with access to modern medicine live longer?

There has been a radical chance in lifespans

• In 1900, 75% of people in the United States died BEFORE they reached age 65.
• Today more than 70% percent of people die AFTER age 65.

What has changed?

Have the world become more religious?

Has the amount of prayer, Bible reading, or church attendance increased?

Have the amount of conversions to the Christian faith increased?

Nope.

We developed new technologies, medicines, surgeries, vaccines, and other forms of science. Incidentally, many of the more fundamentalist religious people who argue that health is a gift from God have strong anti-science tendencies, yet they are benefit from science.

Muslims claim to have more answered prayers than Christians

There are more Muslims who claim to have frequently answered prayers than Christians and Jews.

In fact, the older the religion, the lower number of answered prayers are claimed.

 

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Faith-Tools/Meditation/2004/12/U-S-News-Beliefnet-Prayer-Survey-Results.aspx

Why would the quality, visibility, and magnitude of supernatural miracles decrease over time?

In the era when 99% of people couldn’t read, write, and didn’t have camera-phones, we had miracles that could were undeniably supernatural, like oceans opening up to make a tunnel.

Today, when such things would be quickly instagramed, we have miracles like: getting a good job and headache relief. Why?

Why would the quality, visibility, and magnitude of supernatural miracles decrease over time?

According to psychologists memory is utterly unreliable

Did you know that memory is very unreliable? We often, edit, and remake our memories without realizing it.

“If I’ve learned anything from these decades of working on these problems, it’s this: just because somebody tells you something and they say it with confidence, just because they say it with lots of detail, just because they express emotion when they say it, doesn’t mean that it really happened. We can’t reliably distinguish true memories from false memories.” (Elizabeth Loftus, cognitive psychologist)

Life expectancy changes over the last 200 years

Did you know that you are severely lucky to be living today? With the advent of (medical, sanitation, logistical, agricultural) technology humans were able radically increase life expectancy over the last few centuries.

The average life expectancy two hundred years ago was below 40, today it’s in the high 70’s. Take a look at this very short video, it might just blow your mind.