Evidence: Prayer Brings Man Back To Life

[Kurieuo]

Man comes back to life after heart stops for 45 minutes and pronounced dead: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ohio-man-d ... d=20027401

If that video takes a while to play, you can also find here: http://www.faithit.com/45-mins-after-be ... a-miracle/

Coincidence? Placebo effect perhaps? Or did prayer work?

[PaulSacramento]

45 min is a long freaking time.
I am always cautious when I hear these stories, not because I think they didn't happen because obviously they did and not because they are not miracles ( which depends on what you think a miracle is), but because of what it potentially means and by that I mean this:
IF God brought back to life this person because someone prayed, why doesn't He do that for others?
It's a very ugly can of worms that I don't care to venture into.

[Kurieuo]

Yes, I've heard that reasoning too. Does it need an answer though?

I can provide a very detailed one, but ultimately my view boils down to God's purpose for this world. He won't perform miracles left, right and centre as such would thwart one of His primary objectives for this world which isn't to bring heaven now. If God is going to perform miracles for all, then God may as well bring an end to our world and start taring up those who would belong to Christ with those who don't (both will be lost due to this premature taring up).

And yet, I believe God will for whatever reason intervene on the occasion according to His own purpose and even personally respond here or there. Do we need to know why? Hopefully I won't be red-faced on this some time down the track, but the evidence on this one seems to be there: the person, Western hospital, doctor, simplicity of prayer and it being reported not by some "faith" movement... many which just irk me.

Certainly, I do not believe there is a do this or that and someone will be healed. I've lived enough of life to see that God by and large won't. If I die right now or get cancer then I don't expect God's intervention although I'd rely heavily on Him if the latter. It shouldn't be expected by and large. One shouldn't take this also a sign of favoritism or lack thereof, or greater spirituality or faith or lack thereof. But, isn't it great if and when God does move?

And yet, I doubt any Christian is truly devoid of their own personal experiences. Even those who may pray, pray and pray for some sort of healing and aren't healed. Do you have any of your own personal experiences that felt real? Why did God allow you to experience them? Does it really need an answer. If God is indeed personal then why not?

[B. W.]

John 5:2-3, Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. 3 In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water...

John 5:5-9 ... Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" 7 The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me." 8 Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your bed and walk." 9 And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabbath. NKJV

Interesting that there was a multitude of people waiting to be healed, yet, Jesus only healed one person. Why?

Maybe, to see who will still trust him no matter his answer...
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PS

The Lord of Life

Rev 1:18

[PaulSacramento]

John 5:2-3, Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. 3 In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water...

John 5:5-9 ... Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" 7 The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me." 8 Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your bed and walk." 9 And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabbath. NKJV

Interesting that there was a multitude of people waiting to be healed, yet, Jesus only healed one person. Why?

Maybe, to see who will still trust him no matter his answer...
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PS

The Lord of Life

Rev 1:18

Why indeed since it doesn't seem to imply that the person He healed had any particular faith in Christ at that time or made any statement about Jesus before he was healed.

[Jac3510]

Yes, I've heard that reasoning too. Does it need an answer though?

Agreed. When I hear people raise this objection, I ask them to think of a time they have been generous or charitable. Perhaps they gave a homeless person some money or volunteered one Christmas season at a local shelter. I then ask them if it was wrong to be giving because they were not generous with everyone else, too. Should such an action have been condemned because the same grace was not applied to others? Of course not. We universally praise generosity and charity, and that rightfully so. The point is that grace does not have to be universally applied to be praiseworthy, and so it is with God's selective answering of prayers.

One can claim that this is only true of us because of our limited resources, but that for God, grace is only morally praiseworthy when applied universally. And to that I have two responses. The first is what you said about the implications of such a view. Were God to save everyone from every pain all the time, this world would be absurd. But in the second, their own question I think proves not only their irrationality but even depravity. They are really condemning God for healing this boy of cancer or saving that girl from a fire or whatever? They're literally saying, "If God won't save everyone, then He shouldn't save anyone." And that translates into, "If God won't answer my prayers, He shouldn't answer yours." And that shows the extreme selfishness and ugliness of the thought. It's not the rational question of the inquisitive mind. It's the bitter, envious complaint of the wicked and covetous person in the face of a good and kind and caring act for someone else. So, no, the question doesn't need an answer. It needs a morally indignant rebuke.

[Kurieuo]

Found a different slightly longer video on YouTube:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk9PAIxeAag[/youtube]

(thanks 1over137 for adding the YouTube BBCode!)

[Ivellious]

If you look around for it, people claim to have been brought back to life after praying to gods in the Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and any other faiths that you can think of. Does that mean that false idols brought those people back to life? Are they just lying, while the proper Christians who tell these stories aren't? Is God rewarding praying to false idols? None of those seem to be particularly logical or even plausible explanations, so forgive me if I don't ever take "miracle" stories at face value.

Things that could be classified as "miracles" happen every day, to people of all faiths (or lack thereof). And, not really surprisingly, those people who these "miracles" happen to are invariably willing to attribute these things to whatever thing they happen to believe in. If you are a Christian, you automatically say that God did it for you. If you are a Muslim, Allah. A Hindu would feel blessed by their gods. In ancient times? The Greeks would probably have considered it a gift from Apollo or Artemis, the gods of medicine. And someone lacking faith in a particular religion might just call it a mystery, or try to explain it with science.

And not to be mean, but even in the loosest sense of the word this isn't evidence of anything. Millions of people pray for their loved ones to live through incredible things every day. And just because they do beat the odds and live once in a very long while, That doesn't mean that praying did anything at all. And, even more significant, people live through incredible circumstances with no prayer at all, too...So the effects of prayer on anyone but the grieving family is pretty much non-existent if you look outside of extremely rare, isolated incidents. In short, correlation does not equal causation, especially when that correlation is a "once in a billion" type of occurrence.

[Jac3510]

Most Christians won't deny miracles in other religions, Ivel. The Bible tells us that other religions have miracles. You're asking a theological question as to which God is real based on the miracles we see, but that question is subsequent to the question of whether or not there is a God at all. On this, we are being more consistent than you, because not only do we not reject a priori (and without warrant) that miracles occur, but we actually can affirm that they do happen, which is consistent with the large body of EVIDENCE that atheists pretend to ask for and dishonestly reject out of hand. The question for us is what the evidence MEANS. For you, though, the question doesn't come up, because you just ignore it.

Typical.

[Kurieuo]

Ivel,

I'm wondering if you have seriously tried looking for videos of miracles online?

I did "look around for it." It took me about 4-5 hours of search to find this one.

I sifted through many so-called miracles in India by "gurus", many so-call miracles within Catholicism, many within Christian Pentecostals, and more. One by one, they lacked detail, we greatly questions, had holes and just obvious charlatans. If you believe them all, then you are free to do so.

This is the one and only credible one I found. Freakishly it is only about 3 months old. If you have others, I'd love you to share them as I'm "trying" to build a list.

As a side, I did suggest coincidence as an option in my original post. Nonetheless, I fail to see this it isn't evidence. It may not be nail in the coffin evidence, you might believe it weak evidence due to your other beliefs, but it is evidence nonetheless.

I really look forward to see some of those others you talk about if you don't mind sharing them.

[ultimate777]

Man comes back to life after heart stops for 45 minutes and pronounced dead: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ohio-man-d ... d=20027401

If that video takes a while to play, you can also find here: http://www.faithit.com/45-mins-after-be ... a-miracle/

Coincidence? Placebo effect perhaps? Or did prayer work?

I think in this world, when you are dead you are dead. You are not dead until your brain is dead. Doesn't matter how long your heart has stopped beating if something, anything, is keeping your brain alive and well. They can "declare" whatever they want. But it could still be a miracle even if I'm right. That is the man was never dead. Just that the supernatural kept him alive. And I make exceptions for Jesus and Lazarus. They very well have might have been dead for real.
OTOH the instant JFK's brain was destroyed he was dead, no matter how long they could keep his heart beating.

[Kurieuo]

I use to hate it several years ago, but I'm actually starting to admire how God works in the shadows.

[PaulSacramento]

Most Christians won't deny miracles in other religions, Ivel. The Bible tells us that other religions have miracles. You're asking a theological question as to which God is real based on the miracles we see, but that question is subsequent to the question of whether or not there is a God at all. On this, we are being more consistent than you, because not only do we not reject a priori (and without warrant) that miracles occur, but we actually can affirm that they do happen, which is consistent with the large body of EVIDENCE that atheists pretend to ask for and dishonestly reject out of hand. The question for us is what the evidence MEANS. For you, though, the question doesn't come up, because you just ignore it.

Typical.

This is true, Christian to accept that miracles may/can/do happen to people of other religions ( or no religion).
God decides when and with who to intervene, not us.
We mere mortals don't really have the capacity to see the grande plan of God, heck we have a hard time with our own very limited lives.
What does it mean that God can work through other religions or through NO those with no faith?
It means that God's plan accounts for those of no faith, just as it accounts for those of faith.