Miracle Of Healed Vision Or A Hoax?

[trueagnostic]

Hi guys, like my username says I am a true agnostic. I would pay a lot to only know who is right Christians or most of people here.

So today I met a dedicated christian from my church, he is a director of Bible College actually, and we had a discussion. I brought up the usual arguments against God's existance ,like his total absence in my life, my unaswered prayers, the strong evidence for evolution, contradictions in the Bible, and the like. I was expecting him to come back at me with counter arguments as he is well versed in apologetics and theology. Instead he told he was not going to argue with me at all, as it would take days not hours to have a reasonably satisfying debate. He also agreed with the fact that there are contradictions in the bible, he even admitted he didn't have answers to some of his own questions. But he said he has no doubts in the existance of God and Jesus which he supported with a story of his healing.

Help me debunk this "miracle".

Alex (let's call him so) grew up with bad eye sight which he had from his childhood. When he got converted at 19 his parents started praying for his eyes to get normal. He doesn't know how exactly bad his vision was at the time, but he says when he drove his car he couldn't read numbers on the ordometer. In order to read he had to get real close to the bookl. This is what he told me today:

" I was sitting at the Bible College classroom when I felt an urge to get up and say a testimony that God healed me from the nearsightedness. I did not want to look silly before the class, so I approached the instructor after the class, but he was busy so I did not have enough courage to interrupt him and eventually walked away. When I got home I took off my glasses and trew them in the dumpster, then I told my parents that I was healed. They asked me if I could see well, I told them I couldn't see any better than before, but I had amazing confidence and peace that I was healed. Another week passed, I still didn't see any better, but felt the same conviction about being healed and peace inside. Then at a prayer meeting I got up and told to 20 or 30 young people that I was sure God healed my eyes. They gave me a small bible with tiny font to read and amazingly I was able to read the verse they pointed to me. They thought I knew that verse, so they opened the Bible at random and I was able to read from that time on. That is how I was healed."

I thought he was joking so I asked him to read letters on a poster (we were sitting at Starbucks), he read all of them. I guess he has a 20/20 vision now.

The guy is totally open and honest, I had a chance to know him for some time. Assuming that he did not make up this story (his parents and friends can attest he had bad vision from childhood, he had no lasic and does not wear contacts ), how can you explain his "healing"?

All theories are welcome. I don't want to be deluded by something that seems like a miracle, but is a natural phenomenon. However I did not hear of bad nearsightedness spontaneously vanishing before.

[mwc]

Welcome. I had a hard time reading your post. Try a different font/formatting next time.

 

Now, since this guy didn't argue and all I'm a bit dubious. He chose to go for the "miracle" or subjective evidence route since you seemed to be pretty confident when it came to the logical or objective evidence.

 

On the surface it seems to be objective, with hard evidence, but is it? He, just one day, declares he's cured and that's that? No doctors test? Nothing? Maybe he has contacts? How do you know there is no laser surgery? It's simply his declaration of a "miracle" and some stories of other believers "testing" him but I'd want to get my hands on some eye tests from a doctor to see some before and after tests that are truly objective and that should record if someone has altered his vision at some point. Perhaps it was as simple as a misdiagnoses to begin with. If not, and this isn't a common occurrence then any eye doctor would be amazed to get their hands on this guy and likely want to write some sort of paper on the "miracle" eye man. But it seems only a small group of local family, friends and believers know of this "miracle." Odd. So what could be objective suddenly falls into the realm of subjective. He simply says his eyes are better and others believe it. What really happened is unknown.

 

mwc

[Alice]

All kinds of amazing things happen physically that medical science finds it hard to explain, only thing that never happens is the healing of amputees, the healing that does take place and is attributed to the christian god also takes place in the lives of those who follow different religions and no religion.

 

The dedicated christian you know has made connections between things that exist in his 'world' and explained them in the context of what he knows and believes.

[Alice]

Although I'm not saying that any of these were the case for your christian friend, a quick google search throws up sites claiming that hypnotherapy, natural methods - such as diet, exercise, removal of stress - can all improve eyesight radically, as well as curing other medical conditions.

 

http://www.wendi.com/html/eyesight.html

 

http://www.diabetesforums.com/forum/eyes/2...ment-weird.html

 

http://www.seeingwithoutglasses.com/eyesight.htm

 

Also - the placebo effect is very powerful - and just as taking a placebo medication that you believe can cure you - often works, prayer can 'work' in the same way.

[Guest]

You're also taking his word that his eyes were bad in the first place. Anybody with good vision can say they used to have bad vision, that's easy.

 

But, you could say that his experience was pretty amazing, but ask why his vision was restored, but thousands of amputee's prayers for their limbs to grow back are left unanswered. IOW, a miricale that would be obvious to EVERYONE has never happened. His is too subjective. Ask why no severed limbs have ever been restored.

[Neon Genesis]

Go ask your friend to look at the picture of the child in Onceconvinced's signature and ask him where was god's miracles then. I also find this quote from Thomas Paine's The Age Of Reason to be helpful

No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it.

 

It is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication. After this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner, for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

[florduh]

I have worn glasses for distance since I was 16. The last time I renewed my driver's license (at age 58) I passed the vision test without glasses, and for the first time my license doesn't show that I require corrective lenses to drive.

 

I am an atheist, so who healed me?

[Neon Genesis]

I am an atheist, so who healed me?

The ghost of Charles Darwin?

[Japedo]

Alex (let's call him so) grew up with bad eye sight which he had from his childhood. When he got converted at 19 his parents started praying for his eyes to get normal. He doesn't know how exactly bad his vision was at the time, but he says when he drove his car he couldn't read numbers on the ordometer. In order to read he had to get real close to the bookl. This is what he told me today:

" I was sitting at the Bible College classroom when I felt an urge to get up and say a testimony that God healed me from the nearsightedness. I did not want to look silly before the class, so I approached the instructor after the class, but he was busy so I did not have enough courage to interrupt him and eventually walked away. When I got home I took off my glasses and trew them in the dumpster, then I told my parents that I was healed. They asked me if I could see well, I told them I couldn't see any better than before, but I had amazing confidence and peace that I was healed. Another week passed, I still didn't see any better, but felt the same conviction about being healed and peace inside. Then at a prayer meeting I got up and told to 20 or 30 young people that I was sure God healed my eyes. They gave me a small bible with tiny font to read and amazingly I was able to read the verse they pointed to me. They thought I knew that verse, so they opened the Bible at random and I was able to read from that time on. That is how I was healed."

 

 

First off... If he was 19 and was issued a drivers license and needed his glasses, it's required for him to wear the glasses while driving. (Can one now break the law for god?) He can contact his eye dr who issued his glasses prescription to give his vision test scores. I'm sorry but 19 years old, you know what you can see. He doesn't need his parents telling him he couldn't see. That statement right there smells like mile high bullshit. The story is just vague enough to sound convincing. He's leaving out hard facts. Much like those "psychics" do with the.. Someone very close to you died, an older gentlemen. mantra. The real truth is, Everyone knows someone older who was close to them, Grandfather,friend of a grandfather and so forth. The people wanting to believe fill in the gaps with awe and wonder themselves. It's the art of bullshit, the more charisma the story teller has, the better the art. People willingly believe without hard questions or proof and are 100% convinced the bullshitter is telling it straight.

 

Secondly, why would he lie for god? Does god now encourage lying? Claim it before it happens as if it's fact? Maybe believers take comfort in lying for god same as Jacob lied to steal his birthright. God blessed him for it so say's the story. If being a lier for god makes one "virtuous'' one really has to point out that glaring tidbit of bullshit. Only the father of "lies" would encourage lying and deceiving. Sounds like your friend just wanted to be the center of attention to pulled a story out of his ass to do it.

 

Probably other factors that others have said such as florduh explained could also be in play here. That is to say **IF** the guy is telling the truth,By reading what you've posted here, I highly doubt it.

[decafaholic]

I have worn glasses for distance since I was 16. The last time I renewed my driver's license (at age 58) I passed the vision test without glasses, and for the first time my license doesn't show that I require corrective lenses to drive.

 

I am an atheist, so who healed me?

 

I didn't know that could happen until one day at my yearly checkup my eye doctor told me my eyes had gotten better since last time. Not completely better, but a little better. Apparently eyes can do that by themselves!

[Vomit Comet]

But, you could say that his experience was pretty amazing, but ask why his vision was restored, but thousands of amputee's prayers for their limbs to grow back are left unanswered. IOW, a miricale that would be obvious to EVERYONE has never happened. His is too subjective. Ask why no severed limbs have ever been restored.

 

I actually remember being told such stories, where at revival meetings (usually in Africa or China or somewhere) amputees would regenerate limbs before the astonished eyes of hundreds. I'm sure these stories were all fabricated.

 

Another story I was told was that an Egyptologist went to a church one day on a whim. Somebody stood up and said something in some ancient Egyptian dialect. The Egyptologist was shocked because only he and some other guy in England were the ones on the face of planet earth even capable of understanding it, let alone speaking it. So he goes up and asks the guy how he knew it, and he said "but I was just speaking in tongues!"

 

Lies.

[trueagnostic]

Thank you guys! First off, I am pleasently surprized to have received so many replies already.

I care about the issue deeply as I am honestly looking for an answer to the question of paramaunt importance. Few comments on some of your replies as they relate to the story.

 

>>>If he was 19 and was issued a drivers license and needed his glasses, it's required for him to wear the glasses while driving. (Can one now break the law for god?)

He also told me he normally used glasses while driving except when in company of other people. Explanation in place: wearing glasses is a serious social stigma in the countries of former Soviet Union; that's where he is from. I can relate to that (I am from that region too) as I too don't have perfect vision and I don't put glasses on while at social events. I know IT IS breaking the law to drive without glasses, I guess he would not deny he broke it that way (whether he believes that was a "sin" is another question, he says he could drive safely..).

 

>>>Secondly, why would he lie for god? Does god now encourage lying? Claim it before it happens as if it's fact?

This is part of the Christian teaching in my church to claim healing before it was physically manifested. In such way you supposedly demonstrate your faith and show that what will have happened was the result of God's intervention. (It comes from the story of Jesus saying to the commander "go home your servant is healed. And he went and believed and when he came, found his servent healed." or something of that sort)

 

>>>>On the surface it seems to be objective, with hard evidence, but is it? He, just one day, declares he's cured and that's that? No doctors test? Nothing? Maybe he has contacts? How do you know there is no laser surgery?

Well this one is hard to test objectively, although I could ask his parents (and hopefully they don't lie too) and other people. One reason however tells me not to waste time on this. The reason is that people in this church are incredibly trustworthy. I grew up in Christian culture too and in all my 23 years of experience I did not encounter any serious liers among the church leadership. They seem to be really living as they preach. Maybe a little soft on "laws of the land" like wearing a sit belt, copyright issue, etc, but never things like deliberate lying. This guy in particular is sincere and has no obvious reason to lie. In the past he used to go to Sov. Union coutries for mission crusades: would spend his money on unbelievers. At present he spends a lot of time and effort on his Bible College ministry, which is non-profit, so there is no money involved.

What I suspect is that christians are not deliberate liers but could be deluded. I take science seriously and admit that there are some things still unexplained. I venture to suggest my hypothesis about his "healing" let me know whether it holds water. It is an observed phenomenon that animals can feel the eathquake hours before it happens. How they do it is unknown, but it was reported numerous times that they do. It could be, in theory, that "Alex"'s body felt the upcoming physiological change in his vision and he took it for revelation from God. When his vision stabilized (for yet unknown reason), he attributed good vision to healing. While this still does not explain what caused good vision, it explains why he knew about the upcoming positive change. Not very convincing..

 

>>>There were some suggestions to how his vision could get fixed by itself (remeber it was pretty bad from childhood, he didn't see numbers on the speedometer at 19). I took a look at the links by Alice. Unfortunately, those methods cannot fix bad vision at a short period of time. And they require some kind of therapy or medical condition like diabetes. I don't exclude the possibility of known medical case like in the story though. So I appreciate your help Alice..

 

>>>I'd want to get my hands on some eye tests from a doctor to see some before and after tests that are truly objective and that should record if someone has altered his vision at some point.

Good idea, I will ask him about this when I see him next time. If you guys are personally interested in the story and live in the area of Seattle, let me know by email. We could meet for other discussions too. And maybe you can convince me so I can finally have peace.

 

Still agnostic.

[Spiderwire]

I guess whether or not it was a miracle can be discussed, but the one thing that's absolutely certain is that it was damn sloppy work that took a couple of weeks to get done.

 

It's hard to find good deities these days...

[Jedah]

I wouldn't waste time on this, he admits what really happened in his story - he started desperatly wanting to be healed a while before it happened, even walking in the shoes as if he was. Medical miracles are most likely to occur when a person has a strong will towards it happening. By believing he was already healed he was likely straining his eyes to see that whole time. It's possible to happen.

 

The problem with these things is that a lot of people who go through them do not understand them and attribute coincidence to causation. Go to any country, any religion, and you will find people who self healed at a time that coincided with religious activity and are now "100% convinced" of allah, buddha, whoever. It's just another case of people attributing the currently unexplained to whatever religion their country/region practiced. Same shit with lightning when lightning wasn't understood - if lightning struck your house the only explanation was that you needed to repent.

 

The truth is this just happens. Science has yet to fully explain the human body and the effect of the mind on it. This will happen regardless of whether you believe in god.

 

It happened to me - I used to have night blindness, and through will to see at night I actually flipped a U and now have problems seeing during the day without sunglasses but can see in pitch black almost as well as a cat. No gawd, no magical Buddhist sutra, just me.

[Vigile]

I'm so glad that god chose to heal this man from his nearsightedness. It's really hell having to put on contacts or wear glasses. I mean, oh, the humanity!

 

Too bad he couldn't see fit to fix my best friend's brain tumor before she died at 34 leaving her baby without a mom, rid the globe of malaria, starvation, and all form of disease; something. Sure glad this guy doesn't have to shell out $200 every few years for a new eyeglass subscription. Sure glad the pew warming bullies can no longer refer to this man of god as "four eyes." The world is surely a better place for this miracle.

 

As for social stigma in Russia. I suppose there is since I hardly ever see anyone wear glasses there. I wear them, however, and in 4 years I've never felt any embarrassment by it. I still have Russian girls check me out from time to time so it's not too bad. If god's so worried about social stigma though, I have to wonder why he allows so many poor peg legged Afghan war vets to panhandle in the metro without any sort of relief.

[florduh]

True Believers™ are desperate for ANY evidence that what they want to believe to be true is actually true.

 

Lacking any real miracles or concrete answers to prayer, they pounce on silly stuff like this example.

 

Glory! It's a Miracle!

[hereticzero]

I would pay a lot to only know who is right Christians or most of people here.

There are no right christians. They are the most expert of liars because they do not know they are lying because of their brain washing making them believe they received a miraculous healing. They exaggerate every story to justify their faith in an invisible sky-daddy. This includes detailing lying works and wonders to get people to think they are among god's chosen few, that god decides to heal. God picks someone at random and miraculously heals them of whatever they never had, or xtians steal the glory that should have gone to the doctor that actually cured them and attribute it to their invisible sky-daddy.

 

When god gets over his moral duty to wipe out mankind because of a girl eating a magical fruit given to her by a talking snake and god decides to upgrade his powers into making the lame walk, protect the innocent from harm, heal the blind, end famine and pestilence, regrow amputated limbs, cure AIDS (without the help of modern medicine), then I'll get excited over someone claiming god healed his nearsightedness.

 

Your friend never had nearsightedness:

Nearsightedness or myopia is the most common cause of blurred vision when viewing objects at a distance. People with nearsightedness must squint or strain to see objects that are not nearby ... Nearsightedness generally does not get better on its own, though it might improve somewhat as patients approach middle age or their senior years.

(http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-nearsightedness.htm). The fact he could toss away his glasses and read small print proves he never had nearsightedness!

[hereticzero]

What is farsightedness?

 

People who are farsighted can see clearly objects that are far away, but they have trouble seeing objects up close.

 

...

 

Farsightedness often starts in early childhood. But normal growth corrects the problem. If a child is still a bit farsighted when the eye has stopped growing (at around 9 years of age), the eye can usually adjust to make up for the problem. This allows the child to see clearly.

 

http://www.webmd.com/eye-health/tc/farsigh...-topic-overview

 

It was not a miracle. Your friend's eyes corrected themselves.

[Ouroboros]

Hi guys, like my username says I am a true agnostic. I would pay a lot to only know who is right Christians or most of people here....

That's the first time I hear the word "true" and "agnostic" in the same sentence. How can you be "true" agnostic, and yet have "Christian" in your "any gods" line? ... Confusion ensues...

[trueagnostic]

Hi guys, like my username says I am a true agnostic. I would pay a lot to only know who is right Christians or most of people here....

That's the first time I hear the word "true" and "agnostic" in the same sentence. How can you be "true" agnostic, and yet have "Christian" in your "any gods" line? ... Confusion ensues...

I put Christian god for "any gods" because that's the only god I am considering for possible existance. I probably sound subjective, but all other gods just absolutely seem to be a clear nonsense: millions of pagan idols, even buddha and alla. Since agnostic means "the one who doesn't know", I guess that is me. I don't know if Christian God exists. And I trully don't know. So, if I misunderstood the purpose of that option, I will go and add this explanation to it.

 

I see many commenters brinning the argument of universal suffering and God's "hands off" attitude. Christians would say however, that because the world is spoiled by sin, holly God is not supposed to help us. We are doomed to experience the results of original sin. Moreover, they claim that it's a privilage that only Christians have to ask for themselves or others and receive help from God. Does that make sense? To me it kind of does, except it's not very logical and fair in the sense that I have to bear consequences of adam and eve's sin, which I did not commit. Why should all humanity pay price for someone else's sin? There are many more questions that I could ask, which all question God's sense of fairness.

 

However, being honest, I ask myself a question: would I believe that God exists despite his seeming unfairness, if he manifested himself through a real miracle? And by real miracle I mean something real serious(not head aches, not disorder, not heart problems ..). I hesitate to say an amputee, because that would qualify as "tempting god" (after all, amputation is not a disease, and God says he can't answer those tempting him (another excuse ?)), but something easily observable, radically serious and impossible to be cured, let alone in short period of time. Let's say a terminally ill patient with the last stage of cancer, everything medically documented. A prayer is done, the patient is stopped getting treatment and the next day, better next hour or minute he/she gets up and the tests show he/she is as good as new. Would I believe God exists if I were there, and saw all of this with my eyes? I think I would have no option not to.

The problem is I never have seen anything like that.

Some people would say "hey that is your proof that God does not exist". I wish I could be satisfied with that.

The real problem is that there are books written with testimonies exactly as radical as the hypothetical one I described. Some of them are in russian (like about Erlo Stegen -- the german evangelist among zulus :" The revival starts with me", by Lyudmilla Plet) some are in english. One of them "Smith Wigglesworth: The Secret of His Power" is especially illustrative. Were these writers just liers and storytellers? Their teaching and life does not support such claim. Were they deluded? I don't know what delusion it takes to make up stories like that and still believe they are true. Very strange. Seems like the only explanation would be that the authors are really liers..

Thanks guys for your imput , some of the comments are very insightful.

So, until proven wrong I will remain agnostic.

[Vigile]

I see many commenters brinning the argument of universal suffering and God's "hands off" attitude. Christians would say however, that because the world is spoiled by sin, holly God is not supposed to help us.

 

That wasn't really my point. My point was that it's rather shallow of an all powerful god to heal a harmless malady while ignoring so many real problems.

 

My uncle, one of the most dedicated, and loving xians one could ever meet just died of bone cancer after immeasurable suffering that lasted more than 5 years. He truly believed until the end that he would be healed. He named it, he claimed it, he believed it and he suffered worse than the Jesus character ever could have. Believers aren't immune, IOW.

 

Spoiled by sin is such a stupid cop out. But to humor them, let's assume for a moment it's not completely inane. How do they explain the brutality of nature? Did disease magically emerge when Adam ate an apple? Did tigers suddenly give up their vegan diet when the snake hissed in Eve's ear? Did male lions begin brutally slaughtering the cubs of their conquered elders only after Cane masturbated to the image of his sister/mother/whoever the hell he was supposed to have mated with?

 

I certainly can understand how one might be agnostic about "god" in the general sense, but when exposed to the utterly retarted apologetics that xians offer up, I really don't see how one can be anything but humerously dubious.

[Guest]

Another story I was told was that an Egyptologist went to a church one day on a whim. Somebody stood up and said something in some ancient Egyptian dialect. The Egyptologist was shocked because only he and some other guy in England were the ones on the face of planet earth even capable of understanding it, let alone speaking it. So he goes up and asks the guy how he knew it, and he said "but I was just speaking in tongues!"

 

Lies.

 

And the proof of that being a lie is in the fact that linguists do not know what ancient Egyptian actually sounded like...or Latin, for that matter.

 

As far as Latin, they have an idea what it sounded like, because the church and a few others kept the language on life support. But when a launguage dies, that is, is no longer spoken by the common man, it can still evolve, or devolve. Pronounciation now is not nesscesarily how it was pronounced 2,000 years ago.

 

And that is Latin (my sister took Latin in college). As far as ancient Egyptian, I highly doubt anyone knows what it really sounded like. There are people who can read it, and speak the words, but those spoken words are most likely not how they originally sounded.

[Guest]

I put Christian god for "any gods" because that's the only god I am considering for possible existance. I probably sound subjective, but all other gods just absolutely seem to be a clear nonsense:

 

Just trying to understand you here. Are you saying that the Judeo/xtian idea of an all-powerful, all-knowing god creating people without the ability to understand right and wrong, and then telling them to obey (a concept they can not understand) then getting angry when they did exactly as he knew they would (he is all-knowing, remember) and damning not just them, but all of humanity for 2 of them doing exactly what he knew they would do, makes sense to you?

 

But wait! This all-powerful god that spoke everything into existance has a plan for salvation! He waits a few thousand years, then has sex with a virgin so he can be born as a human. Then he allows himself to be killed as a sacrifice to himself in order to appease his own anger at the flaws of the creatures he made imperfect in the first place!

 

Your right. The xtian god is not in any way "absolutely clear nonsense".

[Neon Genesis]

I see many commenters brinning the argument of universal suffering and God's "hands off" attitude. Christians would say however, that because the world is spoiled by sin, holly God is not supposed to help us. We are doomed to experience the results of original sin. Moreover, they claim that it's a privilage that only Christians have to ask for themselves or others and receive help from God. Does that make sense? To me it kind of does, except it's not very logical and fair in the sense that I have to bear consequences of adam and eve's sin, which I did not commit. Why should all humanity pay price for someone else's sin? There are many more questions that I could ask, which all question God's sense of fairness.

If we suffer because of Adam and Eve's sin, then that means your friend was not healed by god because if god healed your friend, then that means it's breaking its own rules that we must suffer because of our sin. Or are you saying that your friend has no sin, in which case the bible says you're a liar if you say that.

 

Were they deluded? I don't know what delusion it takes to make up stories like that and still believe they are true. Very strange. Seems like the only explanation would be that the authors are really liers..

Thanks guys for your imput , some of the comments are very insightful.

So, until proven wrong I will remain agnostic.

I thought you said we all had sin because of Adam and Eve? Thus, that would mean all those authors are sinners, too. If they're sinners too, why should they be held to a higher standard than everyone else? Christians will say that because the pope did a lot of good things that magically means the pope didn't sin but that doesn't change the fact that the pope sinned. Either we all have sin and it's possible those authors lied or we don't have sin and those authors are apparently god and never make mistakes according to you.

[Raul]

I put Christian god for "any gods" because that's the only god I am considering for possible existance.

Hey,what about Odin?