They just don't make miracles like they used to

[Jeanne]

1 hour ago, Kenngo1969 said:

I'm sorry for what this family went through, and, by extension, what you went through, but I'm hesitant to accept your gloss on this without knowing more of the details, what promises might have been made, and so on.  If the sort of promise you imply was made was actually made, the failure of that promise to come to pass means that ... God is in charge, and the faithful know that already.  See also: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2010/04/healing-the-sick?lang=eng.

I respect your thoughts on this and am mindful of other stories ...I guess after all is said and done...even at the end of this thread, we will never know the real reasons and why fores.

[bluebell]

3 hours ago, Jeanne said:

Many years ago...I was still in my late teens, a little boy in our ward was going in for his 2nd  heart surgery.  It was a wonderful surprised to this family that President Benson was in the hospital at this time..in a chance visit with someone else.  The father of this child met him and this little boy got a blessing from the prophet..Quiet..no chaos..and more faith in this family that could shake stick at.  He died.  So ...no matter what anyone says about the priesthood to me...it is just blank page. 

Did the family say that the blessing said he would live?

[CMZ]

8 hours ago, Exiled said:

I'm sorry to confuse you with my questioning.  Maybe when you do have time, you could try and unravel my "twisting" points?  I think it will lead to agnosticism or some sort of deism, but it may strengthen you to consider alternatives?  Even so, the mods here allow non-believers to be among you and as long as church leaders continually claim those who no longer believe are somehow "lost" and that they should be "found", you will have to endure some push-back regarding yours and your church's claims.

The unraveling for now is that I never said that God gets credit for everything yet you continually respond as though I have.

You are welcome to be here. It's a discussion board so things get discussed. People can respond to me and I can respond to them. Me responding to you is not the same as saying that you can't state how you feel. A lot of people come from your angle. That's nothing new to me. All I'm saying is that you seem to expect that eventually at some point some "TBM" (not my favorite term) may possibly present some intellectual argument for the Church that is so convincing that maybe then you will finally believe but that nobody seems to have done so yet. But I'm saying that that is not how God has set up the system. It's not set up so that your belief will come because some other less-than-perfect mortal uses all their powers of persuasion to finally spur belief to dawn upon you. If someone here mentions that some loved one of theirs was healed by a priesthood blessing we all pretty much already know that someone else can just as easily come along and say, "Well, maybe they would have just been healed anyways!" At least nobody here should be surprised by that occurring.

Edited April 23, 2018 by CMZ

[CMZ]

4 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

 

How can the Priesthood be a factor when people of other faiths receive healing without it?

By that same reasoning how could modern medicine ever be needed if people of other faiths receive healing without it? Priesthood power is one tool in the tool box.

[clarkgoble]

6 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

How can the Priesthood be a factor when people of other faiths receive healing without it?

D&C 46 might be worth reading. 

[Marginal Gains]

15 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

 

How can the Priesthood be a factor when people of other faiths receive healing without it?

 

10 hours ago, CMZ said:

By that same reasoning how could modern medicine ever be needed if people of other faiths receive healing without it? Priesthood power is one tool in the tool box.

Modern medicine seems to work as reliably with or without the addition of the LDS Priesthood. Faith healings seem to work as reliably with or without the addition of the LDS Priesthood. I’m struggling to see why it’s needed in the toolbox if things work just as well without it?

An analogy - if all lottery players pray for help winning, and the one wearing odd socks wins, are odd socks a contributing part of the toolbox for how to win the lottery?

[Marginal Gains]

8 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

D&C 46 might be worth reading. 

How does D&C 46 explain why people not using the LDS Priesthood are healed in the same manner and with the same reliability/frequency as those who do?

[Marginal Gains]

15 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

 

How can the Priesthood be a factor when people of other faiths receive healing without it?

 

13 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

I've bolded the part of your question where its own answer is contained, Marginal Gains.  You're welcome.  Glad I could help.

I’m not quite sure what you’re saying, but I think it’s that “faith” is the determining  factor, not the Priesthood. Thanks for confirming my point.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Marginal Gains

[Kenngo1969]

1 hour ago, Marginal Gains said:

 

I’m not quite sure what you’re saying, but I think it’s that “faith” is the determining  factor, not the Priesthood. Thanks for confirming my point.

While the two may be in competition in the hypothetical world you're devising to make your argument, they're not in competition in the real world I live in.  Thanks!  

[Marginal Gains]

19 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said:

While the two may be in competition in the hypothetical world you're devising to make your argument, they're not in competition in the real world I live in.  Thanks!  

Who said anything about a competition?

The point I’m making, which you seem to agree with, is that healing through faith occurs wth or without LDS Priesthood involvement. In the real world! Therefore LDS Priesthood is an unnecessary embellishment in the faith healing process. Unless you’re saying it’s basically a prop to induce faith in those who would otherwise not have any?

[stemelbow]

As much as I can see, most agree that far more of the magical type of healings (unexplained on a medical level healings) happen without the priesthood than with it.  Every story that includes a blessing by the priesthood wherein someone is magically healed, there are likely 1,000 similar stories wherein no priesthood blessing was given.  One must ask, and has to absolute silence at this point in this thread, it seems to me, if at, likely, the same rate of healing, how are priesthood blessings more effective, more powerful when they do not show any better results?  

It's curious that most seem to think someone could be magically healed without a priesthood blessing just as one could be magically healed with one.  If so, what's the benefit of a priesthood blessing?  It seems to me the one benefit that's been mentioned, if you are LDS than the benefit is an extra dose of comfort.  If you are not LDS comfort can come in other ways, I suppose.  

Also, for all the magical healings with a priesthood blessing that have been told, not only are there 1,000 stories of magical healings without priesthood in the world, there are also stories where a blessing was given, someone was blessed to be healed and did not get healed.  I'm just curious how people explain this stuff if they think priesthood brings special power to a blessing?

D&C 46 doesn't explain this, as I see it.  If it does please explain

Thanks.

[JAHS]

2 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

 

Modern medicine seems to work as reliably with or without the addition of the LDS Priesthood. Faith healings seem to work as reliably with or without the addition of the LDS Priesthood. I’m struggling to see why it’s needed in the toolbox if things work just as well without it?

An analogy - if all lottery players pray for help winning, and the one wearing odd socks wins, are odd socks a contributing part of the toolbox for how to win the lottery?

I gave answers to this a while ago according to the following scripture:
"Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. (James 5: 15)

By using the priesthood not only are they healed but their sins are also forgiven.
Also because we have been given the priesthood we are obligated and expected to use it for serving others by giving blessings.

 

[HappyJackWagon]

23 hours ago, bluebell said:

I agree.  From a secular point of view it is very reasonable.

It's not even a secular point of view. The process I described is found in Alma 32. That seems to indicate it's a POV of faith.

[Kenngo1969]

58 minutes ago, Marginal Gains said:

Who said anything about a competition?

The point I’m making, which you seem to agree with, is that healing through faith occurs wth or without LDS Priesthood involvement. In the real world! Therefore LDS Priesthood is an unnecessary embellishment in the faith healing process. Unless you’re saying it’s basically a prop to induce faith in those who would otherwise not have any?

I can understand why someone who, a priori, dismisses the idea that anything other than modern medicine and, essentially, luck, potentially could play a role in whether someone recovers from injury or illness would think in the stark, binary terms that the LDS Priesthood is irrelevant or that it's merely "a prop to induce faith," but, again, that ain't the real world I live in!    Thanks!

Edited April 23, 2018 by Kenngo1969

[Marginal Gains]

13 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said:

I can understand why someone who, a priori, dismisses the idea that anything other than modern medicine and, essentially, luck, potentially could play a role in whether someone recovers from injury or illness would think in the stark, binary terms that the LDS Priesthood is irrelevant or that it's merely "a prop to induce faith," but, again, that ain't the real world I live in!    Thanks!

You’re missing my point.

I’m not dismissing faith healing per se. I’m examining why ‘faith healing’ works with or without LDS Priesthood involvement. And making the point that faith healing works just as reliably without LDS Priesthood, thereby rendering it immaterial to the process beyond being a prop that stimulates the faith of Mormons.

[Marginal Gains]

39 minutes ago, JAHS said:

I gave answers to this a while ago according to the following scripture:
"Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. (James 5: 15)

By using the priesthood not only are they healed but their sins are also forgiven.
Also because we have been given the priesthood we are obligated and expected to use it for serving others by giving blessings.

 

So if someone experiences a faith healing without the LDS Priesthood being involved, they just don’t get the added bonus of having their sins forgiven? Is that what you’re saying?

[stemelbow]

On ‎4‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 4:52 PM, Stargazer said:

I don't think you read the same thing I read.  In the two cases she mentioned, the medical staff were surprised because they apparently expected nothing they could do would fix the problem.  In short, they expected death, and their ministrations were ineffective.  It seems very clear that the priesthood blessings are what did all or the vast majority of the work.

huh?  I like that story.  I can also agree it happened as described.  My point is that same story or something like it has happened far more times without a priesthood blessing than with it.  I can say that seriously because the Church is so tiny in the world--priesthood is hardly anywhere and yet these miraculous healings are happening with or without the priesthood.  So while you say it's "very clear" that the priesthood did it, I don't think you are taking the claims of others seriously.  THe added element here is doctors and other medical professionals can be wrong.  

On ‎4‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 4:52 PM, Stargazer said:

You use the word "anecdotal", as if there were some kind of statistically valid study we could do about the matter.  Every darned blessing that has ever resulted in a healing, from the Garden of Eden on down to the present time, are anecdotal.  And they are not 100% efficacious, because if they were, nobody would ever be sick or die again, and we'd be in the Millennium already.  There's a reason why they are not 100%, and that is because we are here to be tried and tested, and eventually to die, and Father has his own will in the matter.  My time to die will come (unless I am privileged to see the Millennium, and I'll get twinkled instead), and no priesthood blessing is going to stop that from happening, IF the Lord's will dictates otherwise.  But perhaps it might delay it!  Or make my suffering less sore.

By the way, it's not just priesthood blessings.  Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone has resulted in miraculous healings -- and that means both LDS and non-LDS Christians having enough faith for the task, in prayer.  

I think you are forgetting all those blessings that came, miraculous as they were or seemed to be, without Jesus in the mind of anyone involved at all.  When you say faith in the Lord alone results in the healings, then you forget all the non-religionist, muslim, sihk etc healings.  

On ‎4‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 4:52 PM, Stargazer said:

I think that the Lord expects us to act in faith, regardless of the outcome, and in some cases he will grant us our desires in these matters.  And like I wrote in another post, when you consider that the young man born blind in the New Testament -- see Matthew 13) was born that way specifically to demonstrate the Lord's power (which is what Jesus said), it seems likely that the Lord gives us opportunities to exercise faith in all cases of those who request priesthood blessings, or prayers.  And some of those blessings will be granted.  But if we are faithless and reject the power of God (which seems to be operative problem of several posters here in this thread), then those occasional opportunities are going to be missed.  

I mean no offense, but you're view and others who proudly proclaim the priesthood, and faith in the Lord as the keys, are myopic and don't seem able to listen or consider others.  

[Avatar4321]

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2010/04/healing-the-sick?lang=eng

[JAHS]

2 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

So if someone experiences a faith healing without the LDS Priesthood being involved, they just don’t get the added bonus of having their sins forgiven? Is that what you’re saying?

Yes, but it also requires the power through faith in Christ to be healed, which means that the person has so lived that he is entitled to have his sins remitted. Faith and priesthood authority combine to make it happen.
Of course the Elders don't give forgiveness; that comes from Christ. And there are of course other times a persons sins can be forgiven through repentance and or baptism for example. 

[Avatar4321]

https://www.lds.org/liahona/1982/08/president-kimball-speaks-out-on-administration-to-the-sick?lang=eng

Instantaneous healings are numerous and range into the areas of sight, hearing, lameness, internal organs, skin, bones, and all parts of the body. Incurable diseases have been healed. We are grateful beyond expression for the great skill and accumulated knowledge possessed by our physicians, but it must be that numerous healings credited to doctors and hospitals have been the healing of the Lord through the priesthood and by prayer. We are generally too ready to give the credit to the physician when at best his was but a contribution, small or large.

It must be remembered that no physician can heal. He can only provide a satisfactory environment and situation so that the body may use its own God-given power of re-creation to build itself. Bones can be straightened, germs can be killed, sutures can close wounds, and skillful fingers can open and close bodies; but no man yet has found a way to actually heal. Man is the offspring of God and has within him the re-creating power that is God given. And through the priesthood and through prayer, the body’s healing processes can be speeded and encouraged. Again, how grateful we are for the skill and patience and understanding of our great men who are trained to give us such marvelous service.

[Jeanne]

18 hours ago, bluebell said:

Did the family say that the blessing said he would live?

You know..thank you for asking.  They did not say.  In such a small community with so many of relatives..(which is why I moved)..it was so hard to not see this little boy in primary and running around.  Whatever the blessing said..I and others had a hard time understanding God's will. The family did say that they came away from the blessing feeling hopeful and humble.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Jeanne

[Exiled]

18 hours ago, CMZ said:

The unraveling for now is that I never said that God gets credit for everything yet you continually respond as though I have.

You are welcome to be here. It's a discussion board so things get discussed. People can respond to me and I can respond to them. Me responding to you is not the same as saying that you can't state how you feel. A lot of people come from your angle. That's nothing new to me. All I'm saying is that you seem to expect that eventually at some point some "TBM" (not my favorite term) may possibly present some intellectual argument for the Church that is so convincing that maybe then you will finally believe but that nobody seems to have done so yet. But I'm saying that that is not how God has set up the system. It's not set up so that your belief will come because some other less-than-perfect mortal uses all their powers of persuasion to finally spur belief to dawn upon you. If someone here mentions that some loved one of theirs was healed by a priesthood blessing we all pretty much already know that someone else can just as easily come along and say, "Well, maybe they would have just been healed anyways!" At least nobody here should be surprised by that occurring.

Maybe I always misread the following scripture: D&C 59:21 And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things, and obey not his commandments.

This seems to say that one must credit God for all things that happen as he claims to have his hand in everything.  Incidentally, when you are confronted with contradictions in the scriptures what is your go to rationalization?  Mine was like many others, to immediately say that maybe I am taking the plain meaning out of context or maybe I am in need of further light and knowledge or (my favorite) that we will understand better at some future time.  This way, there wasn't ever any danger of mormonism being falsified because words never really have an anchored meaning.  Is this how you do it?

[JAHS]

1 hour ago, Exiled said:

Maybe I always misread the following scripture: D&C 59:21 And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things, and obey not his commandments.

He is saying this for our behalf; not because He needs it. His work and glory is to bring to pass the exaltation and eternal life of man (Moses 1:39).
We cannot become the kind of beings we are supposed to be if we are not humble enough to give Him credit for all things and live His commandments. If we don't  we cannot obtain eternal life and we become lost. 
Kind of like a loving parent who wants his child to be the best he can be but the child is being disobedient and not recognizing the authority of the parent over him and not being willing to follow what he is taught or appreciate what he is given. 

 

[Stargazer]

6 hours ago, stemelbow said:

huh?  I like that story.  I can also agree it happened as described.  My point is that same story or something like it has happened far more times without a priesthood blessing than with it.  I can say that seriously because the Church is so tiny in the world--priesthood is hardly anywhere and yet these miraculous healings are happening with or without the priesthood.  So while you say it's "very clear" that the priesthood did it, I don't think you are taking the claims of others seriously.  THe added element here is doctors and other medical professionals can be wrong.  

I think you are forgetting all those blessings that came, miraculous as they were or seemed to be, without Jesus in the mind of anyone involved at all.  When you say faith in the Lord alone results in the healings, then you forget all the non-religionist, muslim, sihk etc healings.  

I mean no offense, but you're view and others who proudly proclaim the priesthood, and faith in the Lord as the keys, are myopic and don't seem able to listen or consider others.  

Miracles happen, yes, and sometimes the will of the Lord is expressed completely outside the bounds of the Christian faith, and sometimes outside the bounds of any faith whatsoever. The rain falls on the just and the unjust, as well.  But this doesn't mean that faith is unimportant, or invalid.  

As for myopia, I find that that it occurs everywhere, including in those of faith, and in those of little or no faith.  As Paul said, we see through a glass, darkly.  I would gently suggest that I do listen to and consider others, but perhaps you don't see me doing that.  

The greatest miracle of all has always been, and remains, the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

[bluebell]

6 hours ago, HappyJackWagon said:

It's not even a secular point of view. The process I described is found in Alma 32. That seems to indicate it's a POV of faith.

I don't think you did describe the process found in Alma 32 though.  I think that you are taking what Alma talked about in that chapter and applying it out of context and then looking for results he never promised.

In that chapter Alma is talking specifically about faith in the gospel (experimenting upon God's word) and how when nourished it will produce the manifestations of the Holy Ghost (which he describes as a swelling of the soul, enlightened understanding, and an expanded mind) and ultimately the fruit of eternal life.  That's it.  That's the scope and context of that chapter.  You're talking about something completely different.

Chapter 32 teaches someone how to recognize the Holy Ghost, warns them that even a good seed will fail to grow without time and effort, and then implies that faith will be necessary until the end.