Impact of Church Wide Fast on Flatting Curve of Pandemic

[Kenngo1969]

14 hours ago, Teancum said:

The fast has absolutely  nothing to do with flattening the curve. None. Not a whit.

Well, at least you, in contrast to the thread's originator, used the correct form of the verb.  (Actually, I think it's pretty funny that someone who, apparently, thinks fasting and prayer by the faithful is stupid cannot be bothered to check his own work before posting ...   but, maybe that's just me.) How's about it, Fair Dinkum?  Since you're so smart, ya wanna tell us how ta "flat" something?  "Sure, Ken!  Just sit on it.  That'll flat it right out!"

[Kenngo1969]

Forgive me if, in my earlier perusal of the thread, I missed this if someone else posted it, but I do think it's interesting.  One challenge for faith is that its effect isn't really quantifiable in empirical terms.  Others have challenged my conviction that, on three separate occasions, I received absolute assurance, unavailable from earthly sources, that, when I woke up from the operations for which I was waiting to be anesthetized, it would be to news of the best possible outcome.  I don't blame them.  The evidence I have isn't available empirically, just as the evidence that anyone has of the efficacy of fasting and prayer on this occasion isn't available empirically.

https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2020/4/8/21213579/president-nelson-good-friday-fast-lds-mormon-general-conference

[CV75]

17 hours ago, JAHS said:

 I think everyone expected the infection to eventually level off anyway even if we did not fast for it. I think what's important is that any fast a person participates in will have a successful outcome for that person and all the people who have participated, regardless of what they were fasting for. The effect will be different for all people. They will have become a little more humble, a little more trusting in God, a greater feeling of love for their fellow man, and be more faithful and spiritual because of it.  That is the real measure of success for the fast.

Which translates into improved action that contributes to tangible "improved improvement." Without these inclinations there would be a very different intervention (if any, depending on the level of ignorance, self-interest and immediate gratification that pride, mistrust, misanthropism, wickedness and materialism tend to engender) on a societal level that would benefit far fewer people.

[Teancum]

1 hour ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Well, at least you, in contrast to the thread's originator, used the correct form of the verb.  (Actually, I think it's pretty funny that someone who, apparently, thinks fasting and prayer by the faithful is stupid cannot be bothered to check his own work before posting ...   but, maybe that's just me.) How's about it, Fair Dinkum?  Since you're so smart, ya wanna tell us how ta "flat" something?  "Sure, Ken!  Just sit on it.  That'll flat it right out!"

I did not say it was stupid.  I said it had nothing to do with flattening the curve.

[bluebell]

Good news for Utah at least.

https://kutv.com/news/local/good-sign-utahs-covid-19-cases-significantly-lower-than-early-projections?utm_source=second-street&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=KUTV+coronavirus+4%2F16%2F20&fbclid=IwAR0Bj6JxgjqBdwDm_8J1ndW66i6xJ0XnEeb_WhcLZ3QTzEHIc4Ip0R8CNLY

Projections had us at 9,600 cases, 1,200 hospital beds, and 192 ICU beds for this week.  Per this article yesterday we are actually at 2400 cases, 213 hospital beds, and 59 in ICU.

[Tacenda]

16 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Good news for Utah at least.

https://kutv.com/news/local/good-sign-utahs-covid-19-cases-significantly-lower-than-early-projections?utm_source=second-street&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=KUTV+coronavirus+4%2F16%2F20&fbclid=IwAR0Bj6JxgjqBdwDm_8J1ndW66i6xJ0XnEeb_WhcLZ3QTzEHIc4Ip0R8CNLY

Projections had us at 9,600 cases, 1,200 hospital beds, and 192 ICU beds for this week.  Per this article yesterday we are actually at 2400 cases, 213 hospital beds, and 59 in ICU.

We need to make sure to stay away from crowded areas, of course that's a given, sadly today I saw this article...94 men tested positive for the virus at a Salt Lake homeless shelter.

https://www.fox13now.com/news/coronavirus/local-coronavirus-news/94-men-test-positive-for-covid-19-at-salt-lake-city-homeless-shelter

[Kenngo1969]

4 hours ago, Teancum said:

I did not say it was stupid.  I said it had nothing to do with flattening the curve.

I was speaking neither to you nor of you when I wrote that.  I was speaking of the thread's originator. (Besides, I gave you credit for using the correct form of the verb! )

Edited April 17, 2020 by Kenngo1969

[Teancum]

32 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said:

I was speaking neither to you nor of you when I wrote that.  I was speaking of the thread's originator. (Besides, I gave you credit for using the correct form of the verb! )

Oh sorry I misunderstood.  Thanks!

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

We need to make sure to stay away from crowded areas, of course that's a given, sadly today I saw this article...94 men tested positive for the virus at a Salt Lake homeless shelter.

https://www.fox13now.com/news/coronavirus/local-coronavirus-news/94-men-test-positive-for-covid-19-at-salt-lake-city-homeless-shelter

The homeless are in a massively more difficult situation than the typical citizen. With the cold recently, nights must be uncomfortable and even dangerous. For the drug users among them, I wonder what factor of risk is raised for that. 
 

In some places (don’t know for Utah, read it for NY and CA) they are not allowed into their usual shower or toilet places, which means more filth in open areas likely leading to greater sickness. Would not be surprised if violence has gone up for them as well as those at risk for domestic violence where shelters have been shut done, jobs lost so they are forced to live with their abusers. 

[RevTestament]

On 4/15/2020 at 11:46 AM, Fair Dinkum said:

My FB feed is awash with members posting of the miraculous impact that the church wide fast has had on flattening the curve of the Corona Virus and the resulting downturn in the number of cases world wide as a result of this fast.  While I acknowledge the benefits of exercising faith and fasting for members of the church, I'm also skeptical that the fast had anything to do with the flattening of the pandemic curve.  I give that credit to the social distancing and governmental stay at home orders.

Fasting as a symbol of faith is wonderful and I am not disparaging fasting.  I just do not see any direct correlation between the flattening of the virus curve and the church wide fast.

For example, last Friday's fast was the second church wide fast called.  Following the first, deaths and infections increased unabated worldwide in spite of the fast.  I don't blame this increase in deaths on the fast either.  I just see this increase as the natural course of the infections from the virus following their natural course thorough society.

If we give credit for the flattening of the curve to God as a miracle due to the recent fast doesn't it then seem right to blame God for ignoring our first fast too? 

This seems like a very slippery slope.  Attributing this flattening to a miracle opens up responsibility for the endemic to God who again can assist in finding keys but seems totally deaf when it come to listening to the prayers of the families who have lost loved ones.

Life is completely random.  Humans, by our very nature, are susceptible to new infections and virus's that our species has not built up an immunity to.  The Corona Virus is no exception nor will it be the last to take its toll on the human family.

I totally disagree that life is totally random. If so, there could be no prophecy. The world is headed to an end God has planned for it.

As for the effect of the fast. If you look at the chart for coronavirus in Utah https://coronavirus.utah.gov/case-counts/ it clearly shows that the virus peaked in Utah on April 2 right after the first fast. I believe the fast helped members in Utah focus on the severity of the situation, and that clearly helped, whereas many other states clearly haven't fared as well. I believe it helped Utahans(don't spell check me here Scott Lloyd) come together as a whole, which I believe clearly has helped, so to claim it has had no effect is I believe somewhat disingenuous. My personal guess is members in other places who fasted have been helped as well. Is God going to help those who do not care or are unwilling to humble themselves? I think not. I am NOT saying He won't help non-members. Is God going to cure everyone affected by this virus because our members fasted? Clearly not. Do I credit the flattening of the national curve on our fast? No. But I do believe it helped members who participated.

[Stargazer]

On 4/15/2020 at 7:01 PM, Tacenda said:

I feel you here..but IMO it's undeniable that prayers work. It's hard to fathom why God chooses to help certain people and not others. I'm trying to get my head around it. I thought the other day, maybe God has angels helping and we need more of them to cover all the prayers and get the message to God. That's the only thing I can think of, without being angry with God for helping certain people and not others. I wouldn't be so certain that prayers work but have seen studies on how prayers work and instances of it. 

I've seen prayers and priesthood blessings work dramatically and quickly. And I've also seen them not do so. Not sure either why this is so, though I can speculate.

My youngest son once got a really bad ear infection, and we were to take him to the doctor the next day, but late on the night before was in a great deal of distress. He was about 2 years old and had been crying for hours. I gave him a blessing, and being of small faith I didn't bless him to be cured, but only to take away the pain and the hurt. Marvelously, as soon as the blessing was done, he stopped crying and went to sleep in his mother's arms. Now, I thought that it was just his exhaustion that brought him to sleep. However, in the morning he was still comfortable, and when we took him to the doctor, the doctor looked at him skeptically, because he didn't seem to be in the least amount of distress.  Then he looked in his ear with the otoscope, and sat up straight in startlement. How can this kid not be screaming in pain? he asked. He said that his ear was as red as can be. I just shrugged my shoulders, though I had an idea what was going on. So we got the antibiotics and took him home. In a few days it was cleared up --- but the distress vanished and never came back after the blessing. I've participated in one other young child being blessed with an ear infection with pretty much identical results. And one time my brother asked me to give his atheist wife a blessing because she was in serious pain and swelling due to an abdominal condition -- and got relief within moments after the blessing. She rationalized away the relief, however, so it didn't happen because of her faith, but of her husband's and mine.

I've also given and/or witnessed priesthood blessings that seemed to have no effect. The only thing I can say about this is that the faith of those involved might be insufficient, but then again, it might be that God's will did not include relief, or, alternatively, that the person needed to experience the illness. For whatever reason.  My late wife had a lot of faith, and the blessing I and my bishop gave her for the cancer she was suffering was also given in great faith. Yet she was not cured. Well, in her case I have come to know that it was her time.  I wanted to go after she did, but it became clear that God still had things for me to do. So here I am, still.

I have learned is that in putting us here, God did not promised that things would be perfect. Besides the joy that we undoubtedly feel, at least occasionally, we are here to suffer distress, pain, betrayal, and illness. Because we're being tested. Tests do not come cheap, especially life tests. Although some of the tests are tests of character and not endurance! What will you do today? It is a big question. 

[mfbukowski]

23 hours ago, SteveO said:

Got mine Tuesday night.  Was pretty awe inspiring.  Just wondering if maybe we were on the same wavelength

Same wavelength I think, just depends on when we had the radio on. 

 

[mfbukowski]

On 4/16/2020 at 2:28 PM, Teancum said:

Yea your are deluded if you think that. Revelation? Please...What governors and other leaders in other countries are doing is turning the tide. If it turned the tide maybe the virus should have just disappeared. I am sure the 31k who have died  in the US are feeling good about your "revelation."

Classic error, you are confusing scientific causation- what created the shift scientifically from what it MEANS in my life and what gives ME purpose and peace and dissolves fear.  Of course what they did turned the tide scientifically- what what turned the tide in my personal life was the fast.   All that is important to me is my attitude in dealing with the world, not what causes the world to be what it is.

You just are not getting it.

It's like finding your soulmate through a blood test- it doesn't work.  Maybe someday a blood test could point out a likely candidate, but you would still have to "fall in love".  Can you even see the difference?  I know there is a spark in there that does.

[mfbukowski]

On 4/16/2020 at 12:04 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

Yes, and @Fair Dinkum entirely misses this point.  You state it so well, Mark.  When is your book coming out?  We need it.

Well thanks, that is a major compliment coming from you!

I have struggled to find a way of saying it that communicates to others not trained in philosophy,  I think I have finally gotten it into a few words. --?? I know this is long for a post but kind of presents an outline of the main argument.

In a few words, I see the difference between religious and scientific descriptions to be the difference between PURPOSE also called “teleology” and CAUSATION.  Religion teaches us about our individual purpose in life and the purpose of mankind. Science teaches us about how the world works- about what cause leads to what kind of observation we make about how things work.

So, I think that religion is about PURPOSE, about having our own individual purpose in life, the purpose of our actions and why we make the choices we do, and the ideas we use to give us purpose in life.  

I say “individual purpose” because everyone has to figure this out for themselves, even though it is theoretically possible that ultimately all mankind has the same “purpose”, but we cannot dictate that for others.  For we who are LDS, we might say that God has a purpose for us all, “bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of mankind”, yet everyone has to decide this for themselves.

Because we each have to find our purpose for ourselves, finding our purpose can be confused with the idea of “preferences”, but that quickly becomes a semantic issue.

Those ideas about our purpose in life can be seen as "religious paradigms".  Which theory / paradigm/description of our purpose in life is the one with which we find resonance?  

If we individually believe that life has no purpose that we can individually describe with  conventional religious terminology, we may believe we are "atheists". But even atheists find purpose in their lives- curing cancer, saving the whales, stopping global warming etc etc.  So in that sense I would classify them as "religious", in a way of speaking

So even atheists need and crave a purpose in life, of course, though they do not understand this dichotomy between using religious language to describe it vs what they decide is "rational thinking".  And what they find "rational" becomes part of their entire paradigm- they rule out religious parlance automatically simply because it IS "religious" BECAUSE it is not about causation, and thus cannot be verified through experimentation objectively.

Science is about CAUSES.  

What theory /paradigm/ descriptions of the "cause" of say, cancer,  can we construct, which resonates best with replicable experimental results?  These are the "causes" Rorty mentions below in my siggy.

So the problem results when people believe that an explanation of "causes" is in conflict with an explanation of "purpose" between these two areas of human thought.

So let’s look at evolution and the huge alleged conflict it brought to religion as an example of this pervasive error.

If the "cause" of development of human beings arose from random evolution, then, it was erroneously believed,  God could not exist because, incorrectly, that means that there IS no "purpose" for human life.

Yet of course that is not the case.

A hypothetical God who understands completely the "causes" of every process in the universe could easily use those "causes", with manipulation or without, to bring to pass his purposes.  He would not even have to "guide" it if he understands the principles perfectly. Poof. No religious conflict between finding the "purpose" of life and our lives individually with the "causes" which brought us into existence.  

And so I use Rorty as the poster-boy / lucid describer of the direction of Western Philosophy, as quoted below

"The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot."

The CAUSES of our perceptions are “out there” in the world, but all can see and know is what humans are capable of seeing and knowing and experiencing , and ultimately “translating” those experiences into language.  We cannot "see" by echolocation so our perception of what is "real" is different than say, dolphins or bats.  We have no words to describe echolocation or what a shark sounds like when we hear it, or if it's mouth, let's say, is open or closed, or how fast he is moving.  We cannot hear that- our world of perception is vastly different than theirs.

And which descriptions are "true" and how do we know they are "true"?   The same way that the "truth" of facts are created by a jury in a trial- by the agreement of a community of peers. "Peer Review" if you like!!

Who are the peers? For scientists seeking causes, say for example, biologists- the community of biologists becomes “peers”- through publications etc.  For physicists etc? Again- Peer Review decides and therefore creates what are seen as the CAUSES of what we see “in the world”- although of course for us, the world consists only of what humans can see and know about.

Who are the “peers” for religious people? For people seeking peace in finding a purpose for their lives, their community of peers would be members of their congregation/ church etc.  Theologians of the specific persuasion write and what they write is either accepted or not accepted by the peer group. For us, General Authorities and Prophets make statements, which are fallible, and we judge "by the spirit" ("our gut") as suggested by Moroni 10:4-5, also one of our peers, to “ask God” if it is true, and that will tell us if it gives us comfort and joy, the “burning in the bosom, etc.  

That “peer review” decides our paradigms and our PURPOSE as we define it.  Joseph of course was the prime creator of the paradigm, ascribing it to God, and verifiable to us through the “evidence” described in Moroni and elsewhere.

But what is “really true” that corresponds to the world as it is and is just not linguistic descriptions??  Nothing better is possible for either science or religion, as verified by our own personal experience, except the best description for both science and religion, causes and purposes.

Now we see through a glass darkly, then face to face, in religous parlance but more philosophically-  my friend and professor Bob Solomon’s version of Moroni 10: 5: https://vimeo.com/35992277

So what is the description that resonates with you to give you purpose in life, to give you comfort and joy and upon which you can construct your future beliefs?  Ask God, or your unconscious if you do not believe in “God” what your purpose in life is, and follow it!!

As long as the description is NOT self-contradictory, rationally described, and does NOT make the category mistake we are discussing here- the confusion between causes and purposes- then we have to go with what "works best" to actually achieve the purpose of us having BELIEFS about our purpose (!) - that which gives you comfort and joy, which agrees with your experiences and those of others in your chosen community.

And of course philosophically there are many other considerations here, like the difference between a priori and a posteriori knowing, how we know ethical and moral statements are true or false, how one picks a vocation in life, finding a soulmate, specific analysis of the history of the error of mixing purpose with causation.

All those will be in there too!

 

[mfbukowski]

11 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Since you're so smart, ya wanna tell us how ta "flat" something? 

Just let me sing it! 

 

[JamesBYoung]

On 4/16/2020 at 11:10 AM, JamesBYoung said:

I just said it is happening now, and because of that, a resurgence will reoccur when Herbert opens society up.

Utahns are not being responsible.  My friends in St. George are saying the streets are full of people without PPE and close than six feet.

They are stupid, meaning they have intelligence but refuse to learn.  When the disease spreads, they will learn it to their own regret and woe.

Talk about stiff necked and haughty,

I am pleased in listening to the Governor and his team today that they know a resurgence will occur when we gradually open in two or more weeks and that they are preparing for it.

[Kenngo1969]

On 4/16/2020 at 3:22 PM, Teancum said:

The fast has absolutely  nothing to do with flattening the curve. None. Not a whit.

 

13 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Well, at least you, in contrast to the thread's originator, used the correct form of the verb.  (Actually, I think it's pretty funny that someone who, apparently, thinks fasting and prayer by the faithful is stupid cannot be bothered to check his own work before posting ...   but, maybe that's just me.) How's about it, Fair Dinkum?  Since you're so smart, ya wanna tell us how ta "flat" something?  "Sure, Ken!  Just sit on it.  That'll flat it right out!"

 

12 hours ago, Teancum said:

I did not say it was stupid.  I said it had nothing to do with flattening the curve.

You'd have been right if you'd said that there's no way to prove that it had anything to do with flattening the curve.  That is a true statement.  There is no empirical proof.  Such is the nature of faith.  (And I would argue that anyone who argues that there is empirical proof that the fast had something to do with flattening the curve is misguided ... at best.)

Edited April 18, 2020 by Kenngo1969

[sunstoned]

2 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

 

 

You'd have been right if you'd said that there's no way to prove that it had anything to do with flattening the curve.  That is a true statement.  There is no empirical proof.  Such is the nature of faith.  (And I would argue that anyone who argues that there is empirical proof that the fast had something to do with flattening the curve is misguided ... at best.)

So according to your statement faith is never wrong or ineffective because its not tethered to any kind of proof.  Along those lines, there was a movement over on Reddit to identify last Saturday as no socks day.  Everyone was to wear no socks for one day in a collective effort to end the pandemic. I'm thinking it worked.  The chart has flattened out.  Their faith in the power of no socks cannot be disproved, so I guess its valid too.

[Robert F. Smith]

16 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Well, at least you, in contrast to the thread's originator, used the correct form of the verb.  (Actually, I think it's pretty funny that someone who, apparently, thinks fasting and prayer by the faithful is stupid cannot be bothered to check his own work before posting .......................

Where @Fair Dinkum comes from, it may be a perfectly acceptable present participle.

[Kenngo1969]

1 hour ago, sunstoned said:

So according to your statement faith is never wrong or ineffective because its not tethered to any kind of proof.  Along those lines, there was a movement over on Reddit to identify last Saturday as no socks day.  Everyone was to wear no socks for one day in a collective effort to end the pandemic. I'm thinking it worked.  The chart has flattened out.  Their faith in the power of no socks cannot be disproved, so I guess its valid too.

On the contrary.  I never said that "faith is not tethered to any kind of proof."  That is your gloss.  I said exactly what I believe, which is that faith is not amenable or susceptible to empirical proof, but empirical proof, which, usually, is the sort of proof that emerges from mathematics or from a laboratory experiment, isn't the only form of proof.  For a believer, the question is, "Does faith/belief bear good fruit in my life?"  And the believer himself is the ultimate arbiter of whether that is so.

The Savior Himself said that God, being a good Father, doesn't give stones to His children when they ask for bread, nor does He give them a serpent when they ask for fish.  He also said that men don't gather grapes from thorns, nor figs from thistles.  (See Matthew 7.)  If someone who doesn't share my faith paradigm (you?  if the shoe fits?) wants to try to tell me, "I know you have what you think is good fish, good bread, and good fruit there, but, actually, the 'fish' is rather 'serpenty,' the 'bread' is rather stony, and the 'fruit' is rather thorny and thistly," certainly, he can try to do that.  (To which I say, good luck with that! )

As I have said many times before, each of us is our own trier of fact with respect to matters of faith.   Each of us decides for himself what sort of evidence he will admit for faith, what sort of evidence he will exclude from the determination (such as empirical proof ), how much weight to give to any particular piece of evidence he decides to admit for faith, and so on.

If you wish, gleefully, to incinerate straw men with that flamethrower you seem to be holding, have at it!  However, your gloss, that much-too-broad-brush assertion that faith is completely untethered from proof, is not my argument, and bears little (if any) resemblance to my argument.  By the standard(s) of proof I have chosen, my faith works because it bears good fruit in my life.  Simply because the "proof" isn't empirical doesn't make that proof any less real or any less valid to me.  So you use a different standard of proof?  Okay.  More power to you.

Edited April 18, 2020 by Kenngo1969

[Kenngo1969]

48 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Where @Fair Dinkum comes from, it may be a perfectly acceptable present participle.

@Robert F. Smith Okay.  If that's the case, he certainly has my apologies for implying that he'd butchered the Queen's English.  However, if your explanation is correct, I do wonder, then, why did he use such an uncommon form of the verb (if, in fact, as you state, it isn't necessarily incorrect) in the title of the thread, only to turn around and use the much more common (correct?) gerund in the post itself?

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Kenngo1969 said:

By the standard(s) of proof I have chosen, my faith works because it bears good fruit in my life.  Simply because the "proof" isn't empirical doesn't make that proof any less real or any less valid to me.  

And the PURPOSE of the belief is precisely that- to bear good fruit in your life.

Pragmatically, the belief is functioning perfectly to serve it's purpose, as much as the belief in gravity does.  If something is unsupported it will fall.

If you believe God exists, it gives your life purpose and bears good fruit in your life.

Both beliefs serve their purpose perfectly

Empirical evidence in the belief in God, is explicitly rejected by the theory itself.  One is to accept it by faith alone.

Faith based belief is explicitly excluded in empirical inquiry. One is to accept beliefs only based on empirical evidence.

Each of the two categories of knowledge explicitly reject what the other accepts as "evidence".

 

Edited April 18, 2020 by mfbukowski

[Tacenda]

9 hours ago, Stargazer said:

I've seen prayers and priesthood blessings work dramatically and quickly. And I've also seen them not do so. Not sure either why this is so, though I can speculate.

My youngest son once got a really bad ear infection, and we were to take him to the doctor the next day, but late on the night before was in a great deal of distress. He was about 2 years old and had been crying for hours. I gave him a blessing, and being of small faith I didn't bless him to be cured, but only to take away the pain and the hurt. Marvelously, as soon as the blessing was done, he stopped crying and went to sleep in his mother's arms. Now, I thought that it was just his exhaustion that brought him to sleep. However, in the morning he was still comfortable, and when we took him to the doctor, the doctor looked at him skeptically, because he didn't seem to be in the least amount of distress.  Then he looked in his ear with the otoscope, and sat up straight in startlement. How can this kid not be screaming in pain? he asked. He said that his ear was as red as can be. I just shrugged my shoulders, though I had an idea what was going on. So we got the antibiotics and took him home. In a few days it was cleared up --- but the distress vanished and never came back after the blessing. I've participated in one other young child being blessed with an ear infection with pretty much identical results. And one time my brother asked me to give his atheist wife a blessing because she was in serious pain and swelling due to an abdominal condition -- and got relief within moments after the blessing. She rationalized away the relief, however, so it didn't happen because of her faith, but of her husband's and mine.

I've also given and/or witnessed priesthood blessings that seemed to have no effect. The only thing I can say about this is that the faith of those involved might be insufficient, but then again, it might be that God's will did not include relief, or, alternatively, that the person needed to experience the illness. For whatever reason.  My late wife had a lot of faith, and the blessing I and my bishop gave her for the cancer she was suffering was also given in great faith. Yet she was not cured. Well, in her case I have come to know that it was her time.  I wanted to go after she did, but it became clear that God still had things for me to do. So here I am, still.

I have learned is that in putting us here, God did not promised that things would be perfect. Besides the joy that we undoubtedly feel, at least occasionally, we are here to suffer distress, pain, betrayal, and illness. Because we're being tested. Tests do not come cheap, especially life tests. Although some of the tests are tests of character and not endurance! What will you do today? It is a big question. 

Awesome! I suffered a lot of earaches as a child and the doctors thought I'd go deaf, luckily I didn't, so I remember that pain. Glad that prayer worked so well, but you still took him in to have it checked, glad they got him cleared up. 🙂 I do understand the feeling of having a PH blessing not come out like you want, I tried with all my might to have faith in prayers when my mother got a blessing for her early onset Alzheimer's, she was so young, but it wasn't meant to be.

Edited April 18, 2020 by Tacenda

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Kenngo1969 said:

@Robert F. Smith Okay.  If that's the case, he certainly has my apologies for implying that he'd butchered the Queen's English.  However, if your explanation is correct, I do wonder, then, why did he use such an uncommon form of the verb (if, in fact, as you state, it isn't necessarily incorrect) in the title of the thread, only to turn around and use the much more common (correct?) gerund in the post itself?

Hard to say, but I have noticed that @Fair Dinkum has made some changes in words used by me (he changed my "apriorism" to "aphorism").  Is he trying to be too cute by half?  Don't know.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Hard to say, but I have noticed that @Fair Dinkum has made some changes in words used by me (he changed my "apriorism" to "aphorism").  Is he trying to be too cute by half?  Don't know.

No, it's Unfair Dinkum, or worse, just Dinkum.