Priesthood blessings and evidence

[Emily]

38 minutes ago, Calm said:

Her posts felt very ‘at home’ with the board. No adjustment necessary. 

He's been sending me posts from this forum for a long time and we discuss the topics offline. I generally resist participating directly in message boards. They are a fatal attraction for me and I start to neglect tasks I need to get done. But resistance has been low the last few weeks. 😝 

[Stargazer]

On 2/27/2021 at 6:09 PM, CA Steve said:

I would conduct a long term study of four similar large groups of individuals with the same illness and treatments. One group's names would be submitted to the temple prayer roll without their knowledge, one group's names would be submitted to the temple prayer roll with their knowledge, one group would be told their names were being submitted but were not, and a fourth control group who were unaware of the study at all.

That's an interesting idea. 

I recall that they've tried this kind of thing in the past, i.e. double-blind studies with some individuals being prayed for, and some not. And the results being nothing different.

But you can't treat God as if He were a drug, an unthinking commodity without will of His own. 

You'd have to get Him to cooperate with the study. I don't think He will.

[Stargazer]

5 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Oh, I totally agree.  But do you disagree with my actual claim?

 

(My claim isn't about the argument.  My claim is that even if there's a measurable/provable real impact, it wouldn't make any difference to people.  Critics would still be unpersuaded and critical.)

Even for evident things, science isn't always willing to accept things without a mechanism that can be cited. Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift, which was later shown to be correct, but at the time the mechanism for it was a mystery, so the "authorities" just couldn't stomach it. How could continents drift? No answer, so the idea languished for a time. Then with Plate Tectonics it became clear not only what was happening, but how. 

Trying to show that priesthood blessings were actually working would be snarled in how they worked.

And sometimes such blessings don't work at all. Apparently.

[Hamba Tuhan]

1. Priesthood isn't power to do whatever a person feels like. It is authority to speak in a way that connects people to God's will. I know from personal experience that this can include commanding the dead to live and the blind to see, for example, but it doesn't have to. As I've written about on this forum before (but cannot find ), one of the most powerful experiences I had as a full-time missionary involved laying my hands on the head of a recent convert's grandfather with every intention of commanding him to arise and be made whole. Instead, I was 'shown' not only that he was going to die but when. As a consequence, his family, who lived several hours away, all travelled to be with him on that day when he passed. I was also instructed to bless him that he would be free of pain in the meantime, and the nurses reported that he had indeed been pain free from that day onwards. The family were deeply comforted by all of the above, and in fact completely changed their response to the conversion of the Latter-day Saint in the family, but the outcome didn't appear 'miraculous' in any statistical way: a sick person died.

2. As I've also posted about before, following cancer surgery, my father's stomach ruptured, spilling approximately 2L of contents into the sterile part of his body. He rang from hospital in the middle of the night, and I quickly went and gave him a blessing right before emergency surgery to fix the rupture. Afterwards, he was put on a broad-spectrum IV antibiotic whilst the contents of his stomach were cultured to see which specific organisms they contained. Repeatedly the results came back the same: all the food and gunk in his stomach were 100 per cent sterile. When I asked the doctor how this was possible, he shrugged his shoulders and went back to work. 

Edited March 1, 2021 by Hamba Tuhan

[CV75]

59 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

That's an interesting idea. 

I recall that they've tried this kind of thing in the past, i.e. double-blind studies with some individuals being prayed for, and some not. And the results being nothing different.

But you can't treat God as if He were a drug, an unthinking commodity without will of His own. 

You'd have to get Him to cooperate with the study. I don't think He will.

"And the beat goes on and on and on and on..." (in my most annoying, nasally Sonny Bono impression):

I just Googled a number of scientific articles on the subject, and this one from a decade ago seems to sum things up even for recent studies: "Prayer and healing: A medical and scientific perspective on randomized controlled trials" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802370/

Abstract: "Religious traditions across the world display beliefs in healing through prayer. The healing powers of prayer have been examined in triple-blind, randomized controlled trials. We illustrate randomized controlled trials on prayer and healing, with one study in each of different categories of outcome. We provide a critical analysis of the scientific and philosophical dimensions of such research. Prayer has been reported to improve outcomes in human as well as nonhuman species, to have no effect on outcomes, to worsen outcomes and to have retrospective healing effects. For a multitude of reasons, research on the healing effects of prayer is riddled with assumptions, challenges and contradictions that make the subject a scientific and religious minefield. We believe that the research has led nowhere, and that future research, if any, will forever be constrained by the scientific limitations that we outline."

Conclusion" it appears that, for important theological and scientific reasons, randomized controlled studies cannot be applied to the study of the efficacy of prayer in healing. In fact, no form of scientific enquiry presently available can suitably address the subject. Therefore, the continuance of such research may result in the conducted studies finding place among other seemingly impeccable studies with seemingly absurd claims."

 

[Stargazer]

14 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

1. Priesthood isn't power to do whatever a person feels like. It is authority to speak in a way that connects people to God's will. I know from personal experience that this can include commanding the dead to live and the blind to see, for example, but it doesn't have to. 

Twice I had the experience of blessing a young child with terrible ear infections. One was my own youngest son, Nathan, who was about 2 years old. He had been in a lot of distress for some time during the day, crying, pulling at his ears, and by the time we concluded that he needed to be seen by the doctor, it was quite late. I gave him a blessing, and immediately afterwards he settled down, stopped fussing and crying, so we decided to wait until morning to take him in to Urgent Care.  He slept through the night and seemed OK in the morning when we took him to the doctors. When the doctor came in to see him, he expected to find a young child in a lot of pain and carrying on, since it was an ear infection. But Nathan was acting like nothing at all was wrong.  After coming in and observing him, the doctor seemed a little put out, like he was wasting his time checking out a perfectly healthy child. Until he had a look in his ear. He acted astonished, and said something to the effect that Nathan should have been screaming with that degree of inflammation. Like any priesthood holder with just a little faith, I had blessed him only to be able to sleep and to take away the pain. I wonder what would have happened if I had had enough faith to bless him to be fully healed?

During the same year, I got called to help give a blessing to a little girl with the same problem. Similar thing, actually. After the blessing she calmed right down and was finally able to sleep. She had been up sporadically all night apparently, so perhaps she was so exhausted that the need to sleep overcame the pain in her ear, but the end of her distress occurred immediately after the blessing, so I am pretty sure that was it. Shortly thereafter the Dad came home with the car, and then they took her to the doctors.

 

[Stargazer]

11 minutes ago, CV75 said:

"And the beat goes on and on and on and on..." (in my most annoying, nasally Sonny Bono impression):

I just Googled a number of scientific articles on the subject, and this one from a decade ago seems to sum things up even for recent studies: "Prayer and healing: A medical and scientific perspective on randomized controlled trials" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802370/

Abstract: "Religious traditions across the world display beliefs in healing through prayer. The healing powers of prayer have been examined in triple-blind, randomized controlled trials. We illustrate randomized controlled trials on prayer and healing, with one study in each of different categories of outcome. We provide a critical analysis of the scientific and philosophical dimensions of such research. Prayer has been reported to improve outcomes in human as well as nonhuman species, to have no effect on outcomes, to worsen outcomes and to have retrospective healing effects. For a multitude of reasons, research on the healing effects of prayer is riddled with assumptions, challenges and contradictions that make the subject a scientific and religious minefield. We believe that the research has led nowhere, and that future research, if any, will forever be constrained by the scientific limitations that we outline."

Conclusion" it appears that, for important theological and scientific reasons, randomized controlled studies cannot be applied to the study of the efficacy of prayer in healing. In fact, no form of scientific enquiry presently available can suitably address the subject. Therefore, the continuance of such research may result in the conducted studies finding place among other seemingly impeccable studies with seemingly absurd claims."

 

Just so.

[Calm]

13 minutes ago, CV75 said:

Conclusion" it appears that, for important theological and scientific reasons, randomized controlled studies cannot be applied to the study of the efficacy of prayer in healing. In fact, no form of scientific enquiry presently available can suitably address the subject. Therefore, the continuance of such research may result in the conducted studies finding place among other seemingly impeccable studies with seemingly absurd claims."

Big problem with such research is isolating the studied variable.  Since so many do pray for their loved ones, just because researchers do not have their people pray for a patient doesn’t mean they aren’t prayed for by anyone else.

Even those homeless or friendless may have medical caregivers or volunteers praying for or someone in the community praying that those alone in the world not suffer needlessly and the Lord chooses to honor that prayer by helping someone otherwise not thought of..

[The Nehor]

11 hours ago, AtlanticMike said:

I doubt that. Real evidence like children miraculously walking out of hospitals on a scale not seen anywhere else would persuade any loving parent, critics also, to search for their closest priesthood holder and beg for a blessing, and probably multiple blessings. Let me ask you, do you think the priesthood is an actual power? A real honest to goodness power that's inside a worthy priesthood holder? 

      

Which would quickly disprove it when it didn’t work on those who were just after the healing. There is a reason we do not go around offering Priesthood blessings to everyone in hospitals.

[AtlanticMike]

11 hours ago, Calm said:

Big problem with such research is isolating the studied variable.  Since so many do pray for their loved ones, just because researchers do not have their people pray for a patient doesn’t mean they aren’t prayed for by anyone else.

What about priesthood blessings? Alot of people pray for family members, but I'm asking about priesthood blessings. For 1800 years people couldn't recieve a priesthood blessing because the gospel of christ was taken from the earth until Joseph restored it. We are told priesthood blessings can bring miracles to our family and the people who are blessed because priesthood holders have direct access to priesthood power, unlike othe denominations. Do you think mormon men have a power that other men don't have?

[Calm]

32 minutes ago, AtlanticMike said:

What about priesthood blessings? Alot of people pray for family members, but I'm asking about priesthood blessings.

Priesthood blessings overlap a lot. I would assume in a family that is giving priesthood blessings on their own, there will also be a lot of prayer. But those who don’t use priesthood blessings may feel even more impelled to pray as that is likely their go to method to receive blessings. 
 

So if studied in its ‘natural setting’, I don’t see isolation of the true variable, God giving healing, as possible. 
 

One could design a research setting where one randomly assigned patients who have not had priesthood blessings through their own efforts into have and have nots, but then what you are really asking of God is not to heal someone, but to jump through your hoops to prove he exists to the world using what I see as an assumption of vending machine faith...you put in your payment (giving blessings, fasting, prayer, scripture study, charity, etc) and expecting an automatic set response from God).  
 

That is not a righteous approach according to most Christian faiths that include “thy will, not mine, be done” in their doctrinal understanding about what true faith is, a submission to God.  
 

Quote

Do you think mormon men have a power that other men don't have?

I think there are too many faulty assumptions packed into that question to be able to answer it.  Primarily if what matters to us about our relationship to God is “power”, we won’t be connecting with God all that much.

I do believe there are gifts of the Spirit that only exist when given by those authorized by the Lord, but many things that may result from such gifts (the presence of the Spirit, healing, spiritual knowledge, etc) can also be received through different paths of seeking to connect with the Lord.  God gives liberally to all those who seek him righteously and Latter-day Saints are not the only ones who do that. 

Edited March 1, 2021 by Calm

[mrmarklin]

On 2/27/2021 at 7:02 AM, AtlanticMike said:

The priesthood is the power and authority of God, delegated to man on earth, to act in all things for the salvation of men. Where the Melchizedek priesthood is, there is the church and kingdom God on earth, there is the gospel of salvation, and where there is no Melchizedek Priesthood , there is no true church, and no power that will save men in the kingdom of God.

   The words above are very powerful. And my question today is, if millions of men holding this priesthood power are congregated in a small area compared to the surrounding area, should there be evidence of priesthood miracles in that specific area? I'm talking about Utah. Utah is 60% mormon and compared to east coast states that usually have a 1% mormon population, I would think more priesthood blessings are being  administered in Utah than anywhere else. 

     For example, should Utah children hospitals see an increase in miraculous healings because of Worthy Mormon fathers giving  60x the amount of blessings in Utah compared to a southern state? If priesthood power and the power to heal is real, should it be measurable using Utahs density of Mormon priesthood holders compared to everywhere else in the world?

     

There are more miracles in Utah. The Great Basin is essentially a desert. It’s a miracle so many people can live there. I mean millions. 

[AtlanticMike]

31 minutes ago, Calm said:

I do believe there are gifts of the Spirit that only exist when given by those authorized by the Lord, but many things that may result from such gifts (the presence of the Spirit, healing, spiritual knowledge, etc) can also be received through different paths of seeking to connect with the Lord.  God gives liberally to all those who seek him righteously and Latter-day Saints are not the only ones who do that. 

I agree others besides lds can recieve blessings from God. But we're taught from birth, and especially once a boy turns 12, that our "personal righteousness" dictates the strength of the priesthood power we're given. Our personal righteousness also has an impact on the strength of the prayer given. Am I seeing this wrong?

[Calm]

1 hour ago, AtlanticMike said:

I agree others besides lds can recieve blessings from God. But we're taught from birth, and especially once a boy turns 12, that our "personal righteousness" dictates the strength of the priesthood power we're given. Our personal righteousness also has an impact on the strength of the prayer given. Am I seeing this wrong?

I cant’ know what you are actually thinking, but it comes across as if you are viewing priesthood power as a commodity, a possession to get you ahead in life...like viewing the purpose of education as getting one a better paying or higher status job with the perks that go with that rather than valuing education because one loves learning. 
 

I can’t answer in those terms because I don’t believe priesthood can operate in that paradigm. It is the wrong language to explore what happens.  And it is not how I interpret what we have been taught, though I have heard enough people who think that way so I can see how one might interpret gospel teachings from such a stance. If I understand it enough, I believe that is the paradigm of what are labeled prosperity gospels. 

Edited March 1, 2021 by Calm

[Tacenda]

15 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Twice I had the experience of blessing a young child with terrible ear infections. One was my own youngest son, Nathan, who was about 2 years old. He had been in a lot of distress for some time during the day, crying, pulling at his ears, and by the time we concluded that he needed to be seen by the doctor, it was quite late. I gave him a blessing, and immediately afterwards he settled down, stopped fussing and crying, so we decided to wait until morning to take him in to Urgent Care.  He slept through the night and seemed OK in the morning when we took him to the doctors. When the doctor came in to see him, he expected to find a young child in a lot of pain and carrying on, since it was an ear infection. But Nathan was acting like nothing at all was wrong.  After coming in and observing him, the doctor seemed a little put out, like he was wasting his time checking out a perfectly healthy child. Until he had a look in his ear. He acted astonished, and said something to the effect that Nathan should have been screaming with that degree of inflammation. Like any priesthood holder with just a little faith, I had blessed him only to be able to sleep and to take away the pain. I wonder what would have happened if I had had enough faith to bless him to be fully healed?

During the same year, I got called to help give a blessing to a little girl with the same problem. Similar thing, actually. After the blessing she calmed right down and was finally able to sleep. She had been up sporadically all night apparently, so perhaps she was so exhausted that the need to sleep overcame the pain in her ear, but the end of her distress occurred immediately after the blessing, so I am pretty sure that was it. Shortly thereafter the Dad came home with the car, and then they took her to the doctors.

 

My dad didn't exercise his priesthood much, more of a jack mormon while growing up but a wonderful Christ like man. I would have liked to have had a blessing like that while suffering from extreme earaches as a child!

In fact when my oldest was a 2 year old she had severe croup once and my husband wanted to call our home teacher in the middle of the night to help him bless her. I was so upset that we were going to do that, I must not have had much faith in it since i didn't have the experience of seeing anything like that with my dad. And I feel bad to this day that I stopped my husband from giving my daughter a priesthood blessing. We took her to the emergency room though and she luckily got through it okay. And my husband wouldn't let me live it down for quite awhile for not wanting to bother our home teacher.

I believe blessings like you gave really got shot up to heaven, I know they've done studies on how community prayers for someone really helps, so that would be the same for priesthood blessings as well I would think.  

Edited March 1, 2021 by Tacenda

[Scott Lloyd]

4 hours ago, AtlanticMike said:

I agree others besides lds can recieve blessings from God. But we're taught from birth, and especially once a boy turns 12, that our "personal righteousness" dictates the strength of the priesthood power we're given. Our personal righteousness also has an impact on the strength of the prayer given. Am I seeing this wrong?

That’s not my understanding, nor is it what I was “taught from birth” or from age 12. (Incidentally, 11-year-olds may now be ordained). 

Granted, a man must be worthy to hold the priesthood, but once a minimum standard of worthiness is attained, it’s not a clear-cut predictor such that if Man A is “more righteous” than Man B, the administrations that A gives are apt to be more efficacious than those that B gives. There are other factors involved, not the least of which are the will of God at any given time and the strength of faith on the part of the recipient of the administration. 

Edited March 1, 2021 by Scott Lloyd

[AtlanticMike]

5 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

That’s not my understanding, nor is it what I was “taught from birth” or from age 12. (Incidentally, 11-year-olds may now be ordained). 

Granted, a man must be worthy to hold the priesthood, but once a minimum standard of worthiness is attained, it’s not a clear-cut predictor such that if Man A is “more righteous” than Man B, the administrations that A gives are apt to be more efficacious than those that B gives. There are other factors involved, not the least of which is the will of God at any given time and the strength of faith on the part of the recipient of the administration. 

 

[Calm]

Came across this and thought of this thread.  
 

Is this woman’s experience actually going to be seen as proof of God by anyone who doesn’t already believe?

 

https://apple.news/AeXsTXdy7T-C-ITPWQUeklg

[bluebell]

21 hours ago, AtlanticMike said:

I doubt that. Real evidence like children miraculously walking out of hospitals on a scale not seen anywhere else would persuade any loving parent, critics also, to search for their closest priesthood holder and beg for a blessing, and probably multiple blessings. Let me ask you, do you think the priesthood is an actual power? A real honest to goodness power that's inside a worthy priesthood holder? 

      

I don't know that priesthood is a power that resides in an ordained man.  I think that priesthood is authority.  The authority to act in the name of God and bring about His will.  I'm sure that when it is His will that that includes wielding His power, but I don't think the ordained priesthood holder walks around with it inside of him all the time.

[bluebell]

3 hours ago, AtlanticMike said:

But we're taught from birth, and especially once a boy turns 12, that our "personal righteousness" dictates the strength of the priesthood power we're given. Our personal righteousness also has an impact on the strength of the prayer given. Am I seeing this wrong?

I don't think I've ever been taught that.  I don't think I believe it either.

[Scott Lloyd]

55 minutes ago, AtlanticMike said:

 

I can’t tell from this link who the speaker or writer is that is being quoted here. 
 

But I don’t think it matters, because the quote doesn’t prove what you seem to want it to prove, i.e. that “we are taught from birth ... that our ‘personal righteousness’ dictates the strength of the priesthood power we are given.”

[Calm]

It is Elder Kevin Pearson:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/bc/content/shared/content/english/pdf/language-materials/10683nzl_eng.pdf?lang=eng

[CV75]

58 minutes ago, AtlanticMike said:

 

Ha-ha-- what's this with the pacific.churchofchrist.org? https://pacific.churchofjesuschrist.org/

Would you please share the link to the whole article? Personal righteousness is the key to many things, but certainly not the only key or operative in a vacuum (and "dictates" Posted 3 hours ago is certainly the wrong word choice!).

[mfbukowski]

20 hours ago, InCognitus said:

Her husband is me.  Emily is my wife   I've been giving her likes long before she ever started posting on this board.  

You actually like your wife?

Cheesh! How old fashioned!

You should never get married and then swap for a new "partner" every 3-5 years at the most.

You gotta get with it, man!

 

[Calm]

12 minutes ago, CV75 said:

Ha-ha-- what's this with the pacific.churchofchrist.org? https://pacific.churchofjesuschrist.org/

Would you please share the link to the whole article? Personal righteousness is the key to many things, but certainly not the only key or operative in a vacuum (and "dictates" Posted 3 hours ago is certainly the wrong word choice!).

It was the second hit for me when site searching LDS.org with priesthood power and righteousness.  A number of comments saying personal righteousness is key, imperative, etc., but I think if that is all one focuses on, one ignores the greater context of the Gospel.  Righteousness is imperative in living the Gospel.  Charity is righteousness.  Loving family is righteousness, praying is righteousness.  Most things can be labeled righteousness if done with the intent to serve God or others in love or at least respect if we aren’t yet capable of loving them as we should.

Personal righteousness is this massive, global attribute of countless internal and external behaviors, not some specific limited, concrete behaviour in itself.

Edited March 1, 2021 by Calm