Atheist Debates - Miracle Healing? The Marlene Klepees story...
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ย. 2024
- Born in 1962, Marlen Klepees had a rough life and claims to have had a vision from Christ that predicted and led to her being healed from Cerebral Palsy in March of 1981 after 3 months in St. Mary's.
I've investigated the documentation and various reports on this "miracle" and present my findings, here.
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I find the idea of God sending an allegedly paralyzed person on a side-quest to receive her healing reward both hilarious and incredibly sad.
Look, He was ahead of His time. She should be grateful He didn't make her get 20 bear asses with a 10% drop rate.
I'm surprised that noone is talking about which church and what denomination. If they really believe that miracles mean nothing, they should accept Jesus resurrection as proof of Judaism and nothing more.
I have been thinking about that myself. God appears to her in a vision and tell her to go to a preacher so that the preacher can pray over her so that God will heal her. But, in order for her to get to the preacher, God has to partially heal one of her arms and restore her vision so that she can flip through the yellow pages, find the address of the preacher and, somehow, communicate that that's where she needs to go.
Why didn't God just heal her in the vision? Why didn't God appear to the preacher and send the preacher to her? Why didn't God tell the nurse who took her where to go? God can heal her arm and restore her vision well enough that she can play charades, but he can't do the rest of the job unless she gets her ass to a church?
@@nelsondashner7758 Why did God bury golden plates and then send an angel to tell Joseph Smith how to translate them? Why did the witch send Dorthy down the yellow brick road?
First question is did it even happen?
@@nelsondashner7758 Like... when pdf file atheists blieve that men can menstruate and give birth while nowhere in history has this been true, it's a blatant lie?
I'm not a doctor, but I was born with cerebral palsy, I went to a school for disabled children and I have known dozens of people with cerebral palsy throughout my life. Cerebral palsy is not a disease. It does not progress as was described in that story. That description of her cerebral palsy has no verisimilitude. It sounded like it was written by someone guessing what they think cerebral palsy is like. I have never heard of cerebral palsy leading to paralysis. Difficulty with movement due to rigidity in musculature, yes. But that's not paralysis.
I'm going to attach an "as far as I know" clause to everything I said above. It is possible that there is some type or degree of cerebral palsy that I have never encountered. But it sure doesn't sound right to me.
I'm not a doctor, but have been working closely with adults with cerebral palsy in a social services setting for nearly two decades. That story was far from credible.
That’s so cool, dude. Best wishes to you!
I'm not a doctor, but I stayed in a holiday inn last night, and I'm certain she had cerebral palsy and was healed by God.
@@csquared4538 she didn't have cp, she was wasted enough to be with you, and she wasn't healed, she hoarked.
Miracles are only possible when documentation is poor or nonexistent
Like that woman who claims her toes were amputated and miraculously grew back - but provides no evidence of the amputation, or that they are there now.
@rboland2173It's not that God can't fix stupid, only that it would conflict with his business model.
It's almost as though whenever there's scientific research data of a given phenomenon, big "G" God can't be found in that "gap" in our knowledge any more. Thus removing the unsatisfactory pseudo-explanation of God, for one which has both explanational & predictive power, as well as copious amounts of physically detectable evidence (perfectly meshing with our prior understanding of the way the universe works).
~ ~ ~
Y'know, like how the Medieval Norse culture once attributed the loud crash of sound (from Thunder) & bright flash of light (from Lightning), to be the pounding of Thor's enchanted hammer Mjölnir & the bright sparks which flew from the iron it was forging.
Since then, we've come to understand that Lightning is when streams of charged particles (both from the ground & agitated storm clouds) combine to form a conductive pathway, down which a tremendous quantity of electrical energy travels. This gigawatt (at least) of energy ends up converting a tiny portion of the oxygen (which immediately surrounds the electrical arc travelling through the atmosphere) to plasma, which rapidly expands to several hundred times its original volume, creating an accelerating atmospheric shockwave that eventually travels at such a tremendous velocity - passing Mach 1 - that it causes a Sonic Boom.
Thus we perceive a bright flash of Lightning, closely followed (moments later) by a Sonic Boom of Thunder - experiencing an amazing atmospheric phenomenon which is even more awesome because we comprehend it.
(Which, as it turns out, is partially responsible for the stable continuation of Life on Earth, as it generates Ozone from regular atmospheric Oxygen, forming the Ozone Layer & protecting us from lethal levels of Ultraviolet Solar Radiation.)
Best comment on the internet.
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As a former medical professional, I would also like to note that it is unlikely that nurses or doctors would’ve discussed someone’s health information to some strange caller. Although it wasn’t yet a HIPPA thing, it’s doubtful that nurses would disclose health info to just some guy.
If the story is true and she wanted to provide validation for it, she would presumably support the story by providing her own medical records. It's still suspicious that we don't have them.
Just makes it even more of a credible miracle.
Something something empty tomb, criteria of embarrassment.
You're a former medical professional, but can't even get the acronym "HIPAA" correct?
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I immediately googled this miracle once your debate opponent mentioned this, and I couldn't find anything substantial. I'm really happy you followed up on this.
I can't find anything that isn't religion based on it - therefore I call BS, it never happened.
@@kevinshort3943 I found one. It wasn't a lot of help, but they called BS too. They had a tiny bit more (or at least different) info than Matt, but not one thing to support the story.
Same here...all references I found were from Christian sources. Had this been true, I'm sure it would be well recounted and heavily documented from objective sources.
I did the same and only found a couple of religious sources on the whole interwebs
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Thanks for everything you do in the Atheist space, Matt.
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It’s always funny how the version of the story that they tell us is so different from the actual story.
Great work, Matt.
And it really is ALWAYS.
It's only natural that stories grow more fantastic over time. The fact that this still happens in the information age isn't surprising. That apologists think early christians were immune, is very surprising. But then again, it's just the same legendary development.
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Ty for displaying skepticism and critical thinking all these years
Although selective in that skepticism, I too am grateful for where it has been applied and certainly don’t fault anyone for having very human biases and leanings.
@user-wn1kq8jx5q my skepticism isn't selective ... if say put up or shut up, but I'll bet money I can predict what you think I'm being unskeptical about.
@@user-wn1kq8jx5q What topic do you believe Matt isn’t being skeptical towards?
@@SansDeity hey man thanks for the reply, however combative (understandably so!). No, you probably couldn’t. Unlike the majority of Matt warriors fueled by gay/trans bigotry - not my thing. I’m all for everyone being themselves and being allowed to safely be themselves. Now if you guessed my gripe would be your take on vaccines, you’d be correct. I just find that unlikely, please do correct me if I’m wrong.
@@donkler5476100% they are talking about trans people.
We have heard those stories since forever, because they are great wrenches to throw in a conversation. It puts the burden on the listener, who needs to do the investigative work later, if they can be arsed to. They always crumble almost immediately upon any serious scrutiny, but there's always THAT other case... and the cycle goes on.
Yeah... that is a problem with alot of things religious people bring up in a conversation to combat reality. "Well what about the plane under the ice." Etc. Etc.
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My son is 29 with cerable palsy
Had stroke at birth.
Has never walked and never will.
If God is not to busy finding car keys .
Could he contact me and make a plan for him to walk.
I am waiting and so is the world.
@@jeoffwalden4492 My son was born with no immune system and died after his first birthday. That made me so depressed, I eventually found Jesus.
Now I see my Sons passing as a tool God used to save my soul. I’m not pretending I was good enough for heaven. I wouldn’t base my entire future on your circumstances. Do you know how much trouble you’d be in if God healed your Son and you declared it a miracle? And why would he even consider with your unrepentant attitude?
you don't need to be a sceptic to doubt the woman's story, just have a heartbeat.
And not be paralyzed from the neck up.
@@ArKritz84 😂😂😂
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The thing I've noticed about miracle claims is that they are often used in bulk, as though the sheer volume of claims contributes to the likelihood of at least one of them being legit. But the devil is in the details, because when wild claims are carefully researched, they fall apart. I like when Matt says things like, "No, don't give me a whole bunch of arguments for the existence of God, give me ONE BULLETPROOF ARGUMENT!"
0 + 0 + 0 +... = 0
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"... doctors feared that she was brain dead, though she _still_ maintained control of her eyes and parts of her face."
Now that in itself, is a miracle. She was able to move her eyes, eventhough she was brain _dead_ ! Case closed. "Miracle, four shoor!" /s
It's pretty clear that whoever wrote the story had no idea what the terms they were using actually meant.
bodan etc: This line stood our for me, too. As if the doctors stood around the bed, watched as she controlled her eyes and some face muscles, and feared that she might be "brain dead". PLURAL doctors faced with clear evidence that she was NOT brain dead, all stood around saying to each other: "I fear she is (brain) dead"!
When I heard this, I wondered what kind of training medics have in the US.
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The delicious Jersey Mike's sandwich I just ate was anointed with oil and vinegar. No miracle was required nor expected. Anyway, The Amazing Randy would be proud of your fine research and conclusion.😊❤❤
Undoubtedly, red wine vinegar.
I too am currently eating Jersey Mikes! BEHOLD THE WILL OF GOD!
And that nurses name was Albert Einstein.
In summation: Tinny Tim throws down his crutches and does a flip -Scrooged
During your debate with Than I noticed how rude and insulting just about every theist was in the live chat. It's very telling that they'd rather enage in juvenile insults than actually address any of your points/counterpoints.
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Met with 45 physicians? That's the most unbelievable part of this whole story.
They honestly take their stories from films. If you’ve ever seen the original Exorcist film you will know the sequence early in the film in which Regan is being tested by a number of doctors including psychiatrists with other doctors looking at imaging results etc it always sounds exactly like the more modern “healing” stories. Of course getting “45” doctors to look at a case of cerebral palsy, which is not some super rare strange unknown condition, is laughably hyperbolic.
Omg ahaha was gonna say that too
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45 physicians all charging hourly? Ouch. No wonder her money was running out.
Even if this case had been a billion times stronger, the absolute randomness of all these cases tells us all we need to know as to whether to attribute them to a deliberate supernatural act or not
Exactly. Also what about the millions of people who died with cerbral palsey... or cancer or... Guess god was busy those days
Right? Isn’t it curious how convenient all these miracles seem to be? They’re never some undeniable verifiable impossible thing happening. Like a mountain floating or an indestructible apparatus existing that turns water into wine.
The Christian god, for some ungodly reason, seems to just be incapable of creating miracles that are undeniably miracles.
I am so glad you said this. First, NONE of these claims of miracles stand up to serious investigation but what do people really expect to take from them, if they were? Its not like you can use them as a guide as to what would happen to any believer who prayed. Even the most desperate believers know deep inside that they (nor any one they know) really see any miracle. Do they really believe they can count on these stories as "proof" for this God to do something in their own life? What do they REALLY think the chances of that are?
The level of desperation to grab onto these stories was one of the main evidences that caused me to- after 40 years as a believer- to ask myself some serious questions about the reality of God.
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Matt,
I found this gem on a Christian site sharing it in March of this year. SITE: The CFO Classics Library
*"Marlene started college with a first-grade reading level. God got her into college. There she shared Jesus, getting people saved. After that year in college, Marlene went to the hospital where they operated, doing tendon transplants and tendon lengthening."*
So apparently the legend here is that she actually went to college and saved people not that she planned to go and didn't go!
Sadly, getting into college with an elementary school reading level isn’t at all remarkable in the USA. 🤨
@@chrlpolk True but these sites low to make things up. None of this is verified but the contradictory details (she went to college / never went to college) confirm some of it has to be fiction.
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Thanks Matt your always doing the heavy lifting and we appreciate it.
For the record, for more than a year I worked at the Rehabilitation Centre For Children in Winnipeg, Manitoba. As part of my duties, I summarized electromyography readings done on children with cerebral palsy. Typically, these children had spasticity that caused them to walk on the front of their feet (like walking on tip toe). The treatment at that time was to lengthen a leg tendon so that they could walk more normally with the heel striking the ground.
Love your videos.
As someone with club feet, which she supposedly had, part of my treatment for that also involved lengthening my tendons; though they're still exceptionally tight despite that.
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Well done, Matt! This level of deep-dive debunking is incredible and much needed! I highly encourage you do this more often
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Those kinds of footnotes always make me think they're solely there to make people who want to believe feel like the evidence is good, and that they're made with the assumption they'll never be checked.
And most likely the paper will never be read either.
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I was raised atheist but when i was young I loved these kinds of stories. The mystery, the puzzle of it.
Maybe im just jaded now
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When you have all these named primary characters, but not a single named supporting character, I immediately assume it is fiction. Head nurse is unnamed, doctors are unnamed, the church itself is unnamed. One nurse is partially named, but only his first name. This makes confirmation nearly impossible because there are no names to check records against.
A "45-physician pre-scheduled meeting" at the prestigious Mayo Clinic...bigger team than the first heart transplant, or first anything for that matter, assigned to a hopeless case, guarantees the fictional foundation of this grift
The more random small scale miracles that theists claim the more the question is " why is Your God intervening with Bob from Detroit but not the Holocaust ? "
If we can't seem to document a legitimate miracle claim in this day and age, why in the world would we take ancient miracles at face value?
Yup. It's a fact that no miracle claim ever made can be independently verified. Which basically means that all miracle claims are bullshit.
nailed it
"Graduated high school", "first grade reading level", "planning to apply for college".
These three things can't all be true, especially given that this is in chronological order.
Good point! And you don't "drop out" of a college that you never actually attended.
and graduated high school with a first grade reading level at 15 years old (1962-1977)!
I enjoyed this video Matt. Great work!
I can sort of understand small churches inviting people over for feel-good stories, but it goes all the way up to the Vatican claiming new miracles every year. Even mainstream and supposedly unbiased news does no verification or fact-checking when it comes to reporting on religious matters. I would greatly appreciate it if you continued to analyse these cases with a sceptical eye. We need voices like yours.
You know, in a few more decades, some dude who might be named Mark can write a book about this miracle.
Of course, then maybe he'll be plagiarized by Matthew, Luke, and John.
The part about how, afterward, the doctors agreed that she might have had CP is the part that tips this over the top.
Was she diagnosed with CP before? Or not?
Potholer54 has a very neat video where he traced back a miracle to its sources, basically concluding the same as Matt here that it was an accretion of claims without actual evidence that anything miraculous ever happened.
The title of the video is “It’s a miracle! Or is it?” if you are interested in checking it out. I don’t post a link because comments with links tend to be deleted. 😊 Cheers! Stay skeptical everybody!
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I really enjoyed you taking this so seriously! Anyone that thinks any of this is evidence of Christianity hasbn't spoken to the thousands of other people who have 'miracles' thats 'prove' reincarnation or hinduism or *insert other religion
Thank you for keeping it skeptical. I try and live my life as skeptical skeptic..you have helped me immensely to be a skeptical skeptic..
I watched this debate and also tried to research this story. Admittedly, I didn't spend an inordinate amount of time doing so, but in the 15 - 20 minutes I did spend, I could not find any substantial information or evidence supporting this claim. I found mostly religious articles talking about it. I could not find any seemingly credible secular medical articles talking about it. Surely if someone had actually been healed in this manner, the secular medical community would want to research and evaluate it.
My thoughts exactly!
You probably don’t believe that a photo of “Mother” Teresa cured an Indian woman’s tumor. O ye of little gullibility.
Unbelievable claims cannot be used to support other unbelievable claims.
That this is so often attempted should tell us all we need to know.
I enjoy that Matt is examining the inconsistencies in the telling of the story and lack of evidence while I’m still questioning whether any of it happened at all at any time and isn’t completely made up. 🤷♂️
surely the real question is, if the god these people believe in is so powerful, why doesn't it cure everyone with any disease? Making a sentient being wait, and suffer, is the act of a monster - and if it's waiting for the sufferers to praise it then that is the act of a narcississtic monster.
Keep up the good work Matt.
Not really.
A God who enables every chloroplast and mitochondria do what is actually miraculous in their utter complexity without intervening, who made a natural reality to run on its own 99.99.99999% of the time, made evolution create pain and suffering so prey would flee predator, and weakness through illness leave the strong to survive...
You are not asking for a real world. You are asking why a God wouldn't make a fantasy world to your specifications.
Failure to praise what made the 92% good and the 8% bad in reality weakens your immune system, leads to a shorter life, increases your experience of pain, isolation, meaninglessness, purposelessness.
As Jordan Peterson says, go ahead and see God as a moral monster. You will be the one who suffers from how that belief robs you of so much which is good in your life.
@@glenliesegang233You have some evidence that God belief decreases suffering? Which God beliefs are most effective?
@@glenliesegang233 "Failure to praise what made the 92% good and the 8% bad..."
I've been told God's creation is perfect and that God doesn't create evil. Now your saying a full 8% of what God creates is bad?
I asked a Jehovah’s Witness this once. She answered that in the end, God will make it so that it’s like the suffering never happened. He will somehow remove it after the fact.
I wasn’t impressed with this answer, and she didn’t seem very persuaded by it either.
I even asked, “so God can torture a baby and then do something for that baby that’s so wonderful it makes the torture virtuous and justified?”
Her: I think so, yeah, but my husband can explain it better than I can.
🤷♂️
Thank you for making this video and demonstrating the right way to respond to miraculous claims. My dad told me growing up that my mums cancer was healed by God at a healing service just long enough for her to have me and be there for the first few years of my life. It really messed with my head in my early teenage years especially when I was questioning my beliefs. Anyway, just wanted to let you know your work is making a difference, it's been really helpful for me to discover your and others discussions on skepticism.
Well done Matt 👍
Guess I have more to say. As a disabled person, I’ve struggled, since I got hurt 10 years ago, with issues of independence. Sometimes all I want is to lay back, give in, and let ppl take care of me. But I fight it bc I want to maintain as much independence as possible for as long as I can. I get a lot of self esteem from it. I still require some outside help.
I became physically disabled at the age of 50. I can’t imagine what physical issues would be like for a child. But if she had over-protective parents who tried to do everything for her, she may well have leaned into helplessness as a result. Once you go down that path, and you stop moving your body(in whatever way u can), all your physical problems become so much worse, and it’s cumulative. I wish the poor confused woman well
Believers don't question because they have been conditioned not to. If the story is pro miracle, they run with it and tout it as truth.
Just like the first Christians?
All we need to do is make copies of translations of copies of these conflicting secondary accounts and we'll have strong enough evidence to found an entire religion.
I used this analogy the other day with a theist that said atheism is irrational.
theism is like buying a house you can't see or visit until your dead and the guy selling it you has never seen it either the only documents you have are a 100 year old story of the construction from the perspective of a guy that walked by on his way to work everyday except your paying with mostly your time instead of money. While the atheist in the situation would be the guy saying I want to tour the house before I buy it.
I believe the most frustrating thing is that you were informed enough to discuss the claim in real-time.
Huh?
Lol, wow. Not only was she miraculously cured, but right before the money runs out. Too bad god didnt cure her before all her savings were gone.
funny how people will malign a skeptic for being skeptical... but not malign a believer that telling lies is a sin for misrepresenting the case.
I wouldn’t tell them it’s a sin cuz I dont believe in sin but yeah
When I first heard about this case, I thought of certain diseases that can cause prolonged impediment of the nervous system but are naturally remissive. Listening to the content of this article, I am less inclined to think it would have been this and more inclined to think it something psychological.
Just like the Bible, Marlene's story shows us that a dramatized and complex yarn filled with unsubstantiated claims can be very convincing to some people.
Paraplegic or Quadriplegic but in a constant fetal position?
So the nurses and Certified Nursing Aides kept manually folding her into the fetal position?
“Oh we just like the way they look like this, like little babies! It’s fun.”
And they can fit two people in a bed by folding them. Win-win.
It's just so disappointing... I really liked the debate with Than and he was SO POSITIVE that this was the miracle healing story. He said it was so much confidence that I was very interested. I couldn't find anything other than a bunch of TH-cam videos. To see this is the BEST they have. It just makes me think they are either stupid or disingenuous. It's really disappointing.
Literally had: "and everyone clapped."
Yet another great example of why atheists and secular humanists have a personal relationship with reality......
I had psychogenic "seizures" for a while, until I had an EEG done and the neurologist told me I wasn't having real seizures. I haven't had any since. Psychosomatic stuff is real to the person experiencing it until it isn't anymore. I spent way too much time worrying about it. Not to mention the stress on the people around me. What will suck is if I ever have a real seizure, because nobody (including me) will believe it.
Oh yes, she lives where I’m from 😅 good episode today;)
"A very minor case of debilitating disease,"
"You may have a very minor case of severe brain damage," - Wheatley
This is just like the third hand account of a trash can lid moving and climbing the walls on its own due to "ghosts" or "spirits" that the pastor in one of your previous debates trotted out as strong evidence of the supernatural.
When I was a Christian, I would have bought this without much problem.
I want to think that I would have been skeptical if someone brought up the points you did, but I probably wouldn't have cared to look into it myself.
What I find most unbelievable is that a group of 45 doctors got together.
Yes placebo can have a strartling effect. In soite of bad storytellers on the side of a miracle.
If the bible was true there would be millions of miracles happening daily involving Christians and not followers of every religion.
Instead we get weird, rare, poorly documented "miracles" from every religion.
Why are there no miracles of people growing lost limbs?
Hey Matt, Can you also cover the Miracle of Calanda, I remember Than and (John)moderator bringing this up on their lives.
Cool. Thanks.
If I'm not mistaken, assisted living homes only assist in the way of cooking and giving meals and giving meds to those that require them, but not having tenants that have serious debilitating medical issues that a nursing home does.
This particularly story pisses me off. I once took care of a woman with CP who is, to this day, one of the most genuine people I've ever known. She had people try to heal her in college, but it didn't work. Why would God heal Marlene and not her?
I find it very interesting that when I first looked at the Marlene Klepees case a few months ago, I found cropped photos of her old "medical records" and contemporary news articles at several places online. These seem to have now disappeared. There was also a medical report on the "miracle" that was attributed to a Harvard physician. When I investigated the named physician, he turned out to be somebody who was taking a year off at Harvard, from a lifetime of missionary work overseas. I can't reconfirm that again, because that information has also seems to have disappeared. When I search for independent information sources now, all I am getting are articles inside online magazine PDFs. Something that can not be easily removed, Which all looks pretty suss to me.
when miracle healing claims come up? as a medical professional, my first thought is misdiagnosis. the diagnosis for cerebral palsy? yeah, even these days it's completely clinical. this means there's no test for it, the doctor just says "this looks like cerebral palsy". now think about how much we didn't know about it from 1962-1979
also, fun fact: CP is definitionally not progressive. thus this isn't CP.
"Many doctors suspected her symptoms to be psychosomatic"
This is what sticks out most to me. If there was testing that confirmed her condition (as the story strongly implies), why would any let alone "several" doctors suspect that? Its got to be one or the other. If there was ANY sort of confirming medical testing NO doctor would feel that way.
Isn't it amazing how all the miracles happen to people who in no way can be corroborated?
Did she live with her great-grandparents or her grandparents - and where were they when all this was happening?
I have an aunt with MS. When I was in my teens, she visited her parents (my grandparents) who lived in my hometown. They were watching a faith healer who prompted people at home to place their hand on the TV and pray for healing. She did so, and said she felt a warmth rush through her and she got up and ran around the block. She was using a cane or wheelchair at the time. My family hailed it as a miracle. If it was, it was short-lived. Her condition deteriorated and she lost even more motor and speech skills over the years. MS is like a short circuit in the brain. From my understanding, people with MS can go through periods of better mobility only to lose it again. Its sad and terrifying, and I understand the willingness to believe you are healed, but what horrible trick would it have been for a god to temporarily "heal" her, just to let her slide even further into the disease?
This wasn't MS. Just FYI
@SansDeity yes, sorry I didn't mean to confuse anyone. Just providing one of my own family's experiences with "miracle healing". I also had a cousin who supposedly recovered from cancer in his hip after prayer, only to die in agony a few years later of another cancer that filled his body with tumors from head to toe. But my family would tell these stories constantly as proof of their connection to God. It was some of my first personal experience with claims of the supernatural falling flat. Just thought I'd share.
So you saw all of the videos... but still nothing that can be counted as actual evidence? Who would have thunk it!
If you change the stories setting to India, and make her a Hindu who had visions from Vishnu, and was cured by a Hindu mystic she chose fom the phone book every Christian would be just as skeptical as you!
But! What about the 500 unnamed eye-witnesses mentioned in the pdf?
Why don't you interview them?
Only if the people's names was listed he could track down all 500 of them to interview them.
Wait the 500 eye eyewitnesses seem's like something Paul pulled from his butt in regards to the resurrection of Jesus.
To be charitable, if it is not entirely a hoax, there are a few non-psychosomatic illness like ME/CFS that we know little about. That are diverse in severity, mimics many other illness symptoms, that can-near spontaneously go into remission.
This makes perfect sense to me. It is exactly at the level of historical reliability as the four books they think are obviously reliable documentions. You even have multiple witnesses when the miracle actually happened. Probably around 500 or so...
Matt's transformation into the ice king has really been something
So religious groups don’t research miracles…they just believe? I suppose there will always be people who want to just believe
Reminds me of a few years ago when I started to lose the ability to walk as well as some other neurological issues. Tests/images showed nothing wrong. I was diagnosed with functional neurological disorder and with physical therapy, I had "relearned" how to control my legs again. No medicine, no praying. The disorder used to be called conversion disorder, but as has been determined to not just be psychosomatic anymore, the disorder name was changed.
I had a similar experience, but it was not Factitious Disorder. It turned out (after decades of suffering) that I have Celiac Disease, and have the tTG 6 variant which effects the brain. My symptoms have improved, but unfortunately the brain damage done is done. It's better, but not gone. The tTG 2 symptoms are vastly improved. I never prayed either. I just finally found a decent doctor who did the Blood, Genetic, and Endoscopic tests for a diagnosis.
My healing is from Canada. You wouldn’t know her.
I've had experiences with patients with conversion syndrome - they were paralyzed in various parts of their bodies with no detectable physical cause. It is considered a psychosomatic disorder. With time and rehab they slowly regained full function. One of them had previously had an episode of psychosomatic paralysis for around 5 years!
I would love for you to film a video in which you sit down with the guy who mentioned this story and walk him through how to properly research something. It's not that difficult.
In FamilySearch her birth record of 03 Feb 1962 in Los Angeles is shown. Oddly it only shows Mother's last name (Lollar) . Surely someone could pull that record which should show some vital statistics. Perhaps length and weight.
I have a question to add to those that don't have a good answer.
How much money has she made, and holidays taken, as she tours around telling her story and selling it to magazines?
Why would someone with only a 1st reading level apply for college? Did I miss something?
Hey Matt, quick comment for you. Through my communication with believers, which mostly has been very productive and worthwhile, I am finding that more and more folks seem compelled to recommend Lee Strobel to me. I'm always happy to take suggestions, but with Strobel, I decided to finally buckle down and read The Case For Christ, which I found to be wholly unconvincing for a variety of reasons. I was wondering if you've ever done a deep dive on this guy's work, or at least tackled the concepts in this particular book?
God isn't very busy in his healing activities if they have to keep digging up the same "miracle" every decade or so.
C'mon Matt, there is a Mayo Clinic in Richester just like it says. So you need to accept all of it.
It’s an UNDESIGNED COINCIDENCE, right? Because that surely sounds like a “casual detail,” which surely no one could have ever faked on purpose, right???
The fact that Than couldn’t properly apply his Bayesian logic to this “miracle” is truly sad.
Why not heal all sick people? Better question - why make people sick?
I was immediately skeptical about her birth weight from 1962. My brother was born premature in’62 at a little over 4 pounds and at that time it was a very serious matter.
CP also doesn’t tend to be progressive or cause paralysis. She may have mild CP, which she would still have.
Why isn’t this case broadcast in every medical journal if true?
Based on a "true" "story" .
Well, it's definitely a story. 😊
And why is the “miraculous healing” in these stories almost always something that could easily be done by a contortionist?
The recovery in Marlene’s story seems straight out of Lon Chaney’s performance in “The Miracle Man”.
*Don't worry about the gaps in her story.*
_That's where the miracle of "faith" comes into play._
Reality : Seeing only what you want to see, and disregarding the rest.
People think that unquestioning credulity is a bug in religion but it’s a feature and a real problem with human beings. It used to be useful when finding out information from another person led to you staying alive but in modern times it’s likely to lead people into error.
Matt, I reliaze this isnt exactly your area of interest(?) butcould you possibly tackle the supposed miracles surrounding Indian gurus like Neem Karoli Baba?
Please sit down with your debate partner and see what he says about this now that you’ve critiqued it.
I have a feeling it would be extremely frustrating but I’d love to hear his response
Abnormal brain scans are not psychosomatic. So did they exist, or not?
The look of disappointment on Matt's face overshadows his disdain at the supposed evidence sent him.