Are miracles by faith or psychosomosis?

by Earnest 1 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Earnest

  Psychosomosis? No, it's not in my dictionary either. But 'psychosomatic' relates to disorders caused or aggravated by psychological factors and so I use the term to refer to healing caused or expedited by psychological factors. In other words, because you believe you are healed the body actually does heal itself.

  This is well-documented to the extent that whenever drug trials are carried out placebos are also used to determine the percentage of people who would have healed anyway simply because they thought they were taking an effective drug. In a sense to have faith you are healed is the same as psychosomatic healing. Both occur because you believe you have been healed. In one case you believe God has done it, in the other - a drug. My question is whether there is a difference.

  Clearly, resurrecting the dead is on a different level. So is healing of people who don't have the capacity for belief e.g. brain-damaged or mentally retarded. But do you think that all healings in the Bible were the direct hand of God or that some had nothing to do with God at all?

  Earnest
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  Introspection

  This is interesting, and the effects do not appear to be limited to healing. What's funny is sometimes someone gets better on placebo, and then they find out it's placebo and then it worsens again.

  I have to point out that complete belief might be easier if you are mentally retarded. In any case, it's also worth pointing out that the body naturally heals itself anyway, so it's kind of funny to say what causes it when it tends to do that normally. Although there are more dramatic and serious cases, I think it's a matter of allowing those natural abilities to work instead of fighting yourself. Most people's minds are kind of split up and fragmented as opposed to an organized, coordinated whole. Of course it is the nature of mind to distinguish between this and that, but it is possible to reach a state where it is focused. If the mind is normally (that is, most of the time) scattered, then focusing it and bringing it into equilibrium may in fact allow that natural healing to come through, so that it appears to be expedited whereas it was simply restricted before. In that case, it would be a matter of beliefs limiting its natural flow, although belief in the sense of being open to possibilities would be a different thing. It does appear that when there is this clinging to a certain belief to the exclusion of other things, there is a certain tension which could potentially limit any natural healing mechanism that brings the organism back into homeostasis. In any case, belief of the clinging type would serve as a restraint.

  As for the healings in the bible being from God, that is only meaningful if you see God as a separate entity isn't it? For those that don't but believe in God in some sense, God is always involved, so the factor of intervention isn't there. Of course, in that case it isn't so personal like "I'll give you special treatment" or "okay, okay, you talked me into it."