Kind of a miracle

[brenda]

views --------acceptable

insults--------not acceptable

 

[Martlet]

Again, I feel forced to respond. No-one is saying that people cannot question, but equally I don't think that suggesting that the 17% of the world's population with no religious belief are somehow rational and the rest of us are - what? - is helpful.

 

[Knackered]

views --------acceptable

insults--------not acceptable

With all due respect Brenda you once made a post insinuating I'd been abused as a child in church and that's why I wasn't a Christian after I'd responded to a post you made about your distaste for homosexuality. And you now won't let this drop.

I've insulted no one and I never would on this forum, the posts in this thread by myself and others have been very meek and reserved indeed.

 

[Jody]

Rachel,

I am so pleased to hear what's happened for you.:Retro smile:

Wonderful.

Are you still feeling well?

 

[Lily]

​

Well if i didn't understand why we need a member's only area before, I sure do now.

GET IT QUICK!!!​

(back to the bench - should have stayed there - will now)

 

[Jody]

Don't be scared, Lily.

People get heated when they talk about things they feel strongly about. We'll all survive it.

 

[Lily]

Don't be scared, Lily.

People get heated when they talk about things they feel strongly about. We'll all survive it.

I'm not scared Jody, I'm angry! At least this thread title isn't CFS Miracle! Maybe Google won't pick it up right away! All of this is embarrassing. And yes, I realize that I am embarrassing myself as well, and need to take a long long step back and really rethink some things. I think I have underestimated my intelligence and over estimated others.

 

[Jody]

I'm not scared Jody, I'm angry! At least this thread title isn't CFS Miracle! Maybe Google won't pick it up right away! All of this is embarrassing. And yes, I realize that I am embarrassing myself as well, and need to take a long long step back and really rethink some things. I think I have underestimated my intelligence and over estimated others.

What are you angry about Lily?

 

[brenda]

Throw the Christians to the Lions again

Knackered

With all due respect Brenda you once made a post insinuating I'd been abused as a child in church and that's why I wasn't a Christian after I'd responded to a post you made about your distaste for homosexuality. And you now won't let this drop.

I've insulted no one and I never would on this forum, the posts in this thread by myself and others have been very meek and reserved indeed.

That is not respect when you have misrepresented my words and taken them from a deleted thread which leaves me unable to back up my defence, which is rather useful for you.

I did not insinuate anything about whether you were abused, I merely remarked that often I have found when talking to people that they are angry about Christianity because of their childhood experiences, thinking of harshness by nuns, which I mentioned. What you have said is a downright lie and I hope that some here who can remember the conversation can see this.

I never made any remarks showing I had a distaste for gays, the argument was about someone else ie a hotel keeper and his right to have his own feelings about the issue which concerned his religious beliefs. I stressed that I myself am against all persecution especially having experienced it myself due to my illness and I defend gays on this. I did make one comment which I later regretted in that i said that it is a lifestyle implying it is chosen which I do know is not the case. I have been having a very friendly conversation with a gay here about this matter and I profusely apologised to him over that unguarded remark - I was repeating something without thinking about it. Again a lie from you about me.

Two lies Knackered and a grossly offensive video - I don't call that meek and reserved. But as usual in these times where truth is not cared about, the purpetrator pleads innocence and the victim is made to look guilty. I did not start this, I only reacted to the insults from you implying that Christians are unable to use their brains and apparently are fooling themselves if they think they had a physical illness which disappeared suddenly and goodness lets not let the world hear about it.

And now we have the little snide remark from Lily

I think I have underestimated my intelligence and over estimated others.

I think I can call this persecution actually. Why did there have to be interference on a thread started by Rachel, who I really feel for after this, who wanted to share her joy and found it was not a safe place to do so because of the attack on hers and othere here, faith.

 

[willow]

I feel sad that we're giving Rachel, her experinces or beliefs a hard time when it should be a time of unmitigated joy for her. I'm delighted that 1 less of us is livng through this. Maybe next time it will be you, by whichever means you heal.

Ok, on the basis that many the establishment think ME is a psych illness there's room for controversy, but people with cancer and whole range of other health issues occasionally have miracle healing. We shouldn't allow our fears of others opinions or actions to taint our happiness.

I'm not religious, but there are both aspects I find poisitve about most religions I know of and apects I find unhelpful or limiting. At the same time I sometimes see and hear things happen that have no rational explanation and I'm willing to accept some of those.

I don't post much,so don't know Rachel. But for someone who does, someone who liked and respected her, saw her as sincere and genuine, valued her contributions, why would they question her now?

I've lived with this condition for many years, various theories have come along and been discarded, and always felt that people don't have to understand the bio- mechanics of it, or to have it 'proven' as an organic illness to treat me with respect and consideration. No, they just have to look honestly at the symptoms and signs that are all too obvious, and on that basis and without interfernce from their strongly held beliefs or experiences to the contratry, decide whether I am genuine. I'd like to grant Rachel that and be happy for her-acceptance does not necessarily require understanding.

I haven't been able to read the whole thread, so apologies if I've misunderstood some of this.

Willow

 

[Min]

This thread has made me very uncomfortable and I've tried to think why as I have no issues with anyone's religious beliefs. My husband is very, very devout in his religious beliefs and I know he has prayed for me regularly for 20 years (and did so for his first wife, who died of leukemia leaving him with two little children).

It seems to me that Rachel claiming a personal miracle is perhaps an extreme expression of religion and perhaps is on a par with the people who claim to be cured by the Lightning Process etc. The thread on Buddhism made no such claims.

I'm just thinking out loud here & hope I haven't offended anyone. Religious beliefs are a minefield on forums.

 

[Martlet]

Please will everyone get back on track. Rather than be a celebration of Rachel's healing - however it came about - it is now deteriorating into a personal battle between a couple of posters.

MODERATOR NOTE:
Knackered - What was said in a deleted thread ought not to be brought up here as it has nothing to do with this discussion.

Brenda - Please step back and cool down. People are entitled to their beliefs or lack of belief, and are allowed to express it provided they do so respectfully.

To all who have posted in support of Rachel regardless of your beliefs, thank you. And everyone else, can we please get back on track?

 

[Knackered]

MODERATOR NOTE:
Knackered - What was said in a deleted thread ought not to be brought up here as it has nothing to do with this discussion.

It was to indicate the hypocrisy in brenda's posts.

Regardless of what's said. I have nothing against religious people, my own mother is Christian, the grandparents who I spent most of my childhood with were Christian, I have nothing but the fondest of memories from when my gran used to take me to over 60's at my local church when I was little. Religion is really great for some people, mostly the people who keep it personal.

I do object to a persons personal religion is used to belittle my illness. I do realise this may be mildly offensive to some people who do believe a god is performing miracles and healing people, but this is a public forum and I along with the members of this forum have an illness which is under the scrutiny of psychiatrists. My aim to get better once the biological cause of my illness is found and I do not want and research hindered because of posts about miracles, with all respect to Rachael, it's embarrassing and it makes us all look very silly. I'm happy it's not just myself who thinks like this. Whilst I think I'm being the person who is being the most forthright about it and I feel no shame for expressing my feelings on the matter.

I wish Rachal all the best and I hope she continues to improve. One last thing though, if you're reading this Rach, no one has any hard feelings towards you, you're just as welcome now as you ever have been.

All the Best.

 

[creekfeet]

I weighed in, in the other thread, on the question of a members-only private area before I ever saw and read this thread. Only just got around to seeing this, just now. My feeling that a private area is a good idea would be the same whether or not some controversy had come up around this thread.

Specific to this thread:

First and foremost I want to celebrate the fact that Rachel is better, by whatever means.

I don't understand it, but I don't feel I need to. It doesn't fit my understanding and experience, but it happened and I'm glad it did.

I can see why folks are worried this could be picked up and twisted the wrong way. If so, it won't be the first or last time we've had to counter misinformation. Should some AIDS victims in the early 80s have lied and said they weren't gay in an effort to avoid the stigma attached to the disease? Some asses will always try to make the fact you're ill be because you're wrong or bad or whatever, but that's a problem with the asses and not with the sick people.

Rachel, you anticipated the danger of misunderstanding and I honor your caution over that, but I also honor your courage in going ahead and sharing the story. Congratulations and may you stay well! But I hope you'll keep working with us and with any gods and powers we can tap into, to push for a cure that will be available to all.

 

[Martlet]

Regardless of what's said. I have nothing against religious people, my own mother is Christian, the grandparents who I spent most of my childhood with were Christian, I have nothing but the fondest of memories from when my gran used to take me to over 60's at my local church when I was little. Religion is really great for some people, mostly the people who keep it personal.

I understand your notion that religion should be kept to oneself, but I couldn't spit around here without hitting a Christian and, as I said earlier (I think) people talk about their faith an awful lot more. Look at the difference between Tony Blair and Barack Obama. The former thought he had to keep faith matters to himself while the latter talks openly about his Christian faith. A transatlantic difference. Looking back through this thread, I did notice a difference between UK posters and American ones, with those from the USA simply wishing Rachel all the best. We have all done that now - including you - so can we leave this and move on? I doubt Brenda wants a fight any more than you do, so could we all let bygones be bygones? Please???

 

[Knackered]

I did notice a difference between UK posters and American ones, with those from the USA simply wishing Rachel all the best

Edit, I'm incensed.

I'll make another post tomorrow.

 

[brenda]

To all the atheistic hysterics reading this thread and attacking the Christians here -

sorry to tell you but Rachel is not the only one. There have been quite a few PWC healed instantly - write to this ministry and ask them how many they have had - and also other conditions healed the same way -

http://www.sozo.org/index.html

I know of a handful, and guess what? The ones who are healed will tell their doctors and GET, and CBT team that God healed them instantly and sorry to say folks but Wessely and Co will have heard of them.

This is a problem for you atheists to sort out. As for we Christians we will continue to believe that God can heal each of us and live in hope and strangely enough - it happens. It's not our fault that our beliefs have evidence when the tyre hits the road. Sorry it does not fit into your world view.

 

[Knackered]

If this forum turns in to a Christian healing forum I'm going.

I'm sorry for everyone of us who have had to put up with this, something has to be done about it, i'ts getting really silly now.

This isn't a Christian forum.

 

[Min]

If this forum turns in to a Christian healing forum I'm going.

I'm sorry for everyone of us who have had to put up with this, something has to be done about it, i'ts getting really silly now.

This isn't a Christian forum.

I have left forums before because they have been taken over by born again Christians who will not tolerate anyone else's opinion. I see no difference between any religion and would have felt the same if e.g. fundamentalist Islamists or Wiccans had taken over the forums. We are united by our illness here, not by our religion - surely there are other forums for that?

I take great exception to the remark implying that only Americans are giving the 'acceptable' response on this thread and that we Brits are not.

Calling Atheists hysterical for having different opinions is as insulting as calling Christians names.

 

[kurt]

Love this topic, and hope things work out for Rachel. I had a partial healing from CFS myself twelve years ago for about two years, and that was very important for my business. When the healing left and the CFS returned, I was able to survive and take care of my family because of what I accomplished in those two years. Being a family breadwinner with CFS really stinks.... I don't mean to cast any doubt but hope that Rachel makes wise use of her time of better functionality, the future is hard to predict even when you have experienced a healing.

My two bits, the truth is that ANY healing of someone with CFS is somewhat miraculous. I consider science to also be quite a modern miracle, but so can be all other types of belief systems.

Science is a belief system based on an empirical philosophy.
Atheism is a belief system based on skepticism and sometimes cynicism (except 'positive atheism' which I have high regard for).
Religion is a belief system based on traditions surrounding lived spiritual experiences and social concepts of ethics that have been developed across the ages.
Medicine is a belief system based on faith in drugs, vaccinations and surgical procedures.

Every approach someone takes to help ME/CFS sufferers will have an element of belief and faith. In my experience there is more failure than success in all forms of CFS therapies so any success should be celebrated.

Note that Rachel says she was a 50 and is now at 90 on Dr Bell's scale. This is not as dramatic as what happened with Mike Dessin who was about a 10 and is now at 90. Both are miracles, one was based on faith and prayer and one was based on an intuition-based homeopathic type of neural/detox therapy. But both involved some appeal to a higher wisdom, even if it was subtle.

There is no doubt in my mind that there are many things science does not yet understand, which probably includes some mechanisms that at times work without visible means. Here is an interesting story, I have a friend who is a very gifted Reiki healer. She uses a type of New Age Christian approach to Reiki, 'pulling energy from Jesus' an that worked for her. Well, she had a serious mental health problem and during that time became angry at God I think, she became an agnostic, actually almost an atheist, she lost her faith entirely. So no more appeals to God, but she still could have the same level of success with her Reiki, still could heal people just as well! Later she got medication that worked and over time as this problem was solved she became a believer again, and now she is back to a Christian approach to energy/faith healing and that works too. [note, I am just telling a true story, not making any point about belief failure and mental health]

My personal view as a scientist? There are many things we have yet to learn, I have seen these types of healings also, for other conditions, and they are real, regardless of how skeptical some people may be, I have seen them and they are not coincidences. But as a scientist I believe these are real physical phenomenon that are simply so subtle that we can not see the mechanism (although feeling a heat is close, many people experience that also in Reiki and other types of energy medicine). What people think and believe and how they pray and intend feelings has some real physical effect in this universe. Someday this will be 'discovered' scientifically, in fact every discovery science will ever make, from now to eternity, already exists. So think of how much there is yet to discover, and realize that all those phenomenon are already present, we just do not know about them yet. The earth was round long before people realized that was the case. Forces of nature such as electricity, magnetism and gravity exist even though they are invisible and we only see their effects. There appears to be some type of invisible spiritual reality and there is evidence of its effects in the fact that sometimes people are healed without explanation. The fact that experiments fail to detect this phenomenon at this time does not disprove its existence (see Carl Sagan on that topic). If there is intelligence in that spiritual reality perhaps it has some opinion about when and how it will allow itself to be measured.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." (Hamlet)