yes, nothing above that quote does suggest causation, because * I never claimed it did*!
When I was writing that, I was responding to someone who was saying that saying my mom was becoming more of a prayer-vigil is not a fact. I was telling them that it was as close to a fact as a statement of that nature can be. THis is why i was claiming fact in that paragraph twice. I never claimed that it was criteria for determination of miracle or not.
I wonder how many minutes of lost time I have spent on clearing up misunderstandings in this forum? Please, people, be more careful when you read!!!
Bricker, I already addressed the second part of that last paragraph. I said that the ‘impressing’ was fact, and amended that. I do apologize for this, as about 3 people have posted this same thing not seeing my amendment.
Cardinal, how can you say that you haven’t read the thread and then proceed to characterize the responses as “sarcastic” or “slamming?”
Why don’t you actually read the damn thread and then see if your knee-jerk assumptions are warranted.
Fuel,
what you said was that it was a “fact” that “God was impressing the importance of prayer” on your mother. That is quite a different statement than that she was becoming more prayerful. The statement the way you phrased it initially made an assertion of fact that a theistic entity was in communication with your mother. That is something which obviously can’t be asserted as fact with anny intellectual honesty.
Fuel, from your own OP (though I will note clarification soon):
My emphasis. Initially you were putting up this bit about your mother as indisputible evidence that wouldhold sway in any secular court. Now you are saying that it’s as true as anything like this can be.
That sort of statement (that it is absolute fact what God was doing) firstly does not have to be fact of any sort. And secondly, the most factual a claim you or anyone can make here is that in your opinion, it is true. You cannot prove with physical evidence that God was doing anything at all to your mother (and if I am wrong here please indicate so). As you are not God, your opinion does not equate to fact:)
You didn’t mention if the cat had any visible wounds or broken bones, so what makes you think he was hit by a car? (Honest question, not trying to imply anything)
Now, my opinion about your story? Weighing it against my story, I have to say it’s not as miraculous as mine. You said that the healing didn’t happen immediately? My mom said the blisters literally disappeared in 5 seconds. Was the cat in this condition for a long time and then all of the sudden better? No, but I was sick for 2 weeks, had blisters and swelling for 30 minutes, and then NOTHING whatsoever the next minute. So, on a scale of miraculousness, I’d say mine was a 8 and yours is a 5 or 6.
Now, on a scale of belief of the story after being told it by someone I don’t know: I believe your story is more likely to be true than mine. First of all, I believe animals can bounce back well from adverse health inflictions. So I believe it could have been a strong cat that pulled through. Second, I tend to believe that magic is indeed real, because the Bible speaks of it. So, I believe it could have been a spirit or something. But if I were told both of these stories and asked which is more likely, I would say yours.
I think your story’s facts are likely. I think the magic was a little less likely than a strong kitty pulling through, though.
That’s why I said that this was as close to fact that a statement of this nature can be. It’s not fact, but the theory is supported by my dad and her friends, and the fact that she almost never prayed for healings or miraculous things before and now she is always praying for those things. She showed an uncharacteristic faith in praying for my illness. So, it is safe to conclude from this information that she was being impressed upon (by someone/something) to pray more and about different things at that time in her life.
Both a good point, and a good cite. So according to the ADD, the virus can be passed on to others who have not had chicken pox, and it will develop into chicken pox, not zoster. And even then, they say it can only be transmitted if the virus blisters are broken. Regardless though, as you’ve stated, the nanny couldn’t have gotten HZ from him.
Did you see that my dad saw my blisters and then they were gone an hour later when he returned from his meeting? This is a second testimony, it’s not all on Mom!
If you did have HZ, it seems unlikely you would have went to the doctor until probably the blisters and pain developed which takes a couple of days. Before that, there is only a tingling or itching sensation, that lasts for one to three days which probably wouldn’t have warranted your parents taking you to the doctor for that. The way you seem to describe it, Fuel, your mom was the only eye-witness to the swelling, and the ear canal closing up, even though your dad had seen the blisters prior to that, he was gone an hour, and during this time, you were out cold for 30 minutes. The hives that others have brought up would have explained it leaving so quickly assuming it was even that. I just don‘t think your mom got her facts straight. It sounds like she was an emotional wreck which is often understandable if she has a kid that is sick. Every time I hear of a miracle story, I immediately think of David Hume: Has the laws of nature gone cuckoo, or have humans bent the facts, knowingly or not. Which is common occurrence, and which is not?
To point out what’s important, those superficial blisters I had should have left at least a temporary mark on my face, right? But they didn’t. No sign of them at all.
It sounds even less like you had HZ, but just rashes or hives along with the possibility of some other illness too. Even if one was to have had HZ according to the American Academy of Dermatologists: Scarring usually occurs only after more severe infections, such as in those with weakened immune systems, elderly persons or those whose blisters become infected.
In a religious home, I’m sure there were many prayers being offered up, and thanks being given for healing you. And if a God does in fact intervene on the behalf of ones prayers, is he in fact, changing his mind?
Fuel, had I told you the story the way I told it to myself for years, it would’ve sounded a lot more miraculous. During that time, I shied away from examining my belief of the story too closely, because I was afraid of the results.
I don’t think your mom is lying to you – but if she was so determined to discover that prayer worked, I think she might have exagerrated certain aspects of the story in her mind, downplayed other aspects of the story, and arranged things to make for the best parable possible. I suspect that if you were able to take a time machine backwards and actually view the events, you’d find the only miracle on hand was that you were in a time machine, and how cool is that?
Also, here’s an equally plausible explanation to balance your mom’s explanation (i.e., that she was close to an epiphany with God, Satan tried to distract her, and God cured you to bring her closer to faith):
What if your mom’s religion is wrong? What if God really is an old-school Catholic God, and Protestantism just leads people away from the truth?
She was moving into a faith that would result in her eternal damnation. Satan, trickster that he is, made you sick; then, when your mom prayed to her false god, Satan made you well again. Your mother’s doom was thereby sealed: she believed that her prayers to God were answered, when in reality Satan answered them, leading her forever from the true faith.
What evidence to we have to recommend one scenario over the other?
That’s the problem with ambiguous miracles. If God really wanted to convince your mom (or me, for that matter), why cure a kid of something that could plausibly be hives that would go away on their own? This is God we’re talking about: he could rearrange the stars in the heavens to say, “Dude! Up here! I’m real! Pay attention!”
What you describe, however, could be naturalistic events; or they could represent the interference of evil spirits just as easily as they could represent God’s hand.
That is a very good point. Shows you are actually giving this some thought, I appreciate that.
The fact is your suggestion is valid, and my suggestion of a miracle by God is valid. And the most valid of all is a medical, physical wonder. That’s precisely why we can’t really draw a logically testable conclusion to this story, but only to default to the medical conclusion.
But leaving room for the meta-physical, I believe the more likely scenario of the two is that God healed me, not Satan or an imposter who wants to mislead my mom. My mom was praying to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in His name. She even denounced the name of Satan. I am more inclined to believe that the actual words and intentions of the human do really matter in the spiritual world, rather than the spirits doing works in other god’s names and ignoring the intentions of the human. See what I’m saying?
Yours is an interesting angle to look at my story and certainly a viable solution. But, there is why I would “recommend my scenario over the other.” It’s a better conclusion than your proposition, but not much better granted.
I just got off the phone with my mom. She told me a couple things:
I was sick for the first couple days with a supposed ear infection. The doctors put me on antibiotics and they did not work. I went back and they then thought it was an outer ear infection because of red blotches around my ear and treated me as such for another couple days or a week. So, this whole thing originated in my ear, something that I never really knew until now. (My mom did not document the meds I was on.)
Turns out I had the blisters for longer than I thought. (Some reliable source I am now ) I had the blisters on my face for about 3-4 hours, not 30 minutes. Nothing else in the story has changed though.
My nanny was sick with Herpes Zoster for 3 months after I was. The doctors diagnosed her in their office with HZ, so that much is a fact. I do specifically remember how disgusting she looked…
(And might I add an observation of mine: My mom seems VERY sharp when I ask her about these details. She does not hesitate when I ask, and she has never changed her story once as far as I know. Just an observation of mine)
Also, the nanny is now too senile to answer whether she had chicken pox before her HZ.
Also, ironically, I just got done with a physical examination for Firefighters academy, and they just told me that my blood test turned back that I am not immune to chicken pox! I had a generous of them growing up, plus this sickness, and now for some reason I am not immune. Go figure!?
So, is it correct to say that my nanny could have had the chicken pox when she was younger but lost her immunity and became infected with HZ? I remember someone saying that HZ affects the non-immune-to-chicken-pox person with chicken pox, not HZ… is this correct?
Could someone please straighten these facts out for me with some medical info?
His suggestion is valid because it is a plausible theory that, according to the tenets and beliefs of/on the metaphysical aspects involved, this could have happened. Your suggestion of a miracle by God is less valid because your initial story, or however you have chosen to reword it, is not as plausible due to various points that have been raised in this thread (including a diagnosis over the phone, your inability, ultimately, to prove that God was having any influence over your mother whatsoever, confabulation, etc). And the suggestion that this was a miracle, when it seems more likely to me (and I ain’t alone here) that since you have been unable to find another medical occurence of this (your methods and willingness on finding such having been duly called into question with the points about hives and a rash and etc) you are calling it a miracle, is not rigorously supported.
I do not believe that you have presented evidence to reasonably substantiate the notion that yours is the correct medical conclusion.
This is true because it is your belief, however deep inside you. To you, this belief is true, and inasmuch as you are not attempting to make it irrefituble factual evidence it is fact inasmuch as you believe it is. IOW, “Yes, he thinks that” is the fact here.
This is not fact. You nor your mother can prove to beyond a reasonable (leaving out “shadow of a doubt” here, since that is a bit less than hospitable) doubt that she was actually praying to the J-C (Judeo-Christian) God. She believes she was, but however earnest that belief it is not fact.
She denounced Satan in the manner she understands that being to exist. She denounced that being (I have even less of an idea what gender Satan [other than the banned poster] truly has than what gender God has, if either truly do) in spirit, but possibly not in fact. Rather like if you knew my name to be, say, Archimedes and you said “I banish you from this boy’s body.” You banished me as you know me, but I am not actually Archimedes.
A simple question will clear up this for me: do you believe in predestination/the providence of God to any degree? Because if you believe that God has set certain things down to happen, then prayer, IIRC, is done not because it necessarily helps us but because God likes to have it done (warning: I am quoting this from my memory of a religious education class from back in 1997-8. If I am off do hit me appropriately hard with the mega-cluestick:)).
Now then. What spirits do you mean when you say “rather than the spirits doing works in other god’s names and ignoring the intentions of the human”?
This might be your answer, here. There’s a chance, however slim or grand, that you experienced a miracle. There’s also the chance that it was a rare (or even not so rare) medical occurence of which existence you were unaware. Nothing wrong with that at all. I personally will not lose much sleep whatever you call it so long as you take what you have learned here (both from cites and from posters) and apply it as it fits.
Upon preview:
Fuel, from what I saw of your Zoster cite, that should answer your questions. Don’t mean to be so rude in saying “Do your homework, it’s your deal”, but … well:)
Why is it, coincidentally, that you have told this story so many times and you were wrong by a factor of 6 about the length of the skin condition you had, and the time the nanny was sick, especially since it was so important to you in your OP that the skin blotches went away as quickly as they came? Something here is not jibing.
I was always sure that the blotches went quickly, I was never sure, nor did I write, that the blotches came as quickly.
The nanny came down with HZ, so it’s not outlandish to say I had it, with her having it and me showing symptoms of it. Is it?
I have told this story many times, but have never been scrutinzed this much. I have never had to tell of all the details, just the info that mattered to the person I was telling. I had certain things memorized and told them… the length of time I had the blisters was short, that’s all I knew. And I mistook my nanny’s illness as lasting 3 weeks, not months. At least I am forgetting things that make my story more believable! If it were the other way around, it would look much worse!
To say that my mom migth not have been praying to that God is preposterous! She addressed the God by his name, by his followers names… what else can a person do to make themselves sure that they are summoning the correct spirit!!!
I will most definately not get into a discussion about predestination in this thread. Sorry.
What spirits did I mean…? Read back and you’ll understand what I was talking about. Not talking about any certain being, just the theoretical ones Daniel was talking about.
My homework is not done from those cites. I need a medical opinion on whether what happened to my nanny is accepted in the medical community as possible. My cite says certain things, but I can’t draw a conclusion for just those facts without having other background info.
How do you then reconcile that assertion with this paragraph from your OP?:
That seems to indicate, to me at least, that the blotches came quickly (30 minutes) rather than over a period of hours.
Whether it is outlandish or not is not the question. You are attempting to assert as truth a diagnosis made over the phone and not substantiated to any reasonable degree of certainty since.
This quote from your provided link sheds much light on the issue of the relationship between the nanny coming down with it and any experience you might have had with it:
As whatever you had disappeared that day, it is extremely unlikely that you spread whatever you had to her. IMO, at least.
You have come to the right place to have it scrutinized;)
Larger and rather intelligent audience->more questions, especially given initial skepticism.
Quite easy to demonstrate. Let us take this fake example:
Now, in this example, I have quoted raspberry cheesecake. I believe I am calling upon that entity in what s/he/it said inasmuch as I believe that entity’s name/title/whatever to be raspberry cheesecake. Does that mean that her/his/its name is actually raspberry cheesecake? Absolutely not.
Now. Your mother believed she was addressing specific beings. Does that mean she was? Not necessarily.
Just so you know, this doesn’t really mean anything as far as it being an accurate recollection. This sort of thing is perfectly common no matter whether the account is accurate or misremembered. Generally, a memory can get mashed up a little and then the mashed up version sticks hard. Not saying in any way that this happened in your mom’s case, but you seem to be treating her manner of response and consistency as signs of accuracy, and there’s no justification to do so. Only lying would being pauses or inconsistent answers, and no one is suggesting that she lied.
The problem with this story is that you mom sounds like she was doing any number of religious things during the entire course of your illness that, in retrospect, she could have associated with you getting better.
I mean, consider this shortened story: someone gets sick, someone prays for them every day. Then, suddenly, they develop an acute condition. Then, suddenly, it goes away. The illness continues. The real question is: what is the PETWHAC here? What is the population of events that would have appeared coincidental: startling enough for your mom to recognize it? It sounds like the population could have been quite high, because at any time you have gotten actue symptoms and they went away, and at any time your mother would have been praying or doing something else she could have connected to the idea that it was a sign from god. Take away the mother praying, and your story is not unusal at all: all the time kids are sick, get an acute onset of something not unlike hives, and then have it disappear without being properly diagnosed. Add the praying and it doesn’t really become any more miraculous.
Now I’m open to be corrected but I’m like 99.98% sure that a doctor cannot make a diagnosis over the phone. He definitely wouldn’t say that any potential diagnosis was “for sure” without examining a patient in person.
I’m not saying that your mom was dishonest but maybe she has a faulty memeory on some details? maybe the doctor suggestedHZ and your mom remembers him as saying it for sure. Memory is not a perfect thing. A lot of things that we think we remember very clearly can differ from what we thought. Have you ever had the “I could have sworn that…” experience? It happens to all of us.
In any case, I don’t think we can say that a phone call diagnosis is reliable evidence that you actually had HZ…especially when a med reaction is perfectly plausible.
) I had the blisters on my face for about 3-4 hours, not 30 minutes. Nothing else in the story has changed though.