Miracle cures and charlatans

Good evening.

If you start talking about atheism again, I shall walk off this site and never come back.

OK. I was checking out YouTube again the other day ....

And don't knock that wonderful Mitt Romney again either. By the time he's been in office  for a year there will be so many jobs that nobody will ever need be unemployed again!

That quick, eh? I hope people like burgers, there' ll be plenty of people flipping them by the sounds of it.

Anyway I came across this site where this Aussie was claiming that the Internet would see the end of atheism ....

LOOK I WARNED YOU!!!!

OK, Tschüss! Hope you enjoy your time working at Burger King or Wendy's or wharrever.

Anyway - for anyone still listening - this Aussie was claiming that atheism would die and Christianity would boom, as word would get around about all the miracle cures out there. People who would have some serious problem that their doctors had written off would either pray like crazy to God, or go and see a faith healer, or even a run-of-the-mill priest and be cured! And this would be all down to belief, science will have been proved phoney, and religion will have won.

(Stop laughing please - yes, I know that it is hysterically funny, but even so - you'll set me off in a minute!).

For Americans, I am told this is not new. Every so often someone gets cured like that on some or other TV channel - at least that I have been led to believe.  It couldn't possibly be that the person was never sick in the first place, and the "healer" is a charlatan, could it? Hey, 5 minutes ago I had Alzheimer's disease, and now I feel like a 20-year-old ....

The famed magician and sceptic, James Randi, has checked out a number of these claims and found them all to be phoney. As a magician, he knows more about illusions than most, and he takes his art seriously.

And if the "healer" were so good, wouldn't we know about these people far better? They would never get any peace! Medical science has come a very long way even in my lifetime, but they are still searching for a lot of cures to a lot of significant issues. If my wife ever got breast cancer, for example, I would be devastated.

The US is, of course, not the only place where these miracles cures are "practised". Some years ago I saw the movie "Man in the Moon" starring Jim Carrey. A film about the American comedian, Andy Kaufmann. Brilliant film, mainly drawn from reality. At the end, Andy was ill with some form of cancer and went to the Philippines as some faith healer there could evidently cure him -  he didn't. (Readers in the Philippines, I am not knocking your country or your people - just one or two malicious individuals!).

Then if you go to Paris some time (and you can speak French!), pick up one of the free magazines that you can find at stalls around the city - Paris Paname if they still produce it, for example. At the back you find a load of adverts from African practitioners who will promise either to rid you of your financial difficulties, or bring back your lost lover, or maybe even cure some illness that you have. Theoretically there is a money-back guarantee!

Believe it if you must.

I don't particularly trust doctors, but if they have decided that there is no cure, they must have their reasons. Eventually a second opinion is the best choice. A faith healer? A priest? A witch doctor even? Sorry my lack of belief that they can cure you does not come down to my religious scepticism. It comes down to my pragmatic nature, and my understanding that charlatans always know how to prey upon people's gullibility.