Thread: Cnn: Blind Man Can Now See

Everyone that frequents this section of the forum should check out the video on www.cnn.com of the man who was blind, went to a church and prayed and woke up the next morning with 20/20 vision, baffling the scientist(s) that examined him both before and after the incident. The Vatican is declaring it a miracle. Amazing.

Unfortunately, it's just a video, and they don't give links to video stories, so you'll have to find it yourself. It's on the homepage now, though. Wow.[/b]

Good evidence for god but as you say you cant rule out a scientific explantion plus i have not seen any link or text about this can somebody provided me with some because call me skeptcal it a bit strange. Give it time and the skeptic will come up with a different explanation like you dont know if his eye would have healed if he didnt go to church e.t.c.

Damn, I'm good. Found out a way to get a link to it.

Here it is

And yeah, of course there may be a scientific explanation. (Even the guy who was healed keeps this in mind.) I think it may be evidence of the whole "mind over matter" concept, though, just as well as it could be evidence of God. It raises many possibilities, though, if it really happened so miraculously.

So why isn't God considered a scientific solution?

(I am not saying he is, however, so don't shoot me)

Good point. Devine intervention from God could be a scientific explanation, considering it was reached by using the scientific method. I guess a better way to phrase it is that there could be a less-miraculous explanation.

Of course, one could argue that, even if the origin of the healed eye was some mundane, biological process, that it could be God behind that process, but that would start yet another endless argument that nobody (I hope) really wants to get into, at this time.

Let's just take the evidence as what it is: Amazing, nonetheless.

Video doesn't work for me, got a text link?

Originally Posted by Keeper

So why isn't God considered a scientific solution?

(I am not saying he is, however, so don't shoot me)
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The basis of science is methodological naturalism, which restricts its domain to strictly natural explanation of phenomena. As a systematic method of exploring the natural world, it wouldn't have been too useful to allow the supernatural as a cop out answer. If it actually was something that science couldn't explain, thats the best it could do. Metaphysics takes it from there.

I would be interested to know how blind this person was. Eyes stabbed out blind would be impressive.

Originally Posted by spoon

methodological naturalism, which restricts its domain to strictly natural explanation of phenomena.
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You know, I was so close to going into that definition of "scientific explanation," but we have to accept that, should a divine intervention prove possible, it is just as "natural" as evolution, and should be catagorized in the same light.

If you have a pop-up blocker, the link won't work. I just checked it though and (choosing to bypass the P.U. blocker) it works fine.

Legally blind is 20/200.
This guy was 20/800 in one eye, and 20/1000 in the other. He's been that way for decades.

You&#39;re saying that going from seeing nothing but the hint of a shadowy silhouette (<--I hate trying to spell that word) for decades, to seeing perfect 20/20 vision, overnight, after praying, would not be impressive?
It&#39;s not "eyes stabbed out" blind, but shit, that&#39;s impressive.

This has been troubling me all day. Selection biased plus ocalm and rasor simple explantion would be dammit.

Still cant find any text links just that video.

Originally Posted by becomingagodo

Selection biased plus ocalm and rasor simple explantion would be dammit.
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Hold up.

Please retype that.^^ I know you&#39;re dyslexic, so I&#39;m not trying to insult you, but I can&#39;t make anything out of it.

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

You know, I was so close to going into that definition of "scientific explanation," but we have to accept that, should a divine intervention prove possible, it is just as "natural" as evolution, and should be catagorized in the same light.[/b]

Wouldn&#39;t it being natural imply it was just &#39;intervention&#39;. Can something be divine and natural? I wouldn&#39;t have thought so.

Legally blind is 20/200.
This guy was 20/800 in one eye, and 20/1000 in the other. He&#39;s been that way for decades.

You&#39;re saying that going from seeing nothing but the hint of a shadowy silhouette (<--I hate trying to spell that word) for decades, to seeing perfect 20/20 vision, overnight, after praying, would not be impressive?
It&#39;s not "eyes stabbed out" blind, but shit, that&#39;s impressive. [/b]

Video just doesn&#39;t work for me, embedded media is a problem for some reason. But are we just taking his word for it, or is there a good paper trail to go on? I&#39;m guessing if it was that empirically provable I would have been able to find some information on it.

I&#39;d be interested to know how many times he prayed and didn&#39;t get anything. People have a tendency to ignore all the negative results and focus on the one positive. Also, doesn&#39;t this story kind of shit all over the millions of people who pray and don&#39;t get healed every year? Surely if the mechanism is that faulty there&#39;s something else at play.

And, call me cynical, but a miracle healing story 4 days away from xmas in america doesn&#39;t seem too out far out of the ordinary to me.

Originally Posted by spoon

Wouldn&#39;t it being natural imply it was just &#39;intervention&#39;. Can something be divine and natural? I wouldn&#39;t have thought so.
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That&#39;s exactly what I just said.
We now know it as divine intervention, because it&#39;s not accepted as natural. Were that to change, I&#39;ve no doubt the term would change. There&#39;s nothing in myp post that contradicts that.

Video just doesn&#39;t work for me, embedded media is a problem for some reason. But are we just taking his word for it, or is there a good paper trail to go on? I&#39;m guessing if it was that empirically provable I would have been able to find some information on it.
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So are you dismissing it because it&#39;s video and a (allegedly) recent story that you can&#39;t find any other information on (as of yet)? To say you&#39;re not convinced is one thing and, I&#39;d say, understable, but if you&#39;re completely going to disregard it until finding something that fits your standards, exactly, (which is what it seems like you&#39;re doing, so correct me if I&#39;m wrong) then I&#39;d call that a bit foolish. No offense.
Well, let&#39;s look at what we have to go on, at the moment. We have the guy&#39;s word. Doesn&#39;t mean much, I agree. But we also have the scientist who examined him, the scientists that performed the surgery on him (which I&#39;m sure could be traced back through the name of the scientist who did the interview). We have the reputation of the medical center on the line, as they did give the name of it (didn&#39;t they? I forget. It was Indiana, right?). So, should this scientist be making an unfounded endorsement for his patient (for some completely unknown reason) imagine the chain reaction that could become of that, should someone speak out against the credibility of the medical center.
As this was just posted on the news, I&#39;m sure all of the friends/family of this guy are going to be answering a lot of questions, in the near future, for people all over the place. How many people knew he was blind before? How many people can verify that he&#39;s not afterward? Depending on his lifestyle, he could have quite a lot of people available to give testimony for him.
He was inspected by the Vatican and deemed a miracle. Of course that&#39;s no infallible seal of credibility, but these are all some things to consider.

I&#39;d be interested to know how many times he prayed and didn&#39;t get anything. People have a tendency to ignore all the negative results and focus on the one positive. Also, doesn&#39;t this story kind of shit all over the millions of people who pray and don&#39;t get healed every year?[/b]

I&#39;m not going to watch the video again the moment, but did they not touch on his praying for it being unusual? Something him just deciding to stop in and pray? I don&#39;t know. Maybe I&#39;m wrong, I&#39;m just not sure at the moment.

Surely if the mechanism is that faulty there&#39;s something else at play.
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I&#39;d say "possibly" is a better word than "surely."
In our quest for knowledge and understanding, it&#39;s best to take in each new topic objectively and not be so quick to assume that we know the scope of potential outcomes for any given problem - especially one (possibly) as uncharted as the motives and logic of a divine system.

And, call me cynical, but a miracle healing story 4 days away from xmas in america doesn&#39;t seem too out far out of the ordinary to me.
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Ok. You&#39;re cynical.

Nah, j/k.

I agree with that, though. That was one of the first things that went through my head, when I saw the video. Without making too deep an assumption off such a trivial point, though, it&#39;s definitely no deciding factor.

After thinking about this for along time i would say this is not a miracle. Well in the video it said he had this problem for ten years and it just healed over night after praying to a nun. See the video does not say his last check up was it could be a year or mounth e.t.c. it takes about a week to regenrate cells so unless he been to the eye doctor in that week a mechanicism could have healed his eye.
Other then that all other detail our selection biased as pointed out back in the post. I bet if you look more into his DNA their proberly is some unknown arrangement of triplet codes in his eyes that our passed on because of some evolution advantage. It could be mind over matter too like oneironaut said like a super placebo.

Of course that&#39;s no infallible seal of credibility, but these are all some things to consider.[/b]

The simplest anwser is he proberly lying. I still cant find any text on this i dont know the fall details whitch is strange to me. It would be pretty easy to take the scientist word out of context just by cutting and pasting their could be long lecture how this is not a miracle but then they just cut that out and leave the part where he says i dont know what happen.

I&#39;m not going to watch the video again the moment, but did they not touch on his praying for it being unusual? Something him just deciding to stop in and pray? I don&#39;t know. Maybe I&#39;m wrong, I&#39;m just not sure at the moment.[/b]

He prayed to a nun instead to god but then that selection biased try and avoid it that how people get hooked on the JFK assination by looking at thing that agree with them.

And, call me cynical, but a miracle healing story 4 days away from xmas in america doesn&#39;t seem too out far out of the ordinary to me.[/b]

According to the video he was healed mounth ago well anoth time for the vatican to declare this a miracle and do a investigation it is strange that this information is given out now. I am trying to be neutral but to me this seem like a con and posting in it 4 days before chirstmas seem deceptive.

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

Wouldn&#39;t it being natural imply it was just &#39;intervention&#39;. Can something be divine and natural? I wouldn&#39;t have thought so.[/b]

That&#39;s exactly what I just said.
We now know it as divine intervention, because it&#39;s not accepted as natural. Were that to change, I&#39;ve no doubt the term would change. There&#39;s nothing in myp post that contradicts that.[/b]

Ok, but I don&#39;t see your point as this relates to methodological naturalism. If what people now consider as divine intervention by god was proved to exist and have a natural source, it would just be intervention, from something that is not god. So science still restricts its domain to naturalistic explanations.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE

Video just doesn&#39;t work for me, embedded media is a problem for some reason. But are we just taking his word for it, or is there a good paper trail to go on? I&#39;m guessing if it was that empirically provable I would have been able to find some information on it. [/b]

So are you dismissing it because it&#39;s video and a (allegedly) recent story that you can&#39;t find any other information on (as of yet)? To say you&#39;re not convinced is one thing and, I&#39;d say, understable, but if you&#39;re completely going to disregard it until finding something that fits your standards, exactly, (which is what it seems like you&#39;re doing, so correct me if I&#39;m wrong) then I&#39;d call that a bit foolish. No offense.[/b][/quote]I did say the video doesn&#39;t work for me, so I haven&#39;t seen it. I was just asking for some clarification. And I&#39;m not disregarding it because the video, which I haven&#39;t seen, doesn&#39;t fit my standards - it is because fantastic claims require fantastic evidence. Something of this magnitude, if empirical proof was so readily available, would be huge. So I wouldn&#39;t call it foolish to wait until there is more coverage.

As I said, I can&#39;t watch it so I need to wait for some sort of text. So I cant answer any of your questions on it.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE

Also, doesn&#39;t this story kind of shit all over the millions of people who pray and don&#39;t get healed every year? Surely if the mechanism is that faulty there&#39;s something else at play. [/b]

I&#39;d say "possibly" is a better word than "surely."
In our quest for knowledge and understanding, it&#39;s best to take in each new topic objectively and not be so quick to assume that we know the scope of potential outcomes for any given problem - especially one (possibly) as uncharted as the motives and logic of a divine system.[/b][/quote]No, I&#39;d say surely is about right.

This is the only miracle healing I&#39;ve seen in the mainstream media all year. Lets for the sake of argument say I missed 9 others. 10 seems like a fair number.

I have no way of knowing how many prayers for people in need of miracle healings are made each year. Millions? Billions? A lot of people pray, often. Even taking something low like a million, 1/100000 is statistically insignificant number. There is no correllation there - the number is so low to be an effective argument against correllation.

As I said, people tend to focus on the positive - it is called confirmation bias.

So talk about the logic of a divine system all you want, there is no evidence to suggest (and signigicant evidence against) a correllation between prayer and miracle healings.

Originally Posted by becomingagodo

The simplest anwser is he proberly lying. I still cant find any text on this i dont know the fall details whitch is strange to me. It would be pretty easy to take the scientist word out of context just by cutting and pasting their could be long lecture how this is not a miracle but then they just cut that out and leave the part where he says i dont know what happen.

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They have done tests. You dont just diagnose blindness based on what the person says. They studied and looked at his eye, looking for damages. The doctors would know if hes lying or not. Besides, if he was able to fake it for 10 years, he must be one hell of a liar.

They have done tests. You dont just diagnose blindness based on what the person says. They studied and looked at his eye, looking for damages. The doctors would know if hes lying or not. Besides, if he was able to fake it for 10 years, he must be one hell of a liar.[/b]

Taking word out of context when did he last examine his eyes a week a mounth a year see their could be a device that kicks in to fix his eye and it would only take a couple of days to replace cells.

I have no way of knowing how many prayers for people in need of miracle healings are made each year. Millions? Billions? A lot of people pray, often. Even taking something low like a million, 1/100000 is statistically insignificant number. There is no correllation there - the number is so low to be an effective argument against correllation.

As I said, people tend to focus on the positive - it is called confirmation bias.

So talk about the logic of a divine system all you want, there is no evidence to suggest (and signigicant evidence against) a correllation between prayer and miracle healings.[/b]

I totally agree. Confirmation biased too have you seen how it said most popular story this could be confirmation biased as people go on line and search for a miracle. CNN has gone down hill anyway i remeber watching a story about is the rapture coming whitch was a load of crap.

what divice could heal his eyes?

what divice could heal his eyes?[/b]

The only thing wrong with his eyes was cateracts not correct spelling. All you need is enzyme to break up disase it not that unsual for people eyes to fix themselfs if they have glasses in the night so it would not be that big of a evolutinary leap to have triplet code that defends aginst his eye disorder.

[Edit: Ugh. And this is why I hate getting into the mix with religious debates. Most people are willing to put the type of energy into them that I just can stand up to, for long. Lol.]

Becomingagodo:

Other then that all other detail our selection biased as pointed out back in the post. I bet if you look more into his DNA their proberly is some unknown arrangement of triplet codes in his eyes that our passed on because of some evolution advantage.
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That&#39;s a stretch of an assumption, in light that there is no evidence of that being the case. Or does that extraordinary (no evidence to suggest) claim not require extraordinary evidence?

The simplest anwser is he proberly lying.
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Please. Don&#39;t quote Ockham&#39;s Razor to me - especially while denouncing confirmation bias. I believe O.R. to be fundamentally flawed anyway, but those two views, together, are philosophical contradictions.

He prayed to a nun instead to god but then that selection biased try and avoid it that how people get hooked on the JFK assination by looking at thing that agree with them.
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Being nearly dead-center between atheist and theist, what view "agrees with me," that I&#39;m only looking at?

spoon:

If what people now consider as divine intervention by god was proved to exist and have a natural source, it would just be intervention, from something that is not god. So science still restricts its domain to naturalistic explanations.
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Ugh. Spoon. We&#39;re running off into a battle over terminology, here. Let&#39;s not. If the man&#39;s sight was healed by something God/Angels/Whatever, then it was. If it wasn&#39;t, then it wasn&#39;t. That&#39;s about the scope of my argument. I don&#39;t believe that science can only examine what we now consider natural. To be able to study, effectively, the "supernatural," (should it exist) I think it would take more of a change in perception rather than a deviation from the scientific method - I&#39;m speculating though, of course, so it&#39;s just my opinion and should be taken with a grain of salt. None of this is really the focus of our discussion, though.

And I&#39;m not disregarding it because the video, which I haven&#39;t seen, doesn&#39;t fit my standards - it is because fantastic claims require fantastic evidence.
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I believe this to be a contradiction.
However, if you&#39;re saying you will only look at "fantastic evidence," setting such a subjective standard may lead you to disregarding other "evidence" for the a priori assumption that it is not "fantastic." Shouldn&#39;t one learn to take in all evidence from a fresh perspective? The unbiased mind of a child (to loosely quote someone on the same subject. Can&#39;t remember who it was, though.) I don&#39;t think it&#39;s logical to count anything you have not seen as "not fantastic." Hell, maybe it&#39;s not, but how would you know if you haven&#39;t seen it?

I have no way of knowing how many prayers for people in need of miracle healings are made each year. Millions? Billions? A lot of people pray, often. Even taking something low like a million, 1/100000 is statistically insignificant number. There is no correllation there - the number is so low to be an effective argument against correllation.
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I agree. It makes no sense to me, either. But I&#39;m not the type that believes that not understanding it, for the moment, means it must not be true.

As I said, people tend to focus on the positive - it is called confirmation bias.
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Easy, killer.
I&#39;m agnostic and very confident of the logic behind my reason for being so. Your implication that I&#39;m only "focusing on the positive" (if that&#39;s possible for a solid agnostic) is unfounded. On the other hand, though, I&#39;ve never met a solid atheist that doesn&#39;t have as vested an interest in their belief as the theists, and we&#39;re all kidding ourselves if we don&#39;t think confirmation bias works on both sides of the spectrum.

There is a difference between "one without a belief in God" and "one that believes God does not exist."
There is also a difference between "one who does not believe that God does not exist" and "one who believes in God."

You&#39;re beginning to sound like you&#39;re attacking me for being a theist, because I&#39;ve found some elements of video amazing. I&#39;ve seen nothing that counters the video though, in this discussion, besides a bunch of speculation on why the information could all be a hoax. Just as I don&#39;t believe a story like this to be proof of a miracle, I don&#39;t believe that possibility is effectively dispelled by the speculations that have been presented so far. If you want to strike me for confirmation bias simply because I&#39;m impressed by the story and it&#39;s possible validity without starting off with the a priori assumption that it&#39;s a hoax, then I guess there isn&#39;t much I&#39;m going to be able to say to stop you.

becomingagodo:

I totally agree. Confirmation biased too have you seen how it said most popular story this could be confirmation biased as people go on line and search for a miracle. CNN has gone down hill anyway i remeber watching a story about is the rapture coming whitch was a load of crap.
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Hmm. Never saw that story (which would make that an anecdote, eh?) Not saying it&#39;s not true, of course.
Judging by the subject though, it looks like they would be presenting both sides of the arguement. Enough people believe in the rapture, I think, to warrant CNN doing such a story. So far, I have nothing to suggest that the focus of the story was to tell us the rapture is coming but, rather, to speak to people on both sides, and cover the subject from the believers and non-believers. But, of course, that&#39;s speculation as well, but I&#39;m sure you see my point.

Hmm. Never saw that story (which would make that an anecdote, eh?) Not saying it&#39;s not true, of course.
Judging by the subject though, it looks like they would be presenting both sides of the arguement. Enough people believe in the rapture, I think, to warrant CNN doing such a story. So far, I have nothing to suggest that the focus of the story was to tell us the rapture is coming but, rather, to speak to people on both sides, and cover the subject from the believers and non-believers. But, of course, that&#39;s speculation as well, but I&#39;m sure you see my point.[/b]

http://www.crisismagazine.com/november2003/olson.htm the only thing i see for christian to believe in the rapture is ignorance. Well if you saw the program they had a rapture calculator where their was saying look at the world the rapture going to happen in the half an hour program i didnt hear one thing about the rapture being a myth and is not supported by scholors. At the end of the day CNN wants viewer that why do all the celebrity rubbish instead of just filling the program with decent news where their a slow news day what happen to other countries stories. If that video of blind man getting healed was spilt half between skeptic and believer then i would give it more credit.