NancyLebovitz comments on Questions on Theism - Less Wrong

23 Post author: Aiyen 08 October 2014 09:02PM

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Comment author: Nate_Gabriel 09 October 2014 03:03:18AM 7 points [-]

I have done this. The most impressive-sounding one happened to a friend of mine who had formerly been an athlete. She had to withdraw from sports for a year because of an unexpected muscular condition. (If this is obviously medically wrong, it's probably because I changed details for privacy.) As you probably expect, that year involved plenty of spiritual growth that she attributes to having had to quit sports.

At the end of that time, a group of church people laid hands on her and prayed, she felt some extreme acceleration in her heart rate, and her endurance was back the next time she tested it. A doctor confirmed that the muscular thing was completely gone, and she's been physically active ever since.

Now obviously this isn't bulletproof. You just need her to spontaneously recover at some point before the laying on of hands. (I have no idea how likely this would be; probably not very.) The rest is exactly the sort of thing that might happen regardless of whether there's a miracle. But it still sounds really impressive. If I weren't actively trying not to spin it to sound even more miraculous, it'd sound even more impressive.

But this is just the most miraculous-sounding story I've heard from a source I trust. I only know so many people. This account is probably well within the distribution of how miraculous anecdotes can get. I'd feel weird saying "you spontaneously got better a few months earlier, and so did anyone else with a similar story."

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 15 October 2014 11:24:07PM 1 point [-]

For what it's worth, I think people can have very strong aliefs that affect their health, and powerful experiences can change the aliefs.