Priesthood Power

[Hagoth]

Does the typical TBM Church member believe Mormons recover from sever illness at a higher rate than the general public? Do they wonder if statistics back this belief up? A member of NOM who was a hospital system executive did some research and actually saw a slightly higher death rate from cancer in Utah, despite a slightly lower likelihood of contracting cancer.

I'm trying to remember my belief on this when I was TBM. I absolutely believed priesthood blessings could cure any illness, and had heard numerous testimonies to that effect. Why did it never occur to me to consider that this phenomenon should be statistically mind-blowing to the rest of the world and that Utah should be the epicenter of research by medical organizations and universities trying to understand why Mormons spontaneously recover from cancer, etc. at a remarkably atypical rate?

Did you ever ponder this conundrum? Is there something I'm overlooking, or it just another great example of our willingness to bury our heads in the sand and assume our beliefs don't require any sort of verification from the "arm of flesh?"

[wtfluff]

Does the typical TBM Church member believe Mormons recover from sever illness at a higher rate than the general public?

Yes, I think the typical believer does actually believe this. Did I believe this in my believing days? I don't know if "believe" is the right word. In a way I did believe, but I truly never questioned if priesthood blessings worked. I always had the thought that it was up to the faith of the person being blessed if they were actually going to be "blessed," but my default assumption was that blessings worked.

Do they wonder if statistics back this belief up?

Nope. I never wondered about statistics as a believer.

Did you ever ponder this conundrum? Is there something I'm overlooking, or it just another great example of our willingness to bury our heads in the sand and assume our beliefs don't require any sort of verification from the "arm of flesh?"

As already mentioned: I don't remember pondering this conundrum. I believe I lived in a bubble where I was ignorant of reality - or in other words as you mentioned: Head in the sand.

If priesthood blessings truly worked, then the folks with this sort of power should be spending all of their free time healing folks with cancer, etc. Take a moment and ponder the suffering that could be alleviated on this pale blue dot if blessings actually worked.



Along the same lines: Temple marriage is way, way WAY better than "secular" marriage. Again: If this were the case, the it would show up statistically. Sadly, Utah's divorce rate fits right in with the statistical norm. Another non-pondered conundrum as a believer.

I have actually mentioned both of these conundrums to missionaries. Sadly, I can't remember what their lame apologetic replies to those questions were. Also sadly their replies weren't vey convincing... Maybe they just changed the subject; All I wanted to do was exit the conversation.

[deacon blues]

I think if the Mormon church leaders really believed, they would promote a study of priesthood blessings with confidence that the results would be faith-promoting. But they haven't, as far as we know.
As we all "know," the blessings depend on the faith of the giver and the receiver of the blessings, as well as God's will. Still, such a study could be done and publicized. I'm still waiting.

[Hagoth]

Here's something that kind of bothered me in my believing days. I started to become aware of how we used to hear all kinds of stories about amazing healings and even people being raised from the dead (remember Matthew Cowley?) but they seemed to be less and less common as they approached the current day.

Here's another. I couldn't help but wonder why, when a prophet or apostle visited someone in the hospital, the sick person never walked out with him, along with a dozen other people that the Great Man encountered along the way.

Things have really gone downhill fast in my lifetime. Joseph used to heal people just by passing around a hankie. Now we have crap like Eye Ring's "miracle" stories about when he blessed someone and they died anyway. Apparently the miracle was that one of God's Great Anointed Ones took time out of his day to make an appearance, even though it was entirely ineffectual. And, if that isn't lame enough we get Bednar's faith NOT to be healed BS. If these are miracles then I guess the pinnacle would be that you drop dead on the spot the moment you ask them for a blessing. But only if you have enough faith.

[Hagoth]

OK, here's another thing that kind of disturbed me. I served a mission in the Deep South in the late '70s. I arrived full of faith in my amazing priesthood power and a head full of latter-day miracles stories (non of which I had actually witnessed). We used to tract door-to-door a lot in those days. I don't think a day went by that I didn't have someone testify to me of a miraculous healing or some other miracle that they had either personally experienced or witnessed in their Pentecostal meetings or tent revivals or witch doctor's house, or whatever. It began to really bother me that these stories were just as deeply believed, and seemingly real, as any of the Mormon healing stories I had heard. But there were so many of them! Why wasn't our side keeping pace? Of course I just consoled myself with the knowledge that they were all fake healings manifest by Satan to deceive people. But those people sure seemed to believe their life was much better, and their pain was gone, and they could use their arm again.

I had a senior companion who used to constantly tell a story about one of his recent converts. It was a man who had been confined to a wheelchair until he was miraculously healed at a revival, after which he supposedly abandoned his wheelchair and could walk just fine. Well, my companion had taught this guy the discussions and he accepted a baptism commitment. The moment he was dunked in the baptismal font his legs went limp and he had to be carried out of the font, never to walk again. My companion was very proud of this. His baptism had healed this poor man of his satanic false healing. I was VERY conflicted.

I still don't now what to make of all of this, except to say that Mormonism can make no special claims to miraculous powers. Everyone lives in a faith bubble in which their belief system is supreme.

What do I think really happened? I don't think they were genuine biblical style miracles. People suffer from all kinds of pains and disabilities that are caused by stress, mental health issues, fear, phobias, and self-doubt. Some are actual physical but temporary issues that are in the process of resolving anyway. Maybe a rush of extreme spiritual emotion can push someone past a threshold that jolts them forward. Blessings can, if nothing else, create a placebo effect that eliminates pain. Many of us have experienced that. That's also one reason healings are often temporary, which works great for stage acts like revivals. Also, for every amazing success story we hear there are probably hundreds of failures that nobody is going to talk about. Also, every time these stories are retold, just like in our church, the illness probably gets much worse, and the remedy much more miraculous.

Just about every Mormon knows about when Joseph Smith healed that woman's arm and made it possible for her to hold it over her head again. Very few are familiar with the story shortly after when Joseph tried to heal a man's paralyzed hand but utterly failed. Or that when Joseph healed Brigham's fever so he could go on his mission, Brigham was barely able to crawl to the wagon that carried him away, and then fell unconscious in the bed as it drove away.

Sorry for the length of this post, BTW!