I mean there was one person, it was so crazy. However, after analyzing several miracles Strobel is convinced they are. On the one hand they use the excuse of "it's not replicable" when asked about how to test it, and on the other hand they want to also say that miracles are common -- more common than people realize. On GMRI's website there is the following request: "Were always looking for new testimonies. And the third thing she noticed was she was see it with her eyes. Scott Rae: That's staggering to think about. (Warner Brothers even invited me onto the movie set to watch some of the filming and to meet the engaging actress.) So even when, you know it doesn't happen to all of us. Now normally somebody's healed, they're still gonna have, their muscles are still going to be atrophied if they've been unable to walk for a long time. Craig Keener: Yes. And then some months later war came to her hometown in [inaudible] and she had to flee again. If this is the Marolyn Ford case, which I think it is, then we have to consider that she worked in a church for that amount of time, and obviously got prayed for many times with no effect, and only got the healing after many years. Craig Keener, Michael Shermer & Elijah Stephens, Case Report of gastroparesis healing: 16 years of a chronic syndrome resolved after proximal intercessory prayer, Case report of instantaneous resolution of juvenile macular degeneration blindness after proximal intercessory prayer, Study of the therapeutic effects of proximal intercessory prayer (STEPP) on auditory and visual impairments in rural Mozambique, Delia Knox healed from being paralyzed after 22 years, Sean George comes back after a heart attack, https://guides.library.stonybrook.edu/evidence-based-medicine/levels_of_evidence, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15166467/, https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/full-moon-does-not-affect-mental-health-emergency-room-study-suggests, first evidence for the accelerating universe, https://seangeorge.com.au/my-story/medical-details/, phenomenon of spontaneous recovery of heart activity, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2019/04/06/the-resurrection-of-dr-sean-george-part-1-summary/, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2019/05/10/the-resurrection-of-dr-sean-george-part-2-littlewoods-law/, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2019/05/24/the-resurrection-of-dr-sean-george-part-3-georges-argument/, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2019/05/26/the-resurrection-of-dr-sean-george-part-4-evaluation-premise-1c/, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2019/06/26/the-resurrection-of-dr-sean-george-part-5-evaluation-of-premise-a4/, evidence that someone was sick at one time, evidence that they were not sick at a later time, sometime between those two points they claimed that they were prayed for (and don't always demonstrate that they actually were prayed), they used xrays to diagnose it originally, which is not the best for soft tissue. DiSanto said that he would provide additional updates regarding the search Strobel went on to explain that he interviewed skeptics and believers, alike, and included their perspectives in The Case for Miracles. A woman name Barbara Cummiskey Snyder was on the verge of death from MS that she had had for over 15 years. One of the remarkable stories recounted in Lee Strobel's book "The Case for Miracles" involves a hopelessly ill woman named Barbara Snyder, who had suffered for many years with multiple sclerosis. He encountered scores of healings and other claims of the miraculous along the way, but there was one case in particular that truly blew his mind: the case of Barbara Snyder. The trick is you have to dig a lot to get the actual facts of the matter, they don't typically present these to you like "here's the facts, and this is why we think it is a miracle" it's "the guy's intestine regrew" but that's not an established fact at all that's their interpretation of a certain set of facts. He encountered scores of healings and other claims of the miraculous along the way, but there was one case in particular that truly blew his mind: the case of Barbara Snyder. Visit Pure Flix for access to thousands of faith and family friendly movies and TV shows. Keener: There's confirmation bias I think that can happen either way. And then if so, then how do you account for that? And the person came back after prayer and a number of other cases. The one-on-one treatments, when they show an effect, are confounded by the more intense experience, the one-on-one attention, the group pressures, etc You are adding a lot of psychological elements which make it harder to establish causation. Both great books that I encourage all of our listeners to get hold of and to digest. And we'll have a way that you can access that in the transcript of this. That said, before writing The Case for Miracles, Strobel was "ambivalent" about whether these miracles still happen today. of the members of the University Athletic Association are part of the AAU. Craig Keener: In Christian circles it's been received really, really well. The 1974 measurement is 20/100 compared to legally blind at 20/200 (uncorrected) which is still quite poor and far from being "restored", but still a large improvement from her measured 7/200 mentioned earlier. Prayer, in her house, probably occurs even more frequently. At the beginning I didn't find all that. Its consultants have assisted with the recruitment of multiple senior CWRU Now of course, after six minutes with no oxygen you have irreparable brain damage starting in, but Terese had no brain damage. If you want to, for our listeners, if you want to read a little bit more about it Craig's written a fairly lengthy book on the whole, the whole narrative of that called Impossible Love. Honestly, this mistake is primarily due to sloppy reporting -- if you are reporting a set of numbers in a study, especially if you are establishing a timeline of events, you need to make it clear when some numbers are not comparable. achievements during Snyders tenure include: Association of American Universities (AAU), Maltz Center donors, performers celebrate Phase II, School of Medicine graduate program information tabling event, Summer study abroad with CWRU faculty information session, New study reveals ketamine could be effective treatment for cocaine-use disorders, Get to know members of the National Pan-Hellenic Council at CWRU: Week 3, Begun with a $1 billion goal, it ultimately raised. "So she basically pulls the tube out of her throat, says, 'Go find my parents' [and] jumps out of bed.". university facing significant debt, disaffected alumni, and deep concern about If that agent were doing these kinds of actions we would expect to see a bigger effect, or that agent is being capricious. Author and evangelist Lee Strobel was once an atheist who served as the legal affairs editor for the Chicago Tribune before embarking on a quest to try and disprove Christianityan effort that ironically led him to embrace faith. He didn't see any fire so people are getting [inaudible] what's this about? Synder ended up in hospice care with a no-resuscitation order; she was nearly blind, her hands and body were curled and she had a tube in her throat to help her breath as well as a tube in her stomach to ensure proper nourishment. Given the number of miracle claims, and the bold claims of Christians throughout these videos, and the proliferation of cameras in people's pockets, there should be thousands of convincing videos of miracles. administrators, including President Snyder herself. Also, the theists show a profound lack of imagination in coming up with studies that can test the involvement of an agent, while ruling out other effects. [3] During Snyder's tenure as the university president, CWRU has overcome a $20 million budget deficit, increased fundraising by nearly $60 million, and increased research dollars by more than $15 million. Also we need to know what happens when there is no treatment as a control. I don't think "I don't know" should be your default position unless that's really where you fall and so what I encourage people to do is read all sides, make an inference to the best explanation and go "this is what i think is most likely the case". To this day.. Her doctors have written about her seemingly impossible medical turn around. This pretty much summarizes the problems with this study. Of course this is ludicrous, because teeth-brushing would occur twice a day, every day, so every single event would follow a teeth-brushing. I think no, because theism is vaguely defined. life, President Snyder said. Barbara began her academic career as an assistant professor at Case Western Reserves School of Law, then joined the faculty of Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University. How do we know the initial diagnosis was accurate? Craig Keener: Well if you ask me what motivated me to write a 1000 page book on miracles I could say nothing because I wasn't planning to do it initially, but it was certainly one of the most enjoyable projects I've worked on. In all of human history there has never been one single credible and fully verified miracle cure. As James says, "God really needs to up his game.". Some initial thoughts Time stamp 4:47 James is right that the evidence on a lot of these cases is really really bad. Find your thing. If someone gets healed, you often can't get back in contact with that person -- "it almost feels like if a miracle happens you have about 48 hours and then their gone". From my reading also, MS can also go into spontaneous remission -- usually temporary -- but we don't have any follow-ups, detailed timelines documented, etc We have stories. Though he believed the Biblical stories of Christs miracles, Strobel was less convinced miracles were happening today. If there's that many cases there should be enough regularity to detect these things statistically which is exactly the tools we've developed in science to do and to rule out other factors. Barbara Cummiskey Snyder is on Facebook. Certainly, Jesus gave a bright future to Barbara Snyder in 1981. She's on her deathbed,'" Strobel explained. Intercessory prayer commences and one day he awakes to find his or her arm back on their body, intact. And we give Glory to God whenever we get the opportunity to be a part of those, but it's, we don't expect that, that the Kingdom, that we'll have experienced the Kingdom in its fullest now. Brian: Essentially Shermer's complaint about prayer being done and nothing happening is part what you would have in any kind of controlled study because you would have the case looking at all prayer events and which ones had effects and which ones didn't, that's the basic thing they seem unable to even grasp that idea and it shows a certain unwillingness to actually try to find the truth and to rule out these actual alternatives. So as you've cataloged these different stories and different accounts, what's been the sort of the breath of the geography that's been involved? Justin: why do you feel sympathetic to the view that what they're finding is evidence for supernatural healing rather than just extraordinary somewhat unexplained events ? I misspoke in the episode for the next one, thinking the name was Barbara Snyder, but Barbara's case is an MS case. "Barbara Snyder was diagnosed at the Mayo Clinic with multiple sclerosis. And just trying to stay ahead of the soldiers and the fighting. The point is to first establish that there is some interesting effect there, regardless of the cause, and only after passing that threshold do we get to consider a more in-depth investigation. I would add that most of these people are praying most of the time, so it's kind of like looking for astrological causes behind earthquakes -- since earthquakes happen all the time, you can always find one preceding or succeeding any other event you want. My initial thought was that , A physics problem from a practice AP test came to my attention, when my daughter was in AP physics this past spring. Thinking about the Snyder "miracle", I do wonder why in these cases there isn't much more extensive medical documentation? Barbara had a very severe case of multiple sclerosis. Subjects reported impaired vision or hearing at the beginning of the study and were tested with standard vision or audiology tests before and after treatment. Craig Keener: Well I tried to get accounts from all over the world. She deteriorated over a period of many years, several operations, many hospitalizations," Strobel explained. credentials as both a highly regarded research institution and as a place where We really appreciate your taking the time to come be on the podcast with us. It seems we disagree on how much evidence is enough. 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