hey everyone I'm Cameron bruzi this is the fifth video in a playlist of videos responding to 20 arguments against God's existence if you want the link to the playlist just check the description below all right let's get into the fifth video prayer has never fixed anything physically impossible why won't God heal amputees all right so this one's kind of interesting so first he says that prayer has never fixed anything physically impossible and here he's thinking of like a limb growing back but how does he actually know that prayer has never fixed anything physically impossible like
what is the actual argument some atheists think that the famous Benson study on intercessory prayer sort of proves that prayer never works but this is completely false as Richard swinburn points out the people in the study were actually I'll go ahead and quote them here praying in order to test a scientific hypothesis end quote so in other words they weren't praying out of genuine compassion they weren't praying for the right reasons and he actually goes on to say quote the negative result of the Benson study is entirely predictable on the hypothesis of a loving God
who sometimes answers prayers of genuine compassion end quote so this study actually doesn't prove anything about the efficacy of prayer second as Dr Craig Keener notes in his massive two volume work on Miracles restoration accounts of limbs are rare but they do get reported in one of these reports a leg like severed below the knee grew back and in other report shriveled limbs sort of like miraculously filled out and started to work again now I'm not saying that these accounts are true they may be true they may not be true my point here is that
while restoration accounts of limbs are rare they definitely get reported and I mean these are only the reports that we know about you know there's probably countless others that we don't know about and will never know about so going back to the original question how can we trust what him is saying if he hasn't actually refuted any of the existing accounts so I mean on the face of it this looks like a pretty straightforward case of begging the question so after he concludes for reasons unknown that prayer has never fixed anything physically impossible he then
asks why God won't heal amputees and there's I mean there's a lot of problems with this but the first is that it's a loaded question as I've already noted restoration accounts of Limbs do get reported and so just like asking why they don't happen is question begging secondly questions are not arguments asking why God won't heal amputees is not an argument against God's existence it's really just an admission of ignorance this brings me to my third point why are atheists so fixated on god- healing amputees like if something is truly miraculous then it doesn't matter
if it's a limb growing back or cancer leaving someone's body it doesn't matter a miracle is a miracle maybe these ampute obsessed atheists are thinking that every other type of Miracle report can be easily explained away but that's false just look at the Resurrection the best explanation that atheists can come up with is that everybody that saw Jesus even the groups that saw saw Jesus were hallucinating unless someone went back in time and gave all the disciples a bunch of oculus they didn't have any group shared experiences of Jesus together didn't happen hallucinations are like
dreams you can't like invite your friends to come have a dream with you I mean if every other type of Miracle could be easily explained away you'd think they do a better job of explaining way like the primary miracle in Christianity last Point even if himt could somehow show that prayer has never fixed anything physically impossible that is not an argument against God's existence at most this shows that God is not a puppet that we can control with strings in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was asking for the cup to pass from him he
said these famous lines not my will Lord but yours be done Jesus knew that what's best for us isn't necessarily what we will but what God Wills to quote Richard swinburn again and I mean who doesn't love listening to swinburn quotes quote God knows far better than we do whether it will be best for that person and others affected by him that he should recover immediately or later or not at all end quote to sum up the famous Benson study on intercessory prayer doesn't show anything about the efficacy of prayer much less about the existence
of God and asking why God won't heal amputees him it is simply assuming that God has never healed amputees but that's obviously question begging and and even if he weren't begging the question which he obviously is this is not an argument against God's existence God is in a unique position to know exactly what's best for us even if from our limited perspective it might not seem like it all right guys thanks for watching if you enjoyed this video hit the like button hit subscribe as well to the channel John McCrae from what do you meme
is taking the next video in this series it's about the thousands of gods that Christians don't believe in and that's all I'm going to give you so if you are already in the playlist just sit tight you're going to be taken to the next video immediately and if you're not click the link in the description it's really easy I'll see you guys in video number eight who created God peace [Music]
