Religious faith - points everywhere...and nowhere.

   

     Christian churches are not about the overarching message of the Protestant Bible, but rather about which interpretation of the book is correct. They all squabble with each other over the most inconsequential, ignorant, and petty things in their interpretations (Immersion vs. sprinkling, wine vs. grape juice, Saturday vs. Sunday...etc.) but they fail to address whether the bible is even worth basing an entire life-system on. (Full Disclosure: It's not.) Then, there's the matter of the Protestant Bible deriving from the Catholic Bible with its six extra books. Which one is the real "Christian" book? Does older mean truer and more reliable?

    Christianity's core is completely lacking in substance but has been protected, camouflaged, and embellished over the centuries spawning several offshoot industries and power centers all meant to conceal its main emptiness. They were designed to gloss over that emptiness and give it a veneer of authenticity, reliability, and truth. It is none of those things. It only pretends to be. 

    The Christians themselves sum it up with their vacuous "You just gotta have faith." What good does that do in proving the truth of something? If faith is all that is required, then Muslims are right about their faith. Mormons are right about theirs. Hindus are right about theirs... Who could ever be wrong if "you just gotta have faith?" 

It's time to grow up and realize gods were created by cavemen to explain thunder and lightning.

Orlando massacre reaction

      

         

          For a Sunday afternoon in Orlando, it is unusually quiet. By now, normally the roads and streets are bustling, lawn mowers are humming, sidewalk joggers rush by in pairs, and there is chatter in the air; from neighborhood grill outs, get togethers, and pool parties. But today, the silence is eerie. The whole area seems to be stunned by the news that 49 people were murdered and even more injured in this morning’s shooting at the Pulse nightclub in downtown Orlando. 49 people dead! These are battlefield numbers. These are casualties that occur when at war. So this isn’t a tragedy. It’s an atrocity.

          The gunman, identified as Omar Mateen, called 911 reportedly from within the club around 2 AM with a message of support for ISIS just minutes before he opened fire. He decided, on the basis of his avowed faith in Islam, that killing people was what Allah wanted. A Texas pastor used the occasion this morning to declare the Christian god was in complete agreement. He is saying that Yahweh or Jehovah sides with Allah, and that justifies the slaughter. Would Mateen have killed if not motivated by a religious belief? Would a Christian minister have sided with an Islamic jihadist if not for his religious belief? These men are evil. They are the face of what is wrong when motivated by their holy books. When was the last time someone killed because of what they read in a Harry Potter book?

          Like that Texas preacher, a longtime FORMER friend on Facebook (who will remain nameless as I will never acknowledge them as a member of the human race again) decided to show his love and understanding of the situation this morning by quoting Galatians 6:7 from the bible: “Don't be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows he will also reap.” When I read that, I went to his Facebook page and was astounded that he had published even more vicious, gay-bashing, and biblically-oriented rantings and ravings all in support of this mass killing. I did not bother sending him a message or ask for clarification. I immediately unfriended him. If I see him at any upcoming national meetings that we have attended together in the past, I will not shake his hand or even nod in his direction.

          This is the face of 21st century Christianity. This is what he really thinks Jesus meant in Luke 19:27 when he supposedly said “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.”

          I’ll state my reaction plainly….WHAT HORSESHIT! You, FORMER friend on Facebook, are the reason more and more people find your religion not just stupid, but wicked. And YOU are stupid and wicked for quoting it. You give the word HATE a whole new meaning. The Orlando victims did not sow death and destruction anywhere. They did not reap any godly justice for any sin. It’s like saying because people were buying fatty foods at a San Ysidro California McDonalds that James Huberty has a right to come in and gun them down on July 18, 1984…or that if you watch the movie The Dark Knight Rises, you should expect someone like James Holmes to pop in and open fire as he did in Aurora, Colorado on July 20, 2012, because clearly watching a movie or eating McDonalds food is worthy of death. And now Christian bigot, loudmouth, and homophobe Pat Robertson has claimed that this is God's judgment on our nation because same sex couples are allowed to marry. As I stated at the beginning of this paragraph...WHAT HORSESHIT!

The source of evil.

          Why did it happened? Some are already claiming that it’s the atmosphere of hate created by candidates like Donald Trump. I doubt that. I think it has more to do with holy books and people’s interpretation of what they read that led to this massacre. This is a logical extension of the Huguenot slaughter perpetrated by the Roman Catholic Church in the 1100s, the wholesale murder of Mormons by Christians in the state of Missouri in 1838, the Cave of Patriarchs massacre by Baruch Goldstein on Muslim worshipers February 25, 1994 near Hebron Israel, or the mass shooting in Peshawar Pakistan by Islamic militants at a school crowded with children on December 16, 2014. The common denominator is religion. In each case, the killers indicated god told them, through their holy books, to kill. Christopher Hitchens had it absolutely right. Religion does poison everything.

Nation's Police have a New Crime Fighting Tool

Checkmate, evil-doers!

Note this date because we’re now the recipients of the full protective muscle of the nation’s law enforcement officers. Police cars across this great land are being equipped with a new, more powerful, potentially overwhelming crime-fighting device.

It can't help but make police work easier because it's so revolutionary.

 It’s such a simple concept; inexpensive to produce (we can even use the ‘Made in China’ version), easy to adapt to any vehicle, available in a multitude of colors and styles, instantly noticeable and immediately effective. It’s a wonder this hasn’t been standard equipment on all law enforcement vehicles since men and women began wearing badges. This new ‘weapon’ is guaranteed to help police, and that’s according to high government officials, politicians, numerous sheriffs, police captains, priests, and mullahs across the nation.

We can now redirect our police armored divisions to stopping illegal immigrants instead. 

This simple, new weapon will traumatize criminals, law-breakers and scofflaws, causing them to turn from their illegal activity and flee any time they see a law enforcement vehicle armed this way. No longer will any alleyway or tunnel be too dark to investigate. No longer will outlaws ‘outgun’ police. No longer will gangs of thugs be able to control a street, let alone an entire municipality. The proponents of this method allude that it will stop offensive conduct cold. 

And it has a tremendous upside too because those people the police claim to protect and serve will be instilled with delight, relief and a strengthening of their belief whenever they see these newly equipped vehicles.

“It’s worked so well in other countries, it’s just difficult to believe we didn’t do this years ago” said one deputy who asked to remain anonymous due to his undercover work. "It only took ten seconds to install."

Let the word go forth…

...is the new aid in helping to take a bite outta crime.

Just kidding. 

Here’s what they're actually equipping their cars with…

Nothing says "Trust in God" like wearing a handgun, Taser, mace, baton, knife, handcuffs and body camera.

I feel safer already

Religious poison in Israel - The attack on the Gay Pride parade

Boy, do I miss Christopher Hitchens. I have read his book “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” seven times. Each time I gain greater insight into what he was telling the world. He did not suffer any religion quietly, tacitly or gladly, challenging all of us to see how and why it’s become a threat to the world, and continues to be the source of unadulterated hatred wherever it is found.

He would be having a field day with the latest news out of Israel.

Dateline Jerusalem July 30, 2015 – “An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man who had recently been released from prison after serving 10 years for stabbing participants in the annual Gay Pride Parade here in 2005 struck again Thursday, stabbing and wounding six marchers in this year’s parade, according to the police.

Yishai Schlissel 2015

After slashing and stabbing the six, the assailant, Yishai Schlissel, was pinned to the ground and arrested by police officers who were stationed along the route. Emergency services said two of the victims are in serious condition.

Yishai Schlissel 2005

In 2005, Schlissel told police that he was planning “to kill in the name of God” and that “such abomination cannot exist in Israel.” He was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 12 years in prison. During that attack, police said that Schlissel dodged in between marchers, stabbing at random until he was pinned down by the police. The Israeli news media reported that he was released from prison three weeks ago.

If anything proves religion poisons everything, you can’t do much better than this. Schlissel stabs three people 10 years ago because in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, the Talmud condemns sex between males with death. Three weeks after his release from serving a ten year prison sentence for the first crime, he does it again, only this time he wounds twice as many, with two still in serious condition as of this writing. Is anyone surprised an “ultra-orthodox” believer thinks he has the right to act as god’s executioner?

There isn't any.

“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” Christopher Hitchens quoted that line so often he will eventually be given credit for the saying even though its originator is Dr. Steven Weinberg. Mr. Schlissel used his orthodox religious beliefs, which have been promoted as a profound good, to do something purely evil, yet he thinks he acted in the best interest of god. That’s an excuse any killer could use as justification for their action.

Every religion's God seems to love the sight of spilled blood.

This kind of religious poison isn’t anything new for Israel. Who can forget Dr. Baruch Goldstein who managed to gun down 29 Muslim worshippers and injure 125 others in the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre near Hebron on February 25, 1994 before being beaten to death by survivors? Yet even given the horror of that slaughter, at Goldstein's funeral, Rabbi Yaacov Perrin used it as an opportunity to claim one million Arabs are "not worth a Jewish fingernail". And what is it that separates Jews from Arabs? The belief that a god gave each side Palestine, all of it. Each sees the other as illegal occupiers. The poison of their religions will continue to kill thousands of people for the foreseeable future unless we finally realize that all religions…all of them…are man-made fairy tales and deserve no further attention, promotion, or endorsement in our societies. The sooner they are gone, the better off humankind will be.  

             Religions are not peaceful. They are mind control, even the pacifist ones. You surrender your free will to an ancient belief. And if that belief has an ancient book full of fairy tales, fake history, and mythical accounts that vilify another group of people, any "ultra-orthodox" interpretation of those passages will lead the reader to insist god meant for that group to be exterminated. Last week’s attack on a peaceful parade shows that Judaism is just as guilty as Christianity or Islam in warping a person’s behavior. 
           The problem with any religion is that the people who believe those myths want everyone to believe or abide by their myths too, and will go to any lengths to make that happen. The parade marchers, who were doing no harm to anyone, were assaulted with the intent to murder because years ago a parent or rabbi convinced Mr. Schlissel that some gobbledy-gook they read was god claiming He didn’t like those people, and since god wasn’t there to stab them himself, well….then it was up to Mr. Schlissel. For that reason, Mr. Schlissel should never see the outside of a prison cell again.

Who is more backward?

I watched a TV show on YouTube Saturday night which had on ‘Aql al-Bahili, who is listed as a Saudi Arabian scholar on several sites, but I have not been able to ascertain that he is. He is a spokesperson for some faction in Saudi Arabia and seems to have the Saudi royal family’s blessing. In the video he makes a very passionate and articulate speech regarding one of the major weaknesses of Islam. Yet it is difficult to believe the royal family would have approved of his views, given their support of one of Islam’s most extreme factions, Wahhabism. ‘Aql al-Bahili was one of three men on the show, but I only heard the other two men shout as he spoke and their words were not translated. So I don’t know if they were agreeing with him or cursing him.

Here is what the TV show claims he said as shown in subtitles at the bottom: “I know and I acknowledge that there is freedom in the Koran. Many Koranic texts state that people are free. But when the political implementation of a certain ideology has failed to accomplish justice for over fourteen hundred years, whereas others [i.e. in the West] have managed to instate justice by means of a [different] political ideology, I believe that even though [Islamic justice] preceded them, this does not detract from the credit due to those who have reformed the path of human society, infusing it with freedom through an ideological platform other than Islam. Today, all the Islamists acknowledge that the freedom enjoyed in the West is a hundred times better than in the Islamic countries.”

He goes on to say that he “knows Islam is all-encompassing, our problem is that sacred texts are being cited by tyrants, by honorable people and by Islamists alike. Today we must adopt general principles by which human society abides: People must obtain their rights, public funds must not be plundered, a doorman may become a minister and a minister may become a doorman, people must have the right to be safe from attack, as well as the right to establish companies and political parties These are the principles of human societies on planet Earth.

Hearing him say that on a TV show that airs in the Middle East made me wonder if he wasn't a provocateur, a charlatan, or a disinformation agent put in front of the cameras to stir up trouble. I couldn't tell if he really meant it.

I sent the link to a family member who follows events in the Middle East, asked them to watch the video and then give me their thoughts via email. I didn't mention any of my doubts. After she watched it, she sent an email which stated, “The speakers point is true….in many key respects.

“Which ones?” I typed back.

“He admits the Muslim culture is years if not centuries behind the west. Nor do they have Western-style freedom.”

“Does that mean they have trouble functioning in a modern world?”

She thought that they contribute nothing to world dialogue, since all their wisdom was tied up in the false teachings of a book that dated back to the 7^th century.

Without pointing to the obvious similarities of Christians basing their lives on a 4^th century book, I typed back “That may be true but their most ardent believers, even thinking as seventh century men, can still fly 21^st century technology into the 20^th century high rise buildings and destroy them. Or strap 21^st century explosives to themselves and blow up dozens of people. Their backwardness is only because their mind is not free; it has been forced into the Muslim shoe box.”

She typed back, “One could also reasonably argue that enslavement to lusts, sins, obsessions, addictions etc. is not real freedom either.”

I typed back “?”

Her response, “The West has fostered the addictions and hedonism that are destroying us. It is the perversion and deliberate trashing of our Judeo-Christian value system which has resulted in such excesses and enslavements.”

“So Islam is right, even if stuck in the 7^th century, and many in the West are wrong and are just as enslaved…but it’s not due to what’s read in some book. It’s due to secular obsessions???”

I don’t think she understood my sarcasm, as she replied “God has a few surprises for them, when they try to build a world on the ashes of Judeo-Christianity. Jesus will see to that.”

I thought “This is how the Crusades started.” The discussion about a backward Middle Eastern religion had suddenly become confirmation about another backward Middle Eastern religion that had to be absolutely true, because my relative simply wanted it to be true. A dozen times I was tempted to put her email address on the screen and hit the delete button. She is still waiting to hear back from me.

Religious provocation - seriously?

    Some amateurs put a video on YouTube and it has upset a certain segment of Muslims, enough so that, in their perceived offense, they attacked the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi Libya, killing four American’s, and have also launched violent protests in Cairo, Egypt, in Yemen, and in other Middle Eastern countries. How does killing someone salve a purported insult from a movie? People have been poisoned by the words in a book.

                It leads one to believe that certain Muslims are so weak in their faith that a simplistic movie is somehow a risk to that faith. Or is it that they believe Allah, or his messenger Mohammed, are so shallow and easily offended that lowly human-produced movies are a threat to them? It is a sad reflection on certain believer's interpretation of Islam that the only way to react to a video that simply makes fun of it is by rampaging against and killing people who had nothing to do with it. American embassy personnel didn’t produce the movie, nor can they prevent those movies from being uploaded to YouTube.

                In Washington DC, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the crudely made film posted on the internet was "disgusting and reprehensible", although it’s almost a sure bet she hasn’t actually seen it but simply read a brief summary of the video. The short film entitled the "Innocence of Muslims,"  portrays Mohammad as a womanizer, a homosexual and a child abuser. But so what? Why is that reason to riot and kill? All this protesting will make the video a big hit, which it never would have been had they not rioted. Here's an idea, why not make a movie that shows just how wrong the producers of 'Innocence of Muslims' are?

  Protests spread further yesterday with US embassies the targets of anger among certain Muslims questioning why the United States has failed to take action against the makers of the film. But by the same reasoning, why not lash out at the internet, or computers, or films in general?

In Yemen’s capital Sanaa, hundreds broke through the main gate of the heavily fortified US embassy shouting "We sacrifice ourselves for you, Messenger of God." They smashed windows of security offices outside the embassy and burned cars. A security source said at least 15 people were wounded, some by gunfire, before government troops surrounded the area.

In the end, how did broken windows and scorched cars appease Mohammed or Allah? What sacrifice was made? Can the protesters answer that without just making something up?

Around 200 demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. embassy in Kuwait shouting slogans such as "God is great" and hoisting banners, one in English which read "USA stop the bullshit. Respect us."

Yes, everyone knows that respect is earned by taking offense over a video and rioting.

Even if the Koran said any depiction of the Prophet is blasphemous, why is that a reason to kill? (Don’t the words themselves ‘depict’ Mohammed?) Does blasphemy itself kill Muslims? Do they die by the dozens, hundreds, or thousands anytime someone produces a characterization of the Prophet? When the Danish published a series of cartoons depicting Mohammed in September 2005, how many Muslims died as a result of the printing?

Zero.

But when they rioted several weeks and months later, how many died?
Over one hundred. 
Over one hundred fewer Muslims alive because people took offense to a series of drawings. Demonstrators claim it was religious provocation. How so? What is so provocative that other people need to die for it?

The thing to remember is, these demonstrations were not by a majority of the people in each of those countries, but only a small violent minority. Of the millions in those countries, only a few thousand decided Mohammed needed to be defended by destroying property and threatening lives. A few thousand people that looked for anything to offend them or needed an excuse to launch a military-style raid.  And as long as this minority believes death is the answer to words, drawings, and films that simply hurt their feelings, it won’t be the last time this happens. It’s a good example of how religion poisons people.
If your religion is worth killing for, start by killing yourself!

In memory of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the three Americans killed in Libyan riots on 9-11-12

Religion - the original sin.

Religion is the original sin. It is the sin of willful ignorance and credulity. Just as the fairy tale of the Garden of Eden relates, religion, as practiced across most of the United States, and in many countries around the world, makes a virtue of believing the ridiculous, and a sin of enjoying life.

Belief is the path of least resistant. Disbelief requires a much more concerted effort. It is easier to believe than to question and doubt. Believing means you just accept and follow. American historian James Harvey Robinson wisely wrote ‘Few of us take the pains to study the origins of our convictions; indeed, we have a natural repugnance to so doing. We like to continue to believe what we have been accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment aroused when doubt is cast upon any of our assumptions leads us to seek every manner of excuse for clinging to them. The result is that most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already have.’ And as the great Carl Sagan noted ‘You cannot convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it is based on a deep-seated need to believe.'

Why do people have a need to believe something without evidence? Most beliefs were instilled when they were toddlers and were too young to question. As the Jesuits are fond of saying ‘Give me the child for seven years and I will give you the man.’ What they mean is, it is accepted that a person’s belief system evolves within a child’s infancy and that a Jesuit upbringing would make the adult a confirmed holy zealot. Not to put too fine a point on it but that is religious indoctrination. If religion were true, it would not need to indoctrinate. Its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. If something is true and correct, why would it need to be hammered into the brains of defenseless children? Many who do this claim this is what god wants.

Believing in god is not a choice; it’s an ultimatum. You must believe in him or burn in hell forever. This is totalitarianism in its purest form. It’s using fear as its recruiting tool. Reaching your goals through fear is called terrorism.

Some ask ‘what is the harm in religion?’ Simple enough. It is because your belief guides your actions, and that’s what makes religion so dangerous. Faith or belief in an after-life is the single greatest cause of suffering and stupidity inflicted upon humans, by humans, for several reasons.

First, it allows religious leaders to control people by offering hope in the next life, promising rewards, threatening punishment, even sentencing eternal damnation. When a non-believer expresses their views, they are endorsing a position that there is no evidence for belief in any gods. But when a christian or a muslim expresses their view, they are endorsing a belief dictating that people who do not believe as they do deserve to spend an eternity being tortured with fire. Yet non-belief is the position that is considered 'offensive.' Why is it a sin not to believe without evidence when the greater sin is the credulity generated by religion itself? And please don't insist that 'it's not about religion, it's about a relationship with god'...that's the same as saying it's not about sex, it's about putting a penis in a vagina.

Secondly, it negates the immediacy and value of human life right here and now. Believing in life-after-death makes the assumption that people don't really die; they just go on to a spiritual life. This subconsciously legitimizes capital punishment and the death penalty, territorial wars, religious wars, turf wars, gang wars, terrorist attacks, ethnic cleansing, murder, suicide cults, political assassination. People aren't really dying; they're just continuing on in another stage of existence.

Third, it allows people to postpone action in this life (whether humane or humanitarian) in favor of the life yet to come, allowing for political and religious boundaries, derision and division, separatism and succession. Hence, we still have global hunger, border skirmishes, illiteracy, disease, poverty and pestilence, all because the problems of this world are ultimately deemed unimportant when measured against the life yet to come.

Fourth, it offers people hope for a solution to their problems at some future date and enables them to not make a conscious effort to make the necessary changes, or do the necessary work now. It allows them to postpone taking responsibility for their own lives or education (since god will enlighten them and fix everything once they get to heaven). It permits them to sit on their hands in ignorance and inertia while life passes them by.

And fifth, it legitimizes the use of persecution and torture in the name of saving souls for the after-life. This was the justification for the Inquisition. A 1578 handbook for inquisitors spelled out the purpose of inquisitorial penalties: "for punishment does not take place primarily and per se for the correction and good of the person punished, but for the public good in order that others may become terrified and weaned away from the evils they would commit." The evils they would commit...means the inquisitors projected into the future what they thought would happen and tortured accordingly. This allowed them to make up whatever they wanted. In other words, the only purpose was to scare people into submission to the church and its teachings. It still is. Believe or be damned. Or more simply 'Turn or burn'!

Religion is the belief in ideas that are, by definition, unproven and without evidence. That is why it is called faith…and faith does not give you answers, it just stops your from asking questions. Faith is the firm belief in something for which no proof exists - you simply want it to be true. It is wishful thinking. The ability to perceive the existence of God does not infer the existence of God. Belief in something is not proof that it is real, it does not equal fact. Nothing is true or false just because we wish or desire it to be so. Most people understand this when confronting other religions and cults, just not their own.

The most disturbing thing about religion is that it is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of preaching hate, bigotry, ignorance, superstition and intolerance. Just witness the outcry against homosexuality. Certain people need to stop using Jesus and god as an excuse for being narrow-minded, bigoted jerks!

Personally, I choose to live by these words: Above all things, truth…Not belief, not faith, not religion, not god nor gods, not patriotism, not ideology, not hopes, not dreams, not reward, not comfort, but truth….for better or for worse, truth.

This post is a compilation of some of the best arguments against theism and religion I have come across. I have simply assembled them into what I think is a fitting tribute to their wisdom.

                                                                        Blinded by religion

Magically relieved

A recent article in one of my wife’s magazines caught my eye and I wondered  how it would sound to other people who may have a different outlook. See what you think.

A woman who is a nurse in Midland Texas finds one of her daughter’s former teachers on her list of patients that night. The teacher had tyrannized and terrified her daughter at school and, even though she is very irritated over the years that her daughter suffered at the hands of this woman, the nurse decides to be professional and put on a false front as she makes her rounds. She enters the teacher’s room and instead of the monster she had envisioned all those years, she instead sees a frail, helpless woman who is lying curled up in bed, mumbling and stumbling over the words of the Lucky Charms jingle,"….pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green…green…green…"  The nurse walks over, grabs the woman’s hands and completes ‘…green clovers’, and then both of them say the remainder of the jingle together… “Hearts, stars, and horseshoes. Clovers and blue moons. Pots of gold and rainbows. And me red balloons. That's me Lucky Charms. They're magically delicious.".  All of a sudden, the years of bitterness and anger over the maltreatment of her daughter melt away due to the shared reciting of the words, and she feels better. The nurse realizes that ‘Leprechauns took it away with a simple jingle.

Does this sound reasonable and believable?

                Yet if the jingle is changed to the lord’s prayer, and leprechauns changed to god as is the case in the actual article, people believe it wholeheartedly. The nurse did.

What do leprechauns and god have in common? Think about it.

It doesn’t seem to dawn on this nurse that, maybe due to her training (which she learned herself; an invisible, imperceptible supernatural  being didn’t implant it into her) she felt compassion toward a sickly-looking patient who was dealing with remorse of some sort, or was looking for an answer to her condition. Because she was raised in a nation where christianity is the dominant religion, the teacher attempts to remember a christian prayer. Had she been born in Islamabad, she would have been groping for an islamic prayer; or in Bangkok, a buddhist one. The nurse, who is also from that christian-dominated nation,  knows the words, and using her training to bring comfort and care to patients, says them with the woman to ease her mind. How is this evidence that god took away her years of resentment? Does she believe that, had she been born in Islamabad or Bangkok, the prayer she recited WOULDN’T have made her feel better? Why not?

If praying is so powerful, why not pray that the woman be healed, seek out the nurse’s daughter, and ask to be forgiven for her prior transgressions against her? Why not use this powerful praying to heal everyone’s burden no matter who they are or where they are? The nurse can make all the claims she wants, but the story provides no evidence that an invisible, imperceptible supernatural  being did anything. She simply wants to believe it. Is this how we should approach all challenges, make something up. tell ourselves that we'll believe it, and then that faith will be justified because we choose to believe? 

Looks like these protesters had enough faith in a chainsaw to make their beliefs become a reality.