Does God Heal His Own Human Leaders?

By AtheistToothFairy

We hear much from Christians about how god takes cares of his own flock, especially when it comes to something like god healing the sick via prayer. These Christians insist that praying for someone can at least help abate their disease (despite many non-biased studies to the contrary). They also tell us that praying even for ourselves when we are sick, will also inspire god to intervene on our own behalf.

I haven't met a Christian yet that would deny this 'quality' of god, as his handbook clearly states this as a given Christian benefit. So, let us now assume that the bible god really does exists and that he really is suppose to answer our request for a healing (even if only conditionally).

Would it then not make perfect sense that he would also take care of his human religious leaders?

Surely if any run-of-the-mill believer can have god help them through this praying ritual, for either themselves or others, then it wouldn't make very much sense that god would turn his back on the very religious leaders who are teaching the world of his divine word. I think we can agree on this assumption?

I have noticed that on this site, there have been a few discussions about the mental illnesses of believers and some folks who believe god helped them in this area. Of course, proclaiming someone cured of some mental illness is much more subjective than some more obvious physical illness would be. Thus, I don't feel we can use cures of mental illness as a measuring stick to say whether god has intervened or not. So for the sake of argument, let's put aside the mental illness factors and use something that is easier to have 'metrics' for... human physical illness.

In searching for any discussions on this site about how well god is taking care of his own leaders in their physical health, I was unable to find any material in the archives about this important aspect of god's benefits. I have also searched the web for any studies that would show a health/cure comparison between religious leaders of the earth, versus god's average believers, versus non-believers (not to mention hard core atheist). Alas, it seems no information is available to the public on the web on this
topic and unless someone out there can point me to some legit studies, then we'll have to base our conclusions on hearsay evidence from those commenting on this.

Throughout my life I have known, either directly or indirectly, many religious leaders from local priest and ministers, right up to some very famous religious leaders we read about in the news. How many of these leaders do you suppose have been cured by god for some ailment they had. One would initially assume that of course god heals such faithful important leaders, but does he really. Does the evidence meet this assumption. Let's try and discover this now.

We have all watched various Catholic Pope's lose their health and eventually die and be replaced by the next Pope. If one is catholic, then one must believe that the Pope is god's right hand man down here on earth, yet, god let each Pope's health fail him until each died. I'm not even talking about instances where a sudden illness quickly took their lives, for in that case one could assume that god was just preparing the Pope to meet-his-maker, etc. No, I'm talking about where a Pope's health continued to degrade month after month, year after year, reaching the point where they couldn't really even do god's important work anymore. Did god step in and give his right-hand-man at least part of his health back, at least enough vitality so he could function as god's spokesman? No? WHY NOT?

If one is not catholic, then it's easy to write this mystery off by saying the Pope isn't of the correct biblical faith. Some even assume a Pope will be the Anti-Christ and such a Pope would surely not merit god's healing actions. If a former Pope is deceased, I think we can safely assume he wasn't this Anti-Christ, but yet the question remains, did god heal any of these dead Pope's, at any time? Because we can't use only Pope's in our quest to find an answer, we must now look beyond just the Pope's of our history and take a look at other religious leaders, including our own local leaders.

So, let's pick two fairly famous leaders and see how well god heals them when their bodies start to fail them.

Billy Graham:

Surely this well known religious leader had 'enough' right about god's word to warrant god's attention in fixing his health problems, yet we easily find this about Mister Graham on the web:

"Graham said that his planned retirement was due to his failing health. He has suffered from Parkinson's disease for about 15 years, has had fluid on the brain, pneumonia, broken hips, and recently revealed that he is suffering from prostate cancer."

So for 15 years this man suffered with Parkinson's, yet god turned his back on this famous leader of his... WHY? I won't even go into the other health issues mentioned here, but you get the dismal picture, I'm sure.

God Squad:

For those not familiar with the God Squad, it is a religious question/answer column, run in newspapers, and is made up of a Rabbi and a devout Christian man named Thomas Hartman. These two men act as spokesmen for their god (Jewish and Christian), answering tough religious questions from their readers. Obviously, in the
world of religion, they are very important key figures and must have god's direct attention. Surely god would keep these important word-spreaders in tip-top health, no? Yet we read the following about the Christian half of this God Squad:

"Monsignor Thomas Hartman publicly announced he had Parkinson's disease in November of 2003"

I have followed the story of Thomas for long time now and I have seen nothing in the news media about his Parkinson's disease suddenly being cured, even though it's been almost 4 years since he was diagnosed with it.

When I ask various Christians why god hasn't felt the need to cure this important figure of religion, I'm told that god works in mysterious ways and that his battle with Parkinson's is actually part of the process of making him a 'better follower of the lord,' etc. Excuse me, but how exactly does such a method work. Can someone explain to me how leaving an important religious leader with some dreadful disease, will better enable him to spread that important doctrine of god? Surely this popular man had at least hundreds of Christians praying for him, yet his disease remains steadfast in him... WHY?

I've known many local priest and ministers throughout my lifetime. From my own perspective, they suffer health problems on par with the rest of the general population. More so, I've never seen any such local leader cured of some serious long-term illness by god. They suffer along just like any other person does when they contract such illnesses. Prayers from their congregations seem to fall on god's deaf ears. So, just like the more famous leaders, these local leaders also seem to receive no healing benefit from their almighty god.

Isn't it odd that all these Christians continue to believe in the power of faith healing when none of their great leaders ever shows evidence of being healed by this god person. If our religious leaders can't expect to be healed by this god, then I ask you, what chance do the rest of the believers in god have with their own illness. In the end, all the studies done conclude there is zero evidence that faith healing works for anyone. Obviously that conclusion seems to apply to even our great religious leaders as well.

So tell me, Christians: Why can't we expect to be healed of our diseases if god assures us he will answer such prayers? Why does he seem to ignore even the most devout and well known religious leaders of earth?

Where is your god hiding? Why does he turn his back on healing even his own flock?

We can't see the heaven 'we' hope to enter one day from this planet earth, yet we are told to believe in it. We can't detect hell's fire from where we live, yet we are told to greatly fear it. God never makes himself visible to us mere mortals, so wouldn't it make much sense for god to provide a tad bit of evidence of himself, by at least showing us he can heal his own great leaders of this planet? Wouldn't it make "god-sense" to heal such leaders and at the same time give the rest of us a reason other than blind faith, to believe in such a caring powerful god.

What's wrong with this picture, I ask everyone?

Personally, I think the artist of this sad picture being painted here, just never has existed, other than in the minds of those wanting to believe such comforting myths.

To monitor comments posted to this topic, use .

Previous

Next