Why doesn't God Heal Amputees?
By Liphe Guru @ http://lifecheat.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-doesnt-god-heal-amputees.html?q=amputees
These types of questions are often asked. Some pose them with the intention to understand the notion of God others merely to reinforce already held convictions. The important premise to keep in mind is that by giving us free will God has limited His own intervention in order to give value to this free will. God has given us the ability to cure cancer and grow back our limbs. Once regenerative medicine delivers what it promises, we/they will move on to some other question to explore the notion of God or use it as an excuse not to believe in God. Hence to tie one's faith to God's intervention at drop of a hat is illogical to start with.
As far as the question of faith goes, God wants us to have faith but not the kind of blind faith propagated by the self styled custodians of various faiths. Furthermore, the default position appears to be that we (humans) have been given the chance to share God's creation. It is up to us now to make sense of God's creation. Furthermore we have been given total freedom to explore it both in our individual capacity and in our collective capacity. It's all part of our growth. Now If God were to interfere in our affairs unconditionally that would negate or at least seriously curtail the freedom inherent in our design.
God has laid out clear observable physical laws. Now if we were to invoke God and ask God for help then we would still be within our design parameters as long as we don't expect stuff outside these well defined laws of nature so to speak. Besides when God does respond to our call it could be all happening at a more fundamental level perhaps two orders deeper than the one visible to us. What is routine for us would be deemed miraculous or magical only a thousand years back. In the context of millions of years a thousand doesn't even compute. In fact there are lessons in this slow physical progress. Instead of focusing on the 70 or 80 odd years presently at our disposal, we need to look for other types of progress that can help us grow and which are free of these constraints.
That does not mean we should ignore the physical Universe around us altogether but in fact use our current understanding of it to set realistic limits of acceptable proofs and not get caught up in the "do more" absurdity. Besides no matter what we come up with, the proof of God is going to be relative, what passed as proof in the era of Bible or Quran's revelation would be laughed at today and by the same token even if we were to come up with a workable demonstration to prove the existence of a God, people a thousand years from now would think of it as funny, at best. The funny thing is that we cannot even imagine why it would appear funny to them.
Those who demand proof of God on their terms or some who even insist that God should appear in person so that they may believe in Him have obviously not thought this through. If you ask them what kind of proof will satisfy them besides the generic responses alluding to words and terms like science, empirical evidence, rationality etc most of them really don't have a clue. When you press them for details of the proof they mostly side step the issue by insisting that God should resolve the issue of type of proof. What they fail to understand is that it is about them not God. In fact they have the total freedom to ignore God.
These types of questions are often asked. Some pose them with the intention to understand the notion of God others merely to reinforce already held convictions. The important premise to keep in mind is that by giving us free will God has limited His own intervention in order to give value to this free will. God has given us the ability to cure cancer and grow back our limbs. Once regenerative medicine delivers what it promises, we/they will move on to some other question to explore the notion of God or use it as an excuse not to believe in God. Hence to tie one's faith to God's intervention at drop of a hat is illogical to start with.
As far as the question of faith goes, God wants us to have faith but not the kind of blind faith propagated by the self styled custodians of various faiths. Furthermore, the default position appears to be that we (humans) have been given the chance to share God's creation. It is up to us now to make sense of God's creation. Furthermore we have been given total freedom to explore it both in our individual capacity and in our collective capacity. It's all part of our growth. Now If God were to interfere in our affairs unconditionally that would negate or at least seriously curtail the freedom inherent in our design.
God has laid out clear observable physical laws. Now if we were to invoke God and ask God for help then we would still be within our design parameters as long as we don't expect stuff outside these well defined laws of nature so to speak. Besides when God does respond to our call it could be all happening at a more fundamental level perhaps two orders deeper than the one visible to us. What is routine for us would be deemed miraculous or magical only a thousand years back. In the context of millions of years a thousand doesn't even compute. In fact there are lessons in this slow physical progress. Instead of focusing on the 70 or 80 odd years presently at our disposal, we need to look for other types of progress that can help us grow and which are free of these constraints.
That does not mean we should ignore the physical Universe around us altogether but in fact use our current understanding of it to set realistic limits of acceptable proofs and not get caught up in the "do more" absurdity. Besides no matter what we come up with, the proof of God is going to be relative, what passed as proof in the era of Bible or Quran's revelation would be laughed at today and by the same token even if we were to come up with a workable demonstration to prove the existence of a God, people a thousand years from now would think of it as funny, at best. The funny thing is that we cannot even imagine why it would appear funny to them.
Those who demand proof of God on their terms or some who even insist that God should appear in person so that they may believe in Him have obviously not thought this through. If you ask them what kind of proof will satisfy them besides the generic responses alluding to words and terms like science, empirical evidence, rationality etc most of them really don't have a clue. When you press them for details of the proof they mostly side step the issue by insisting that God should resolve the issue of type of proof. What they fail to understand is that it is about them not God. In fact they have the total freedom to ignore God.
