After Franck Kabele dies and goes to heaven…

Franck: Holy shit I thought that would actually work!
Jesus: Wow what a fucking idiot!

Now that‘s a funny story.

Les: How do we convince more Evangelicals to take up this challenge?

72 virgins? Nah. That’s been done to death. 

Les: How do we convince more Evangelicals to take up this challenge?

Dangle tax-exempt status at the end of a rope. Oh, damn, done that too, already.

This is fucking beautiful!  No, heres what ya do, tell everyone who was there that the guy is still alive, that the spirit of the lord has run through his body and hes still down there walking, hes just going to europe!

Damn these evangelicals are stupid.

That guy made a big mistake.  And, yeah, he’s still walking.  But he isn’t walking to Europe.  I tried to walk on the water twice as a kid.  I never made it.  But when I lost my voice for 5 years and medical treatments didn’t help, God told me to become a teacher.  So I went back to graduate school.  Just as I was graduating, my voice returned.  I became a college teacher then.  That was 24 years ago, and I’m still walking on the water.

Hey, I walk on water every winter.  No big deal.

Danny, come talk to me once God heals an amputee. I suspect there was never anything wrong with your voice, but then I’m cynical that way.

I suspect there was never anything wrong with your voice, but then I’m cynical that way.

Nothing that a good shrink couldn’t have cured sooner?

A good shrink or a swift kick to the ass.

Les, that’s not mutually exclusive

I had ulcerated vocal chords, a rare condition in the world.  Doctors were shocked to actually see a case and didn’t know what to do.  Tried therapy twice, steroids, silence.  I was sending out resume’s to schools, believing that somehow I would get well, getting on my knees and praying every morning.  After a total of 6 years of suffering, my throat healed.  Just before I went to Japan to teach full-time, it started improving suddenly.  It wasn’t just that my throat healed by itself.  It was the timing, and the fact that I foolishly went to school to become a teacher on God’s guidance, when I could hardly talk a few minutes at a time because of pain.  I also had terrible stomach pains for years.  I had a vision from God, and after that I fasted two days.  Instantly my stomach pains stopped for good.  I also had terrible sore throats, like a 10 week cold that kept recycling, for about two years.  The doctor called it a “mystery virus.“  We tried antibiotics, no good So I fasted two days and immediately the redness and pain disappeared over night.  I get maybe one cold a year now, and when I do, it’s so short and light that I laugh.  I have personally seen other miracles.  No amputees—not yet!  Even in scientific research, there’s a rule that no research can actually prove anything.  Research only supports an idea.  Here’s my support.  Anyway, I won’t keep disturbing you guys.  I’m sure you don’t want to hear this stuff.

Danny writes…

I had ulcerated vocal chords, a rare condition in the world.

You’re kidding me, right? There’s nothing particularly rare about ulcerated vocal chords and any number of things can cause it ranging from yelling and/or screaming too much to upper respiratory infections.

The rest of your comment just makes me think you need to find a better doctor.

The first doctor who saw me called another doctor in and told him, “This is a very unusual case.  You’ve probably never seen this.“  Another doctor didn’t believe that I had ulcers on my chords until he actually saw them.  Several told me they could peel my chords but said that the ulcers would probably come back.  It’s a fact.  I’m not just talking from a little Internet research.  My chords were very weak and after they wouldn’t heal, one doctor told me that I was born with weak chords.  The therapy was supposed to help me use my chords gently.  One person told me they had never seen anyone with so much control over their relaxation, and didn’t understand why the therapy didn’t help, but still no good.  Prayer helped, though.  Come on.  Face it.  You really don’t want to believe this.  You have too much invested to believe it.  God’s watching you, bro!

Anecdotal evidence is one of the strongest ways to develop belief in something. We were taught as missionaries to witness that we believed this religion with all our hearts. Heart to heart dialogue is very convincing. There is medical evidence to prove that positive attitude really does help in healing, whatever the malady. If you strengthened your positive attitude by praying, you probably did have some positive reinforcement - not from God, from your own inner control of your body chemistry. This is also known as the placebo effect, and it is very strong in some people. What Les was looking for was some external observable proof that God takes PERSONAL interest in someone and has regenerated the amputated extremity. Since God does not exist, there has never been and never will be any such external proof. The same principle applies to many illnesses in ALL religions, and the same external proof is absent in ALL religions.

I’m with Les. Ulcerated vocal chords aren’t rare, although they’re apparently among the less common vocal chord disorders. It may or not be something that a GP sees with some frequency, but any doctor worth his or her money should be able to look up treatment options without any difficulties. Comparing Danny’s posts with the first two articles that popped up on Google make me think malpractice and untreated gastric reflux. And which clown of a doctor would treat a suspected virus infection with antibiotics?! I’m also a bit confused about that prayer stuff. Praying for years didn’t work and when the condition improves for whatever actual reason, the credit suddenly goes to prayer?

Whatever, eh.

What leguru said. It’s entirely possible that the going through the motions of prayer works as well as a placebo. In either case, anecdotes like the one above are only indicative of what somebody wants to believe, not what actually happened.

Again, it sounds to me like Danny had the makings of a malpractice lawsuit.