The worst of all the religious scams.

[Archae]

Faith healing.

There is *NO* evidence it has ever worked, and faith healers kill dozens of people every year.

Pat Robertson's Faith Healing Will Put Doctors Out Of Business!

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 9/30/2014 3:00 pm

Pat Robertson’s “The 700 Club” regularly features a segment called “Answers to Prayer,” in which a viewer who claims to have been healed by Robertson or one of his co-hosts shares his or her story. Today, one viewer claimed that Robertson’s word healed her of a bacterial infection and another thanked Robertson for healing her back pains, which made her so excited that she ran around the house to celebrate. “We don’t mean to bankrupt doctors but we’re going to take some business away from them,” Robertson joked.

- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/pat-robertsons-faith-healing-will-put-doctors-out-business#sthash.ZX6wyKza.dpuf

[SheilaT]

1. The reason "faith healing" appears to work

is more or less the placebo effect.

[Archae]

2. Yes, I know.

Also the fact that many times in faith healing rallies or sermons, the "preacher" has ringers that are put in wheelchairs by staffers.

James Randi showed how faith healers uses chicken parts to pull out of "the healed" by slight-of-hand to show everyone the "healer's" magical powers.

[SheilaT]

3. This is also a very complicated topic

that goes far beyond the faith healing that we're discussing here. I see it in all sorts of arenas, where people simply don't question what's presented to them. It's why we have things like housing bubbles, or the notion that you should "Do your colors" and wear the colors that are (according to this) the right ones for you.

On a relatively trivial level we see it with all those quizzes on the internet: What animal are you? What season are you? Which work of great literature are you? What state should you live in? That someone can cobble together eight or ten questions and then categorize the test taker is silly at best. Maybe no one is actually taking them seriously, but they are just another aspect of how gullible and unquestioning most people are.

[Orsino]

6. Believers will tend to seize on anything that looks like proof...

...and aren't noted for eagerness to admit they were hornswoggled.

[TxDemChem]

4. Oh my. Tsk tsk tsk.

I hate Pat and his nonsense, woo-woo, faith-healing ass.

[Archae]

5. Robertson again claims he can raise the dead...

Even though there is zero evidence of it, naturally.

Pat Robertson: We Have The Power To Raise The Dead, 'We Just Aren't Using It'

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 10/23/2014 11:30 am

Today on “The 700 Club,” Pat Robertson insisted that he and others have the power to raise the dead, but lamented that people these days are withholding this special skill.

Robertson, who has previously discussed dead-raising abilities, told a viewer, Margaret, that people can raise the dead when they receive and submit to the power of the Holy Spirit.

“That power is there, we just aren’t using it,” Robertson grieved.

- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/pat-robertson-we-have-power-raise-dead-we-just-arent-using-it#sthash.MNqDVbex.dpuf