Reddit reviews The Faith Healers

Haha, that's a good one. He wrote a book about faith healers. Foreword by Carl Sagan. http://www.amazon.com/Faith-Healers-James-Randi/dp/0879755350

If you want to read a book which may have you actually smashing things, read The Faith Healers by James Randi. Now, I don't think Randi is the final authority of the world, and he's got a rock star sized ego. But he makes some scathing criticisms of people who promise everything and deliver nothing. Those people absolutely prey on others who are in a very bad place in life.

Full book on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/Faith-Healers-James-Randi/dp/0879755350

The Faith Healers (Amazon)

Derren Brown - Miracles for Sale (youtube)

> I'm talking about the people who are instantly healed after having a Christian lay their hands on them. Blind see. Deaf hear. Lame walk. Dead are raised. People with back-pain for 10+ years are healed. People with pain in their knees every time they bend them are healed. People who haven't been able to lift their hands above their shoulders for 10+ years are healed.

And yet, where are these people? Are you talking about faith healers who con people into giving them money? These people have been debunked and exposed as frauds so many times, yet people still continued to go to them. What do you make of this?

James Randi has spent a lot of time researching faith healers, and he debunked many. In his book called The Faith Healers, James Randi has written a damning indictment of the faith-healing practices of the leading televangelists and others who claim divine healing powers. Randi and his team of researchers attended scores of "miracle services" and often were pronounced "healed" of the nonexistent illnesses they claimed. They viewed first-hand the tragedies resulting from the wide-spread belief that faith healing can cure every conceivable disease. The ministries, they discovered, were rife with deception, chicanery, and often outright fraud.

Self-annointed ministers of God convince the gullible that they have been healed - and that they should pay for the service. The Faith Healers examines in depth the reasons for belief in faith healing and the catastrophic results for the victims of these hoaxes. Included in Randi's book are profiles of a highly profitable "psychic dentist", and the "Vatican-approved wizard."

To quote one of the reviewers:

It is almost impossible to read this book and not be outraged by the callous and reprehensible behavior of the so-called "faith healers." Not only does Randi reveal the methods and tricks used by these charlatans, but he provides example after example, including actual documents, to back up his findings. He demonstrates just how disgracefully these individuals use every underhanded trick they can come up with to wring money out of people who honestly believe that their hard-earned dollars are going to support a good cause; they believe they are doing the right thing, when in actuality their donations are used to purchase sports cars, clothes, and new homes for these supposed "men of God."

I say this: bring some of these Christian "healers" and have them demonstrate their powers in a controlled scientific setting. If you manage to prove that such powers exist, you'd probably get a Nobel prize. You don't even have to go as far as proving that the "supernatural" exists, as they can just be X-Men style mutants with healing powers, but that would still be extremely impressive.

So I'm not asking you to prove the supernatural, but just to prove the claimed powers of these faith healers, and that will still be a huge step forward.

Also by the same author "The Faith Healers"