Post by pchallinor on Mar 28, 2012 20:43:33 GMT
If you live in South Luton, South-West Devon, or the Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency in Southern Cumbria, then congratulations; your neighbours have elected MPs who believe that prayer can heal the sick, and that any quack with a Bible should be able to pimp God's services to the masses, free of pesky regulation.
As reported by Total Politics, "Three Christian MPs - Gary Streeter (Con), Gavin Shuker (Lab) and Tim Farron (Lib Dem) - are trying to overturn an advertising ban on claiming that 'God can heal'." Inspired by the case of Fabrice Muamba they "say that they want the Advertising Standards Authority to produce 'indisputable scientific evidence' to say that prayer does not work - otherwise they will raise the issue in Parliament."
Before I go any further; it cannot be emphasized enough how hideously arrogant and un-Christian the idea of prayer-healing is. Let's assume for a moment that we all believe in God, and we all agree that he is generally awesome and has the ability to heal sick people if he so chooses.
The implication of prayer-healing is that special people can demand that God heals someone, and he'll just do it. That only makes sense if you believe that a) God is a bit absent-minded and doesn't really notice all the sick people until some clever human points them out to him, or b) God is the fourth emergency service (the AA come fifth in this world-view), and we're entitled customers who pay with prayer and should damn well get some service.
Continued
As reported by Total Politics, "Three Christian MPs - Gary Streeter (Con), Gavin Shuker (Lab) and Tim Farron (Lib Dem) - are trying to overturn an advertising ban on claiming that 'God can heal'." Inspired by the case of Fabrice Muamba they "say that they want the Advertising Standards Authority to produce 'indisputable scientific evidence' to say that prayer does not work - otherwise they will raise the issue in Parliament."
Before I go any further; it cannot be emphasized enough how hideously arrogant and un-Christian the idea of prayer-healing is. Let's assume for a moment that we all believe in God, and we all agree that he is generally awesome and has the ability to heal sick people if he so chooses.
The implication of prayer-healing is that special people can demand that God heals someone, and he'll just do it. That only makes sense if you believe that a) God is a bit absent-minded and doesn't really notice all the sick people until some clever human points them out to him, or b) God is the fourth emergency service (the AA come fifth in this world-view), and we're entitled customers who pay with prayer and should damn well get some service.
Continued