ASA let PPC off the hook this time
The Christian Congress for Traditional Values and its mothership, Peniel Pentecostal Church, have been quiet of late. One of the church’s posters was the subject of a couple of complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority. It was headlined “MIRACLES – HEALING – FAITH” and showed a photo of a man holding a child with a microphone in his other hand. Presumably it was based on the front page of their website.
The accusation was that it was advertising miracles and cures which it could not provide, and that it was preying upon gullible people. The defence was that
that the poster referred to spiritual, not physical, miracles and healing.
The ad was found “not in breach”.
Insurance salesman-cum-bishop Michael Reid of Michael Reid Ministries/PPC branded the complaints as “nonsense”. As if they would ever make unsubstantiated claims of miracle cures and get into trouble with the ASA!
UPDATE: The Scotsman reveals that Reid was supported by three Conservative MPs: Eric Pickles (Brentwood and Ongar), Andrew Rosindell (Romford), and Angela Watkinson (Upminster).
There used to be one of those posters up at Colchester train station. IIRC, in the corner it said ‘come and see’ – which, IIRC, is what the various horsemen say in Revelation. So, which one does that make Reid?
Rev 6
Whichever one, he clearly fancies himself as a bit of a beast.
Always reminds me of the old “Jesus saves!” notices. They never say what Jesus saves, because since he is in fact, STONE DEAD (and probably never even existed) he can’t actually save anything: supernatural or otherwise.
Penis pentecostal church are just like all the others…
Liars and blackmailers…
Oh, coming home last night, there was an ambualnce outside the ghastly “church” (Potters House) round the corner.
My loud comment that “Oh the miracle-healing didn’t work then?”
Was not appreciated, I’m glad to say.
Two points suggest themselves:
(1) The spiritual sense is not the plain or obvious meaning of the poster.
(2) What is meant by ‘spiritual’ here anyway? Are we being dualist, or cannot the spiritual encompass the physical? (In defence it could be said that one possible but not necessary byproduct of a spiritual healing could be a physical healing).
(3) Claims to physical healing (and, for all one knows, perhaps actual physical healings: would that there were enough ruthlessly honest people in our world to be able to distinguish between the two) are part of the package offered by this organisation, aren’t they?
You’re absolutely right Christopher, they are part of the package offered by this organisation. They claim, if I remember rightly, to offer genuine healing of physical ailments. That’s certainly what the poster implies.
That’s why I’m so surprised that a poster advertising both miracles and healing was allowed to stand.
Then, the ASA does seem to be surprisingly easily swayed by a robust defence of even the most indefensible claims.
One could ‘advertise’ people’s attention that medically verified unaccountable healings had happened through this means in the past. It would be dangerous to extrapolate from this that they would necessarily happen in the future,let alone imply their likelihood for every possible reader.
One could not advertise that, as it would be a lie.
How could one “‘advertise’ people’s attention”?
That phrase doesn’t make sense.
As Andrew says, to claim such as you do would be a lie.
You’re not telling us you believe in faith healing too are you? Seriously?
I missed out a ‘for’. One could advertise for people’s attention that….
The sentence is a hypothetical. If it has happened,advertise it. It it has not, don’t.
Re Tom’s question: I very much doubt whether the total instance of medically verified unaccountable Christian-related healings is zero,or anything like zero.
Actually it will be zero.
Gulp! I thought you were in favour of open-mindedness,not dogmatic fundamentalism.
Open mindedness yes. But not to the impossible. Faith healing is, to be frank, bollocks.
Just as an aside, I notice that in their statement of faith (http://www.kt.org/?p=sof), tke Kensington Temple, with which you are associated, I believe, practices “The anointing of the sick with oil for the healing of the body”
You may wish to inform whoever does this, that they may be eligible for a million dollars from the James Randi Educational Foundation. (www.jref.com)
Science would love to be able to prove that faith healing works, it’d save governments a hell of a lot of money.
But all investigations into so-called faith healers have revealed nothing but deception, the most famous being Peter Popoff, who used various tricks to acheive his “miracles”.
I believe in faith healing.
In fact, I have seen it happen many times during demonstrations by our high priests and even by the lowliest of healers.
Why simply by the laying on of radula we can cure many diseases and ailments – some not even known to our kind.
But I must leave you now and return to my shell on planet Zug. Or, as we say, u2skcollob Christopher.
Actually, some faith healing can be scientifically shown to work; it can even work at great distances – even across continents and great oceans.
It’s called a “placebo effect” and although entirely imaginary, some patients (particularly those with psychosomatic illnesses (certain types of back pain for instance) can feel an immediate affect more powerful than conventional painkillers.
In spite of what Dr. Seashell might think, faith healing has never, and I can confidently predict, will never *ever* fix something that the human body (perhaps with help from a tested medicine) can’t fix.
For example: cancers occasionally go into remission; asthma certainly does, but both almost always return with a vengeance.
Faih healers almost always break the first precept of modern medicine which is “First, do no harm.” They encourage people to do away with allopathic drugs and rely entirely on misguided superstition; most imply or suggest that conventional medication interferes and discard it – at which point the patient in most cases, takes a nose dive.
Those that do get better in the short term, do so only because withdrawal of drugs reduces the side-effects. The illness, in time, wins. But not before our “faith healer” has relieved the patient of a considerable sum of money and caused them great pain, suffering, indignity and all too frequently, loss of life too.
And before anyone defends the “free” faith healers – don’t; you’ll just be inviting a swift rebuke. When faith healing doesn’t work, as is often the case, it crushes hope and feeds suffering. Only a cynical arsehole or greedy bastard would even attempt such a thing.
My own father-in-law is gullible and frightened; so much so he consulted many a charlatan – only to be relieved of his money, but not his symptoms. Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, lost his life because of his unswerving (and erroneous) belief that Christ would save him. (We have Mary Baker Eddy to thank for that little nugget.)
This is, I suspect, the true price of faith.
Reid had some support – the Telegraph reports that Eric Pickles MP, who is Reid’s creature, wrote a letter to ASA stating that “This should be a matter for theological debate not a referral to the ASA.”
Ah! What a surprise the Xian MP jumps to the rescue of a fellow Xian idiot.
Now if that doesn’t smell of corruption, I don’t know what does!
But all that is a great deal more than I was claiming. Wellbeing and health are linked. De-stressing and health are linked. A relaxing atmosphere and health are linked. A true worldview and health are linked. Physical touch and health are linked. Put all that together, and what you call ‘faith healing’ cannot be a simple black and white issue. The physical effects of prayer and meditation are well-documented, and include trance, alteration of heartbeat etc.. These are bodily changes. Where there is bodily change, there can be a change in state of health. The two are not conceptually that distinct.
Believing that the bearded sky fairy fixed (via some professional faith healer) you is a whole world of difference is healing yourself by stress reduction.
For one thing, reducing stress by proper breathihg is free: going to a faith healer isn’t. Going to a faith healer might actually be detrimental to your health whereas reducing your stress probably won’t be… and so on.
Faith healing per se is just a cynical way to get more bums on seats: and the world should outlaw it.
Christopher, your first 3 claims in #19 are fine and demonstrably true, but then you get to this nonsense:
“A true worldview and health are linked. Physical touch and health are linked”
What possible evidence can you have for the claim that a “true worldview” is linked to health?
The only linkage that I’m aware of between worldviews and health is that pessimists tend to live shorter lives than optimists (I can’t remeber where I’ve seen this claim, but will gladly look for it if needed). This could well be a psychosomatic effect, or it could be that people are more likely to be optimistic if they are in generally reasonably good health.
Also, how do you verify its truth? If it conforms to thousands of years old myths does that make it true?
You’re just spouting palpable and demonstrable nonsense.
Then we get on to your physical touch claim.
While mental health workers do say (semi-humorously) that a cuddle a day keeps the psychiatrist at bay, there is nothing that I’ve ever heard of that backs up you ‘physical touch being linked to health’ claim. It’s just a good way to spread communicable diseases.
The fact that going into a trance can alter your heartrate means nothing at all. The only thing that could alter is if you had a heartrate problem, such as tachycardia or bradycardia.
You’ve gone from spouting silly nonsense to mendacious nonsense.
I hope you’ve never recommended this to anyone who’s desperately ill because, if you are right and there is a god and a heaven and a hell, then you’d be going straight down to burn by causing this person greater suffering.
Shouldn’t you consider faith healing to be blasphemous, anyway? After all, you believe that jeebus could do it, but that doesn’t mean that some charismatic conman can too, or do you believe that these bastards all have a touch of jeebus about them?
Tom P wrote: “You’re just spouting palpable and demonstrable nonsense.”
So, no change there then…
A true worldview and health are linked? Examples: true beliefs about which medicines and foods are good for you will have a better effect on health than false beliefs about the same matters.
It takes medical knowledge to tell how great and decisive an effect a given bodily change will have. It takes no more than common sense to tell that every bodily change will affect health some way or another. Some for the better, some for the worse. Even medical doctors don’t believe that the only physical changes that affect health for the better are in the form of medicines and surgery. Relaxation, healthy diet, exercise, physical contact (what Christians call ‘laying on of hands’) – the list is endless. Unless one is a ghost-in-the-machine dualist who believes that mental changes cannot possibly affect the body.
Sure and being lied to is really bad for your self-esteem…
Faith healer: Your cancer is cured. Halalooooya
Doctor (the day after): You’ve got a week to live. Unless you get stressed.
A christian laid his hands on me once – arsehole was lucky he didn’t draw back a bloody stump. (And no, that’s not why I hate them. It just reminds me that I do.)
Yes. I often press for people to use a definition of ‘heal’ that includes ‘before’ and ‘after’ medical certificates. Then we could get a clearer sense of the true stats. But the main question is: Granted that medicines etc can cure by virtue of producing a physical change, there is no end to the different things apart from medicines that also produce physical change, including positive physical change. ‘Positive physical change’ and ‘healing’ are not always easy to distinguish from one another. We’re not dualists, are we?
But Christopher – you believe in faith healing, yet you say that “A true worldview and helath are linked” then you say “true beliefs about which medicines and foods are good for you will have a better effect on health than false beliefs about the same matters”.
So are you accepting that faith healing actually makes you physically worse?
Your arguments here are at best tendentious and at worst clear outright mendacity. You’re claiming that because something has a (dubious in the case of laying on of hands) physical effect on the body that means it must be doing something right. That’s like saying that because you bought a lottery ticket last week and haven’t looked at it since, that means you might be a millionaire, except it’s more nonsensical than that.
We (humanity) know how (most) illnesses work. They disrupt natural bodily systems. We have developed medicines that, highly selectively and with high potentcy, interfere with this disruption.
For you to say that putting hands on somebody can cure a disease and liken this process to a medicine because it “produces a physical change” is utterly ludicrous and the sort of thing that only a cretin or a liar would say.
Christopher – have you ever advocated the laying on of hands to someone who was genuinely ill?
If so, then you are the biggest bastard possible
That isnt what I said. The only things which I did say were undeniable. Namely:
(1) Every physical change affects us in some way, for good or ill;
(2) It is not always possible to draw a clear line between good physical changes effected by medicine and good physical changes effected in numerous non-medicinal ways. Any one of the latter might prove to be the balance-shift that effected a turn-around in the person’s health.
Re: the last question ‘Have you ever advocated ”the” laying on ”of” hands [otherwise known as touch or bodily contact]…?’-
We’ve talked before about the holistic approach. If someone is sick in body or mind, one wants to make their atmosphere as pleasant as possible in every different way. That includes soothing music, physical touch and hugging, among other things.
The sum total of what you’ve said implies very heavily that you believe that laying on of hands actually helps to cure people.
It can only work as a placebo.