One of the best retorts to the claims of faith healers is the simple question: If faith healing works such miracles, why has there never been a documented case of faith healing regrowing an amputated limb? Now that would be truly miraculous. That would make even a curmudgeonly old skeptic like me sit up an take notice.
Now, a woman named Carole Miller McCleery-Greene is claiming just that; so I had to check it out.
When I came across this Carole's site on a mailing list, I originally filed it away, thinking it would make a good installment of Your Friday Dose of Woo. Then I thought about it. YFDoW has evolved to be intended for wacky, fun sorts of woo. That's why you'll probably never see antivaccination lunacy or serious cancer quackery there. Yes, I've had a few misfires, where in retrospect I realize that the the subject of the week was probably too dangerous or serious for the light-hearted tone that I wanted to project, for example German New Medicine. Upon reading about the woman who claims Jesus is growing her a new leg after amputation, I concluded that the story just seemed too sad and the woman's delusion too depressing to be used as fodder for my Friday follies. However, it does serve as a disturbing reminder of how fundamentalist religion can lead to serious delusion.
The website introduces Carole thusly:
Carole Miller McCleery-Greene has been going all over the world glorifying Jesus for bringing her back from the dead and giving her new life.Her body that failed her has been made whole again. These are not merely statements but medically documented facts! Carole has given her testimony in meetings around the world, in a mighty demonstration of the Holy Spirit, with souls being saved, healed, and delivered by the Power of God.
Now here on the Healings and Miracles website, you can watch videos of some of these services and be touched by that same Power of God.
After the auto accident in 1981, Carole was pronounced dead twice, revived at the scene, Dead on Arrival at the hospital yet miraculously began speaking from under the cover at the morgue. God had other plans for Carole! Besides bringing her back to life, she has received many healings for incurable autoimmune diseases and twelve creative miracles including the re-growth of her amputated leg!
I'm sitting up, taking notice. I'm also wondering if Carole has the goods to back up this extraordinary claim. After all, we don't generally see humans regenerating limbs. Some lizards can do it, of course, but not mammals. According to Carole's story, this is what happened to her leg in 1981, after she was in a car crash, declared dead, placed in the morgue, and then found to be trying to talk:
The left side of my body was horribly mutilated. My left leg was split completely open from the ankle to the very top of my leg on the backside. Above the ankle and below the knee the flesh had been ripped away with only the bone showing. My left arm, wrist and hand had been cut severely. My thumb had almost been severed. The ribs were broken and my face and mouth were smashed. Within a short time, gangrene had set in and spread throughout my whole body, causing a very high fever...
The left leg died from the gangrene, so the doctors told my brother that they had to amputate the leg. It was dead flesh. They wanted to take it off above the femur bone that was broken and separated over two inches. I thank God everyday that my brother would only give permission for below the knee, less than two inches below the kneecap!
Believe it or not, after Carole recovered, she was in another automobile crash five years later, in 1986, suffering a severe neck injury. She also documents a number of other health problems, including a fall that damaged her rotator cuff, a defective heart valve with severe angina, and autoimmune diseases. (For someone so beloved by God, Carole sure does have a lot of bad luck and health problems.) In 1995, due to severe arthritis of her knee joint, from what I can gather from her account, her below-the-knee amputation (BKA) was revised higher. Why they didn't convert it to an above-the-knee amputation (AKA), I'm not sure, but what was done was a "radical amputation" to just below the knee joint. However, if you examine the medical documentation Carole has posted to her website, the patient had developed a bone spur at the cut end of her tibia, and it was noted that her fibula had been left the same length as the tibia. The physician mentioned in his dictation that the patient already had a very short BKA stump, making fitting a prosthesis difficult. What was really ultimately done, as the report makes clear, was nothing more radical than trimming back the fibula and removing the bone spur on the end of her stump.
From what I can gather from Carole's account of all her illnesses and "healings," the growth of her new leg began a few years later:
I was invited to give my testimony at a Minister's Conference in Clearwater, Florida. After praying for almost everyone there, the power of God was moving mightily when Rev. Tyson Prater came across the front of the church and said, "Carole may I pray for you?" God just spoke to me in an audible voice "Tell Carole her leg is growing." I told him, "Certainly." When Tyson touched my head, I received this word from God as I realized, He "spoke" the world into existence, He spoke my leg was growing which could not fail! As Abraham did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith he would become the father of many nations, I called my new created leg that was not as if it was by faith, and gave the glory to God! Romans 4:20...
Three weeks later, while talking to a friend on the phone, I looked down and saw my left knee come down level with the right knee. My hips came together! From the broken separated femur bones which had fused together, causing shortage to my left amputated leg, instantly a new femur bone was created and the broken, smashed femur vanished! The next day I went for x-rays. The doctor said, "It's a beautiful healthy bone, but of course, you are so healthy!" Due to the artificial left leg having been made taller to help compensate for the shortage of the femur, the prosthetic was cut off at the ankle area, bringing me to walk level again.
The radical amputation surgery to my left knee in 1995 below the knee, had removed all the fibula and tibia bones leaving almost nothing to walk on. The doctors were amazed I could even keep an artificial leg on. I did sustain many bad falls as it would slip off, throwing me down.
After the completion of the new femur, for several weeks masses of new bone began to form around and under the knee. Then growth started down and around with shaping on both sides. The new growth to the knee area made wearing the prosthesis very painful.
This page shows several X-rays and MRIs of Carole's stump, supposedly documenting this regrowth, which, as of 2002, Carole claims to include the regrowth of the quadriceps, anterior tibialis, and gastrocnemius muscles, although there is no documentation of this specific point in any of the reports. In fact, I notice that the X-rays and MRIs are shown, but no radiology reports accompany them to back up Carole's claims and no direct statements from doctors, just Carole's account that the doctors described her progress as a "miracle." If you scroll down the page to the MRI from December 13, 2006 and compare it to the MRI from July 25, 2002 and the X-rays from 1995, you'll see that there really is no significant "regrowth." True, there does appear to be some remodeling of soft tissue and bone, but that's to be expected after her operation in 1995. In fact, even if you believe that there's been some bone lengthening, the amount of lengthening observed over six years looks trivial on her imaging studies. Even if her leg truly were regenerating, at the rate documented on her website, I can safely (and sadly) conclude that Carole will almost certainly die of old age before she regrows enough bone to mean anything.
Let me ask you something: If you were a doctor, had a patient with a limb that was regenerating 20 years after it had been amputated because of trauma, and had compelling, unequivocal evidence to prove it, what would you do? I know what I'd do. I'd submit a case report to the New England Journal of Medicine! That's what I'd do. If I had the goods that proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt, Carole would be world-famous, and so would I!
In the end, although I'm sure it's comforting to Carole that she feels so loved by Jesus, she is deluding herself if she thinks that Jesus is growing her a new leg, which is one reason that I considered her story too depressing for an installment of YFDoW. However, I have to wonder why she thinks she is so blessed. She's had a hard life, with a veritable panoply of injuries and illnesses, including two auto collisions, one of which claimed her leg, a heart valve disorder causing her angina, a serious injury to her rotator cuff, serious difficult swallowing due to scleroderma, and a variety of other health problems of hers and in her family. If Jesus was responsible for her improvement after each of these illnesses, why is it that He doesn't get the blame for inflicting these injuries and illnesses on her in the first place?
Whatever the reason, even after seeing Carole's story, I conclude that the question still stands: If faith healing can work such miracles, why can't it regrow an amputated limb? Carole may think she is "kicking Satan in the teeth with her new leg," but there's no evidence that there's any new leg to begin with, much less one long enough and strong enough to knock out Satan's teeth.
I wonder what will happen when she realizes eventually it's not growing back?
I have a feeling that she'll never realize it's not growing back. Either she'll ascribe the initial "regeneration" as the complete "miracle," or else continue to wait for future progress and chalk up any delay to "God's will."
I agree with Orac, this article is just too sad for a YFDoW. As Puck said Carole will never realize or acknowledge that her leg will not grow back. This is her minds way of coping with the trauma. It helps her cope day to day.
Some people can bounce back from an injury like this, obviously Carole cannot.
Well, if she does end up regrowing the limb then, that'll just be conclusive proof that she's a hard-right Republican.
As for the "beloved of god" vs. hard life question: Many godtards like to imagine themselves to be as Job, persecuted by Satan yet cleaving faithfully unto JHVH. It feeds quite nicely into their persecution complexes. The masochistic streak in fundies is every bit as prominent -- and disturbing -- as the sadistic one.
God must really love her. He keeps putting her in all these gnarly automobile accidents. That's what I call "tough luv"
Jesus should have started to grow a new leg for her BEFORE the amputation. That would have helped avoid the awkward only-one-leg period.
Respectful(?) Insolence, eh? Most certainly the woman is a loon but it sure seems easy for many of the crowd who peruse sites such as this one to lack any respect for religious beliefs. (Unless of course it's an "enlightened" non-Christian religion!)
What kind of sleazeball 'faith healer would tell an amputee her leg was going to regrow? Okay, so the lady may not be the brightest bulb on the marquee. But cattle aren't very bright, either-- and I hate seeing them used for bull fights.
Mmm, nice try, Sandy, but I think if you peek thru this site, you'll see that Orac is totally non-discriminating in his targets and many of those "'enlightened' non-Christian religions" come in for just as much Insolence as anyone else. Actually, being a regular reader of YFDoW, I'd hazard that the "new-age" stuff catches most of the flak.
He's just happening to turn his sights on ye olde Fayth Healeres -- long overdue, really.
I'd tell her to sue but I don't think she has a leg to stand on.
I did not indicate that I believe it is Orac who is lacking respect. Rather, it is many of those who peruse sites such as this one, who take disrespect of faith based (especially Christian) beliefs and values to the point of ridicule.
A biology prof I had taken a class from sometimes back (longer ago than I care to admit) made an interesting point that I had not considered previously due to my youthful inexperience. Essentially she stated that a person can view various subjects either scientifically or religiously; i.e. if said person becomes emotional about a topic, they have a religious view, rather than a scientific view, of the topic. Saying that, it just seems to me that some of the many who do their best to debunk, ridicule, and otherwise dis-respect faith based views, have they themselves made a religion out of being anti-religious.
Carole Miller McCleery-Greene is just the miracle religious charlatans and their flock of belivers need for keeping the ball rolling. Carole is just one of the flock, ignorant and pitiful.
Part of the problem is that that poor lady is probably surrounded by people reinforcing her delusions. They're probably people like, oh, say Sandy, who think that certain beliefs (ie her beliefs) should be exempted from criticism and ridicule, a special privilege not enjoyed by other beliefs.
Sandy,
Atheism as a religion is an old argument in the arsenal of belivers' counterarguments. However, it does not elevate religious beliefs to a level above the bunch of children fairy tales that belivers refuse to discard. They deserve the brushing aside that most logical people throw at them, even if it, at times, comes with redicule.
Sandy, I did not see the commenters before you as being disrespectful to Christians -- just to those who think that this woman really is regrowing a limb. In fact, they seem to have taken pains to specifically say that they're talking about the more extreme Christians.
My pastor gave a sermon yesterday which would've fit nicely in with this story -- about how so many Christians have this impression that it's all about punishment/reward and how if good things happen, it means God is showing the world how blessed you are. It's baloney for a whole bunch of reasons. He was obviously focusing on theological reasons.
It's very sad to me, because this woman is obviously deluded. Faith is all well and good, but ignoring the evidence of one's senses is just plain stupid. I really don't think God meant for us to act like blithering idiots, or assume that because we are saved gives us a free pass from taking responsibility for our own conclusions.
@ Sandy: they get the respect they deserve. And there aren't many sites like this one, as far as that goes.
"ridicule, and otherwise dis-respect faith based views" When faith healers of any system start using words like proof they open the gates. When someone says I believe that (insert name here) has healed me. We science oriented types (religious or not) just shrug. When they claim to have proof of said event then fail to produce evidence to support their claims then we get hostile. Science is held to a high standard and when a scientist starts claiming things without supporting them she/he gets ridiculed. Should we treat religious views differently?
Poor Sandy; it's so hard being a member of a persecuted minority religion.
Sandy: Religion is respected to the extent that it's respectable. Think about that for a while.
@ Warren: Making assumptions on which you have no evidence to base your claim? Circumstantial ad hominem, in the very least. And as to your assertion that you havve asked me to ponder. What exactly is that? Circular reasoning?
it sure seems easy for many of the crowd who peruse sites such as this one to lack any respect for religious beliefs.
Why should anyone respect religious beliefs?
I'm just curious. We'd laugh at a grown-up who believed that Santa Claus was real, or who believed in The Tooth Fairy. If they wanted to live their lives by the revealed wisdom of The Amazing Spider-Man we'd probably give them antipsychotic drugs.
Snickering at religion and the religious is polite. What is rude is pointing and shrieking with laughter, like I do. Unlike, say, Downs' Syndrome or Psychosis, religion's a "lifestyle choice" - when its adherents stop sniffing glue and acting like halfwits then rational people will stop treating them like halfwits. It's that easy.
... they themselves made a religion out of being anti-religious.
Personally, I make a sport out of it. Because I don't think kicking puppies is moral, and pulling the wings off flies isn't as fun now that my eyesight is going. But - unlike puppies and flies and other helpless innocent creatures - the faithful have made a "lifestyle choice" to all their minds to be filled with howlingly funny nonsense. They're fair game - after all, it's not politically correct to have a retarded "village idiot" or Tourettes' sufferer as a court jester - so instead there's armies of faith-addled dipsticks to play with.
Indeed, one of the most amusing things about the religious is that they often invite debate and discussion. Sometimes they even think they'll make clever arguments (I bet you thought you were smart when you tried to liken atheism to religion - gosh, we've never seen that argument before!) Maybe if I someday hear a religious person say something intelligent about faith then I'll stop poking fun at them. Naaaaah.. Why deny myself the pleasure?
...the faithful have made a "lifestyle choice" to all their minds to be filled with howlingly funny nonsense. They're fair game...
Well, in fairness, a lot of them are indoctrinated as children, and there can be some pretty heavy social and cultural pressure against tossing that over the side. But otherwise, I'd say you've a point, really. In all seriousness, religion is a near-perfect storm of ripe target for ridicule. Howlingly funny beliefs? Check. Fostered in a peer group that insulates them to a degree from ridicule? Check...
Followers thus come out into real world blinkingly puzzled as to why everyone else is laughing and pointing at them?
Check.
And, answering the standard whine (oh why do you mean skeptics pick on us poor ole' Christians), the dominant religion in a culture tends to be that little bit more deliciously ripe for ridicule precisely because of its relative arrogance. The Moslems are really only fun when they're cutting people's hands off, and solemnly declaring they don' want no steenking pictures drawn of their prophet. Making fun of them in North America where the rank and file is mostly dodging from doorway to doorway waiting for the Department of Homeland Security to pick them up for Driving While Arab is really a bit too easy... And almost kinda mean. Like everyone else, they're really only properly ripe for ridicule when they're filled with unconsidered certainty that this is really their world...
So the Christians in the US--especially the ones who really go in for the sideshow magic 'n miracles--and especially the fundies--they tend to fit that bill. Indeed, ah, where to begin. Especially when you get the incredibly pushy types so convinced they've sufficiently worked out the alleged wishes of a magical man in the sky--from the bizarrely internally contradictory and frequently entirely incoherent scrabblings of a buncha bronze age shepherds, no less--and this certainty leads them to declare that everyone who doesn't happen to buy into precisely their peculiar version of an armageddon myth is damned to a mediaevel hell complete with sulphur and horned demons with forked tails... and they'll actually say so in public? On the record?
It's like the piñata saying: oh, why do you swing at me, cruel tormenter? I am merely filled with candies, and constructed of fragile papier mâché and waving tantalizingly in the wind in front of your bat. Meanie!
Have you checked out the bios for any of her doctors? I googled the first one, Dr. James F. Coy, which takes you to his website: http://www.naturalsolutionsmd.net/. The third link on the side of his page is for "chelation therapy." 'Nuff said.
Very sad indeed.
And there is the old english joke where a woman writes to her mother.
" You wouldn't recognize little Jimmy now, he's grown another foot.
"I wonder what will happen when she realizes eventually it's not growing back?"
I don't think it matters, given her age. It's like someone who thinks the face of Jesus is in their closet door. She has her own little miracle/conversation piece. If it "slows down", then that's just because Jesus has been busy with less fortunate people.
And if she's using it to bring in the cash, even better (from her POV).
It'd suck if she were tottering around on stumps and waiting for them to heal, but she clearly has a decent prosthetic and it isn't causing her much trouble.
Only if you define 'religious' so broadly as to lose all meaning...
...like that, yes.
I think it was Gandhi who once pointed out the only real problem with Christianity: Christians.
We are our own worst enemy.
Faith is not bad, in and of itself, just as secularity is not bad, in and of itself. What's bad is when people do not question, and when people start to judge other people's righteousness/morality/goodness/whatever on the basis of their faith (or lack thereof). This is the chief crime of religion. Not belief in loopy things, but the persecution of those who disagree. That's where religion loses its ability to self-correct and it's ability to tell when it has been perverted. It's also where religion begins to commit the most heinous crimes in the world, because once it's okay to persecute the unbeliever, it's okay to dehumanize them and do anything you want to them. That's what leads to quite sensible, decent folks thinking it's a good and gracious thing to pull people's toenails out and strap them to hot iron stoves until they recant.
It's important to make a distinction between faith and religion, just as it's important to make a distinction between science and academia. The two go together, but they are not the same. I think a lot of people with very deep faith would do very well to learn and respect science. Science can be a threat to religion, but it is no threat to faith. Indeed, it can be the salvation of faith, because if you believe that the Devil tries to mislead people, it is your single best protection against him. Critical thinking. If you believe that God made you as you are, then obviously He gave you a brain for a reason. It's up to each of us to decide how to use those brains.
"Debunking" is not the same as "disrespecting," Sandy. It can actually be harmful to allow nonsense to remain "un-debunked" because that can lead to (for example) not seeking out suitable and efficacious medical interventions, not taking action to mitigate harmful effects on the environment, or starting unjustified wars. Those who propagate such buncombe deserve no respect.
I should add to my comment above, that while much bs is simply scamming, much is delivered and supported by people who claim to be acting upon the will of God.
Good golly! How could you write this post and not make reference to the *most* excellent website whywontgodhealamputees.com?
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/
Sandy wrote: "[I]t sure seems easy for many of the crowd who peruse sites such as this one to lack any respect for religious beliefs. (Unless of course it's an 'enlightened' non-Christian religion!)"
Sandy, it seems an odd choice to post this in a comment thread where many of the comments simply talked about what a sad situation this was. The last sentence is particularly strange in the context of this blog, where Orac has frequently noted his Catholicism and commenters have in general respected his religious choice.
What you call disrespect I take as a vigorous and healthy debate about the extent (if any) to which religion and rationality can mix. On a site devoted to debunking many forms of irrationality, I hardly find that surprising.
Essentially, it seems to me that your criticism is a canned one, not particularly suited to this site (note the generality of "crowd who peruse sites such as this one"), and that you are simply looking for an argument.
Unfortunately, Jud, you are probably right. Sandy most likely stumbled upon this blog during an Internet search for something like faith healing and skimmed just enough to see that people thought that this woman wasn't being healed -- then leapt to the conclusion that we must be a bunch of anti-religious zealouts. She can't possibly have read Orac's post and the responses fully and still formed the opinion she did.
divalent - THANK you for that "why won't god heal amputees?" link!
Enjoying it quite a bit.
Actually I visit this blog on a daily basis. Again, it wasn't Orac that my original comment was referring to and if you had fully read my comment you would note that I believe that the woman is, well, at least one bottle short of a six pack, if not more. In any event, please accept my apologies for causing such seemingly emotional responses from so many logical readers of this blog. That was not intent.
Sandy -
From my point of view, and with no disrespect intended, you seem to have difficulty writing what you mean, and understanding what others mean when they write in response.
Your original post complained about people showing a lack of respect for religious beliefs, then you describe C. McCleery-Greene as "one bottle short of a six pack." You write in broad-brush general terms about the "crowd who peruse sites such as this one," then tell us you visit this particular site daily.
You talk about "seemingly emotional responses," but I think you are confusing the strength of the responses (many were certainly strong) with the basis for them (certainly not from personal dislike or any other emotional reason, since none of the responders know you). To the extent there is anything other than a defense of rationality motivating the tone of these responses, it might well be a certain amount of bother with the tiresomeness of repeated accusations that the responders "religiously" or emotionally adhere to disbelief in deities.
To see how such accusations might easily grow tiresome, imagine someone repeatedly accused of "religiously" or emotionally adhering to the position that Hansel and Gretel is a fairy tale rather than literal truth. One wouldn't ordinarily use such terms to describe people who think Hansel and Gretel is a fairy tale, would one? OK, now please cite for me the rational/scientific basis for distinguishing the truth value of religious beliefs such as faith healing from the truth value of Hansel and Gretel. Yet those who don't credit faith healing or indeed, the existence of a deity that could cause such healing, are repeatedly attacked as having an emotional or quasi-religious basis for that response. Not hard to see that such attacks could get a bit irritating.
So, just to take the (dis)respectful insolence to a new level, let's examine her car crashes.
The first one I'll give her 50/50 on. It's hard to tell exactly what happened here, because her descriptions are vague. (This will come up later.) I can't tell, for instance, how far away was the truck. Did the truck turn into her? Cut her off? Was the truck a ways off and the flat tire prevented braking? Either way...
The second time she was rear ended. I'm not going to try and peg this on her, but, where was her seat belt? I believe that in 1986 seat belts were required on all vehicles. So, while she wasn't expecting to be hit from behind, it's not like she took the safety precautions either. She also makes the seemingly totally unfounded 'They were high on something'. It seems like it's always these high teenagers that cause these problems. And isn't it odd how much detail about the situation she works in here (The position of the stop sign, details about other things.) vs. the other story?
Call me a cynic, but I think that at least one of these tragedies probably could have been prevented. Quite possibly both. I really feel for her, having lost a leg. I have no idea what that might be like. It must be horrible. I'm just always dubious getting only the one side of anything...
One day she's going to realise that it's god who's trying to kill her... each time it's been Medicine and Science that have 'saved' her.
If there is a god, by now he's really, really p!ssed off. I'd advise her to not go outside during lightning storms.
When I first glanced at the title I thought "so she's turning into a starfish? How long till she grows suckers on her arms?"
I didn't have breakfast this morning, so I'm not exactly thinking straight...
I looked at the x-rays and MRIs before reading your post. I came up with exactly the same conclusion as yours. Her leg is not regrowing at all. The xrays and MRIs are just the same as the hundreds or thousands we see in our clinic. BTW: I work in orthopaedics and have years of experience on knees.