I need major help with my Christian Family

[Mister Agenda]

Placebo's don't work. Just ask any alcoholic or pedophile addict if just "wishing or wanting" to change was enough.

Placebos have a measurable effect, which a new medication has to demonstrate that it's stonger than in order to get FDA approval. Do you care if the things you say are actually true?

The real deep spiritual healing work takes forgiving anything and everything connected to the abuse or addiction that someone is trying to overcome. It can take 10 to 25 years, to go through all the layers, so this is not some light wishing, placebo effect or any magic ritual that's going to change deep rooted sickness.

Anything can change in 10 to 25 years. If it takes that long, how can you be sure it's your 'deep spiritual healing work' that should get the credit instead of time? What method doesn't work if you make a sincere effort for 25 years?

I also want to see how deep this spiritual healing can go.

Then you should find a way to do a double-blind study with a large sample size of diverse people so you can make sure you aren't influencing the finding with unconscious bias or being deceived by a statistical fluke.

If pedophiles can be cured, that would change this idea that such people just need to be "killed off" like lepers who were once deemed incureable.

Pedophiles should not be 'killed off', but you should not trust your own judgment that you've cured one. If you're mistaken, a child will pay for it.

I would still detain dangerous criminals, but what if science could detect these illnesses in the mind in advance (like detecting if cancer is benign or malignant or terminal) BEFORE someone kills or tortures an innocent victim. Science could really help take the stigma and myth out of this whole field of studying the cause and cure of such illness.

Yes, science has the potential to do that, because science is based on making sure something actually works and progresses by discarding things that don't work.

As for objective formal research and study, as long as the only people even looking into this field seriously are all Christians who go around healing people and don't require medical proof to share it with others, then the research isn't being done.

It isn't being done because the people doing don't want it done. That's what I figured.

It would require objective science-minded people getting involved and making sure the research studies are done right.

One well-documented restoration of an amputated limb would definitely get them interested.

So this is where I believe we are heading, finding the right people to work together and make sure it is done by valid professional standards.

I hope something good comes of it.

And yes, proving the difference in effects between "positive and negative" energy could also be done by science, by developing technological means of measuring the difference in energy and studying the effects on either causing or curing sick symptoms, or facilitating healing or blocking it.

All you have to do to get scientists interested in detecting the energy is to demonstrate that it affects something. That's how we found dark energy, even though we don't know for sure what it is.

Even without measuring the energy physically (which I believe will come later with technological advances), I would also offer that observations and statistics can be documents on the effects reported of forgiveness or unforgiveness "correlating with" the ability of people to resolve their conflicts and "heal" their relationships.

I'm on board with forgiveness being a good thing, as long as you save it for people who are good for you.

This can even be shown to be "independent of religious or political affiliation" and show that Christians who don't forgive have more problems than atheists who do forgive, etc.

I'm naturally forgiving and find it a good way to be, with the caveat that some people see forgiveness as an invitation to repeat their bad bahavior.

This may not be a "causal" relationship (between forgiveness and resolving conflicts, and between unforgiveness/rejection and failing at reconciliation and consensus) but it can probably show "correlation" and encourage people to study that relationship further.

The causal connection seems pretty obvious to me. You seem to be overly skeptical about easily demonstrated things and 'underly skeptical' about things you should be very skeptical about. It's not the 'forgiveness is an important part of healing relationships' stuff we're having trouble swallowing.

Thanks @robvalue I am recommending this forum and your blog to an atheist friend of mine who is completely unhappy with how people approach these things, and wants something else. he is very creative and has a wonderful sense of humor, if he can find the right audience to share it with, so I am hoping he will fit in and be happier by finding his niche!

I know I may come off as critical with the way I dissect your statements, but you seem to be a person with a kind attitude, and that counts for a lot, Welcome to our forum. I hope you like it here.