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Letter-to-Christian-Scholars

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Miracles and Big Data

Central Question:

With everything being monitored, why have we not seen proof of miracles

Why this is important to me:

Miracles show that Jesus loves us. They are prayed for everyday and leaders continue to ask for such prayers. When hope seems lost, praying for a miracle is the best option

Nowadays any incident will have a dozen camera videos of it. If something amazing happened then we would see the footage.

There are people who monitor big data for a living. In fact, that is my day job. We now have sufficient data to assess miracles. Especially prayer, we should see amazing big data results on prayer

Yet, we cannot find it anywhere

US News World Report Hospital Rankings Do Not Show Prayer/Blessing Bias

Every year every hospital in America is thoroughly reviewed. They measure the number of cases each see of every illness or injury. They measure the recovery rates of these cases. Each hospital is then stack ranked amongst each other

If there was a region in America that did better in prayer/blessings then it would show up in these reports. This report knows the recovery rates from every major injury. If priesthood blessings or prayer worked then there would be data showing uncharacteristic recovery rates and survival rates.

Example: LDS Church and these reports

Here are the scores for Intermountain, the largest heath care provider in Utah

https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/area/ut/intermountain-medical-center-6870141

As of Dec 2018, Utah was 62% Mormon. The largest hospital network in Utah is Intermountain Healthcare. I think we can safely argue that more LDS priesthood blessings were given before major operations in that hospital system than any other hospital in the world.

But Intermountain Healthcare looks like any other good/not great hospital. Here is their page:

https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/area/ut/intermountain-medical-center-6870141#rankings

One can argue that the priesthood blessings alone should put their success rates on the level of top tier hospitals like Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, and Johns Hopkins. But they do not. Priesthood blessings should be stronger than any human tech. But even if we assess Intermountain Healthcare compared to similar peers, they are above average at best. They are not the best at anything, they are great in a few specialties, they are average in some others, and they are poor in the rest. That is what we see when we compare Intermountain Health to other hospitals recovery and survival rates. In other words, not only are they NOT world class due to priesthood power, they are barely even average

The data makes it seem that Priesthood Blessings do not do anything. They should provide extreme improvements to these surgeries and recoveries but they do not show any value at all. What is the purpose of a priesthood blessing if it does not provide power beyond what already is known by doctors?

Some will argue that science is a miracle in and of itself. That God helps man find these miracles in times of need. This is not correlated to this question. This question is strictly about priesthood blessings. If they provide zero value, there is no reason to make two men leave what they were doing and go perform a blessing.

One can argue that we are providing false hope to the one in need by providing a blessing. I know many grieving individuals who fear their faith was not strong enough to keep their loved one alive. They feel it was not the blessing that failed but they failed. That is pain that no one should have to live with because of a powerless blessing

What does “Being Blessed By God” Actually Mean

This makes me ask the question, what is the value of prayer or hope of Gods will? Some might look at the above and say ‘that is not what Gods blessing are for.’ My response is, then what is the purpose of prayer and hope. I cannot think of a tangible and provable purpose of prayer and hope in Christ.

Intuition. The one miracle proved by science, equally among religions

There is no bias in who can and cannot use intuition but we know that it is a true human superpower. This lets us know that things considered miracles can be measured.

It is important to note that every human has the ability to use intuition, there are no specific groups that have more intuitive power than others. In other words, Christianity does not have more intuition abilities

Researchers devised a technique to measure intuition. After using this method, they found evidence that people can use their intuition to make faster, more accurate and more confident decisions, according to the findings, published online in April in the journal Psychological Science.

The study shows that intuition does, indeed, exist and that researchers can measure it, said Joel Pearson, an associate professor of psychology at the University of New South Wales in Australia and the lead author of the study. [Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind]

Intuition is a popular topic in psychology these days, and generally refers to a brain process that gives people the ability to make decisions without the use of analytical reasoning, the researchers suggest.

https://www.livescience.com/54825-scientists-measure-intuition.html