Truth Driven Thinking Forum

[harpoonflyby]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071213/ap_on_fe_st/india_severed_leg;_ylt=AqWpaKM6vWh0q_FjgPI9rM0uQE4F

HYDERABAD, India - Two men attacked an 80-year-old, self-proclaimed holy man in southern India and chopped off his right leg, apparently believing it had magical powers, police said Thursday.

Yanadi Kondaiah, who claimed that those who touched his leg would be cured of illness or have wishes granted, was hospitalized in serious condition after the attack Tuesday, said R. Ravindranath Reddy, a senior police officer.

"We are looking for the miscreants as well as the leg," Reddy told The Associated Press by telephone from the Chittoor district, a remote area 340 miles south of Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh state.

"This seems to be a case of superstition. The two people might have taken away the leg hoping to benefit from its magical powers," said Pendakanti Dastgiri, the police officer handling the case.

Superstitions, belief in magic and the occult remain widespread in much of rural India.

Kondaiah told police that two men offered him a drink as thanks for previously helping them with his magical touch.

After he passed out drunk, the men chopped off the leg below the knee with a sickle and left him to die, said Dastgiri, adding that passing villagers found him and took him to a hospital.

[Steve Gibson]

that stuff like this so rare in today's more enlightened world. Still, your point is valid. And who is to say that we couldn't regress? (thought I find it unlikely:-).
_________________
Steve Gibson,
Reforming emotion-driven thinker

[harpoonflyby]

I think this shows how the reality of the even the possibility of miracle men or faith healers going around and performing great feats in broad daylight, even if we suppose for a moment that they are supernatural, is very low. In other words the miracles ascribed to Jesus in the gospels, would have introduced all kinds of logistical nightmares, people behaving like cannibals or sharks - evidence of that kind are absent in the gospels. The biggest miracle then, which goes largely unmentioned, lies in the fact he did not get ripped to shreds by the crowds. I guess you could say they did rip Jesus to shreds in the end, but that would be sort of a re-interpretative conclusion

One more reason to hold skepticism about such stories happening precisely the way they are written about, or at least, *in the way we are taught* they are intended to be read.