which can be found in chapter 5.
No matter how many people pray. No matter how sincere those people are. No matter how much they believe. No matter how devout and deserving the recipient. Nothing will happen. The legs will not regenerate. Prayer does not restore the severed limbs of amputees. You can electronically search through all the medical journals ever written -- there is no documented case of an amputated leg being restored spontaneously. And we know that God ignores the prayers of amputees through our own observations of the world around us. If God were answering the prayers of amputees to regenerate their lost limbs, we would be seeing amputated legs growing back every day.
Isn't that odd? The situation becomes even more peculiar when you look at who God is. According to the Standard Model of God:
* God is all-powerful. Therefore, God can do anything, and regenerating a leg is trivial.
* God is perfect, and he created the Bible, which is his perfect book. In the Bible, Jesus makes very specific statements about the power of prayer. Since Jesus is God, and God and the Bible are perfect, those statements should be true and accurate.
* God is all-knowing and all-loving. He certainly knows about the plight of the amputee, and he loves this amputee very much.
* God is ready and willing to answer your prayers no matter how big or small. All that you have to do is believe. He says it in multiple places in the Bible. Surely, with millions of people in the prayer circle, at least one of them will believe and the prayer will be answered.
* God has no reason to discriminate against amputees. If he is answering millions of other prayers like Jeanna's every day, God should be answering the prayers of amputees too.
Nonetheless, the amputated legs are not going to regenerate.
What are we seeing here? It is not that God sometimes answers the prayers of amputees, and sometimes does not. Instead, in this situation there is a very clear line. God never answers the prayers of amputees. It would appear, to an unbiased observer, that God is singling out amputees and purposefully ignoring them.
The Miracle of Calanda is enough to show just about every assertion made by the author of chapter 5 to be false.
According to Messori, at about ten o'clock in the evening of 29 March 1640, Pellicer laid himself to rest. Because his bed was occupied by a soldier of a garrison that stayed at Calanda over night, he went to sleep on a provisional bed in his parents' room. Between half past ten and eleven o'clock, his mother entered the room and saw two feet appearing from below the cloak that covered her son. Thinking that Miguel Juan and the soldier must have changed places, she called her husband to resolve the misunderstanding. But while removing the cloak, husband and wife, were dumbstruck, as they realized that this was indeed their own son. They shook him and shouted at him to wake him up. Some minutes passed until Miguel Juan woke up from a deep sleep. He told them that he had dreamt of being within the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Pillar and rubbing his leg with the holy oil, as he had done so often. Soon all three agreed that the restoration of the leg was due to the intercession of the Virgin of the Pillar.
False Claim #1:
You can electronically search through all the medical journals ever written -- there is no documented case of an amputated leg being restored spontaneously.
A Doctor who knew him when he had one leg and also knew him when he had two.
Another book, published by a German doctor in 1642. The Jesuit father who gave the imprimatur added a declaration in which he affirmed that he personally knew Pellicer, first with one leg and then with two.
An experienced surgeon reviewed every single testimony and matched them up to make sure it aligned with the medical knowledge at the time.
In the appendix of his book, Vittorio Messori also reports the opinion of Landino Cugola, primary surgeon of the hospital of the University of Verona, a specialist in limb replantation. Cugola has carefully studied the testimonies given in the recordings of the proceedings at Zaragoza, which reveal that the leg, after it had only just been restored, was cold and hard with contracted toes and blue in colour. Hence, Pellicer was not yet able to put his weight on it and still had to move around on crutches. After a few days the leg regained in strength and the toes were stretched out again. Also, the leg was initially a few centimetres shorter due to the loss of bone tissue that was caused by the fracture, but within about three months it regained its original length. According to Cugola, all this is in perfect accordance with the normal development following the replantation of a leg, although the growth of tissue is usually supported by exerting a pull onto the limb. In Pellicer’s case this was not necessary
False Claim #2
And we know that God ignores the prayers of amputees through our own observations of the world around us
The document shows that God does not ignore the prayer of amputees.
False Claim #3
It is not that God sometimes answers the prayers of amputees, and sometimes does not. Instead, in this situation there is a very clear line. God never answers the prayers of amputees. It would appear, to an unbiased observer, that God is singling out amputees and purposefully ignoring them.
The emphasis on the word "never" is the original authors. God has answered the prayers of an amputee and is not singling them out.
More Facts, just to drive the point home.
24 Witnesses spoke out.
Twenty-four witnesses spoke out, selected as the most trustworthy from among the great number of people that knew Pellicer, both from Calanda and from Zaragoza.
King Philip Kissed the leg.
the end of the year Pellicer was also invited to the royal court at Madrid, where King Philip IV knelt down before him and kissed the leg.
More documentary evidence.
A number of other documents which confirm the existence of other persons involved in the event.
Predictable responses:
"BUT THEO!! ONLY ONE! WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER MILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF AMPUTEES?"
What about them? We've shown that God does heal amputees, so now you're moving the goal posts from "Why doesn't God heal amputees," to "Why doesn't God heal as many amputees as I think He should."
"BUT THEO!! THAT WAS BACK IN THE 1700'S!! NOW WE HAVE VIDEO CAMERAS!!! WHAT ABOUT THAT!!"
Again, this is moving the goalposts from, "God never(emphasis wwgha author)heals amputees," to "God never heals amputees in the time period I think He should."
All of this is nothing more than moving the goalposts it doesn't matter if God heals 1 or 50 or 200. Are they really going to reduce themselves from "why won't God heal amputees?" to "why won't God heal more than 1 amputee?" how would they know he hasn't healed more than 1? God healed 1 and they didn't know about it.... so how do they know God hasn't healed anymore? but that is for another day. I'll conclude this post with a quote from the Messori himself.
“By far the majority of past events (including the more important ones) is attested with less documentary proof and official warrantee. This is an objective statement of fact, not apologetic reassurance.”[1]
