Saw this on Babycenter and it's heartbreaking. During a party after a baptism, the three-year-old son and brother of the person who was baptized was found floating unconsicious in a jacuzzi.

Bishop and Stake President give blessings, stating the son would recover. Why give false hope?

http://community.babycenter.com/post/a42383536/i_need_prayers_trigger?cpg=9&csi=2421579377&pd=1

This from the above webpate at Babycenter. After the Bishop
and SP give "powerful" blessings that there will be a "full
recovery:"

"And here is where I, personally, could use your help. I am a
logical person. I look at facts and statistics. Right now,
those aren't looking very good. I KNOW that my faith can
perform miracles, but I'm having a difficult time BELIEVING,
if that makes any sense. If you could include me in some of
your prayers, I could use some as well. Also, if it isn't too
personal to share on a public site, could you share with me
how you learned to move from knowledge to belief. I need some
encouragement."

The poor mother is now feeling inferior for not BELIEVING as
strongly as she thinks she should. A corollary to this would
be the guilt that her less-than-perfect belief is the cause
of the child not recovering. The Bishop and SP gave POWERFUL
blessings but the child died. Lots of room for guilt there
based on not believing weird stuff strongly enough.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/05/2013 08:27PM by baura.

Yes, the SP and Bishop will not get blamed for their tiny priesthoods and inadequate power - the family will be blamed for their lack of faith. OR they will be told that the full recovery promised always meant that God would take the child home to heaven, in the full health and glory that everyone thinks is promised in the afterlife. Either way, those men are way too drunk with power and way too lacking in sensitivity.

This kind of thing bothers me every time I see it on this board. They did blessings and "laying on of hands" for sick people in the RLDS church, but I never really saw anybody engaging in such hardcore magical thinking.

I don't think anybody took it so literally--it seemed like they were willing to give it a try but knew that it was ultimately in God's hands. I don't think anybody truly believed that priesthood holders actually had any magical powers. It was more like they were asking God to heal someone, but understood that they might or might not get the result they were hoping for. I didn't really see anybody trying to make any guarantees about the result.

I also saw them asking for something more comfort rather than healing. So if the person doesn't get better, hopefully they're passing peacefully and not suffering.

And of course there was always the reasoning that God has a plan that we don't know about, or that what you're asking for might not really be what's best for you, and so on.

Lucky for the bishop and SP joseph smith tossed out the OT death penalty for false prophesy.

They could easily add something such as "Thy will be done" and leave the results up to God. Why make promises they cannot possibly keep?Another problem with untrained clergy.