Why not say household bleach cures cancer and autism and just about anything?

If you believe in the miraculous, you can say then that it is possible that household bleach can cure cancer if you drink some for three days.

If you believe in the miraculous, you can say that taking 2 tramadol 3 times a day will mean that your cancer will never kill you and that this is down half to the med and half down to a miracle imput.

If you believe in the miraculous,  you can say that drinking water from a particular well will deal with your brain tumour by magically making it more likely - I did not say certain - that some forces will get you a good result.

Back to the bleach which is a good example.  

The placebo effect can fool anybody into thinking a treatment works when it is in fact useless. And bringing in the supernatural into it is a placebo in itself. You get hope from the thought that the laws of cause and effect may not apply in your case and your illness may lessen or vanish which is not the norm. You get hope from feeling that God is going to miraculously cure your toothache and let children die of cancer - you feel that special and that important.

What if proof appears that the treatment is dangerous? Argue that there are testimonials that say different. You will always have testimonials anyway no matter what kind of rubbish medicine you put out. Argue that many medical treatments were controversial and poorly understood for years and then were endorsed by the medical professionals. Blame the drug companies for creating scepticism towards the treatment you have invented. Argue that the bleach works best if people use it secretly and that if anybody gets sick and dies it is not down to the bleach but some unknown factor. Perhaps the magic has a reason for letting the bleach cure one person and not another? Chances are you will say, "Look it did some people good so it works. Those who died after taking it did not have enough faith or it let them die for it was for the best in the divine plan".

You can ignore research that says it could kill you or permanently injure your body. You could say that it is talking about bleach that does not have the miracle power or say that bleach from now on has the power so the research doesn't apply. Anyway to believe in miracles, you have to put aside the research that says for example some illnesses cannot just disappear. They do when magic makes an input.

Notice how people will eventually see through it if you blame the drug companies. They will also see that though it is true some treatments that work have been condemned by medicine, that medicine will discern the truth in time. Time will tell but if a treatment is scoffed at by the medical professionals for long enough it will become clear that the treatment really is useless. Notice how once you bring "mysterious divine purpose" and the supernatural into it there is no limit to the things you can say to give the impression that an ineffective treatment is effective. Get a few testimonials and people will fall for it.

Anybody can be detached from reality. We all suffer that to some extent and some more than others. But nothing makes the bubble you put yourself in harder to burst than religion. It gives you infinite ways to excuse the inexcusable or to believe utter shite.

If you really believe in the miraculous, you will not object to the person who says bleach has miracle powers. You will say, "Maybe it does!" Or, "She has a right to her religious opinions even if they are not the same opinions as myself." Actions speak loudest.

Further Reading ~
 
A Christian Faith for Today, W Montgomery Watt, Routledge, London, 2002
Answers to Tough Questions, Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Scripture Press, Bucks, 1980
Apparitions, Healings and Weeping Madonnas, Lisa J Schwebel, Paulist Press, New York, 2004
A Summary of Christian Doctrine, Louis Berkhof, The Banner of Truth Trust, London, 1971
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Veritas, Dublin, 1995
Catholicism and Fundamentalism, Karl Keating, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1988
Enchiridion Symbolorum Et Definitionum, Heinrich Joseph Denzinger, Edited by A Schonmetzer, Barcelona, 1963
Looking for a Miracle, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, New York, 1993
Miracles, Rev Ronald A Knox, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1937
Miracles in Dispute, Ernst and Marie-Luise Keller, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1969
Lourdes, Antonio Bernardo, A. Doucet Publications, Lourdes, 1987
Medjugorje, David Baldwin, Catholic Truth Society, London, 2002
Miraculous Divine Healing, Connie W Adams, Guardian of Truth Publications, KY, undated
New Catholic Encyclopaedia, The Catholic University of America and the McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc, Washington, District of Columbia, 1967
Raised From the Dead, Father Albert J Hebert SM, TAN, Illinois 1986
Science and the Paranormal, Edited by George O Abell and Barry Singer, Junction Books, London, 1981
The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan, Headline, London, 1997
The Book of Miracles, Stuart Gordon, Headline, London, 1996
The Case for Faith, Lee Strobel, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2000
The Encyclopaedia of Unbelief Volume 1, Gordon Stein, Editor, Prometheus Books, New York, 1985
The Hidden Power, Brian Inglis, Jonathan Cape, London, 1986
The Sceptical Occultist, Terry White, Century, London, 1994
The Stigmata and Modern Science, Rev Charles Carty, TAN, Illinois, 1974
Twenty Questions About Medjugorje, Kevin Orlin Johnson, Ph.D. Pangaeus Press, Dallas, 1999
Why People Believe Weird Things, Michael Shermer, Freeman, New York, 1997