The Power of Suggestion

This is an old Christian parlor trick, where a person's SUPPOSEDLY shorter leg is MIRACULOUSLY lengthened to match the longer one. Can anybody spot what's actually going on here? Maybe this will help-



Watch the pants cuff as well. Look! It's lengthening along with the leg! A Jesus Twofer!!!

Skeptics of my skepticism might interject here "But wait! Listen to the girl's testimony. Surely she should know whether her leg has grown or not." To which I reply yes, listen to her testimony in light of what you've seen, and you just might learn something about human nature, and the nature of suggestion and belief. People often parse reality along the lines of what they want reality to be. We can talk ourselves into almost anything, if we try hard enough. Many people will, in fact, watch these videos and walk away believing a miracle did indeed occur. Amazing!

However, what's more amazing is that believers don't ask themselves why God seemingly performs this miracle thousands, if not millions of times each year around the world, curing a problem which in most cases could be taken care of by wearing a thick sock, and yet never, never, never EVER restores a missing limb. An act which could be positively verified to most peoples', including skeptics', satisfaction. Not to mention the fact that the latter type of miracle would surely be more important and meaningful to its recipient.

An analogy: Let's pretend I've suddenly come into a great deal of money, and have decided that I'd like to become a philanthropist. However, I seem to be going about it in a very strange way. Every morning, I wake up, get dressed, and walk around the city all day handing out pennies to random children. All around me are obviously poor and homeless people, to whom I give nothing. Does this make any sense given my goal of philanthropy? If not, then why does it make sense for an omnipotent god to busy himself with these parlor tricks, and do nothing for the truly needy people without arms or legs?

To see a non-theistic example of this phenomenon at work, go here. Exactly the same principle is involved. If you're interested in the background of facilitated communication, go here.