In [a] sense, very few people today ever trust in god. Very few people
ever voluntarily put themselves in a position where, if their prayers are
unanswered, or if god otherwise fails to act, they will suffer a physical or
financial harm. Sure, they will pray, but it will always be in addition to doing
whatever common sense, or science, tells them to do. This renders the outcome
of the prayers completely irrelevant . . .
For example, whenever anybody is sick, they would unlikely be so
foolhardy as to put their money on god in
lieu of medical science. They may pray on the
side, as a harmless, cost-free way of doubling down, but no way in hell would a
rational person ignore their surgeon in favor of just prayer. Such rational
people do not “trust in god.” His existence or nonexistence is rendered
irrelevant by the medical advice they follow.
An atheist
wrote this, so i suppose it is not surprising that the writer equivocates trust
in God with being mindless. But i do think they have a point about trust and
science. In my opinion, most Christians these days have replaced trust in God
with trust in medical science.
Maybe this
wouldn't be bad if there was something to trust in medical science. The fact
is, however, that most of what passes as “medical science” is a mishmash of politically
driven interest. “Medicine” as it passes today is big business. The fact that
most drug studies are highly biased for the drug company and are tainted at
every step of the process is overlooked by the very people who are suppose to
be protecting the consumers. Properly prescribed medications kill over 100,000
people a year, and conventional medicine kills over 700,000 people a year – all legally. But you never hear of this. You DO hear on the rare occasion that something alternative
creates a problem. That becomes big news. The media will tell you that
alternative treatments are not safe. They are claiming that Steve Jobs
was killed because he used alternative medicine. A friend
wrote (Mellowsong's entry) that she felt that SJ didn't properly use
either alternative or conventional medicine, and that was the problem. I think
this is an accurate assessment.
My indictment
of the above article written by an atheist is that the writer seems
to put as much blind trust in science as he accuses Christians of having in
God. His faith in science is misplaced, i believe.
I do not think
Christians should be mindless. There are some conventional treatments which i
suppose are needed, especially if the person is not willing to make changes in
diet and environment that will help to fight their disease. But this means the person in question
needs to be responsible to research treatments and not blindly trust “My doctor
says . . . ” First off, doctors are not some great, infallible prophet. Second,
most of the research in which they trust has been skewed and should not be
trusted. Third, in this day of easy access to alternatives, this is much
easier to do. It is hard, i admit, because there is so much available to
read that you can be overwhelmed by the amount of info. I don't think
this excuses us from being responsible for our own decisions and choosing not
to capitulate to the decision of a doctor.
We have
thousands of years of experience with natural, God-given plants, minerals, and
vitamins in this world which treat illness and heal. But this doesn't make big
money for the doctors and hospitals – or the drug
companies. Instead, the scientists play with these natural things until they
can create a synthetic substitute that they can then patent and sell.
While these synthetic substances do seem to work more quickly than
the natural one (and in our culture especially, “quick” relief is valued above
all else), these synthetic drugs have a myriad of problems. First
off, our body does not utilize them as well as the natural substance and as a
result, the synthetic has a host of severe reactions and side
effects. These can be sudden and
quick (such as anaphylactic shock) or long term (such as
muscle weakness or liver damage).
One example:
There is evidence that calcium fluoride can help build strong teeth – if taken in very limited doses. The industry making fertilizer (it was
created in other manufacturing processes as well) created a huge surplus of
very toxic sodium fluoride or other related fluorides. This type of fluoride is
found nowhere in nature. But the theory (studies to back this were never
completed because the results were so contrary to the theory) was that if
calcium fluoride would be good, sodium fluoride would be as well. The
industries could save huge amounts of money by selling this substance to the
water districts and thus not have to deal with this very toxic chemical waste.
However – it is still a chemical waste and if the
water districts spill this stuff while they are adding it to the water, a
Hazmat team has to be called in to handle the disposal of it. We want this in
our water? And yet, the majority of Americans believe it when they are told
that fluoride is healthy for us.
The American
Medical Association was created with the specific goal to weed out all
competition to their interests.
Heroic medicine was already in place at that time, but the goals of the AMA
were to promote it over any other system. (Don't bother with Wikipedia for the
definition of “Heroic medicine.” Their answer is much too incomplete. You could
try this Healthwebsite.)
Supposedly, the days of heroic medicine - doing much damage to the
patient in the meantime - are past, but in my mind much of conventional
medicine – especially cancer treatments – are nothing but an updated version of heroic medicine.
So, my big
question is why on earth would Christians blindly follow the advice of
conventional medical doctors – whose track
record in treating patients is really pathetic – instead of
researching all possibilities? I strongly believe that nearly all illness we
see these days is directly a result of the processed foods people eat, our
polluted water and environment, the chemicals used in our homes and workplaces,
and the medications so easily taken by people without much thought. It is time
to start living as our creator designed us to live, with the good food and
water provided, rather than trusting an industry to feed us or treat disease.
I think it
strange that the Church (in early days it would have been the Catholic Church
as there was no other) chose to fear natural medicine and healing and claim it
"witchcraft" and in time has instead chosen to advocate current
allopathic, heroic medicine.
This is near
and dear to my heart right now as i personally know of three people who are
placing their lives in the hands of these medical folks. It is hard for me to
bear.
