Sunday, 05 July 2009
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Do You Rely on Faith Healing Instead of Going to Doctors?
I was reading an article in the Athens Banner-Herald about court cases against parents whose children have died because the children wouldn’t get taken to the doctors. The parent's belief in prayer and faith healing was what kept them from going to get the medical attention needed in the cases. Here are some of the highlights from the article “Courts face new challenges in faith healing cases: using prayer instead of medicine” written by Rose French.
Existing laws have gradually accounted for more well-known and established faiths, such as Pentecostalism, Christian Science and Jehovah's Witnesses.
But recent cases in the news have judges and child care advocates dealing with parents who claim adherence to lesser-known faiths, such as the Minnesota family following an Internet-based group's American Indian beliefs, and an independent Oregon church that has been investigated in the past for the deaths of members' sick children.
Legal and religious scholars say it's becoming more difficult for courts to decide when to honor the religious beliefs of parents and when to order conventional medical treatment for extremely sick children…The manslaughter trial of an Oregon couple who claim they were following their religious beliefs in the 2008 pneumonia death of their 1-year-old daughter began Monday. A state medical examiner has said she could have been treated with antibiotics…In Tennessee, Jacqueline Crank and her minister Ariel Sherman face child neglect charges in the death of her 15-year-old daughter, Jessica, who died in 2002 with a basketball-sized tumor on her shoulder. Prosecutors say based on Sherman's advice, the girl's mother relied on prayer instead of medicine…Believers in faith healing point to a Biblical verse in the Epistle of James, which describes how church elders should be called in to pray over the sick. There's no mention of doctors, and literalists interpret it to mean medical treatment should be eschewed over prayer.
Do you rely solely on prayer for healing when it comes to medical issues?
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- From: mr_twenty_something
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Comments (47)
@JosephParsons@xanga - Gotta agree with your comment! I don't understand some people's reasoning...
I keep praying for God to take away my insanity. For everything else I go to the doctor.
A mixture of both but mostly faith.I believe God provides the resources eg hospitals and doctors as a means of healing.Right now,I have a family member about to have a kidney transplant.I do have faith that this person can be healed without surgery(as this person has had enough procedures already..having just recovered from colon cancer a few years ago).I believe my family member should still go for check ups, becauseI believe God can opt to either heal her without the need for surgery, or make her doctors instumental to her healing.It doesn't always have to be directly carried out by God.Its just in the same way that God uses people to bless us and vice versa.
@KateeLee1@xanga - I'm sorry, but a doctor needn't be "saved" in order to be a good medical professional. As long as he/she is a wonderful doctor, I'm going to be happy.
@KateeLee1@xanga - Lol imo, going to an "unsaved" Doctor wouldn't necessarily be condemning yourself. There are a multitude of medical professionals who wouldn't fall in this classification of "saved".
Choosing a different religious path does not represent medical ineptitude; if that were the case, then hot damn I'd be in trouble :D
@Stephanie_J_B@xanga - I guess reason isn't really involved. I think a lot of people in that catagory pick up on passages that dismiss reason in favor of faith, but they forget that the contrast is between worldly reason (primarily the Epicureans) and divine revelation. They overlook that the Lord says, "Come let us reason together," and that one can reason from a Biblical framework.
Oh well. If we chat about it long enough here at Xanga, no doubt we'll fix all the world's ills, yes?
Perhaps that did come off a bit extreme but I had a really bad Dr. once and you know its bad when even the Pharmacist goes to bat for ya and then tells you to turn him into the medical board! No Joke! Needless to say my confidence in with MD's took a real beating along with my insides!
If he's not saved I'd like his medical expertize to go a bit beyond Bandaids and Chapstick, ya know what I mean? And I don't think this one even got is 1st aid badge in Boy Scouts!
Learned one thing for sure- just because he has a lot of framed stuff on his walls dosn't mean he knows how to employ them well!
I believe God gave us Doctor's for a reason!!!
Seeking professional medical help is perfectly fine. If God DOES happen to heal you miraculously, then seeing a doctor is a perfect way to confirm that it happened. Going to see a doctor does not mean you lack faith. God can just as easily heal you with modern medicine as he can a miracle.
Furthermore, children dying from common ailments because they're parents wouldn't give them medication is horrid.
The state has the lawful and moral duty to protect the people from abuse of any kind. That is one of the reasons there are laws. Children are amongst the most vulnerable and have the right to be protected from dangers to health amongst other things however well meaning their guardians. Religious or any other kind of belif of the adults concerned have nothing to do with the welfare of the children or indeed, any other pneedy person being "cared for" by such people.
At this rate, there will be fanatic Hindues insisiting on widows joining their dead husbands on the funeral pyre. Neglect of the basic needs of children is criminal and moral abuse.
Why does this even need to be discussed in a civilised country? Any action or belief that harms other people outside the law of the land should be banned. If the abusers don't like it, they can always look for somewhere else to go in order to continue their activities. That's what their ancestors did after all. There are still many toilets around the globe where they can carry on their primitive activities.
a man is stranded in the middle of the ocean, he cries up to God to save him. moments later a boat comes by and offers to pull the man into the boat and take him to land.
the man refuses stating that he has prayed to God to rescue him.
again, he calls up to the heavens and pleads with the Lord to save him from drowning. moments later a second boat comes and offers to pull the man into the boat and take him to land.
again, the man refuses and is so certain that the Lord is going to save him.
he prays and prays again for God to save him as he is beginning to grow very tired from treading water. a third boat comes and offers the man the same as the first two boats. the man, extremely strong in his faith, refuses the third boat and tells them that he has prayed for God to save him.
shortly after the third boat leaves, the man is exhausted and slips below the surface of the water and drowns.
he goes up to heave and is greeted by God, the man is confused as to why he is dead and he asks the Lord "Lord, why did you not save me? i had so much faith and i prayed and prayed and yet here i am, i have drowned and i have died. why did you not answer my prayer?"
God simply tells the man "I did answer your prayer, I had sent three boats to you so that you may be rescued"
as a former jehovah's witness: reliance on "faith" is absurd. surely if this imaginary friend we talk to in our head really had the ability to change things, well, none of us would ever die or be sick. the proof is all around us, we just do not care to become aware.
@KateeLee1@xanga - If that's the case, then you may want to carefully research who directed and oversaw the research groups that developed the drugs you're taking and make sure all of them were Christian. Maybe make sure the patients who were taking the drugs during phase III and IV trials were Christians as well, so you know Satan didn't interfere with their results. You should look into who first developed the procedures that will be used on you (surgical or otherwise), and ensure their background. Good luck with this, too, because the higher you get in the hard sciences, the more likely you are to find people who don't believe in any higher power other than the scientific method.
Frankly, I'd rather be taken to a very good, competent atheist doctor, than bleed out on an OR table because I chose the Christian M.D. who doesn't know a 22 ga. needle from a hole in his head.
No way. God helped lead doctors to the path they've taken. He also gives people knowledge and skills. I think God would want us to go to doctors.
I believe if I'm positive enough I can overcome anything!!!
That sounds fucking gay, but yeah... I don't believe in religion, I am somewhat spiritual and a cynic but I let whatever happens, happen.
@KateeLee1@xanga - LMBO at the chapstick and bandaid comment. Totally understood. That made me think of the school nurse at the HS from where my oldest sister graduated. I went there for a year then my family moved, and she was no longer there, thankfully. The big joke was that she gave Pepto Bismol for whatever ailed a student. "You cut your finger? Here, let me give you some Pepto..."
no, because i want to live.
@Lynnjynh9315@xanga - That sounds like a very interesting book. I'm going to look into that. =]
As an atheist, I sometimes make generalizations about Christians. Now don't bash me just yet. We ALL do it about someone once in a while. I really do try to avoid those generalizations as much as possible, though. Once in a while, you hear about some wacko on the news that killed their child because they were sure God would do it instead of a doctor. It was really nice to read all these comments, almost all of which said to get healed and pray.
I, obviously, don't believe in the prayer part but if believers in God do, then I think it's good for them pray. As long as that's not all they do.
No, never.
People who do that are bible - thumping literists, idiots that follow blindly and foolishly.
In just about every recorded healing of Jesus, the person seeking to be healed went to Christ when nothing else worked, after trying doctors or all other common remedies. Jesus never once suggested that people should come to Him for miraculous healing instead of taking practical steps to restore health.
I think expecting God to miraculously heal you when you haven't even tried to use any available medical resources falls under the category of "thou shalt not tempt the Lord your God".
@Cheyenne17124 Perhaps you missed the second paragraph of my second post!
IF I have a choice in Dr.s I would still prefer one that is BOTH saved AND is good at what he does. If you are not saved I would not expect you to understand that.