Faith Healers

The BBQ Pit
1

Permit me to quote from another thread to get this started:

I just this week had to break off relationship with an old friend. I’d know her for years, and we were pretty good pals.

She got religion, and I’m a atheist, but that wasn’t a problem.

She got fundaligionism and I’m still an atheist, but that wasn’t a problem.

She got into Speaking in Tongues, and I’m completely uninterested, but that wasn’t a problem.

Now she’s into Faith Healing. That’s a big fucking problem.

I’ve lost friends and family to faith healing. My step-mom was a Christian Scientist, and died horribly when she decided that prayer was what you do when you get cancer. I knew a guy who lost a leg in an industrial accident, when he decided to pray instead of going to a hospital.

I told my friend, “Let’s not talk about this. I’d like to just change the subject. Faith healing makes me uncomfortable. Imagine if I had an abortion, and wanted to talk about it. Wouldn’t you rather just change the subject?”

No good. She started getting nasty, then ugly. Pulled out all the poison of the Christian faith. “You’re a very sick man, and only Jesus can heal you.” Right…because I asked to change the subject. “I will pray for you every day.” Great. No prob. But can we change the subject? “You’re trying to drive a wedge between me and my faith.” No…I just want to change the subject.

Communications broke down, and, honestly, I don’t believe it was my fault. I never condemned her, or insisted she was wrong. I only asked to change the subject. But apparently, this is contrary to her faith.

So… A long time friend, lost.

This doesn’t nothing to endear religion to me in any way.

Faith healing, in my opinion, is the ugly, ugly thing that Jesus speaks of in Matthew 7:9 “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?”

Which of you, if your son asks for healing, will give him prayer, but keep him away from a doctor and real medicine?

We now know the answer: really fucking bad Christians.

2

I no longer have any tolerance for witnessing nor evangelism and I’m by most measurements a Christian.

It’s a shame that your friend developed into the type of person who wanted to forcefully change who you are.

3

I’m pretty tolerant of anyone’s belief, as long as those belief’s don’t come with an agenda to convert me to the cause, or cause harm to others. It’s too bad that she didn’t allow you the right to be who you are and respect you as that person.

Faith healers do have a place in modern medicine. It comes right after the doctors say “there’s nothing else we can do for you,” not before. That’s my not so humble opinion.

4

Faith heal anyone you want. Tell someone not to see a doctor and you’re a danger to society.

5

I misread one of the OP’s comments and wondered how one loses a leg and doesn’t go to a hospital. You just hop it off?

6

It got worse. Because of the lack of treatment the other leg had to be amputated also. He tried to sue the faith healer, but he lost.

The judge told him he didn’t have a leg to stand on

7

The parents of my best friend in high school were of the CS persuasion. When his sister broke her arm, they wouldn’t take her to a doctor, but instead prayed over it. She was in agony for a week before finally sneaking out to an ER, where she was treated. She had to beg them not to call her parents first, explaining what the situation was at home. When she got home with a cast on her arm, there were apparently all sorts of histrionics. Fucking nutbags.

8

Until opening this thread, I never realized that the term “faith healer” or “faith healing” implied a rejection of doctors or modern medicine. Christian Science, yeah, but faith healing in general?

9

Faith healing in general doesn’t reject medicine but you’ll find most faith healers rejecting medicine because they don’t want the [del]suckers[/del] [del]marks[/del] [del]pigeons[/del] patients to spend their money anywhere else. I’ll leave Christian Scientists out of this since I don’t really know what they believe or actually practice.

10

You should pray for forgiveness.

11

We’ve had an up-close view of the results of faith healing in Oregon with the charming Followers of Christ church. Who pays the penalty? Not the nutbags, but their children who don’t have any choice. After noticing the church had a child death rate 26 times that of the general population, Oregon finally modified the laws that had previously given parents the freedom to kill their kids. After a few successful prosecutions in the last 7 years, the deaths have hopefully slowed down.

Unfortunately, they still continue in Idaho which has so far failed to change its laws.

12

Generally? I’m sure there’s a set of them who won’t object to you going to a doctor while they pray for you, and I imagine that’s a larger set than the nutballs who reject medicine altogether. If the latter set were larger, our infant and child mortality rates woulf be WAY higher.

13

Faith healing has nothing on poisonous snake handling.
At least Trinopus’ friend didn’t insist he handle rattlesnakes.

14

Defeated in court, was he?

15

Repent!

16

Wouldn’t the data child on deaths suggest to a thinking man that they have* angered* God by their practice?

17

i’ve bolded the problem in your premise.

18

I don’t know how general it is. It’s true in some cases, certainly, but I don’t know how many.

Some reasonable Christians pray for healing…while they’re driving to the hospital or dialing 911.

Some slightly less reasonable ones will pray first, see if things get better, and then take other steps. They might wait only a couple of minutes…or days. In this, they don’t differ too much from those of us who try “home remedies” – Band Aids and Bactine – and then escalate to a hospital when the bleeding doesn’t stop.

But some, alas, substitute prayer for care, and that’s why I invoked Matthew 7:9.

How many are these “some?” I’m damned (heh) if I know.

ETA: I was expecting someone to jump on me for having compared Faith Healing to Abortion, in my letter to my friend. I was all set to agree: it was a big fucking flub, and I shouldn’t have put it that way. I actually did apologize for it and try to walk it back. I said, instead, “Suppose you keep a pet tarantula in a terrarium, and I’m arachnophobic. I’d ask you, please, not to discuss the matter, 'cause it makes me uncomfortable.”

19

I’m with simster about the error in that premise. But to these fuckwits, it isn’t a sign that God is angry at all. It’s just means He had some other purpose for their dead kid.

I usually laugh at the “won’t someone think of the children?!” cliche, but these people make my blood boil. You want to kill yourself by declining medical care? Great, go for it. You want to push your views on some other adult who can then make a choice? You’re an asshole and an idiot, but I can ignore you. You want to force it on a kid who has no choice (and then complain about freedoms, with no sense of irony)? You deserve all the agony your kids suffered through, and then some.

20

Ii once worked with a RN who said she had experience with Christian Science types at an ER.

For Pain:
If it was a child, the parents would refuse drugs.

If it was a parent, they would demand the drugs NOW!

Wouldn’t surprise me, if it was true, and I no reason to not trust her.