Cite, please?
AQnd could you please tell us where where, in the hour-long video you cited, the factual information about a specific case of CS healing takes place? I wouldn’t mind seeing before and after medical reports of such an event.
There is no seeking of money in the CS Church, you may be confusing it with Scientology.
Collections are taken at the Sunday Service and the money is used to maintain the branch church. Services are conducted by Readers elected from the membership and usually not paid. There is an elected board to maintain the branch church. Rotation is office is a standard feature in the bylaws of branch churches.
Christian Science Practitioners in my opinion are the best part of the movement. They operate on a totally free market principle and most charge under $50 per day. First call healings are common, and most encounters involve study assigments that are enlightening and useful.
Practitioners are required to make their entire living from their healing and teaching. If people don’t get results with one they will move to another. Those who don’t provide healing results must either improve or drop out.
This setup removes the need for committees and church politics to determine the compensation fo church leaders.
I think the first one is toward the front, maybe between the third and tenth minute.
The book Spiritual Healing In A Scientific Age was written to provide this sort of information and contains many healings of well diagnosed conditions.
It is out of print but available on Amazon used books Read from page 16 to the end of the chapter and then the story beginning on page 54 for a quick take.
If you are near a CS Reading Room, you can check it out. The book Healing Spiritually is also available with numerous accounts of healings of well diagnised conditions.
Re: the video: I didn’t think you were referring to the anecdote about William Randolph Hearst, because he was the king of yellow journalism and was well known for stretching the facts(to put it kindly) to promote himself and his causes. There are no medical reports to examine when it comes to the case of his son’s possible healing, so the accuracy of his stories cannot be checked.
Re: Spiritual Healing In A Scientific Age-Does it provide case studies that can be checked by others, or just more anecdotes about healings? When I, and others, ask for cites of CS healing others, what we are looking for are non-biased studies and cases that show before-and-after examples of the healing that was supposed to have taken place. Are any of those available?
Not sure what you mean by Christian science. Jesus healed by touch, nature and by casting out demons by the power of the spoken word. Science is really man’s discipline, God has other ways, though He certainly can direct a person towards a scientific method of healing.
Some examples in my own life was removal of a headache that I had for 3 days instantly and completely when I heard the verse ‘by His wounds we are healed’ and the realization hit me that healing is just not something that is given to us as a free gift, but because Jesus came to earth as a real person and suffered to win us that gift.
Another time I was having back pain for quite some time. After prayer about it I was lead outside into the woods and was lead to take a rock and place it by my bed. Having no idea why, the next morning I woke up and the back pain was totally gone.
Suffering from a cold/flu like symptoms, praying, was lead to a homeopathic cold remedy, even thinking that homeopathic medicines can’t work and putting it back, but was lead back to it, so I got it, used it and quickly the cold/flu went away totally.
Also on others, I have laid hands on and they reported joint pain relief on hikes, happened quite a few times, as I do a lot of hiking.
There is so much more, and including healing of childhood trauma and healing of hearts.
Though God uses many methods of healing, including science, so my advice is don’t limit yourself, there is so much out there.
The accounts in Spiritual Healing by Peel seem to provide references to specific doctors etc.,
Since the whole exercise is based on the clailm that we are not really here, and those who practice it really believe that they are living in a temporary illusive world, what you are asking for may not be available.
I would not likely engage in such an exercise, since I believe that whatever problem I encounter will be easier to handle if I don’t get some expert to confirm it and add to the effort to remove it from my belief.
We are almost totally what we believe. Our beliefs are mostly beyond our ability to know, and their interaction creates a huge number of possibilities when they encounter our day to day experience.
CS provides a way to cut through the daily BS and experience what I think is the truth, and I think it is the truth because it provides such wonderful experiences and elevatons of thought. It seems to be the purest version of Christianity out there.
I am using it specifically right now to find a plot of land, and I have been led to some amazing and unexpected situations as I deal with this project.
By Christian Science I mean the First Church of Christ Scientist in Boston and its branch churches worldwide. Its textbook is Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, which is keyed to the King James Version of the Bible.
I think it has refined the methods of spiritual healing more than any other denomination.
One would think that if CS really and legitimately worked, its adherents would be living as long as those in the Bible that they use.
Genesis shows:
Adam-930 years.
Seth-912 years
Methuselah-969 years
Noah-950 years.
Even others had lived less but still quite comparatively long:
Abraham was 175, Samuel 111, Joseph 110.
I mean, it’s obviously all bullshit. And most of us could just walk away shaking our heads and announcing the axiom of “live and let live”.
However, when we see things like this, we have to stop and gasp at the sheer horror:
Complete. Udder. Bullshit. And it needs to stop.
Also, why isn’t this in Great Debates what with all the witnesses?
The death of the child was tragic, but symptoms of meningitis are like a cold or flu and most people who get it recover without knowing it was meningitis.
From http://children.webmd.com/vaccines/tc/meningitis-treatment-overview comes this: Most people with viral meningitis usually start getting better within 3 days of feeling sick and recover within 2 weeks.
I can’t imagine a practitioner or parent refusing medical aid if the situation indicates it, and I know a lot of practitioners.
I am sure their son just seemed to have a cold and then suddenly died. The Swan’s feel deeply guilty, but I am not sure many other parents not practicing CS would have sought medical aid given the similairity of meningitis to cold or flu.
Here’s another from the same link:
Medical science is constantly improving, and if Ray Kurzweil is correct and medicine becomes an information technology, it can improve dramatically.
Here is an interesting non CS video by Ray Kurzweil on the development of information technology. Those who don’t know of him might find his ideas interesting.
I can only say again, there is nothing in CS that requires not using medical technology.
There are numerous accounts of healing of diabetes in the CS literature. People with diabetes often have trouble when utilizing current medical technology. There is no guarantee of positive results even with the best medical technology.
People healed of diabetes via CS experience a total removal of symptoms. If I had diabetes, I would prefer that to endless treatment.
If I had not personally experienced healings that seemed to violate the laws of physics as normally understood, I would probably as skeptical as you are.
I can only say, if it seems to be something you would like to explore, you probably should.
I believe in a God who is personally available to those who seek him. Those who don’t may find my belief incredible. I believe he has all power. Those who don’t are free to believe anything they wish. I practice CS because it has been amazingly rewarding to me.
If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it.
As has been shown in the previous examples, the children of CS believers don’t have that choice, do they?
I had intended to reference the Kurzweil video to make the point of how little is known about healing. Knowledge will grow rapidly it he is correct. I am totally in favor of that.
Would it be a good idea to prosecute parents who don’t demand stem cell treatment for cold symptoms, or who use a doctor who is not using some other technologically advanced technologies, and a child dies? Children die all the time under the best medical treatment.
The numbers of medical technologies that have enjoyed widespread application, and are now totally discredited, is very large.
I personally think disease is a belief, but a belief that can be very hard to get rid of. If you don’t agree you are free to see yourself as a helpless human dealing with a problem with no Divine relief available. I think we are living in the ultimate virtual reality game, but it was created by an all powerful God who is Pure Unconditional Love. Results won’t be known until the end of the game.
Whether I use CS or medical technology on any specific problem will be determined by what I get when I pray.
I would never try to force my religious beliefs on anyone. I would appreciate it if they didn’t try to use government to force them on me.
Many of those I have met who attempt to discredit CS usually are afraid to look at it because they fear that they will lose control in some way that is very threatening to them.
If it didn’t work, I wouldn’t do it. For me it is just that simple.
The common practice with CS children is to ask them what they would like to do. If the condition seems like it needs medical technology, most CS parents choose it. The idea that there is some compulsion is totally incorrect.
People use it because they have experienced its good results.
People use it because they are ignorant and don’t know how to determine what constitutes a good result. Also because, for some people, faith and wishful thinking trumps all logic.
A question you may want to consider along the lines of spiritual healing: how can you refine the love of a parent to their sick or injured child? Could any refining the child can do do anything but block a healing attempt from their parent?
I’m not saying to not to use CS, but just to consider the source of the healing.
Obviously they dint pray hard enough.
The children haven’t experienced anything yet, are uninformed about modern medical technology, and are heavily influenced by their church and their parents’ belief system. Don’t even try to tell us they are making a free choice…providing it is even true that most CS parents allow their children to pick how they want to be treated, which I doubt very much.
So, how exactly does a baby know what the correct symptoms are to a lethal disease, if it’s all imaginary?
Incidently, my Aunt never saw a doctor until she died at 78. She wasn’t religious, she just never got ill.
Her mother never saw a doctor (possibly a midwife, but that was it) until she died at 99. She wasn’t religious either.
You can’t fool me. They were probably closet Christian Scientists.