Posted on 09/05/2014 5:35:58 AM PDT by DarkSavant
It is a disgraceful and a dangerous thing for an unbeliever to hear a Christian, presumably explaining science, nutrition, and medicine, talking nonsense on these topics. Many non-Christians are well-versed in Natural knowledge, so they can detect vast ignorance in such a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The danger is obvious-- the failure to conform interpretation to demonstrated knowledge opens the interpreter, and by extension, Christianity as a whole, to ridicule for being unlearned. All right, so St. Augustine didn't say "science, nutrition, and medicine," he said "the meaning of scripture." But other than that, he's describing a good 40% of my Facebook wall. More and more, religious people are pitching their tents in the vast, squashy wilderness that calls itself "natural living" or "alternative medicine," and are rejecting science and modern medicine -- not some of it, but all of it. Their creed is this: drugs are evil, chemicals are evil, doctors are evil.You can cure most diseases, mental or physical, with a handful of seeds and a few essential oils squirted into the proper orifices. Above all, be afraid. It's not only Catholics, of course, who are using the most dubious of weapons in the backlash against science and medicine. Religious, agnostics, and atheists may all believe that, based on something they overheard on Oprah, they have pierced the veil and now they know better than the Mayo Clinic. But it's especially galling when Catholics become anti-science.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
I have several Catholic friends that have the mentality above.
It is entirely logical to be somewhat skeptical of the pronouncements of modern medicine. Far too often their confidently presented “facts” turn out to be no such thing. Sometimes later evidence determines that an earlier claim was in fact the opposite of the truth. And, of course, even this later evidence may turn out to not be the whole truth on the subject.
However.
WAY too many people have no idea that there is nothing in the entire world more natural than dying young and in agony from a bacterial infection easily cured with modern antibiotics. Or contracting and dying from a disease easily prevented by the evil and unnatural vaccination process.
My friend falls into the category discussed in this article. More accurately, he used to.
Several years ago he contracted an (entirely natural) intestinal infection while vacationing in Central America. For over a year he minimized antibiotics and other modern medical treatment, attempting to deal with the situation with meditation, herbs, diet, etc. He got worse and worse.
Then one evening his bowel ruptured and he had to have emergency surgery to remove the entire thing and install a colostomy. He “died” twice on the operating table.
Since then he pays a lot more attention to modern medicine, but what a way to learn a lesson!
Disagreeing with the mainstream medical practices today may be “anti-science”, but not necessarily. I don’t know ANY who pick up their views from Oprah. Some do buy into the alarmism from upstream from salesmen like Mercola. Conservatives in general are attacked for questioning phony Nobel Prize laureate Michael Mann and the whole global warming scam. Laboratory researchers try to chase those who believe in Judeo-Christian morality, natural law and basic decency on euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research. Even on smaller things like transfats, the alarmists were right and the mainstreamers of just a few years ago were quite wrong.
IF a Christian truly believes what a Mercola says, or his own personal homeopath or naturopath, he is NOT helping science or the Faith by pretending otherwise. The Faith asks enough, and people should be allowed to make their own decisions as to what is sound science, what does the job versus what is immoral, and what is a waste of money or detrimental to health.
‘Many non-Christians are well-versed in Natural knowledge, so they can detect vast ignorance in such a Christian and laugh it to scorn. ‘
Oh really? The ‘many’ non-Christians I know arent well versed in science esp those who are liberals. The Bible says the beginning of knowledge and wisdom is the fear of the Lord. Today’s science feels it knows all but anyone w/ a functioning brain knows differently. We know some things but its certainly not the full picture and is incomplete. Anyone who is scorning has no clue what theyre talking about. In fact its their object to belittle and not have an honest debate.
It’s fairly pervasive in the protestant churches, at least in the Madison area. I blame Amway and the like.
So now Catholics don’t believe in dentistry or nutrition or polio shots. Gee, I learn so much here every day. Of course, every day at FR you can find some non-Catholic claiming that 600,000 people will be dead in America of Ebola by December and vaccines are evil and cause autism.
“Alternative medicine” may be an effective tool for maintaining a healthy balance. I suspect it may normally be wildly ineffective at dealing with serious or life-threatening problems.
As I’ve been thinking about this issue, I realized that the condemnation of modern medicine has much in common with the condemnation of capitalism.
Both take the much healthier (more prosperous and peaceful) world created by the system they denounce, as if that world “just happened.” Then they concentrate on the deficiencies and perceived failures of the system, ignoring its benefits, to denounce the system itself as bad. Forgetting what the natural state of man prior to the development of these systems was like, and assuming that we can continue to have the benefits of these systems while rejecting them.
The natural state of man is poverty-stricken, oppressed, trapped in endless war, and infected with parasites and pathogenic bacteria.
Natural is nasty.
Interesting you bring up Lyme Disease.
It’s a classic example of doctors refusing to believe a disease existed because they didn’t have an explanation for it. Therefore it must be “in the minds” of those suffering from it.
The cause and treatment of Lyme Disease was discovered very largely because residents of this area refused to accept the doctors’ magisterial pronouncements that they weren’t really sick.
But that’s a failure to do good science, not a failure of the science itself.
The writer conflates conformity with accepted science to conformity with the Christian faith. See here for the money quote:
The danger is obvious-- the failure to conform interpretation to demonstrated knowledge opens the interpreter, and by extension, Christianity as a whole, to ridicule for being unlearned. All right, so St. Augustine didn't say "science, nutrition, and medicine," he said "the meaning of scripture." More and more, religious people are...rejecting science and modern medicine -- not some of it, but all of it.I think the author is making this too big of a deal. Ridicule is an emotionally powerful but intellectually empty weapon. What would the alternative be - removing any personal choice re medicine and nutrition to avoid being laughed at, in favor of compulsion and coercion towards "acceptable" science?
The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him.
And he said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God."
-- Luke 16:14-15Better is a dinner of herbs where love is
than a fattened ox and hatred with it.
-- Proverbs 15:17
Yep. It’s a pyramid scheme. Excuse me! Multi-Level Marketing entrepreneurial opportunity!
Yes. In the "natural" world I would probably be dead by now.
China is often used as the touchstone of natural/herbal/spiritual healing. But, as I have often asked natural healing proponents, what happened to Chinese lifespans with the introduction of Western vaccines and antibiotics? They went up significantly (sorry, I don't have the citation here).
“May I share the Amway story with you?”
Just say no.
The other big one around here is Shaklee. Same deal. We used to attend a large church that had “care groups”. The leaders of both groups in which we were involved were in MLM programs and seemed to see the groups as a means to recruit - which was NOT the purpose! I quit going to the groups.
Traditional Chinese medicine has a great deal in common with pre-scientific Western medicine.
We used to believe in “humors” and such that needed to be balanced. We treated diseases with stuff that was basically attempts at magic. It’s all through Shakespeare, for example.
Yep. It is possible to make very good money in such groups, but only by misleading and exploiting others.
At root not ethical, certainly not from a Christian perspective, IMO.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.