Popular opinion clashes with freedom again
In the 1800’s, the recommended treatment for tuberculosis and lung conditions was smoking cigars! This from the respected, educated medical community. George Washington died from the use of bleeding at the hands of his physician, also a respected remedy of the day. If you take a long hard look at the history of medicine, you will see that much of what passed for sound medicine in its day was later proven to be ineffective, if not downright deadly.
Doctors today spend years learning to practice medicine, and in most cases they NEVER take a course in health and healing. They never learn about the marvelous processes within the body designed to heal itself. They learn about using drugs and surgery and powerful magnetic and nuclear weapons against illness, but in almost every school, never learn the simple basics of health and how to help someone be restored to normal health. All this technology is interesting, even beneficial in a certain percentage of cases. But if you don’t know the most fundamental things about what the body needs to get healthy, how much good can you actually do?
People don’t avoid doctors because they are crazy – they avoid them because most of what the doctors do DOESN’T work! So much of what they have been taught to do is a half-truth at best, and then they are sent off to practice these half-truths on sick people and find out if they work. And we blithely PAY them for this practice, thinking they know best what is good for us. We spend thousands of dollars and months of time getting progressively worse until we die and the doctor says, “I did all I could for them!” He may have done all he KNEW to do, but there is so much more (and yet less) that he could have done that might have saved their lives.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the same week the story broke about the mother and son leaving the country in search of alternate medical care for the son’s cancer, a story about a mother being convicted neglect in praying for her eleven year old daughter who died from what turned out to be undiagnosed diabetes.
The media has always focused on zealots and religious “nuts” in their coverage of people whose faith occupies a large portion of their lives. In almost every news anchor’s coverage of these stories there was this air of shock and horror and disgust that these parents could be so irresponsible as to not trust the medical profession when it came to treating their children’s illnesses.
When did the doctor become greater than an ominpotent God? When did trusting chemicals and surgery become the exalted means of healing? I think it’s grossly unfair of the media to portray this one-sided attack on faith. Do abuses exist in the Christian community? Are there people who take their faith to extremes and behave foolishly with their bodies? Of course! Are there also a proportional number of medical zealots and extremists who push phony remedies and treatments? Most definitely!
