Dangers Of 'Faith' Healing?

just to add that I would not necessarily classify placebo and faith healing together, not all the time anyway.

sometimes
 
for me, it depends what a person suffers with. I don't think... broken bones, or cancer, can be cured by faith healing, but... neurotic conditions -- yes. Definately.
My issue, at the moment, is with "deliverance ministries", advising people with addicitionss and psychiatric disorders that they are possessed by demons/evil spirits/have been cursed by witches. Now, that's dangerous... for obvious reasons.

Overall, though, if there is no money changing hands, and if there is a positive change in a healed individual, then I see no harm in it. As others posters state-- placebos work... sometimes...

I find the idea of prescribed placebos a little erroneous, though. Why on earth would the average doctor prescribe (at a cost), an agent that has no clinical use? In todays NHS climate? I find it unlikely...

I'd like to see the stats... any links??
 
enlightenment said:
I propose that the practice of so called 'faith healing' is, among other things, potentially very dangerous.

I recall a story a time ago, about a well known US televangelist.

Now, you can dismiss these guys if you like, but the truth is that there is clearly a demand for them, at least in the US, and no shortage of those prepared to pay to attend live sermons, or donate via their credit card.

In the case of this chap, he would invite people up onto stage, or sometimes go down among them. He would appear to amaze them by identifying their name, when in reality the info was being given to him through an earpiece.:rolleyes:

Most cynically and dangerous of all was his so called faith healing, in some cases telling people that they should throw away medications that health professionals had given them to control serious conditions.

Hey, if someone persuaded your dear old nan that she no longer needed to take her insulin for diabetes, and she grew so ill she died, would you be calling that manslaughter, because I think I would.

It is one thing to permit these men air time to exploit the desperate, but quite another to give them the freedom to make people believe that god is acting through them, and that they can cure some terrible affliction that they have. It is utterly irresponsible to suggest or instruct someone to dispense with normal medical practice, and there are surely grouds in which to make that unlawful, surely?

There is no human being known to me that can cure cancers, blindness, or return the limbs to amputees by any supernatural means.

Any that have claimed to be able to do these things have always shown to be fakes, only in it to expoit what they can in terms of $.

It's religion meets captialism US style, as I doubt that such people would gather as much support here, just a different outlook and cultue, imo.

And even when one is exposed as a liar and a fake, it doesn't seem to resonate with the people who still merrily send off their money to other televanagelists and faith healers.

There is no scientific explaination that I know of, short of a pseudo scientific one, which could attest to the fact that you can lay your hands on someone, and cure them of an ill, such as a tumour.

It is entirely misleading, and potentially dangerous to inform people that this can be done, imo.

Imagine I were to put out information into the public domain that said that drinking large amounts of white spirit could cure HIV. If that belief existed enough, then am I not at least in part responsible if someone decides to test the claim, and do that?

Well, it is the same with peddling an unscientific, unrpoven 'cure' onto people, and I think there should be stricter controls over these things, to be honest, to save the gullible from themselves.
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Ah, the fear of being duped. Lied to. Manipulated. I agree, and the biggest faith healer out there is government. Most everyone is duped over, and over, and over again. I do not see government healing anyone, or any thing. Do you? Mostly it orders, kills, controls, regulates, spends peoples lives, and kills massive trees in a sea of paperwork. People are duped, usually coerced, into paying the government huge sums of money. When it speaks, it always speaks of healing. There will forever be a new or recycled policy to allegedly save us all from ourselves. The public that serves government does accomplish many things, but did we really need that government to do it? There can be some good in it, though. Not for that massive excess in power handed over to a few elite celebrities, whether the rhetoric or ideals were true or not. I'm saying there may be a small bit of good available in it for a different reason. To provide an example, I invite your judgment: Do you like it when someone has faith in you?
 
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