You can say this about any religion, not just the Jehovah's Witnesses. Why pick on them?
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What is the right message about love? If God's love can do all things then surely it can heal, and to teach people to turn to medicine, which is based on things that are not absolutely true, instead of to turn to God, must surely be a false teaching. There must be some other motive than love in insisting that people turn to something that is not absolutely true.

There's a lot to be said for faith healing, even if it doesn't work in every case. On the other hand, Ernest Holmes, founder of Science of Mind church (similar to Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science) took a very realistic approach. His suggestion was, "If an aspirin can heal your headache, then take an aspirin."

Looking back at the indcidents of healings that I recall, the emphasis seems to be more a matter of personal values and outlook than having to do with anything like belief in this or that, although the idea that God loves, nurtures and re-energizes us seems to be a useful component. The example that comes to mind is a man wirth cancer of the pancreas who had been given up by his physicians. So an enterprising healer announced that he had acquired a new Mexican anti-cancer drug called "Kreboizin" (there is such a drug, made from apiricot pits, that has little effect on anything). He assured the patient that this would be effective. In fact, the "drug" was simply distilled water.  But after a few injections, the cancer went itno remission.

The story continues, unfortunately. Someone leaked the awful truth that it was only a placebo, and the cancer promptly returned. So the same technician went back to his initial plan and announced that he now had "the real thing", and that this time it was immensely more powerful. Again it was distilled water. However a few injections proved effective and the cancer again was back in remission.

There always seems to be a spoil sport who wants to inflict the truth (as they see it) in the most damaging manner. So again, someone told the patient that it was still nothing but distilled water. The cancer returned and promptly killed him.

There are numerous cases in which people have been healed of terrible conditions where there seems to be little evidence of biological reasons. This was true of Mary Baker Eddy, and there are endless tales of healings through divine interventions. The Catholic rite of Extreme Unction (the last rites given to the living) is essentially a laying on of hands and faith healing, and occasionally it is effective. It seems to me that the problem seems to be that people who believe in faith healing often seem to have withdrawn their belief in personal responsibility. Getting over an ilness or injury does, in general, require a certain degree of personal involvement.

To my mind, failure to use proven methods to solve problems may appear gloriously bold, faithful or heroic, but it makes poor sense. After all, the same God who made diseases also made antibiotics. Who are we to discriminate against God's gifts?

dave

Hi Lucy-  I recall a story about a physicist who, upon discovering that atoms are just empty space with probability fields circulating in them, began wearing monstrous padded slippers so that if the world opened up into a chasm he would not fall through and be lost in it.

Our direction in life is either theoretical or pragmatic. Theory comes from projections from experiences etc, but is never real. Pragmatics come from heuristic analyses of day to day events, our personal history, and thus are always playing "catch up". In both cases, we are going forward in life by looking in a "rear view miror", and often with only partial clarity.

I find it difficult to fault people who want to play the hero and reject material means to health or lifestyle, but I find it equally hard to justify what they do. The wretchedness of the Spanish Inquisition was based on very good and holy men - at least to the best of their abilities to be such. Suicide bombers who blow up school buses filled with children are very good and holy people in the same sense. So are their innocent victims. We have people who seem to believe that with great effort and self sacrifice they can wage war in a manner that will bring peace - and we have many others who see only pieces.

Within my own lifetime the world has grown a tiny bit wiser in this regard. I recall that in the 1950's era most people sneered at the idea that "what goes around comes around", but now we find that this has become an acceptable way to view what we do - unless it is too inconvenient to our ulterior purposes.

This doesn't shed much light on the JWs and other sects with similar views, since they, as us, do the best they know. And if they knew better, they'd do better - whatever that might mean.

dave

Alysia, both my partner and I found all five books by Dr Brian Weiss truly fascinating. We use the technique set out in one of his books for undertaking past life regressions on each other with great success. She was a little mortified to find in one of her past lives that she was a black pygmy living in a forest. Later her son returned from a holiday with a little statue of one. We still laugh about it, but hey, what the heck. We are both true believers in having had past lives.

roger

I have been pondering in the back of my mind the question of what might lead someone such as this young mother to want to be a JW. So last night, I had the radio on very late and woke to hear the end part of a live interview with Susie Scott Krabacher. The part I heard was of her being abused by her grandfather whe she was about 4 and that she had looked in the mirror and still recalls the way her face looked. And about 12 or 15 years ago she was in Haiti and saw a child whose face reminded her of the way her face looked in that mirror. Now identifying herself as a Christian, and one who attributes some of the problems in Haiti to the prevalence of voodoo and calling on the "bad" spirits and Satan, she mentioned her transformation from Playboy bunny sex and drugs and rock and roll type to her current status. So the connection was that...I'm not into the forms of Christianity that allow for attributing problems to Satan, but maybe that was something she could hook in to to be able to transform herself from sexual toy to her current status. Likewise, maybe the JW mom needed a strong hook to change something in her life and maybe being a Jehovah's Witness gave it to her.

I imagine lots of people will buy the book just to read the parts about Hefner, but the proceeds go to fund the organization for kids in Haiti. Hey, whoever thought Hugh Hefner would help abandoned children in Haiti? If anyone is interested in the organization SSK started for the children in Haiti, here is a link to her site:
http://www.haitichildren.com/index.html
Some of the pictures in the slideshow are pretty brutal. So is the excerpt from her book at S&S.

roger prettyman wrote on Nov 17^th, 2007 at 5:11am:


Why is being a Pygmy living in a forest especially mortifying? If you consider that undignified, well, Dave was a tube worm.. now, that's somewhat less dignified, but we all have to start somewhere I guess

Worse yet, Orlando, now that the world has developed television I again seem to be becoming a tube worm.

I think that in my former muddy state it was more dignified to cruise along sucking up slime. But nowadays we have popcorn and beer, which is almost as good.

d

dave_a_mbs wrote on Nov 17^th, 2007 at 7:59pm: