#Faith healing

[creature-wizard]

Faith healing kills? Where did you get that from? Also food alone can heal you. Not sure where you got that there's gotta be magic or manifesting included. It happens all the time.

[campgender]

from God’s Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission by R. Marie Griffith (1997)

evangelical subculture was less a bulwark against than a variant of the therapeutic culture.

As evangelicals gradually ceased denouncing psychology outright, they shifted the battle lines, accepting the psychologists’ diagnosis of modern dilemmas while asserting that the cure for emotional sickness was religious faith rather than secular therapies. Popular evangelical writers increasingly began to discuss problems in terms of “anxiety” and “inferiority complexes” and advisedreaders on heightening “self-esteem” and fulfilling emotional “needs,” however, and the boundary between religious and secular prescriptions steadily blurred. Religious writers quoted enthusiastically from psychotherapists and other “positive thinkers” such as Dale Carnegie and Joshua Loth Liebman.

Continuing to denounce liberal Protestants for accommodating and selling out to “secular humanism,” evangelical authors devised an updated theology of their own, in which sin was often reconceptualized as sickness and concerns over salvation were replaced by concerns for earthly happiness, comfort, and health. Those who packaged their message most successfully, such as the well-known Christian pediatrician and psychologist James Dobson, tended to address a largely female audience and directed their concerns to marriage and family life, sex, and depression.

The historian Donald Meyer, whose 1965 study of “religion as pop psychology” was published just prior to The Triumph of the Therapeutic, shared Rieff’s argument and gave it a historical frame of reference, looking back to Mary Baker Eddy and the theology of mind cure for precedents of current therapeutic religion. Having failed to recognize evangelicals as participants in the phenomenon he described, fifteen years later Meyer added a chapter attributing the recent upsurge of conservative evangelicalism to that group’s appropriation of positive thinking and practices of healing therapy.

Tracing the career of Oral Roberts, who ceased his tent meeting healing services in favor of building a colossal modern hospital, Meyer noted the urge among evangelicals to make healing “obtainable as a predictable and rational expectation.” Not only in the Christian counseling centers and medical centers but also in the charismatics’ and other evangelicals’ continuing emphasis on divine healing, the mixing of the therapeutic with popular religion became highly visible. It seemed irrefutable that a deep cultural shift “from salvation to self-realization” had taken place; as two historians independently noted not long after Meyer’s postscript.

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

William Sargant - The Mind Possessed - Lippincott - 1974

[sspacegodd]

Jesus came from outer space Came down from the sky and flew through the air He healed with His mind, with just a stare He wants to invade the earth and take control of our lives If we don't do what He says, He's gonna make us fry FOREVER.............

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Bernard Lane

Published: Mar 25, 2024

Not good medicine

The dominant “gender-affirming” treatment approach—which promotes puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and mastectomy for minors—is “fundamentally incompatible with competent, ethical medical practice.”

That is the conclusion of a new paper by academic psychiatrist Andrew Amos in the journal Australasian Psychiatry.

Dr Amos says treatment guidelines from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne (RCH) “assert without evidence that pathology plays no part in the development of gender diversity,” which is said to be part of nature.

“If it is admitted there are some pathological causes of gender diversity, then it becomes necessary to assess the health or illness of all presentations [of gender identity],” Dr Amos says.

But the gender-affirming model insists that self-declared gender identity be affirmed, not interrogated for underlying mental illness.

“The emergence of non-binary and fluid genders means there are no boundaries to self-reported gender identity, which may include a gender consistent with one of the two biological sexes; a combination of features consistent with both sexes; the absence of features of gender; an identity as a voluntarily/involuntarily castrated eunuch; or arbitrary and rapidly changing variations,” Dr Amos says.

“From a psychiatric perspective, the proposition that psychopathology plays no role in gender diversity is absurd.

“The most detailed personal description of the experiences of psychosis is that of Daniel Paul Schreber, a German judge who minutely described his belief that God had turned him into a woman and was sending ribbons from the sun through his body to impregnate him and repopulate the earth.

“It is difficult to imagine a more pathological aetiology [or cause] for gender diversity, yet the [gender-affirming model] provides no framework for assessing such a patient, and does not view Schreber’s case as an absolute contraindication to social, medical or surgical transition.

“As Schreber illustrates, it is certain that pathology causes some cases of gender diversity. Differentiating between healthy and pathological gender diversity, or, more likely, gauging the relative contribution of healthy and pathological processes originating within or in the environment of each patient, can only be achieved by the comparison of an individual’s patterns of behaviour with patterns of normal and pathological development.

“While [gender-affirming] advocates have argued transition is safe in patients with psychosis because it is easy to differentiate psychotic from non-psychotic aetiologies of gender diversity, they have provided no guidance on how to do so, and no empirical evidence that it is safe to try.

“To the extent they discuss the role of psychosis or severe personality pathology in the development of gender diversity at all, it is only to deny that either might prevent transition.”

RCH Melbourne’s treatment guideline—promoted as “Australian standards of care”1 and used by children’s hospital gender clinics across the country—states that psychosis in a minor “should not necessarily prevent medical transition.” It does not explain how to discern those cases when psychosis should indeed rule out transition.

In the leaked WPATH Files, clinicians were revealed debating how to manage “trans clients” with dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities or alters) in which “not all the alters have the same gender identity.”

Dr Amos argues that gender-affirming treatment guidelines “abandon the clinical discipline of diagnosis and make treatment contingent upon the unconstrained subjective experiences of children and potentially disturbed adults.”

“This is unethical, because modern medicine relies upon accurate diagnosis and evidence-based clinical reasoning to ensure that treatment is likely to help and not harm patients.”

Dr Amos notes tension in the 2023 gender dysphoria policy of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists between a traditional mental health approach and the unevidenced assertion that, “Being trans or gender diverse does not represent a mental health condition.” This policy area has occasioned sharp divisions within the college since 2019.

“Although it is clear that this [2023 policy] compromise balances the concerns of different stakeholders, the medico-legal implications for psychiatrists and their patients may be too important to long defer a conclusive position on the aetiological role of mental illness in gender diversity,” Dr Amos says.

He points out that the lack of evidence for the gender-affirming model has led an Australian medical defence fund, MDA National, to restrict coverage for private practitioners facing claims because of their involvement in the medical transition of under-18 patients.

[ Video: England’s NHS has radically restricted puberty blocker drugs, but it’s business as usual for Australia’s gender medicine lobby ]

“A patient should be more than a number, but detransitioners [who regret gender medicine treatments] can’t even get that. Reclaiming one’s biological gender after a gender transition is so taboo, that there is no way to document it in a medical record with an official diagnosis code.”—FAIR in Medicine fellow Aida Cerundolo, opinion article, The Hill, 15 February 2024

“International Classification of Disease diagnosis codes label patients’ medical issues and electronically shuttle them through the US healthcare system. These letter-number combinations facilitate communication, help prevent medical errors and signal insurance companies to reimburse for treatments. 

“Codes exist for patients ‘struck by orca, initial encounter,’ or who have ‘problems in relationship with in-laws’ and even for those ‘sucked into [a] jet engine, sequela.’ However, detransition remains an unrecognized medical entity because it has no corresponding diagnosis code.”

Taking cover

On May 9 last year, GCN reported that MDA National planned to restrict cover for private doctors assessing minors as eligible for medicalised gender change or initiating cross-sex hormones for them.

The insurer cited “the high risk of claims arising from irreversible treatments provided to those who medically and surgically transition as children and adolescents.”

The news appears to have alarmed the lobby group LGBTIQ Health Australia (LHA)2, whose access to federal Health Minister Mark Butler produced an “URGENT one day turnaround” brief from his department on the issue, according to documents obtained under Freedom of Information law.

These documents suggest Australia’s federal government is focused not on the international debate about safety concerns and the lack of evidence for youth gender medicine, but on expanding access to gender-affirming treatment as requested by well-connected LGBTQ lobbies.

On May 23, LHA chief executive Nicky Bath—who sits on the government’s LGBTIQA+ Health and Wellbeing 10 Year National Action Plan Expert Advisory Group—alerted Mr Butler’s office to MDA’s proposed restriction of insurance cover. (By market share, MDA is the second largest medical defence fund.)

That same day, the Department of Health and Aged Care3 secured a detailed account from MDA chief executive Ian Anderson of the insurer’s rationale for the change to take effect from 1 July 2023.

In its urgent brief sent to Minister Butler on May 30, the department relayed Mr Anderson’s explanation that—

While MDA itself had not received any claims arising from gender medicine, the insurer was aware of claims emerging with other indemnifiers in Australia and overseas

Members of MDA had expressed concerns about growing demand pressuring general practitioners (GPs or primary care doctors) to prescribe cross-sex hormones for minors

Those concerns included whether the usual consent would be sufficient for children, given the life-changing, permanent effects of such treatment; and reliance on medical opinion influencing that treatment decision in the event of a claim brought by a former patient

For these reasons, MDA had investigated the underwriting risk of claims arising from gender treatment of minors and concluded that it was unable to quantify and price the risk, quantum and frequency of claims; nor was it able to source appropriate data

MDA members with experience in gender medicine had stated their view that the best model for assessment and treatment of gender-distressed children involved a multi-disciplinary team backed by “a significant hospital”

In its brief, the minister’s department makes no reference to systematic reviews overseas showing the evidence base for paediatric transition to be very weak and uncertain.

However, the note suggests that if the regulatory Medical Board of Australia had to intervene in a case involving gender treatment of a minor, it would use the treatment guideline issued in 2018 by the gender-affirming clinic at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne (RCH) and badged as “Australian standards of care.”

“In determining what is safe clinical care and what is the best available evidence, doctors should have regard to relevant Australian standards of care,” the briefing note says.

There is no hint of the controversial status of the RCH treatment guideline.

The department’s note says the RCH guideline “clearly outlines the role of GPs in the assessment and care of adolescents with gender dysphoria”, which the note says includes prescription of puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones “in collaboration with a paediatrician, adolescent physician or paediatric endocrinologist.”

However, towards the end of 2023, the RCH gender clinic changed precisely this section of the guideline consistent with a campaign by the gender-affirming lobby to ramp up GP provision of cross-sex hormone treatment for minors—the very issue that MDA was concerned about.

Gender-affirming clinicians see the mainstreaming of hormones through local medical practices as one answer to long waiting lists at children’s hospital specialist gender clinics, where older adolescents may age out before treatment.

The current, version 1.4 of the RCH guideline still says a multidisciplinary approach is “the optimal model of care” but adds new advice that, “GPs with sufficient expertise and skill in initiating and monitoring [cross-sex] hormone therapy can consider initiating and optimising hormone therapy for [minors].”

“This would typically be within a primary care-led multidisciplinary team tailored to the patient’s needs and availability of services…” (Emphasis added.)

It is not explained how GPs will know when they can go ahead without a multi-disciplinary team. Version 1.3—still available on the RCH website—did not recommend that GPs initiate cross-sex hormones without the precaution of specialist back up.

In November 2023, gender-affirming GPs keen to mainstream hormones for 16- and 17-year-olds without specialist back up complained of mixed messages as to whether or not they would be covered for this4 by the country’s largest medical defence fund, Avant.

Avant, which is understood to be defending psychiatrist Dr Patrick Toohey against a 2022 claim by detransitioner Jay Langadinos, told GCN it had not changed its cover. The fund did not answer the question whether it would cover claims arising from GP members initiating opposite-sex hormones for 16- or 17-year-old patients without the backing of a multi-disciplinary team.

Version 1.4 of the RCH guideline did not cite any new evidence supporting the practice of GP-led hormones, nor was the opportunity taken to cite fresh data reported since the guideline was first issued in 2018.

The RCH document makes no reference to systematic evidence reviews in Finland, Sweden and England since 2019. These reviews, undertaken independently, found the evidence base for hormonal treatment of minors to be very weak and uncertain.

==

"Gender affirming care" is pseudoscientific faith-healing quackery.

[atheostic]

"To the one who grows toes back But does not take cancer from a kid: You are a diick! You are a diiiiick! You could be out here saving babies But instead you're growing feet!"

-- Song by Trysten and Sayge

[walrusmagazine]

Faith Healers Are Back, and They’re Getting Rich

Spiritual pseudoscience is everywhere on social media with promises to cure diseases. It may also be costing lives

If Joe Dispenza’s meditation had simply been religious in nature, if it had been about accepting death or gratitude or setting one’s moral affairs in order, that would have been one thing. But pseudoscience isn’t honest in that way. It’s one thing pretending to be another. Dispenza was promising healing, spontaneous remission. The former chiropractor, who calls himself a doctor, was giving Louis cover for giving up on real doctors. Dispenza was also giving Louis permission to pretend he was healing himself, with some kind of dignity, even while he was saying goodbye.

Read more at thewalrus.ca.

[marlowe1-blog]

The Book of Job chapter 8

Bildad the Shuhite sticks his nose in

I think I might have blown my load with Eliphaz. One of the problems with the Book of Job is how repetitive it is. Job says something blasphemous and depressing. One of his friends says something toxic positivity. Job refutes that stupid friend.

Which makes finding quotes from Job out in the wild rather funny since these are quotes that the dumb friends are saying and as the text outright states, these friends are full of shit.

Only some of these friends are pretty repetitive in their shit. Like I'm going to need to start looking up scholars if I'm going to say anything new. Mostly classics professors. Maybe rabbis. I suppose Christians might have something to say that's worthwhile (doubtful but hey they do make pretty trees).

Bildad starts out with "How long will you say such things?" which struck me as funny, not only because already his friends are going "hey Job, maybe shut up so you stop bumming us out" but also because this is chapter 8 and there are many chapters to go.

Bildad's theme is like the rabbis who tried to find fault with Job. He keeps repeating that the blameless have nothing to fear. Sure Job's sons were probably sinful, but Job is fine. "Though your beginning be small, in the end you wil lgrow very great."

So Bildad is preaching the prosperity gospel. Look, believe in God and you'll get so much great shit eventually (oh hey there's my annoyance at the tacked on ending.)

But don't worry, Job, you'll be fine. Just look to the ancestors because our days on earth are a shadow yada yada but only those who don't trust in God will be uprooted. But Job, he's fine because the blameless (this gets repeated a lot) will not be despised.

So chin up Job. You're going through a bad time but if you're REALLY innocent, then you'll get everything you want.

So here's where I go into a personal story. When I was 12 or so my mom decided that it was time to get serious about this Christian bullshit and wanted me confirmed. She originally took me to a church that my aunt Sharon recommended (so why the fuck did she take that advice) and one time there was a guy who claimed to be a faith healer. Two things i remember.

First, he diagnosed a girl as having back problems because one leg was longer than the other one and held her leg. Second he asked for volunteers to go up and watch him "lengthen her leg" I went up with about a dozen others and we stood around and he moved her sock down her foot. The wisdom of letting some craggly old dude hold a teenage girl's leg as "faith healing" is just another fun factor in the world of evangelical Xianity.

But also a few people went "It's growing" and everyone else went along with them. Only her leg didn't grow and I seriously doubt that was an issue. But since we were all supposedly in agreement with the leg growing, we only told the truth to people who asked.

Second, the small group that I was in did more practice prayer healing. And I wanted him to heal my dry feet (my feet aren't dry these days. I don't live in Minnesota. I moisturize more) and I remember the guys prayer as he was holding my feet in his hands (yeah this was a fucked up church. It was called North Heights in Roseville, MN. If you are in Roseville, MN and are looking for a church, steer clear of North Heights) and he kept saying "Make sure there's NO DOUBT in your mind. Don't block the magical healing with any doubt!!!"

Look I was a dumb kid, not even a teenager yet and I knew that was a bullshit cover your ass statement. It was basically a way of making the "faith healing" subject still believe even when the faith healing didn't work.

So Bildad is giving us the equivalent when he keeps saying that G-d loves the BLAMELESS. If you're blameless then everything will work out. So when it doesn't work out, whoops! Guess Job was full of blame.

In the next chapter Job kind of agrees with that thesis but not really.

[karralane]

Tracey Cooke encounters Hell while passed out after a night of drinking, and is then called to ministry by an angel of God and told to pray for three hours a night. He is given gifts of healing and prophecy, which he shares with the audience after sharing his testimony of being called by God.

transcript of video testimony: https://jesustestimonium.blogspot.com/2024/11/tracey-cooke-encouters-hell-while.html

[mindfulldsliving]

Individual Discouragement and Personal Growth

Personal growth often emerges from periods of discouragement. Challenges prompt reflection and can lead to new insights. Overcoming obstacles builds lasting change and boosts self-esteem. Each challenge can transform us, impacting how we engage with the w

Overcoming discouragement is crucial for personal growth and spiritual strength. Many people face discouragement during recovery, faith journeys, or while working toward goals. Acknowledging these feelings is the first step toward healing. Understanding how discouragement affects us can transform it into a tool for change. Discouragement often arises from unmet expectations. It can lead to…

[creature-wizard]

Now find all the results of doctors killing people based on race, malpractice, etc. highlight all those times people have experienced their loved one's being killed by doctor's. Or you can ignore this message just in case it doesn't suit your narrative. Oopsie.

Yeah, I've heard the "Um, AKSHUALLY, people are MORE LIKELY to die due to MEDICAL MALPRACTICE" lie before. It's bullshit. Even with all of this shit going on, people are still more likely to survive if they seek actual medical care. One way we know this? Every time people lose access to medical care, more people, not fewer, die.

[darthtimon]

Deep Meerkat Thoughts: Faith Healing

Time to revisit some content from the original Meerkat Musings. Back in 2016 I became involved in a debate on the subject of faith healing. Specifically, the question was around whether or not it was fair to prosecute parents who had turned to faith healing to save their children, especially in light of how many people die every year whilst in the care of medical services. In the process of the…

[malcified]

Buon Mercoledì! Today I’d like to share this sketch called #GambleRamble in the series #DailyDelusions.

Some key concepts to define and understand:

#Energy: Energy is the capacity for doing work. It may exist in potential, kinetic, thermal, helectrical, chemical, nuclear, or other forms. -Merriam-Webster

Energy can be neither created nor destroyed but only changed from one form to another. Energy can be converted from one form to another in various other ways. - Britannica

#Faith: complete trust or confidence in someone or something; strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof. -Oxford Languages

#Gambling: is the wagering of something of value on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three elements to be present: consideration, risk, and a prize -Wiki

Gambling is one of mankind's oldest activities, as evidenced by writings and equipment found in tombs and other places. The origin of gambling is considered to be divinatory: by casting marked sticks and other objects and interpreting the outcome, man sought knowledge of the future and the intentions of the gods. From this it was a very short step to betting on the outcome of the throws. - Britannica

#FaithHealing: recourse to divine power to cure mental or physical disabilities, either in conjunction with orthodox medical care or in place of it.

Interesting, how everything in existence is energy in various forms and stages of motion. Also interesting, how some beings are able to draw, consolidate, transform, and transmute energy.

Some mental prompts:

What are we really investing into something? Maybe it’s more than just money or faith. Maybe it’s matter, energy, time, and space.

Should I be investing them elewhere?

Do I really have control of every aspect of my investment?

Is the yield/ reward worth it?

Why do we repeat these actions if we were satisfied?

In the day and age where addictions are normalised, glorified, the main source and flow of funds for economies, revenue sources for Governments, Corporations, Religious and other Institutions, businesses, Non-Profits, and Individuals, if you’re struggling with a #gamblingaddiction link to a useful resource from #HelpGuide.

[ccomelantartidee]

“Too well tangled”🤍

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Wendy Glauser

Published: Aug 9, 2011

Two parents in Oregon who refused to seek treatment for their infant daughter’s tumour on religious grounds were recently sentenced to jail time, but advocates for children’s medical rights remain concerned about the leniency the justice system shows to “faith healing” families in some areas of the United States.

Timothy Wyland, 44, and Rebecca Wyland, 23, of Oregon City were found guilty of criminal mistreatment for allowing their 18-month-old daughter’s hemangioma, an abnormal proliferation of blood vessels, to grow into a golf ball-sized tumour that covered one eye. They were sentenced to three months in jail on June 24. Rather than seek medical care for their daughter, the Wylands, members of the Followers of Christ Church, relied on prayer, oil anointment and the “laying on of hands.”

Dr. Seth Asser, a Rhode Island pediatrician, argues that lawmakers and judges often fail to recognize the dangers of faith healing. “Children who have died in these cases suffer seizures, vomiting,” he says. “Their deaths are agonizing, slow and extremely painful.”

An investigation led by Asser published in Pediatrics found that between 1975 and 1995, 172 children died following faith healing, 140 from easily curable or treatable medical conditions (Pediatrics 1998;101:625–9). In one case, a two-year-old girl choked on a banana and showed signs of life for an hour before dying, while her parents and other adults simply prayed.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, most states had faith healing exemptions in their child abuse and neglect laws. Nineteen states still allow religious defences for felony crimes against children.

Canada, by contrast, does not have religious exemptions to criminal charges such as neglect. However, while children of Jehovah’s Witnesses have died as a result of parents’ refusals to approve blood transfusions, the deaths often occur during the time it takes doctors to prove to the courts that transfusions are medically necessary.

Still, despite the leniency toward faith healing shown by US courts, the number of children dying from medical neglect because of religious beliefs appears to be “going down gradually,” says Asser. This is partly due to Children’s Healthcare is a Legal Duty (CHILD), an organization that lobbies states to repeal protections in criminal codes that implicitly condone faith healing.

In May, Oregon’s senate passed a law repealing exemptions in its criminal code that allowed faith healing to be used as a defence in crimes such as homicide and neglect.

John Clague, a spokesman for the Christian Science church in Oregon, said he supported the new law because of the high number of child deaths in the Followers of Christ Church. When asked about the 28 deceased Christian Science children in the Pediatrics investigation, he lamented their deaths, saying that “unlike some other churches, we don’t say these deaths are God’s will.” He claimed his church leaders expect their followers to seek medical care for their children when faith healing “isn’t working” or in situations where a child may die for lack of care.

But the Christian Science church “continues to support religious accommodations for the responsible practice of spiritual healing,” says Adam Scherr, the church’s national media coordinator.

None of the parents implicated in recent Followers of Christ Church faith healing deaths in Oregon were reachable for comment and defence attorneys for the Wylands did not respond to repeated phone messages. However, a man who answered the phone at the Followers of Christ Church in Oregon City said he staunchly believed faith healing works, in part because “my mother is going on 95 and my grandparents lived well into their eighties.”

While arguing deaths of children in his community were “the divine will of God” and saying “one just died the other day, from sepsis, I think,” the man, who refused to give his name, also wanted to make it clear that his church does not force parents to avoid doctors. “That’s up to them if they want to take their children to a doctor.”

But some leaders of religious sects tend to have different messaging for the general public than for members, according to CHILD founder Rita Swan, who lost her 16-month-old son to spinal meningitis in 1977 after being pressured by fellow members of a Christian Science church to eschew medical care for faith. Horror stories are often spread about medical treatment, she says, while faith healing miracles receive much attention.

Given this context, lawmakers in favour of religious defences argue that parents making what they believe are the best decisions for their children’s health shouldn’t be treated as criminals. Swan argues, however, that when criminal laws apply to everyone equally, parents in churches practising faith healing have an “excuse” to visit doctors. “If the law plainly tells them that they must get children to a doctor, I think that’s much easier, and on one level they’re relieved,” says Swan.

According to Dr. Jim Lace, an Oregon pediatrician who lobbied against legal exemptions for faith healing, medical neglect is more likely to be reported when there are no religious exceptions. Some citizens erroneously think that child protection services can’t intervene in faith healing cases because of “confusion around the laws,” he says.

Likewise, Asser argues that faith healing parents should be treated the same way as anyone else who neglects a child. “If you or I get drunk and pass out and a child dies as a result, we go to jail, but if a child dies of a preventable medical issue because of these parents’ own form of being stoned on religion, they’re not held liable.”

[readersmagnet]

Encouraging a Friend With Our Trials by Jamie Pulos-Fry

Jamie Pulos-Fry recounts the life-altering accident that challenged her physically and emotionally in her book, "Encouraging a Friend With Our Trials." Through personal photographs, Bible verses, and uplifting messages, this book serves as a reminder that even in the darkest times, there is hope and healing to be found. You are not alone, and you can overcome any obstacle.

Find inspiration and hope in resilience and encouragement. Grab a copy at www.two4avalon.com.