Healing

As an agnostic atheist, I do not believe in God but am still skeptical about some things. One of the concepts I'm still questioning is the concept of healing. Not when people only use prayer in lieu of medical attention and death occurs (such as was the case with an 11 year old diabetic girl), but when people use it for more minor things such as trying to find some type of emotional peace or dealing with a bad ankle or something.

Personally, I would like to feel that it is possible that it works. I think it would have been helpful for me when I had headaches every day for 2 and a half years or right now when I've been really stressed out for the past few months. Of course, that also requires a belief in God as well, which is not the case for me, so I don't even know if healing has a possibility of working even if I did try it.

I know that people will probably just consider this post completely ridiculous, but I am wondering how people felt about healing when they were religious, or if healing was something that people were always skeptical about.

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Permalink Reply by B. on June 9, 2010 at 11:42pm

I don't know if I really understand your post..

There is nothing mystical or magical or even spiritual about healing. Finding "emotional peace" aka. reducing stress in your life will undoubtedly improve your immune system and/or bring relief to any current medical conditions a person has. This isn't spiritual -- this is part psychological, but part physiological: reducing stress reduces stress hormones in your body which thus reduces stress IN your body, improving your health. I don't know very much about the biochemistry of a person's psychological state and their status of health, but I think you could probably get a lot of information if you searched the topic for information on cortisol, adrenaline, and.. hmm well I don't know enough to suggest more =( lol

In any case, like I said, there is nothing mystical about healing. Every relief brought to an illness or condition by prayer, meditation, or any spiritual practice is 100% explainable -- and potentially even measurable (they're working on that now!) -- by science.

In short, there is no such thing as healing outside of the definition held by science as is. Faith healers are frauds, as is much of the new age naturopathic and alternative medicine approaches and techniques.

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Permalink Reply by Kris on June 10, 2010 at 8:32am

Faith healing definitely works, to an extent. There is no question about that. However, the manner in which it works, is completely natural.
I've been meditating ever since I became an atheist (I used to pray before that), and it really does bring results. I'm not quite sure about exactly how it works, but in many cases for me now, physical pain doesn't cause suffering. When, for example, I sit in an uncomfortable position, I can concentrate about those feelings, and instead of suffering, the pain almost massages me.
Not only do I not believe in any God, I don't believe in anything supernatural. I've been reading and adapting several religious practices, including orthodox Christian rituals, Buddhist, and some Hindu rituals.

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Permalink Reply by Tracy Lentz on June 10, 2010 at 11:04am

B. - There isn't really that much to it. I was just wondering if former Christians believed in healing through prayer when they were religious or if they were always skeptical about it before they became atheists.

I don't know if I can just dismiss it before I try it. It was suggested to me in one of my other discussions that you don't have to study the Bible or read some works by theists to know that you do not believe in God, which is true, but I would still like to anyway, and the same goes for healing. Maybe not faith healing, but I think meditation might be useful and I would like to try it.

Kristian - I think meditation might be useful to try. Right now, where I am living, I don't know if I could focus long enough to accomplish anything, but it is worth a shot.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on August 10, 2010 at 3:19pm

one word, placebo.

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Permalink Reply by victor regalado on August 12, 2010 at 4:03pm

Well, there is nothing mystical about healing as B pointed out. However, meditation and moments of self reflexion is good because it brings you peace of mind. B. made a wonderful job in her posts, so i have nothing to add.