"We cure HIV with anointing water": Six die after churches tell sufferers they don't need medicine

[cleanhippie]

At least six people with HIV stopped taking their medication and died after churches claimed God could cure them, an investigation has found. Undercover reporters who posed as worshippers infected with HIV in south London were told that pastors could heal them.

The journalists underwent a 'healing process' where they were sprayed in the face with water while a member of the church called for the devil to come out. Pastors at the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Southwark boasted that they had a '100 per cent success rate', said Sky News which carried out the investigation.

The church holds the healing sessions once a month and asks people to hand over medical notes to prove they have an illness. They use special 'anointing water' to 'cure' people.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2066106/Scandal-churches-claiming-cure-HIV-God-die-abandoning-medication.html#ixzz1ejlZSg61
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I suppose I am just wallowing in cesspools....this is not where the real conversation about religion is at, right?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. This religion has the identical connection with reality as every sect

That tells you to pray. And the same rate of success.

[MarkCharles]

3. Quite accurate! But who, among the believers, is counting the rates

of success or failure?

Sadly none of the believers care to analyze the real data on success and failure rates of the act of prayer.

[MarkCharles]

2. This is what is most infuriating about the nature of religion, it is insidious

how all of this goes on and the believers, the victims, are desperate people, usually with less formal education, certainly people with no training in logic mor any scientific discipline.

That people actually belief that they are "helping" other human beings by denying them the benefit of modern medicine. This is what I would call immoral unethical and downright tragically criminal.

Put such preaching quacks in prison for the rest of their lives, and don't let them near another human being.

This is unconscionable. And to think, they believe in the same Jesus Christ as do those who believe in science and medicine.


Literally Sickening.

[RoccoR5955]

4. That just proves my point about god.

It's nothing more than dog spelled backwards!

[MarkCharles]

5. "The Loony-Tunes church that claims to heal HIV sufferers is one of many obsessed with sex...

"The Loony-Tunes church that claims to heal HIV sufferers is one of many obsessed with sex and 'curing' homosexuals"

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2066123/The-Loony-Tunes-church-claims-heal-HIV-sufferers-obsessed-sex-curing-homosexuals.html#ixzz1ejpVca3b


"It's a kind of abstraction of Christianity, which offers a healing ministry not so much through faith in Jesus Christ as the incarnate son of God, but as a kind of witch doctor.
But it would be wrong complacently to assume that this represents an aberration at the margins of Christian churches."

[skepticscott]

6. Aw, but what's the harm

in religious belief and faith healing??

[cleanhippie]

7. Of course, its "just as reasonable" as modern medicine is, right?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=319634&mesg_id=319675

[MarkCharles]

9. Imagine our joy if Glenn Beck had opted for religious belief and faith healing

instead of modern medicine to cure his ills.

[valerief]

15. Badda bing! nt

[trotsky]

25. And what right do we have to tell someone their religious beliefs are wrong?

Tsk, tsk. Can't be a militant fundie atheist, you know.

[rug]

8. SCOAN is another Nigerian scam.

[cleanhippie]

10. Oh, right. Not TRUE christians...

:rofl:

[rug]

11. I said scam not Scotsman.

You know, you reaaly should get a grio on your usage of NTS. By your use, there can be no inentional deliberate huckster if he uses the word Christian. Makes you look foolish.

[cleanhippie]

12. ...

:rofl:

[rug]

22. I miss your posts about psychotics who kill their children while having religious hallucinatiions.

Surely your only motive is to warn of the dangers of religion.

[MarkCharles]

13. Can someone translate what the above post was talking about?

I have no idea. What is NTS? True believers in Jesus are now "hucksters"?

I'm lost.

[digonswine]

17. I think the idea is-

that people, especially when defending their own people or beliefs, employ the No True Scotsman strategy. It is a way to move the goalposts so as not to include yourself. "Well, a REAL christian would NEVER tell others to pray away sickness." The idea being that THOSE people are not true Christians, Scotsmen, etc. I think the idea in the post was that there are indeed times when one can say that a "real" Christian would not do thus and such. This is not an endorsement of that post, however.

[MarkCharles]

18. Thank you. n/t

[rug]

21. That's fairly accurate.

Because it would be stupid to invoke NTS (with or without a smiley) because a man was robbing a bank while wearing a cross.

[Major Nikon]

27. Who is to say scam arists aren't true Christians?

The gospels of the bible are full of tales of Jesus' miracles. If you believe those things were real, then you must buy into the hocus pocus aspects of the bible which many believers here claim they don't. If you don't buy into the miracles, then Jesus and his followers were deliberately deceiving people, which would make them scam artists, which makes SCOAN closer to Jesus than many of those you might call 'real' Christians.

[valerief]

14. Some people learn too late the power of magic thinking has no power at all. nt

[LeftishBrit]

16. While I don't trust the Daily Mail, this is sadly supported by better sources

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14406818

This particular church is extreme in the matter.

However, other churches also engage in faith healing, sometimes claiming cures for serious diseases.

Here is a link to 'Healing on the Streets' in Oxford.

http://www.staldates.org.uk/content.asp?pageRef=463

It may be one thing when people use faith healing for emotional problems, or for mild illnesses such as a sore throat, from which you'd probably recover soon anyway; but the claims for healing from diseases like breast cancer and liver cancer are quite dangerous!

This sort of thing is certainly not a feature of all religion, or most UK churches specifically; and we must note that it is not exclusive to religion either. Some people who would be horrified at the idea of a patient refusing medical treatment for HIV or cancer because they were 'praying it away' might accept equally dangerous or unsuitable treatments from the likes of Mercola! But certainly I think that it's a good idea to check what goes on in churches more carefully than sometimes happens - just as is the case for any type of institution.

[MarkCharles]

19. I agree with your assessment of the Daily Mail, and appreciate

other media coverage of this all-too-disgusting continuing and seemingly growing trend in Christianity.


There have always been mystics and faith healers in Christian and other religious groups, but when a new illness such as HIV is identified, it seems like it's an open invitation for these religiously-based frauds and con-artists to pick yet more people's pockets.

[NMMNG]

20. If they were private citizens they could be held criminally responsible

for the deaths. But since they're a church I'm sure they're immune from prosecution under "religious freedom".

[MarkCharles]

23. This is happening in the UK, a nation founded upon the church of England, and...

there seems to be a distinct lack of ways to go after fraud and practicing medicine without a license in the UK, compared to tools we might have in the USA.

In recent years, laws in the USA have enabled believers to be prosecuted for deaths of children in Oregon City, OR, and in Mass for folks who actually buried in Maine a mis-treated and undiagnosed ill Massachusetts child, all done in the name of a Christian religious belief.

By contrast, the UK is somewhat "backward" in having enforceable laws with which to shut down sects like this one. There is a reluctance of government structures in the UK to criminalize religious practices, no matter how abhorrent they might be to most UK folks.

[Nihil]

24. Irony alert: Darwin Awards being the result of religious teachings. (n/t)

:evilgrin:

[deacon_sephiroth]

28. irony perhaps, rarity... by no means...

[SwissTony]

26. One of the comments on the DM site

raised the point that some people who believe they are cured, may go on to have unprotected sex, possibly infecting others.