i have a science/religion question: what's the best arugment for

[nashville_brook]

keeping relgion and the practice of medicine separate. i'm writing an essay on the subject and i'm working along the lines that medicine is science and therefore when you step into a doctor's office you are consulting "reason, rationality and Enlightenment" principles for healing.

i don't want to knock alternative therapies as such -- rather i'm working from a patient's perspective. why should i expect religion-free healthcare? it would be an overstatement that i have "a right" to this. why should i expect it?

i'm casting about for a foundation to hang my narrative on and the best i've come up with it is if i wanted relgious healing i'd go to church (it's cheaper). just seems like there should be a stronger argument.

[kahleefornia]

1. you could say

that if religion is to be involved in medicine, then all priests must get medical degrees and be able to perform surgery.

Or that religious people pass all their cures and treatments through the FDA for approval like any other drug or procedure.

That welfare should then give prescription church discount cards.

That there be no deductible on voodoo.

I know, these are extreme, and I'm just trying to be funny. But really, if someone wants to take a stand like combining religion and medical science, then I insist they be consistent and think about all the different ways that will go.

[nashville_brook]

5. i think you're right to reach for the absurd -- it's an absurd question

to a large extent. one line i've used is that if i wanted a faith-healer i would at least pick one from my faith. which is kind of an empty threat -- i believe in DOG. dyslexic, ya know.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. Religion is faith. Faith is not fact.

Medical science is based on thousands of years of proven fact. You can apply the scientific method to prove the claims of medicine. You cannot do the same for religion.

[nashville_brook]

3. science pulled us out of the dark ages -- science and religion

stand opposed (to me). i'm in the course of writing a narrative on the subject and hope to be able to deliver a big whallop at the end.

there's something about an invasion of privacy too, when you walk into a doc office and are confronted with religious symbolism. then there's frustration that you can't shop for doctors at least as carefully as you would shop for a car. you can't know they are nutty until you've wasted lots of time and money.

[longship]

4. Let's start with some reasons...

Scientology
Christian Scientists
Evangelical "faith healers"

None of these things work beyond placebo effects.

If you get sick, who are you going to call?

The guy who thinks it's caused by space aliens in your brain?

The guy who doesn't believe in medicine?

The guy who holds huge revivals where people pretend they're sick and he pretends to heal them? (Pass the collection plate!!)

I go to my doctor.

[nashville_brook]

6. yep -- there's something about bringing religion into medicine that is

like the doctor saying, deus ex machina -- can't heal ya, that's what jesus is here for.

a hippocratic cop-out.

[nashville_brook]

7. i'll post my essay once i get it carved down a little -- i was asked to

comment on this subject for a medical journal. i've had a remarkable experience where a doctor "prescribed" that i find a church that would take me. i went in concerned with blood sugar. during my patient history i mentioned i had had an abortion about 10 years prior. that's when the religious stuff came in. in addition to joining a church, he suggested i join his "support group" for victims of sexual abuse and abortion (the two were inseparable to him). it's a wild story and i gave it to the press when it happened. i'm honored to be asked to give my opinion, but i don't want to dwell on that particular episode. i want to throw down an argument with some heft and then use that to whack the other stuff with.

i think there's an emotional appeal coming from the journal to embrace "spirituality" in medicine -- and that's fine with me if it comes from the patient. if the patient wants a voodoo queen to cure his prostate, more power to him. i prefer a medical doctor. i'd love to be able to know my doctor isn't a whack job before i step into the office, but that's a comment for another day.

thanks in advance, btw!! already some really good direction. thank you.

[moggie]

8. Let's turn that around

What's the best argument for bringing religion into medicine? Because, surely, the default position should be that medicine should be a rational process. If a particular practitioner wishes to bring something else into the mix, whether it's religion, mysticism, threats, humour etc etc, the onus is on them to show why this is desirable. Don't cede ground to the religionists.

[Igel]

9. I think it depends on what the religion is and what it involves.

You should expect religious free healthcare because that's the cultural norm in the US, in most areas. If I wanted health care 600 years ago in what's now Cameroon, I wouldn't expect religious free healthcare. Even in some parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America you don't always find it--it depends what sort of healthcare you want, and where you go.

In the US, if you wanted religion-based healthcare there are many more places to go than to a church. Many immigrants have brought their cultures with them. We don't call it 'healthcare'; but it's what healthcare's been for many a millennium. I'm not sure that Galen did more than tweak the practice. And Hahnemann certainly did little to remove religion (although it wasn't Xianity) from healthcare; neither has the original underpinnigns for acupuncture or chiropractic.

Even some of the healthcare that we have, while not religion based, is culture based. There's been discussion about culturally-sensitive practices: not just having women doctors examine observant conservative female Muslims or Jews, but 'diseases' recognized by other cultures that require medical intervention, but which either knock together symptoms into something that traditional W. European culture doesn't, or which aren't recognized as serious. Most American medical schools scoff at these 'ailments', but members of those cultures take them seriously, and few have been studied to see if they really are cohesive, systematically definable illnesses.

And let's not even talk about psychiatry.