Talk:Faith healing
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One thing I noticed in going through the acts of healing in the Gospel, such as the laying of hands to cure blindness, palsy, etc, is that there may actually a physiological basis to this. In all cases I examined, the acupuncture meridian for the symptomology presented was used, even by Jesus in many cases, as it describes fairly specifically how he touched them. It was not simply "laying of hands". Querying PubMed showed evidence and studies on the use of acupuncture, and acupressure, in treating or relieving symptoms in these cases. It's quite obvious "qi" and the meridian model is fundamentally flawed, but it is a crude approximation of physiological systems that's mostly accurate and reproducable.
The incidents in the gospel are generally more striking, but I don't think that necessarily makes *all* of them beyond the laws of physics, though some of them, such as Jesus's healing of a mother's possessed child over distance seem to be.
They may have been beyond our understanding of things for a long time, but the fact is this: touch can heal. Many of the physiological mechanisms responsible for acupressure/acupuncture have been found but it's not a full understanding.
I'm not saying this makes all the faith healing incidents mention on this page true. Christian faith is based on merit; ie, evidence. It is not blind.
But perhaps while some of the "faith healing" so famously noted in the gospel was of the "miracle" type, perhaps others simply reflected a greater understanding than our own in some areas of human physiology we have only begun to study in recent years.
" Christian faith is based on merit; ie, evidence. It is not blind."
I'd have to disagree, since the accounts in the Bible have been repeatedly demonstrated as unreliable or entirely fabricated by scientists, including archaeologists, biologists, etc. When presented with the overwhelming scientific consensus, most religious people cling to their own ideas despite their merit or lack thereof. To pretend that storied written decades and centuries after the fact with no collaborating evidence or reports supporting they occured are valid in determining anything about the medical/physiological knowledge of the period is to go completely on faith without anything validating the claims. It's like making stories about Atlantis or Big foot. 16:09, 31 March 2006 (UTC) Fathermithras
"Christian faith is based on merit; ie, evidence. It is not blind." It is not based on evidence. It is, as you say, faith. You could have faith that a tomato is god, that doesn't make it so. I believe that the article is as neutral as possible - you won't be able to please both sides.
This article seems to be NPOV. Why is it tagged? Please remove the tag or post here what you believe needs to be corrected.--81.157.100.112 16:52, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I think that 'Christian faith healing' should be a separate topic from secular views. CowboyWisdom 00:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
- I agree, since there is so much material, both biblical and related to modern healing in the charismatic movement etc. David L Rattigan 09:29, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
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- There should be such an article on Christian divine healing. Good places to start in researching the History of this phenomenon would be Ronald Kydd's book as well the The Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements published by Zondervan. The next issue would relate to various theologies of Christian healing. Its a much needed article!--Loudguy 01:36, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Hey folks can somebody tell me
How to make the link of this same article to it's spanish and other lenguages in the spanish edition I translated but I don't know how to stablish the linguistic or idiomatic links, thanks,for do it.
[edit] Deleted Irrelevant Annecdote
I removed the bit about "A recent article in Time Magazine." This was not verifyable, not cited, and not in the correct section.
[edit] My edit and NPOV
The logic of my edit was 1) The word famous doesn't add anything and is very arguable 2) Saying the person "had the gift of healing"presumes that such a gift exists and so is not NPOV as opposed to stating the person was reported to have the gift which is NPV 3) Regarding Holos- Holos isn't a well known example at all and I don't see what having that sentence there really accomplishes. JoshuaZ 18:10, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
