Faith healing is an odd and entertaining concept, unless you happen to be a small helpless child of religious fanatic parents, then it can be deadly. Yesterday in Oregon Christian parents who kept their child from a life-saving medical treatment were convicted of criminal mistreatment.
In this case the little girl survived because the court intervened, but other children of the faithful have not been so lucky. How bizarre that a fundamentalist belief in God could outweigh what we assume is the most natural instinct, to love and protect our children. This is the dark side of the irrational belief in prayer.
And it is irrational. The one scientific study of healing prayer that has ever been conducted demonstrated that prayer did not heal people; there were no better results for those who were prayed for versus this who were not. Of course the believers then thought of reasons why the study was flawed, including the astounding explanation that God does not like to be tested. A perfect example of the odd “logic” of faithful: how dare you test the Lord thy god, and to make a point He will ignore your prayers and let some people suffer and die. That’ll teach you to doubt him.
Sure, there are many anecdotes about people being healed by prayer, but there are just as many stories about people being abducted by aliens, seeing big foot or spontaneously bursting into flames. Many seemingly rational people will laugh at a UFO abduction story, while embracing the equally irrational power of prayer.
People will pray for someone who is ill (or in some extreme cases pray that a person will get ill). And some people’s diseases do mysteriously go into remission. Believers say this proves that prayer works, but they chose to ignore this simple fact: just as many people go into spontaneous remission without anyone praying for them.
Of course, believe in healing prayer begs the big question: why doesn’t prayer work all the time? Two small children from two religious families have cancer. Their equally devout parents pray for a cure. The members of their church pray. One child is cured; producing the predictable “it’s a miracle” chorus. The other child dies a slow and painful death. Not only do the parents suffer the loss of a child but now they question why their prayers didn’t work: perhaps their faith wasn’t good enough, their hearts weren’t pure enough or maybe they were being punished for past sins. So their painful loss is covered with a thick layer of self-blame and guilt.
Of course religion is nothing if not the perfect rationalization mechanism. Their religious leaders will assure them this is a test of their faith and trot out the oldest clichés of the faithful: it was the child’s time, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and it’s all part of God’s mysterious plan.
I have religious friends who say rather self-righteously, “Science doesn’t have all the answers.” I agree, science doesn’t have all the answers, but it has more of them, and more sensible ones than religion. Look, I say to my friends who are true believers, if you really believe in prayer over science, then instead of buying eye-glasses, just pray to God for 20/20 vision. Or when you get a bad toothache, don’t see a dentist, just pray and God will fill your cavity.
They usually sputter something about how ridiculous my suggestion is. And I agree. Why would an all powerful God waste his powers fixing your eyes or teeth? Isn’t that why we have science? But these same people believe God can cure you of cancer. Not all the time, of course, that would make too much sense. And, God, as we witness every day, works in mysterious ways, if he works at all.
Faith, is indeed, an odd and entertaining thing.
