As editor of UK Atheist I am pleased to be able to announce a competition (open to atheists, agnostics & theists alike) offering a prize (a hardback copy of Hal Hellman's superb "Great Feuds In Science", signed personally by the author) in the first competition ever held by UK Atheist & Science E-Zine ... click [HERE for further details.
Medical doctors (General Practitioners or GP's as they are known in the UK, MD's in the states) are not real doctors by which I mean the qualifications necessary to reach the status of a doctor of medicine do not equate academically to that of a PhD ... in the UK at least they equate to a degree. The title "Doctor" conferred upon a Doctor of Medicine is honorary and intended to help them gain the respect & authority they require to deal with the public. GP's are typically good at what they do and are highly experienced individuals in the trade of medicine, however it is important to understand exactly what a doctor of medicine (and therefore is not). The various advices & cures a GP dispenses relate to known ills and a GP, in his or her daily practice of handling of known and established medical conditions, may be considered a technician with significant expertise in their given area. Anything beyond that they refer to an expert and those experts, whilst often also medical doctors, will have studied further or be practiced so significantly in that area of medicine that they have become specialists. Regardless of the awed in which we, the general public, hold our GP's & MD's the real doctors are those that have achieved the vaunted academic levels of Doctor of Philosophy or PhD ... it is these highly qualified individuals that form the backbone of our scientific profession.
This is not meant to be a put down of the medical profession because, believe me, when I am ill I go to a doctor because they are vastly more qualified than I am in an area relevant to my health. In fact understanding that I am as highly qualified as my doctor in some respects has aided me in my dealings with him ... having been diagnosed with an illness that will remain with me for life and being treated successfully and continuously for it I chose to read about the subject and was able to inform my doctor of some of the dangers of my treatment, comments he listened to and not only adapted to my treatment but also to the treatment of others in his practice ... I respect him all the more for that.
There are, of course, a number of alternative medicines or therapies and some of these I remain open-minded about on the basis that the history of a number of common complaints that may well have found successful alternative treatment through simple trial and error over many hundreds of years and I recognise that the medical profession is slowly becoming more able to accept a number of these. Though I recognise potential value in alternative therapy and welcome the medical professions cautious acceptance of some claimed cures I still consider the medical profession the authoritative guide to medicine and my first port of call in the event of my illness or that of a member of my family.
Enter the faith healer.
A faith healer is one who claims to use the power of a god or gods to be able to cure ills without medical intervention. The ills they claim to cure may be ones that the medical profession cannot presently cure or ones for which there is known treatment regardless of whether that treatment is always successful, may last a long time or may be almost as painful to the sufferer as the illness itself. Many people believe that by visiting shrines, sprinkling holy water, performing spells and visiting faith healers they will be healed.
Perhaps it doesn't matter overmuch with those who are considered incurable, perhaps such "cures" will give them peace of mind and allow them to pass from this life in some easier fashion ... I'm not even unconvinced that a positive frame of mind (such as might be generated by a faith healer) could not positively affect a number of conditions.
However it does matter if people are being convinced that a faith healer will heal them when there is a recognised cure for their illness ... if the faith healers are right and they can cure the ills of a given individual then they can do no harm but if they cannot then they stand to do a great deal of harm to an individual as that person may not then seek the aid of a conventional medic and perhaps increase then damage the illness is doing to them.
Obviously the first reason for scepticism is the claim that a force or person, invisible to us and undetectable to science is capable of materially affecting us or our universe ... true there are a number of forces that are invisible to us and arguably even undetectable but those forces have nevertheless been theoretically accounted for as a necessary part of some explanation for a given phenomenon. The second reason for scepticism is that such faith healers often gain out of such cures by which I mean they are given money or goods or they sell something or whatever and in that respect my scepticism is little different than it is to the scepticism I show for private health services ... I simply cannot be absolutely sure that a suggested course of treatment is necessary for my health or the financial health of the individual or company concerned.
The third, and major, reason for scepticism is that virtually all the faith-based or magical cures I have ever seen on television or read about in the media have been unverifiable. I have seen documentaries about faith healers where you can see the "healers" pulling bloody tissue from a person with no puncture in that persons skin; I have heard claims of people who "felt" a tumour shrink beneath their hands as they prayed over a person and laid their hands upon them; I have heard astounding stories of cancer remission (though sceptics are keen to point out that misdiagnoses can occur); I have seen TV documentaries where people, apparently suffering with arthritis or wheel-chair bound, stand, throw their crutches and walk but I have never, ever seen a visible wound or disfigurement healed in front of my eyes and call me cynical if you will.
Does God have something against amputees? Why does it never seem to happen (even in a fictional setting) that a priest will lay their hands on someone missing both legs and say "in the name of Jesus, heal thyself?" Jesus is the son of God right? And God created the universe right? So why is it that regenerating the missing limbs of amputees the world over apparently so problematic? Imagine for a moment a man wearing shorts and on a Zimmer frame hobbling up to a podium upon which a minister is preaching and the preacher does his faith healing and the man throws away his frame and starts dancing around on a brand new leg ... would that not be amazing? Would that not show the true power of god almighty? But the simple fact is that it never happens ... that leads me to suspect foul play.
Imagine what such miracle healing could do for Siamese twins, for bald men, for people whose faces have been disfigured by fire or horrific car accidents. If such claims were genuine why don't faith healers (who seem to want to assure us they are carrying out their amazing crafts for God and out of God's love for us) ride in ambulances, get staff positions in the A&E departments of hospitals, perhaps even in other specialist units ... even if it only worked a few percent of the times they tried it would be amazing.
The answer, of course, is obvious ... the practitioners of these strange cult healing sessions known as well as I do that that faith healing is essentially bogus, that they are carrying out the deception for an ulterior motive either money or new followers or for some other gain. They know as well as I do that they will never allow their practices to be put to a verifiable, properly analytical, test procedure ... if a minister were to put him or herself to the test like that each day of the week by the end of that week his or her claims would be starting to look more than a little less credible.
Despite this many people will give testament to their belief that their god healed them (though it's worth noting that few can account for why he let them get sick in the first place), often despite the fact that they have also sought professional medical help, and it is claimed that in the US that 80% of people pray when they are ill as a means of justifying faith-healing claims ... yet people with faith still turn to their doctors when they are ill.
In Pennsylvania 6 children apparently died of measles because their parents, members of a faith-healing congregation, had refused to allow them to be immunised and dozens more may well have died were it not for the swift action of the state using a court order to immunise the remaining children.
One proponent of faith-based healing is American David Larson who, from his multi-millionaire (Sir John Templeton) backed, Christ focussed "National Institute for Healthcare Research" organisation, claims to be simply a "numbers man" yet shows acute selectivity about the data he quotes (Courcey). Whilst wealthy religious businessmen may well seem to be the benefactors of the human race such research should be viewed with caution, scepticism, critical thought & reliance on established scientific principles as it is evident that hidden agendas exist and are not necessarily focussed on the healthcare they claim themselves to be.
If such cures really worked many of our scientists could turn their attentions to other areas of research and be replaced by committees attempting to decided whether a particular sequence of words in a prayer could change the effectiveness of a treatment or if a given religion could actually perform the cure better than another, pharmaceutical companies would go out of business overnight.
If such faith healers really could cure the ills they claim to be able to then why aren't they working in hospitals, curing the known incurables, performing their magic's under known & observable conditions?