Modern Medicine The New World Religion

Put forth in this book is the assertion that medicine is actually ruled by a set of beliefs, myths, and rites of Christianity it has never freed itself from. Supporting this claim are discussions about the ways in which physicians have taken the place of priests, vaccination plays the same role as baptism, the search for health has replaced the quest for salvation, and the hope of physical immortality (cloning and genetic engineering) takes priority over eternal life. This book argues that the medical establishment has become the government's ally, as the Catholic Church has in the past. "Charlatans" are prosecuted today, as "heretics" were in the past, and dogmatism rules out promising medical theories. It contends that only by becoming aware of how religious beliefs and primitive fears unconsciously influence one's relationships with medicine can people start walking on the path of freedom, personal responsibility, and individual sovereignty.

Religious beliefs and customs can significantly shape patients' and professionals' attitudes toward, and expectations of, healthcare, as well as their wishes and personal boundaries regarding such daily matters as dress, diet, prayer and touch. Undoubtedly, the sensitivity with which clinicians communicate with patients and make decisions regarding appropriate medical intervention can be greatly increased by an understanding of religious as well as other forms of cultural diversity. This second edition of a popular and established text offers healthcare students and professionals a clear and concise overview of health beliefs and practices in world religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism, Taoism, Sikhism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Adopting a consistent structure, each chapter considers the demographic profile of the community, the religion’s historical development, and key beliefs and practices, including views regarding health and sickness, death, and dying. Each chapter also ends with a useful checklist of advice on what to do and what to avoid, along with recommendations for further reading, both online and in print form. The book’s clear and consistent style ensures that readers with little background knowledge can find the information they need and assimilate it easily. A brand new chapter on applications and a set of new case studies illustrating issues in clinical practice enhance this wide-ranging book’s value to students and practitioners alike.

In modern societies the functional differentiation of medicine and religion is the predominant paradigm. Contemporary therapeutic practices and concepts in healing systems, such as Transpersonal Psychology, Ayurveda, as well as Buddhist and Anthroposophic medicine, however, are shaped by medical as well as religious or spiritual elements. This book investigates configurations of the entanglement between medicine, religion, and spirituality in Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa. How do political and legal conditions affect these healing systems? How do they relate to religious and scientific discourses? How do therapeutic practitioners position themselves between medicine and religion, and what is their appeal for patients?

When Jesus said, “Suffer the children,” faith healing is not what he had in mind

Explores the interplay of medicine and religion in Western societies. Medicine and Religion is the first book to comprehensively examine the relationship between medicine and religion in the Western tradition from ancient times to the modern era. Beginning with the earliest attempts to heal the body and account for the meaning of illness in the ancient Near East, historian Gary B. Ferngren describes how the polytheistic religions of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome and the monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have complemented medicine in the ancient, medieval, and modern periods. Ferngren paints a broad and detailed portrait of how humans throughout the ages have drawn on specific values of diverse religious traditions in caring for the body. Religious perspectives have informed both the treatment of disease and the provision of health care. And, while tensions have sometimes existed, relations between medicine and religion have often been cooperative and mutually beneficial. Religious beliefs provided a framework for explaining disease and suffering that was larger than medicine alone could offer. These beliefs furnished a theological basis for a compassionate care of the sick that led to the creation of the hospital and a long tradition of charitable medicine. Praise for Medicine and Health Care in Early Christianity, by Gary B. Ferngren "This fine work looks forward as well as backward; it invites fuller reflection of the many senses in which medicine and religion intersect and merits wide readership."—JAMA "An important book, for students of Christian theology who understand health and healing to be topics of theological interest, and for health care practitioners who seek a historical perspective on the development of the ethos of their vocation."—Journal of Religion and Health

Spirituality and healthcare is an emerging field of research, practice and policy. Healthcare organisations and practitioners are therefore challenged to understand and address spirituality, to develop their knowledge and implement effective policy. This is the first reference text on the subject providing a comprehensive overview of key topics.

Tracing the movement during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Schoepflin illuminates its struggle for existence against the efforts of organized American medicine to curtail its activities.".

“[A] useful, well-edited anthology of important texts in the history of the intersection of religion and medicine.” —Warren Kinghorn, MD, ThD, Duke University Medical Center and Duke Divinity School Gary B. Ferngren and Ekaterina N. Lomperis have gathered a rich collection of annotated primary sources that illustrate the intersection of medicine and religion. Intended as a companion volume to Ferngren’s classic Medicine and Religion, which traces the history of the relationship of medicine to religion in the Western world from the earliest ancient Near Eastern societies to the twenty-first century, this useful and extensive sourcebook places each key document in historical context. Drawing from more than 160 texts, the book explores a number of themes, including concepts of health, the causes and cure of disease, medical ethics, theodicy, beneficence, religious healing, consolation, and death and dying. Each chapter begins with an introduction that furnishes a basic historical setting for the period covered. Modern translations, some of which have been made especially for this volume, are used whenever possible. The texts are numbered sequentially within each chapter and preceded by a short introduction to both the author and the subject. Touching on Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel, Greece, Rome, the European Middle Ages, Islam, early modern Europe, and the modern era, Essential Readings in Medicine and Religion brings a wide range of sources together to expand on the crucial lessons of Medicine and Religion. This book is a useful introduction for all students of history, divinity, medicine, and health.

Do ancient religious practices help in healing today? Is prayer of benefit? If so, what kind of prayers? What about "laying on of hands" or "casting out demons?" Over three-fourths of patients entering a hospital wish that their health-care providers would consider their spiritual needs as part of their medical care. Yet, most patients-along with their health-care professionals-struggle to understand how to use this spiritual side in healing. Modern healthcare is based upon science and often sees religion as getting in the way of healing. However, when humans combine our religious and spiritual nature with the science of modern medicine, we have the most powerful tool for healing the world has ever known. This book dares to explore this very personal aspect of human life that has had very little written about it-the private spiritual beliefs that people share with their doctors, spiritual advisors, and families when they are ill, injured, or frightened about their health. Here are the true stories of how people have used their spiritual side for healing. Many will mystify and give us chills!

There is a growing interest in studies that document the relationship between science and medicine - as ideas, practices, technologies and outcomes - across cultural, national, geographic terrain. Tibetan medicine is not only known as a scholarly medical tradition among other Asian medical systems, with many centuries of technological, clinical, and pharmacological innovation; it also survives today as a complex medical resource across many Asian nations - from India and Bhutan to Mongolia, Tibet (TAR) and China, Buryatia - as well as in Western Europe and the Americas. The contributions to this volume explore, in equal measure, the impacts of western science and biomedicine on Tibetan grounds - i.e., among Tibetans across China, the Himalaya and exile communities as well as in relation to globalized Tibetan medicine - and the ways that local practices change how such “science” gets done, and how this continually hybridized medical knowledge is transmitted and put into practice. As such, this volume contributes to explorations into the bi-directional flows of medical knowledge and practice.