DOCTORS RECOMMENDING FAITH AND CHRISTIAN CHAPLAINS IN HOSPITALS
Should doctors and psychiatrists and psychologists who are Christian advise
patients to think about Christianity?
Some medical professionals think they have this right on the basis that the
patients might find involvement in Christianity helpful to coping with illness
or getting into a more positive frame of mind.
They are hypocrites. If God comes first as they say, then it is a sin to encourage
people to take up religion for their own benefit. That is them using religion
and God with the intent to put themselves first. The true Christian will only
help himself for God's sake and not his own.
No Christian patient wants to go to a Muslim doctor and be advised to consider
Islam. The Christian doctors would frown on that but many of them hypocritically
think that Christianity should have special rights. They would suggest
Christianity to a patient of any faith or none and refuse the right to a Sikh
doctor to recommend his faith to a patient.
Studies seem to indicate that religious people are happier than the
non-religious. That might be down to the fact that religious people tend to form
supportive communities. Religious people being happier does not mean that
religion as such makes them happier. It is the community spirit that does that.
The studies are based on very subjective information.
They do not ask the religious or non-religious person to rate her or his
happiness on a scale of 1 to 10.
It could be that a minority of religious people suffer so much because of their
faith, say the terror of everlasting Hell, that it outweighs the happiness. The
fear of Hell or the sense of Catholic guilt can draw a person into a depression.
Perhaps when a Christian says they are happy just to be rescued from Hell.
Taken as a whole, the unbelievers could be happier.
Many of the people who are unbelievers do not enjoy their unbelief because they
have not learned enough about self-help and because their unbelief is riddled
with doubt. They may simply take it for granted that there is no God but the
fear of being wrong will be with them when they are conscious of not having
thought it through properly.
Medical professionals must take a scientific approach. Thus recommending
religion to a patient is not on. It suggests that whatever faith the patient has
should be dropped for the sake of adopting Christianity. Christianity can be
very destructive to many. The Catholics adore bread and wine at Mass instead of
God and that is degrading. If there is a God, he will be repulsed by it.
The medical professional should exercise rapport and really listen to the
patient and prescribe medicine if necessary. Anything further than that is
unprofessional.
CHAPLAINS
Being from a Catholic background, I can honestly say that if I were seriously ill the last person I would want to see would be a Catholic chaplain. Behind the niceness there is a dark side to the Bible and to the Christian faith. And the presence of somebody who believes an unbaptised baby should be loved less by God than a baptised one is offensive to me as is that of somebody who thinks if you have sex outside marriage you ask for eternal damnation.
The chaplain would not be near you if he was not paid. And I never see chaplains working hard. Most patients never encounter them.
And the chaplain is a representative of a form of faith and even if prayer and Catholic faith are not mentioned they do not have to be for he is still advertising a faith. The terror I have seen in some dying people's eyes because a priest could not be had to "forgive" their sins in the last rites outweighs any good done. Nobody has the right to make believers on their deathbed feel that they might go to Hell forever. Even if they seem content that fear will be there.
A Christian has a duty to invite everybody to come to Jesus for forgiveness and to come in faith. A chaplain who does not mention religion is a hypocrite. The argument that having a chaplain is fine as long as they don't mention or encourage prayer and belief shows no understanding of what a Christian is and enables religious hypocrites who are only going around the wards as chaplains for the money. If religion does not matter then why religious chaplains?
And whatever about chaplains making a living the celibate priest gets the same as the vicar with a family of ten and there are never any Christian complaints about the wages being too high. The Mormons are right that religious ministry should be given free and without charge especially if religion really is a good thing and religion is God’s creation that he sets up by bestowing his divine help and grace that overcomes human weakness.
Money is wasted for though people need somebody to listen to them it does not have to be a chaplain. Most people are religious sceptics even if they have a basic belief in God or Jesus. The NHS does not care about this for it usually just selects Catholic and protestant pastors and how predictable is that? If most of us were militant atheists the Catholic priests and protestant ministers would still expect the job. Let the NHS spend money on fixing our sick bodies and minds but not on chaplains. If you want a chaplain for your loved one go and ask THEIR minister to visit them in the hospital.
An evangelical chaplain who tells patients to go to Christ for forgiveness or go to Hell will be fired. Only chaplains who are in fact only out to make a living and who dishonestly water down Christianity are welcomed.
"EXTREMIST" HEALERS
What if a doctor loses faith in medicine and starts advocating the healing power of prayer instead? That can happen. Or the doctor may take the view that it is your choice if you want medicine or prayer or both and that he must encourage you to make that choice. A good doctor will respect your choice but will not encourage you to discard essential medicine even if you want to discard it for prayer.
Some sects such as the Followers of Christ and Christian Science ban going to the doctor. They judge those who go as having a lack of faith in God's power to heal. The Followers of Christ have killed loads of children through neglect because they depended on prayer to cure them. When the children died in agony the sect simply argued that prayer did help. And as God is in control the children would still have died had they been helped by medicine. They argue that God knows better than human statistics which say medicine would have saved the children. Sadly their view is quite logical if there is a God!! Even if there is not a God it is still logical behaviour for a believer! Faith is not worth the loss of one of those lives!
There is a thin line between seeing doctors as only being any good as divine instruments and dispensable. Believers in God hold that going to the doctor is depending on God not the doctor just as much as if we had to be treated by prayer alone. So they regard the doctor as useless as much as those who will not go to doctors do. The reason they go to the doctor is that they think God has chosen to use doctors. It is about God not doctors.
If you believe wrongly that God bans doctors God has to respect this belief. God being of supreme importance implies faith in God is of supreme importance as well. Religion says even God has to respect your faith even if it is wrong though he is entitled to kindly challenge it. God will honour your faith even if it is misplaced so God has to reward you for killing yourself and anybody else who you turn against doctors.
The believers whether they go to doctors or not in the name of religion are fanatical in their attitude and the attitude risks spilling over and will spill over into action.
The harm goes with God and with faith so they are unhealthy.
