Is it a lack of faith for a believer to visit a doctor or hospital?

Throughout the Bible, there are many passages where people are miraculously healed...the blind, dumb, devil-possessed, lame and even the dead brought back to life. According to scripture, it was their faith that healed them. If these instances are all true, then why would modern day believers seek medical attention, use prescription drugs, have surgery performed, etc.?
I've often wondered this question.

There are no aetheists in foxholes sort of mentality I think. :)

she had cancer and recieved only prayers until the very end when her husband insisted on pain meds- which were only given when other CS parents and "prayer practitioners" weren't around. It was so unbelievably sad and wasteful. :-(

You either believe or you don't!! Sure he got killed but he was true to his belief!

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Christian or Jew refuse to seek medical treatment. It has nothing to do with faith.

.....only for neocon/fundies. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

The guy sitting on his roof above flood waters. Another man comes along in a rowboat and offers to take him to safety, but the man says, "No thank you. The Lord will save me."

A rescue helicopter hovers overhead, offering to take the man to safety. He says, "No thank you. The Lord will save me."

The man drowns and goes to heaven. When he meets God, he asks, "Why didn't you save me?

God answers, "Didn't you see the rowboat and the helicopter?"

and require physical intervention in order to keep the machine running. God is a spirit. He handles that end of it.

God gave us our brains to use, and our doctors and hospitals to use

sometimes about "everyday" activities that some people take for granted.

there are some denominations that would not approve of doctors, or hospitals, or certain treatments.

It also depends on the person, there may be some members of a faith that didn't believe in doctors or hospitals who would use them and feel fine about it.

There may be some who are members of a denomination that feels doctors and hospitals are put here by God and are meant for us to use, who never go to doctors or hospitals for a variety of reasons.

I suspect there are just some people that don't like doctors (on second thought, who does like them)
or hospitals (they are no place for sick people for sure) and avoid them.

But I think that the reality is that as a society we have to some degree replaced the spiritual leader of our "tribes" with doctors.

And to some degree we have medicalized a lot of human problems that didn't use to be called illness.

We've given doctors and the medical profession a lot of power in our lives through this process.

It's power that the priest, or clergy might have had in the past.

and more than one kind of doctor. I know doctors who use techniques such as touch therapy and hypnosis-and who encourage emotional clearing and biofeedback. These folks know about mind as healer, energy fields, and field transactions. They follow the latest in scientific studies on such things. As a believer that all things are God, that God evolves and changes with continuing creation, and that we can find out more about the nature of God by using science, actually to go to doctors with an open mind is practicing my faith.

was a story in which a man took an ailing man into his home and annointed him with oil. I suppose the oil was to help heal the wounds.

it could be a true "miracle" it could also be the phenomenon that pervades the majority of medical practice today, the placebo effect.

A large percentage of people who go to the doctor have illnesses that are self-limiting (colds, flu, etc.) and will get better whether they see the doctor or not. There is a phenomenon where people start to feel better as soon as they get to the physician's waiting room. Placebo effect.

Actually if you look at the PDR (physician's desk reference) you find that a lot of medicines that are listed, have buried in the text, "mechanism of action is unknown, but presumed to be"

In other words, they don't know why they work. Could be a physiological mechanism, or a placebo mechanism.

Faith healing isn't limited to spiritual practitioners, belief that medical science and your health care practitioner can help you are also factors in favorable outcomes for treatment of serious disorders (that don't go away on their own).

as I live in Arkansas too and was trained in biofeedback and hypnosis, when I worked at a pain clinic, but had a hard time getting the referrals from the pain clinic's own doctors.

I now don't practice biofeedback or use hypnosis much in my practice as I work in a hospital inpatient psychiatric unit.

But I consider it a temporary stop along the way until I can do what I really want to do which is to use biofeedback, hypnosis, EFT, and traditional psychotherapy to help people with physical problems that are made worse by, or caused by, problems of a psychological or emotional/energy block nature.

with the "divine plan"?

When I break my arm, I go to a doctor. If the doc tells me there's nothing more medical science can do, I ask for God's help. That's the "divine plan".

on science....but science doesn't matter when it pertains to evolution.

that brush is awful heavy

As a Christian who believes in Science, (and there are millions of us) I resent the lumping of all Christians together

Why not say 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Get The Picture!!!!!!!!!

medical attention....moderate, fundamentalists or other? I am not trying to offend, I'm questioning the depth of belief.

Jesus said:
Amen, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it shall be done for him. Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours. (Mark 11:24-25 NAB)

Is it "fundy-like" to believe this verse?

I think that I follow the faith can move mountains but you better bring a shovel philosophy

There are Christians that won't seek medical help. Some of them die. Some don't.

There are atheists, who for any number of reasons don't seek medical help. some of them die, some don't.

I just don't think that literalism is a helpful way to look at scripture.

If I pray to be healed, who's to say that going to the doctor and taking medicine isn't the answer to my prayers?

Two....did Christ seek a physician to help heal the blind, dumb,etc.?
Three...."picking and choosing" and hypocrisy are some of the reasons why some people will not convert.
Four....Are you telling me that Jesus's quotes are not valid? Was he lying? Who is lying?

you seem to suffer from a dilemma of seeing things in black and white

if people won't convert because they expect the bible to be taken completely literally, then I have nothing I can help them with.

Why are you worried about people converting.

I'm telling you Jesus quotes were to a people that lived 2000 years ago.

I don't know anywhere that he said "don't use doctors or hospitals"

Can you show me that scripture?

seems you are the picker and chooser

I'm pretty open minded I think about my beliefs

I just don't get your argument, it seems that you are just determined to find fault with anyone that doesn't hold your views of the bible. (which I find strange)

Mark 2:17: "When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

Nearly identical passages in Luke 5:31 and Matthew 9:12,

in post 23.

Even those who do seek medical attention. Unless you know something I don't....

Where does the line of fundamentalism start.....and/or end?
Who has that authority to say which of Jesus's quotes are valid?
"Pick and choose" seems to be the most popular method.

that's my logic on the matter

if we have doctors to care for us, God gave me a brain

I'll use them if I need them

and I still think your post was hogwash

Thomas doubted what Christ said.

so now you are in the same boat as Jesus?

I'm either not following your logic, or something else?:headbang:

his message wasn't "don't go to doctors, God will cure you"

his message was to love your neighbor as you would want to be loved.

To forgive your enemies.

I don't really know how to go any further

If someone doesn't want to go to doctors, then as long as they don't put children in risk, and are competent to make those decisions (legally competent), then the law says they don't have to do it.

But an evolved society recognizes the error in not using what is "God given" in help available.

And those who don't use that (because of their religion) are given a measure of self-determination on that.

Some Churches handle snakes. They say it takes faith to handle them.

I'm not from that far back in the woods.

or is being a Christian merely a fashion statement for social conformity?

I'm done trying to explain it to you

:)

I became an atheist. The end.

Seriously, what one person sees as a valid quote to be taken literally another person sees as a metaphor to be interpreted. It's all in the eye of the beholder.



Many people see Genesis as a metaphor to be interpreted, but from my studies, I feel that it has to be read literally in order for Christianity to be valid. I'll save my reasoning on that for another time.

Don't knock it. Taking care of your own business instead of leaving it all to God is desirable even by Christians standards ("though shalt not put thy Lord to the test").