91 thoughts on ““Biblical” Medical Discoveries”

  1. Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities. (1 Timothy 5:23)

    Now that’s a Biblical cure that I can support… 😀

      2. Y’all do know why most protestant churches use grape juice, don’t you? It’s because Mr. Welch was Methodist, and Methodists were big into the temperance movement. Can you say opportunist? Until then, communion was always served with wine – even in Baptist churches.

      1. Strange but true – I’d never ever heard of Welch’s Grape Juice until I read this post. And then two cartons of the very same stuff arrived in my groceries today that I’d ordered on line.

        Do you think God’s trying to tell me something?

  2. LOL!!! when i was a kid, i had horrible nose bleeds almost daily at school. I would often get sent home because the school nurse couldnt get them to stop. anyways, some older lady at church told my mom to write a scripture on a card from the book of ezekiel about some dude lying in his own blood and make me read it aloud 3 times and the bleeding would stop. bible magic! not! i finally had to have the exposed vein cauterized.

    1. Maybe you just didn’t have enough faith and the exposed vein was your punishment! J/K! 🙂

    2. Bible magic! That bugs me so much! I remember a “church” teen at our youth group telling a new teen to put a Bible under your pillow at night so you wouldn’t have bad dreams! Nice. The Bible as your own personal talisman.

  3. I wonder how many people know that JH Kellog invented his corn flakes as a tool in the “battle against vile affections”. It was believed that eating lots of meat would induce sexual activity, like masturbati0n. Hence him inventing the flakes as an alternative breakfast food. Of course he took it further, trying to demonstrate that abstention from sex is healthy. He never consumated his marriage.

      1. Whew! That felt like a close one. I’ll forever associate the Mutsch’s w/ the song “birthday sex” though. 🙂

        2. Let’s all form a Kellog cult. I mean, we’ve all got experience with how the laws of Fundyland work … 😎

        3. Bass – but Henry Allingham, the last British WW I Veteran who died earlier this year at the ripe old age of 113, attributed his longevity to, and I quote:

          He had two explanations for his longevity. The first, which proved age had not dimmed his sense of humour, was “cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women”.

          😛

        4. @BASSENCO – Yeah, he lived to be 91. Without sex. I’ll trade a few years for sex. 😀

    3. “He never consumated his marrige.”

      Louis,
      Please tell me your joking. What kind of idiot gets married and then does not consumate? What’s the point of even getiing mariied and then never consumating(by no means am i saying that sex is the reason to get married)? Why not just stay single?

      2. I’d never heard that story, but a significant number of people who are in odd sex-free or rare-sex marriages based on religious reasons, one or both usually are denying their own orientation. Not necessarily a majority, but a significant amount of them are.

    4. Kellogg is also the reason for the prevalence of non-Jewish male infant circumcision in this country. He advocated it for those reasons Louis mentions. Apparently stuff is less fun that way. Just sayin’.

  4. I remember a claim made by more than one Fundie private school Science teacher about how George Washington shouldn’t of died of bloodletting because The Bible has somewhere, an obvious statement about how blood is essential to life. Followed by skimming over his doctor’s motivation for bloodletting, and making some trite statement about how he (or his doctor) should of opened The Bible for the answer.

    This was presented as prologue, to show how The Bible knows about science, before we started that long chapter on Creation. (and refutation of Evolution.)

      1. Interesting that in the 1980’s a review of traditional remedies was conducted, and blood letting apparently did gain some credibility. Don’t remember all the particulars, but apparently it increased white blood cell count when done in a limited way (as was always intended). James Herriot (James Alfred Wight) wrote that in the days before antibiotics, when all else failed, his veterinarian senior, Siegfried Farnon (Donald Sinclair) would resort to bloodletting in inflammatory illnesses in horses, and more than once he plucked a victory out of almost certain defeat. Pretty cool to read about.

        1. It’s also useful for cases of polycythemia. In fact, giving blood every few weeks often works as treatment for polycythemia.

    2. I remember this little gem of an article. It seems to me that it was in BJU Press’ Health Book. It came somewhere in the chapter on circulation. It made perfect sense to me at the time, but lots of things make sense when you are programmed not to think about them.

      I always liked the sections in history books that were very critical about the Enlightenment because it emphasized man’s reasoning which is “obviously” wrong. We wouldn’t want people reasoning now, would we?

    3. The obvious advantage and absolute safety of hirudotherapy is checked up by thousands of years of experience of mankind and does not cause any doubts. One of the first substances found in salivary glands of medicinal leech is hirudin-the substance oppressing the process of blood clotting. Then such anticoagulating substances as ferment destabilaza,ingibitors of plazmine,callecrein of plasmine and others were opened. Factors of diffusion-ferments of gialuronidaza,collagenaza,the factors appressing the mediators of pain-cininaza,antisclerous factors were investigated as well. Again opened substances are studied. Thus,a medicinal leech is a small “factory” manufacturing biologically active substances. The result of action of biologically active substances on an alive organism are:

      -normalization and improvement of capillary circulation;
      -expressed antiinflammation effect;
      -antistressful and adaptogene effects;
      -immunostimulating and immunomodulating effects;
      -anesthesia;
      -anticoagulation;
      -antibacterial effect;
      -improvement of an endocellular exhange and the realization of these mechanisms has both local and general character.

      The existence of skin-visceral connections with the definite organs is well known. Biologically active substances act to organs during the blood-sucking work of medicinal leeches through viens. It promotes the improvement of blood circulation in the certain organ,renders trombolitic,antiinflammatory,immunostimulating action,raises nutrition of tissues, strengthens tissues immunity. It’s impossible to name all diseases which can be treated by using hirudotherapy. It’s easier to name contra-indications here :
      absolute-hemophilia,
      relative-pregnancy,anemia,hypotonia.

      1. It’s true. Leeches are currently used in some of the best hospitals in the US, not just in backwoods clinics.

    1. A bunch of women at my former workplace all went to the same church and they were promoting the “Daniel Diet”–nothing but veggies and water. Oh it worked to help them lose weight–never mind the fact that it almost sent half of them into hypoglycemia.

      1. I had a HORRIBLE experience at his hands over 30 years ago. I had just gotten married, had a miscarriage and was sent to see him. (as the only doctor who they ever sent students to) He did a D and C in his office with NO ANTESTETIC and three nurses and his wife holding me down. It was positively the WORST thing that has ever happened to me in my life. Before my husband carried me out to our car his wife lectured me about letting myself get pregnant in the first place. (I believe she had about 8 or 9 kids at the time) Over 30 years and that memory is still vivid.

        1. I had a terribly painful and UNNECESSARY procedure done in his office, never went back, paid the bill in great anger, and years later, up pops this weird bill on my credit rating FROM HIM!!!! My banker just laughed at it, and got rid of it, but I mean to say! Not only was he a fraud and a quack as far as practicing medicine, but he was a cheater as far as double-billing!

  6. That cartoon definitely demonstrates the mindset behind the way fundies approach the Scriptures.

    Since leaving fundyland, I’ve come to appreciate the genre and context of Scripture. I never could go back to my previous way of thinking about Scripture now that I’ve seen the light. It’s kind of funny (and rather embarrassing) to consider how I approached Scripture while in fundyland, though.

  7. My favorite came from a roommate in college.
    The cure for insomnia is to read or listen to the Bible. He told me the devil will put you to sleep.

    Any type of reading before bed puts me to sleep, so I could never really check this out.

    1. “The cure for insomnia is to read or listen to the Bible. He told me the devil will put you to sleep.”

      Save money! No need for sleeping pills or NyQuil, just use the devil! LOL

        1. That’s a stretch. Those only rhyme if you are a fundy preacher trying to put people into a trance!

        2. Kevin would probably deny the Satan/Santa connection too. He talks like a liberal who reads from some modern perversion. 😛

      2. I admit I like that one, as if the Devil really wants people to get a good night’s sleep. It’s especially effective when reading the Begats; anybody ever get all the way through those? 😀

  8. My mother in law and grandmother are both of this persuasion.

    They don’t eat pork because they have translated a verse in the OT to deem so. Their standard response is if pork wasn’t bad for you why do doctors tell you not to eat it?

    They are also really into the natural healing stuff.

    1. Singing and praising–Psalm 30:12 To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever.

      But obviously evil people (people against IFB) resort to surgery rather than “praising their pain away as is proved by Psalm 37:38 But the transgressors shall be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be cut off.

      1. Wow! You’re really good at that Fundie Bible interpretation! Can’t argue with scripture, right?

  10. I find it interesting how a lot of these Bible “cures” and rules always coincide with the pastor’s/authority figure’s personal taste. Like we had a pastor once who preached that it was a sin to eat any meat cooked anything less than well-done or get a tattoo (he’d found one obscure verse also in Leviticus). But it was ok to eat shellfish and pork ribs because we’re not under the Law.

    1. Oh, that is sooo true. My ex-pastor was scared to death of Mad Cow disease back when there were a few cases of it–he insisted that a media conspiracy was keeping us from finding out that people were dropping dead from it like flies and therefore he bullied and threatened until all of us went completely off beef for several years. He also thought sushi was disgusting, and when he found out that my brothers and I liked it, he bullied us from the pulpit by name (not jokingly–he was being completely serious and ill-tempered) for eating that nasty pagan food.

  11. This usually goes hand in hand with the conspiracy theory crowd.

    The logic is as follows:
    If I as a fundamentalist am always right, that means I must know enough to be right (I have to understand medicine, science, etc.). Since I don’t have anything resembling an advanced education, then the truth about everything must be so simple that formal education is not required. This means that the truth (my opinion) is understandable to anyone. Those liberal educated people must have either not come acrose this painfully simple and obviously superior and exclusive truth that I have unearthed with minimal effort; or they know the truth, but are hiding it! Enter any number of conspiracies involving the medical industry, large drug companies, the government, the boy scouts, the X-Files, barcodes, and academic accreditation.

    1. That explains the craaazzzzyyyy fundamentalist/conspiracy theorist/housewife that tried persuade me that eating my vegetables would cure my cancer.

      1. My SIL thought that would happen, that she would get rid of her breast cancer first by juicing lots of carrots and eating lots of vegetables (recommended by her natureopathic “doctor”), then by this alternative treatment (in Germany) that put her in a sort of diabetic “coma” to attack the cancer cells.

        She deteriorated so rapidly that they had a hard time convincing the airlines to let her fly back home before she died. 🙁

    3. Classic. You described my parents to a “T”. They do not trust doctors. I went to PCC as a nursing major. I think they let me do it because then I would be their own personal doctor. They stopped asking my opinion when I kept saying, “my Gosh! go to the Dr for that!” They don’t trust the gov’t. Don’t trust doctors. Schools. My mom moved a couple houses on to their property to fill them with books because she believes there is a plot for the libraries to get rid of all the good books. Some day all the libraries will be shut down and people will have to come to her for books.

      1. Oh, no! I’m alternatively laughing and wincing about the library! I have a lot of Beverly Lewis and Jeanette Oke books; I don’t like them, but I haven’t wanted to get rid of them because someday one of my kids might want to read them and the libraries just might not continue to stock Christian books. I can totally see myself filling houses full of books lest “Fahrenheit 451” become a reality! But I don’t want to be part of crazy land!

        1. Oh those books are way too new. She goes to all the big library sales and school auctions and gets the old books that are rejected. Proof positive that they are getting rid of all the good books. I love books too, I have a big collection of old books myself. I have them because they are hard to find but I don’t think there is a vast conspiracy going on to get rid of all the books. She sends me the ones she has multiple copies of. They get rid of them because they are out of date or falling apart. One book she gave me was written in the 50s and talking about space. It ended with, “And some day we may even go to the moon.” Gee Golly! Why would I want my kids reading that?

        2. Oh, hate christian romance novels. They are so predictable with verses peppered through it. Always ends with, not marriage, but marriage then a baby. Now we know they will have their happily ever after.

        3. I’m pretty unsatisfied with most Christian fiction out there right now – unfortunately. And I understand about authors wanting to avoid gratuitous sexuality, but when a writer spends 200 pages detailing every thought of a character as she agonizes over whether the hero loves her or not, and then says NOTHING about what the character thinks about her wedding night – it just doesn’t ring true.

        4. Try ‘The Lowlands of Scotland’ by Liz Curtis Higgs- it’s not graphic, but you definitely get a bit more of a look into the bedroom. Unlike Janette Oke’s “They went to bed and woke up the next morning.” Blaaaaaaaah.

        5. I don’t read fiction much, but when I do, I never consider “Christian” fiction. Greatest fiction book I’ve read in a decade (read a couple years ago) was Kite Runner. I can’t recommend it enough.

        7. Don’t worry; they won’t be banning Christian “literature.” They’ll get rid of real books that actually make you think, like Catch 22, Animal Farm, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, 1984, and The Jungle. You know, the ones the Fundies already banned.

  12. This is one thing I did not experience in Fundamentalism. If anything, I got weird looks if I even mentioned any form of alternative/complementary medicine. I try to keep up with stuff and promptly toss out what is clearly malarkey. Homeopathy went out the window pretty quickly for me once I looked into it. I even tried some of it just to say I gave it a shot, and it had no effect (as expected).

    To think that there are Fundamentalists doing homeopathy makes my skin crawl.

    1. Oh yes, fundies are big into homeopathy/alternative medicine. Picking and choosing what science you want to listen to has its advantages, apparently.

      1. Granted, I’m probably quite a bit older than many of the posters, and I have been away from the insides of Fundyland for nearly 15 years; but I am still surprised.

        To think that there has been a shift from thinking that alternative medicine is for “hippies” to being perfectly acceptable among them blows my mind.

        I have noticed the hoopla among some Christians since I got out over stuff like the Hallelujah Diet and Young Living essential oil, but I had no idea they got that far into Fundamentalism. I once went to a YL party at a Lutheran church. Sorry, although I like aromatherapy, there’s no way I’ll do it like they do. No no no.

  13. My favorite memory of the “homeopathic/Biblical healing” movement (and, yes, I have quite a few to pick from) is the time that some women in our church were discussing the great success they had found using the following advice:

    Take a bottle of vitamins/medicine/whatever-nasty-thing-you-heard-recommended-somewhere, and hold it at arm’s length. If it feels right (and don’t ask them to define what “right” means here), then you should take it.

    In a nice little bout of irony, both women were definitely more unhealthy than most people at our church (eg: obese, one suffered from migraines and weakness, not to mention both were obviously not mentally sharp, etc.).

    It was one of the only times I really didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing at all. Sometimes trying to “edify” others just isn’t worth the mental gymnastics.

    1. Beckyboo What you are describing is a form of applied kinesiology/muscle testing. A woman in my former church was really into it. What a bunch of junk!!

      1. Yeah, my mom does that kind of stuff. I never put a lot of stock in it. Once I used it to test to see if certain people were good for me, just for kicks.

  14. My favorite is the group that advocates a “Back to Genesis” diet. Their theory is that in the first chapter of Genesis Adam was a vegetarian and that’s why he lived so long. My theory is that, without clothes, Adam got extra doses of Vitamin D!

  16. Once I picked up an 1885 version of “Pilgrim’s Progress” at a library sale! But even I would draw the line at outdated science books!

  17. I guess I don’t understand what’s so weird about preferring alternative treatments if you can help it. I mean, I’m all for doctor visits and rx’s (I’m on Zoloft), but some disorders can be solved if you take the right amounts of something you’re deficient in a particular nutrient.
    Also, I never thought of it as an IFB thing. Guess it depends which camp you’re in.

    1. The problem is that a lot of these alternate treatments (e.g. homeopathy, “natural” cancer treatments) simply don’t work. People who promote this nonsense cause others to die because of their willful, criminal ignorance.

      1. There are lies and distortions on both sides of the aisle when it comes to the medical debate. You have the homeopathic group lying and distorting things about their treatments and you have the RX and MDA crowd lying about their drugs. That’s what makes it such a difficult debate.

      2. Like my friend who died because her husband tried to cure her pancreatic cancer with massive doses of vitamins and foot baths. (Of course, he found his next wife before her body was even cold.

  18. In my Fundy experience, homeopathic and “new age” medicine are wrong, but Bible cures are good things. Oddly enough, it seems to me that there is usually no real difference between them – except that the “good” version often seems to cost more. I guess the magical elixer is more magical when it is purchased from a Man of Gid. 🙄

  19. The folks that promote alturnative medical advice seem to be taking their information third, fourth, fifth, etc., hand and it’s always based on the premise that someone in the professional field is less than honest with the public. For instance, I take Paxil and it is “common knowledge” that St. Johns Wart “does the same thing”….NO THANK-YOU! My doc is a very good doctor and between him and the makers of Paxil, my life has never been better. That said, the folks that want to sell you the “organic” or “natural” methods of healing are trying to make money too….in the end, *trust the professionals* and appeal to common sense. BUT! I do recommend the documentary *Supersize Me!*…great stuff (it falls into the category of “common sense” ) 😀

  21. I have friends who are strongly naturopathic believers. They believe that my PCOS and my dad’s cancer can be healed by eating right, taking supplements, and exercising – because it is God’s will for us all to be healthy. Any mention of the eventuality of Dad’s death or the uncertainty of my ability to bear children elicits a look of pained “if only you did things right” from my friend.

    I’ve actually really deeply struggled with the fact that I have PCOS to begin with – in my darkest moments, I wonder if it’s God’s way of punishing me for having sex with my husband before getting married. I know in my head that this is absolutely false, but there’s enough of a doubt to be torturous at times.

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