Faith healing $£%&%£$

[Ralph-YK]

Just heard a report on the BBC about a faith healer exploiting C19. Selling "protective" oil that cures for £91
BBC - Coronavirus: London church investigated over 'protection' oil
The Telegraph - South London faith healer promises his followers Covid-19 protection with oil and red yarn.

Sometimes I loose faith in humanity.

 

[Andy HB]

Sometimes I loose faith in humanity.

Just remember all the scientists around the world who are working their cotton socks off to create a vaccine and various tests for covid-19.

Snake-oil salesmen will get their come-uppance.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

They probably need to refresh their memories about the reaction of the founder of their faith to folks in temples trying to rip off believers...

12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
Matthew 21 : 12-13

Drove them out with a whip of cords if I remember right.

 

[trophywench]

Faith healing can only be done with Faith !

 

[mikeyB]

Faith healing is a myth, faith has never saved the life of anyone. Maybe that Faith Healer could be nailed to a cross, always a good career move.

 

[trophywench]

All faiths require belief Mike and if the giver and recipient both believe, it can have a powerful effect on the ill person's bodily ability to fight whatever disease etc is invading their body. You know as well as I do that some folk seem to have greater 'inner strength' to fight their gremlins than others do.

Personally I'd think we'd surely be able to find a modern form of punishment (eg castration with a rusty Stanley knife) more appropriate than a very very early Persian (etc) one !

 

[Drummer]

There's always someone willing to plumb the depths.
Some local ratbags have been stealing bicycles from the hospital staff car park - even if locked - so that staff can't get home and back to work with the lack of buses. I'd chain them to a lamp post for a few days and leave them to beg for food from anyone passing.

 

[mikeyB]

I think if the locals find out who did that will be first in line to fulfil your wish, Drummer🙂

 

[Jon-Manchester]

There will always be fools to be exploited.

 

[nonethewiser]

"I'm a Christian and there is a way that the Bible says to protect us from plagues," he said.

Mad as box of frogs.

 

[Docb]

Faith healing is a myth, faith has never saved the life of anyone. Maybe that Faith Healer could be nailed to a cross, always a good career move.

Come on mikeyB, bet there were patients in your past who you thought might be helped by a faith healer. Maybe somebody for whom you could do little and needed somebody with the skills and time to help them to come to terms with the position. Or maybe somebody who's problems were all in the mind and needed something else to focus on rather than their imagined illnesses.

I knew somebody long ago who styled themselves "faith healer" who had many clients who found her helpful. She was an ordained minister in some obscure church who conducted the funerals of both my parents. Fundamentally she was a very good councellor although in those days, councelling did not exist. Did not sell snake oil, just listened and talked and gave time.

As for the bloke mentioned in the original post, he might genuinely believe in his potions or might be a charlatan exploiting the vunerable. Who knows, the Daily Telegraph?

By the way, hope you recognise my normal tendency to look for alternative views of stories in the press. Not saying either is right or wrong.

 

[Ralph-YK]

might be helped by a faith healer.

Is it possible for someone to actually be helped by a faith healer?

I knew somebody long ago who styled themselves "faith healer" who had many clients who found her helpful.

How did they find them helpful.

Fundamentally she was a very good councellor although in those days, councelling did not exist. Did not sell snake oil, just listened and talked and gave time.

That'll be something different to faith healing and alternative medicine.

Placibo effect:
There may be a change in how you perseve symptoms, because of trust or you think you should. (You get the effecct when seeing a doctor.) However, the underlying condition still exists. And continues to cause the same damage.

 

[Alister]

Snake oil salesmen selling covid 19 cures are simply evil, I will have no sympathy for any of them that are surprised when there "Cure" fails to work for them (the sooner the better so we can be rid of this type of person when this all ends)

 

[Andy HB]

I think the placebo effect is a little more complicated than just mere perception. Actual physical improvements can be achieved just because someone believes that they will occur. The mind has a strong influence over the body's functions and does not exist separately from the body.

The same applies to the nocebo effect (the reverse of placebo) where even if you give someone a medicine because they don't believe in it, it doesn't have the expected positive result.

Anyway, if you haven't already, give "Bad Science" by Ben Goldacre a read. It has a section about the placebo effect. He probably will explain it a darned sight better than I just have. 🙂

 

[Alister]

As for the bloke mentioned in the original post, he might genuinely believe in his potions or might be a charlatan exploiting the vunerable. Who knows, the Daily Telegraph?

Oh he knows it is hogwash all right - if not & he genuinely believed 1/10 of the guff this type spout he would be giving it away right now.

 

[robert@fm]

Faith healing can only be done with Faith !

Likewise Joyce healing? 🙂