How much of the science/technology/medicine/etc. fields should Christians accept and be okay with?

[SarahUmbreon]

First off I want to say I get it, sometimes medicine companies can be shady, there is stuff in the science field that goes against the Bible, and I don’t believe we evolved from monkeys.

But, I think there is so much human effort and benefits in these fields, that I see get attacked all the time. I think people just don’t know balance, and reject everything they assume is evil. It reminds me of how the church my mom’s friend does her fitness program at, and they were saying my mom raised me wrong because I was into Pokémon because my mom thought it would be nice to have a flyer out for moms to see for my league, we are to reject the ways of this world I agree, but you sometimes have to step back and ask: “Do I sound too hateful? Am I taking this too extreme?”

But anyway back on point, I believe the Lord has blessed us with Wisdom, think about it, if we didn’t have Refrigerators, Air Conditioning, Lightbulbs, Phones, etc. we would be a really different world, and I think with this push towards innovation in Technology, is a blessing from the lord from the wisdom he blessed us with, if we didn’t have air conditioning I would not be able to live in Texas, or would other people.

Like I said earlier, I don’t we evolved from Monkeys, but when you look at it, animals do evolve, like all the cases of animal evolution on the Galápagos Islands. But God put humans above animals, so it is okay that animals have evolved to survive in their environments. Plus, most animal intelligence is mostly at Toddler level, and it’s only a select few with this level of intellect. God could have done that to us, for he created everything, but he didn’t and I just find that as a way that he loves us, to bless us so much.

Humans created medicine, it comes from trails of errors and success stories, but I know if I didn’t have my antidepressants and didn’t live with my mom, I probably would have killed myself during this Covid pandemic, just being honest. I know medicine has had some shaky stuff, but if used correctly and monitored it does help. I need it right now because I’m more prone to outbreaks of emotional problems, and I will get off my antidepressants when this virus stuff is over, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with reaching out to medicine and therapy for help. I actually only recommend antidepressants while on Therapy because the medicine is supposed to be used while going to the therapy sessions, not on its own, I’m talking from my own experience.

Plus I do think prayer does help, I will not deny that and I believe miracles can happen, but I think completely ignoring medicine isn’t the best. I know there are natural medicine methods, and I’m not saying those don’t work, but not everyone is the same. So while natural medicine might be helping you, it might not help someone else because the physical makeup of a body is different between everyone, for the lord made each us of uniquely.

Finally, I just want to close out with saying, I don’t believe in “Faith Healing”. From what I’ve gathered online, it all just seems to be a pastor touching a person’s head or saying a person to touch their TV to be healed from everything, and I think that is really manipulative. Yes only God decides everything and he can heal, but there is stuff that just cannot be healed, including retardation, autism, defects from birth, Down’s syndrome, ADHD, Aspergers, etc. Anyone who claims these kinds of mental/physical disabilities can be cured are just straight up lying, and are just offensive to me. As a Asperger’s syndrome woman, I don’t want to be cured and I don’t Christians who believe in “Faith Healing” to look down on me thinking “They need to be healed”. It just irritates me a lot. From what I know this seems to be the case with mega churches believing this stuff, so maybe “faith healing” at smaller churches wouldn’t be as insulting to me, but that’s just me assuming, lol

Overall, I really love this phrase: “Don’t let one bad apple ruin the whole bunch”, and I think that is very true, in fact I know some people like consider me a “bad apple” after reading this, lol, but I think that is what we as humans interesting, we are so diverse with opinions and our backgrounds, but despite that, Christians can come together, no matter the differences and praise God together ^_^

 

[Lynx]

Modern medicine vs. praying for healing is a good example of "everything has a valid use, and everything can be taken to very useless and harmful extremes."

God gave us brains and expects us to use them. Figuring out how our bodies work and fixing them when they break is a good use of our intelligence. Then there are people and companies who try to game the system by throwing pills at EVERY problem, because that's what makes them money.

That doesn't mean modern medicine is bad. It just means there are some greedy people who use medicine for their own profit.

God also does heal people. Why He heals some and not others, I have no idea. Jesus Himself commented there were many lepers in Elijah's day, but only the foreigner Namaan was healed. But I have personally seen miracles before and I know God does still take an active roll in people's lives. Faith healers though... they turn "asking God to help us out here" into "if I pray hard enough God will do this for me." They try to turn God's helping hand into the results of their hard work in praying for a miracle.

That doesn't mean miracles don't happen. It just means some people went too far with it and tried to make it all about them instead of about God.

I have another thought about this, but I'll put that in a separate post.

 

[Lynx]

I think a lot of christians enjoy feeling elitist... which is directly the OPPOSITE of what God is trying to teach us. I hear a lot of people talk about doctors as though doctors are idiots. "The doctor said thus-and-so, but he don't know the God I know!" and everybody in the church applauds and says AMEN and cheers. Since we have God to ask for help, we like to feel as though we are above the rest of the world that has to rely on modern medicine, and that makes us superior because we can point to all the things medicine can't fix and say "Yeah, but my God CAN fix it!"

Thing is, there are a lot of christian doctors. They are using the brains God gave them to help people around them, and they are more than willing to pray with you because they would rather you be fixed however possible than themselves getting credit for you being fixed.

 

[Bleed]

i often think of the movie "I am Legend" when it comes this topic.

 

[SarahUmbreon]

i often think of the movie "I am Legend" when it comes this topic.

I actually haven’t seen that movie (I don’t do well with scary movies, lol) but I at least know what’s about and that’s interesting to hear how it can tie into this topic.

I know it’s about a virus outbreak, and it has a lot more complex issues, If anyone wants to, I can link a YouTube video that talks about the Alternate ending to I am Legend, but I dunno if I should cause he says the F-word like 3 times, lol 😅, he only does cause the video is “Top 11 Alternate WTF Movie Endings”...so it goes with the video’s theme as it were, lol

 

[SarahUmbreon]

I think a lot of christians enjoy feeling elitist... which is directly the OPPOSITE of what God is trying to teach us. I hear a lot of people talk about doctors as though doctors are idiots. "The doctor said thus-and-so, but he don't know the God I know!" and everybody in the church applauds and says AMEN and cheers. Since we have God to ask for help, we like to feel as though we are above the rest of the world that has to rely on modern medicine, and that makes us superior because we can point to all the things medicine can't fix and say "Yeah, but my God CAN fix it!"

Thing is, there are a lot of christian doctors. They are using the brains God gave them to help people around them, and they are more than willing to pray with you because they would rather you be fixed however possible than themselves getting credit for you being fixed.

Very true, an Elitist mindset can be a very toxic thing to have. I know this doesn’t relate to the thread topic, but “Anime Elitists” can also be toxic, I don’t think there is nothing wrong with reviewing anime, as is the same with reviewing any media, but a lot of them are infamous for only watching anime in Sub (Original Japanese language track with subtitles) and if you mention watching the dub of a show, then they claim “You aren’t watching the show right”, or if you didn’t get a high thinking show, like NGE or Bakrmonogatari, they will say: “You are stupid and you don’t get it”. I was talking to my mom about this stuff, and she said Elitism has been around forever and is everywhere, but it’s easy to forget that, I think so anyway.

But yeah, I just don’t like people being taken advantage of and when you hear people pouring all of their money to do the “healing stuff/medicine” or to go to these churches that claim they can heal anything, it just sounds like the people want the money more than actually healing people, which is taking advantage of them.

We live in a fallen world, which is why Christians should be careful of becoming an Elitist, we have sinned so who are we to judge others? No one is perfect. We should be giving support and pray, rather than judge those who need medicine or think a bit differently. I honestly think it all comes back to balance, always.

 

[Lynx]

Very true, an Elitist mindset can be a very toxic thing to have. I know this doesn’t relate to the thread topic, but “Anime Elitists” can also be toxic, I don’t think there is nothing wrong with reviewing anime, as is the same with reviewing any media, but a lot of them are infamous for only watching anime in Sub (Original Japanese language track with subtitles) and if you mention watching the dub of a show, then they claim “You aren’t watching the show right”, or if you didn’t get a high thinking show, like NGE or Bakrmonogatari, they will say: “You are stupid and you don’t get it”. I was talking to my mom about this stuff, and she said Elitism has been around forever and is everywhere, but it’s easy to forget that, I think so anyway.

Yeah, elitism has been around as long as somebody has wanted to feel like he is better than somebody else. Anyone who doesn't know elitism has been around forever hasn't been paying atten... er...

Ahem...

Never mind. Where was I?

Oh yeah, elitism. I run into it a lot when I'm looking up tips for a video game. There are people who make it a point of pride to get the game mechanics down to a science, and when two of them disagree on some particular of how to play the game it can get into a real peeing contest between them. It's almost as if their sense of self worth is tied up in how well they are playing a video game. Hmm...

OFF TOPIC

Oh yeah, there was a topic...

As this pertains to the topic, the whole faith healing vs. medicine debate is just another way people try to feel like they are superior to other people. Nothing new under the sun. If we didn't have this topic they would find something else to use to claim they were better than other people.
I can't google up the quote right now, but I remember a quote something like this:
"If we all woke up tomorrow morning to find we were all the same color, spoke the same language, came from the same place and believed the same religion, we would find some other difference we could use to claim one group was better than the other before lunchtime."

 

[Lanolin]

STEM topics are now being encouraged in school, it was once believed and thought that girls couldnt do things like maths and engineering, or be scientists, or draw or be doctors or pretty much do anything except cook and clean and sew.