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Medicine or Religion
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Is a connection between religion and medicine important, helpful and possible? To examine this topic we need to first find out why the divide in religion and medicine has become so wide, mainly in western religions rather than eastern. There is a vast range of views on this, but all need to be considered to totally understand the problem. One stance is that eastern religions are far more grounded and they developed with a holistic view towards life, mostly started from Confucianism. Western religions originally had a holistic approach to health with many herbalist and alchemist around, but soon surgeons began to gain control over healing methods. The surgeons had understanding of why problems occurred and how they could heal them. Herbalist also had understanding, but it was a spiritual understanding, and this was not accepted. With understanding came power, and since most herbalist and alchemist were women, while the surgeons were men, the surgeons eventually dominated the healing methods and hence scientific medicine came about. Most herbalists and alchemists were woman and midwives and many were considered witches and were burnt on the stake during Pagan times. A loss of knowledge resulted from this, and greater power in the surgical community arose. At this time western healing took over – herbalists who tried to strengthen the body against disease had power taken from them by surgeons who developed ways to kill diseases. Another view is that the western society was fascinated with science, and therefore understanding. This led to a non-acceptance of “mystical things” such as alternative healing. Ancient beliefs were no longer incorporated into society and there was less and less recognition of a greater being. The western world became arrogant and didn’t acknowledge religion as much whilst fascinated with science and technology. It also became a world devoted to material possession and this came at the “expense of spirituality” – Naturopath.
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