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The free discipleship program he checked himself into is run by two Assembly of God pastors who hope to heal their patients of addiction, anxiety, anger, depression and “the emotional residue left by mental, physical and sexual abuse” by using prayer, Scripture memorization and developing a closer relationship with God, according to program’s promotional materials. The only requirement of the patients is that you can’t use any mood altering drugs, prescribed or not. Assembly of God churches hold as a cardinal doctrine that the Divine will heal the sick, though they do allow medical help and using prescription drugs if necessary.
How can this be defended? What kind of insane, magical thinking is required to still believe this kind of harmful garbage in today's world. What kind of laws even allow this?
Yeah, I know, he entered the program willingly, and all about the First Amendment, but there are limitations to that right, and magical thinking will cure you rather than medication and science SHOULD be one of those limitations.
But oh no, there is too large a percentage of the population that think their favorite Bronzed Aged campfire story is sacrosanct and needs to be protected, the heck with the consequences.
Bitter? Oh yeah. I had an ex-wife who was studying exorcism to "drive the devil out of the mentally ill", as the devil in them was the true root cause, not any medical issues. She became my ex shortly after starting those classes, so yeah, I have a personal stake in this. She, and this Assembly of God are both bat scat crazy.
Once again religion rears it's ugly head and shows what real harm it causes.
My own former church body had a similar attitude toward mental health problems. Mental health problems were seen as a lack of faith, righteous punishment for sin, etc.
Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
10,202 posts, read 7,926,708 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
Yay, another offensive and provocative post to stir up emotional responses.
This one is personal, Vizio, as I outlined. It is wack-a-doodle bat scat off the wall plain wrong, it is criminal, and has nothing to 'freedom of religion'. It has everything to do with the pain and the hurt and the harm that religion too often perpetrates.
My own former church body had a similar attitude toward mental health problems. Mental health problems were seen as a lack of faith, righteous punishment for sin, etc.
Pretty monstrous.
This was more or less the attitude of my church of origin as well. I was actively discouraged from using talk therapy and/or drugs or any other mental health standard-of-care when I had a family member with profound mental health issues, the idea was that prayer, Bible study and obedience was all that was necessary. There were "Christian psychiatrists" who would provide diagnosis codes that insurance would pay for and perhaps provide some medication for short term stabilization but the idea was that god would fix any such issues and if he didn't then the person wasn't "ready" or "not at their personal bottom" or whatever. It was always the victim's fault.
My own former church body had a similar attitude toward mental health problems. Mental health problems were seen as a lack of faith, righteous punishment for sin, etc.
Pretty monstrous.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cupper3
This one is personal, Vizio, as I outlined. It is wack-a-doodle bat scat off the wall plain wrong, it is criminal, and has nothing to 'freedom of religion'. It has everything to do with the pain and the hurt and the harm that religion too often perpetrates.
It's personal for me also, as my former fundie church also thought that mental illness was actually the manifestation of some kind of sin. Taking any kind of medications for mental or emotional problems was considered sinful. Only prayer, Bible study, an "attitude of gratitude," joyfulness, etc were acceptable means of "fixing" mental health issues.
This kind of teaching does horrendous harm to people. It was this very issue that eventually made me see the falsehoods of my fundie church, and once I finally realized how completely wrong my church was on that issue, "infallibility" was out the window, leading to the crumbling of all my religious beliefs.
Yay, another offensive and provocative post to stir up emotional responses.
Do you know what Sartre meant when he said, "hell is other people?" It was that you can't fully know yourself unless you are willing to listen to the judgments of others. It's not comfortable but it's necessary.
What I seem to hear you saying here is, just shut up so I don't have to be uncomfortable.
What would be wrong with saying, I don't agree with such programs and I am saddened that some of my brothers and sisters think this is a good thing? It seems like there's a desire to disavow them as True Christians, minimize what they are doing, and/or simply reject the information as unwanted.
Do you think that Bible study, prayer, and repentance will cure, say, profound Paranoid Schizophrenia, or even major depression? If so, will it be 100% effective such that psychotropic medication can be immediately discontinued? My guess is no, this is almost a charismatic / pentecostal level of denial that I don't think you are capable of. If I am right then just agree that it's a harmful notion and move on.
The free discipleship program he checked himself into is run by two Assembly of God pastors who hope to heal their patients of addiction, anxiety, anger, depression and “the emotional residue left by mental, physical and sexual abuse” by using prayer, Scripture memorization and developing a closer relationship with God, according to program’s promotional materials. The only requirement of the patients is that you can’t use any mood altering drugs, prescribed or not. Assembly of God churches hold as a cardinal doctrine that the Divine will heal the sick, though they do allow medical help and using prescription drugs if necessary.
How can this be defended? What kind of insane, magical thinking is required to still believe this kind of harmful garbage in today's world. What kind of laws even allow this?
Yeah, I know, he entered the program willingly, and all about the First Amendment, but there are limitations to that right, and magical thinking will cure you rather than medication and science SHOULD be one of those limitations.
But oh no, there is too large a percentage of the population that think their favorite Bronzed Aged campfire story is sacrosanct and needs to be protected, the heck with the consequences.
Bitter? Oh yeah. I had an ex-wife who was studying exorcism to "drive the devil out of the mentally ill", as the devil in them was the true root cause, not any medical issues. She became my ex shortly after starting those classes, so yeah, I have a personal stake in this. She, and this Assembly of God are both bat scat crazy.
Once again religion rears it's ugly head and shows what real harm it causes.
These churches need to stop exploiting the mentally ill, the sick, the poor, the incarcerated, the homeless, those who are chemically addicted, or any person who is in a venerable state. On my best day, I wouldn't seek out fire and brimstone preaching.
Cupper3, not that I care about your ideas...to each his own ...but why so many here
rather than in the atheist section...this, I do not understand.
If I was a mod...I would be politely moving them.
They all seem like rants against Christians, I am not one, btw.
This is really rhetorical..
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