So today Pastor read a little bit from the Gospel of Matthew, about two blind men being healed and then a man who was both mute and demon-possessed (or oppressed, don't ask me the difference). And this is the part I really, really cannot accept.
He, of course, accepts that the spiritual world, God and demons and angels and all that are as real as the rest of the world around us. Now there are a lot of things out there that I cannot see, but have to take their existence on faith, things like microbes and atoms, that whole microscopic/submicroscopic world. And some of it, quite frankly, I don't understand. But then it isn't necessary that I do understand them. The reason I accept these things that I cannot see as being real is that there are instruments that do detect them. I can look through a microscope and see a level of reality that was completely denied to the writers of the Bible. The words I use in everyday conversation at work would mystify them: cell, molecule, virus, gene, genome, nucleus, bacteria. I use these words without thinking about how radical they are--until I have to describe my work to someone who doesn't have that background. Then the fun begins.
Anyway, to get back to the man who couldn't speak, Pastor said that some people have the wrong idea that the Bible says all disease is demon-caused. The two blind men that were healed, for example, Jesus didn't say anything about demons causing their blindness. He just went ahead and healed them. But there was something apparently different about this mute guy. Now, I have to give Pastor credit because he also acknowledged that down through the centuries people have believed that this and that condition was caused by demons, and we now know that that is not the case. Or should I say not necessarily the case.
Because here we go again with another uneasy compromise. Earlier it was the weather and natural phenomenon like earthquakes. Now it is, SOMETIMES demons can cause disease and SOMETIMES they don't. Now, I am in the business of putting disease out of business so to speak, so if demons cause disease then yes it is my business even if they only do it sometimes. Because we are getting right back to where we started. How do we know what the true cause of something is? If sometimes things happen because of unseen and undetectable forces behind the scenes, then what good is the work I do? Maybe the animal rights people are right and we are wasting our time. Because hand in hand with that idea is the idea of fatalism, that a person dies not because they had an accident or got sick but because it was their time to go. It is merely coincidence that so many people had heart attacks taking a certain drug that the FDA yanked off the market. It was their time to go and the drug had nothing to do with it. Right?
Not too long ago there was someone who did a lot of damage by making a claim about the causes of autism that turned out not to be true. Because of the scare this person engendered, diseases that were once thought to be on the decline are making a comeback big time. Children have died because of what this person said. So please do not tell me it does not matter "why" a person gets a disease. It matters very much, because if we don't know the cause we can't treat it correctly. You don't treat a disease that is caused by a virus the same as you would treat one caused by bacteria. One of the problems with antibiotics is that they have been given inappropriately and therefore have lost some of their effectiveness.
I will come right out and say that I don't think "demons" are an appropriate diagnosis for any disease, and that to bring them up is to go back to the Dark Ages. Even if it is only "sometimes." Either they exist and influence us or they do not. Some people would say that is not the province of science. I say everything that exists is the province of science. If demons exist, if the supernatural exists, then that changes the whole ball game. "Sometimes" doesn't cut it. "Sometimes" is not reliable. We need to know WHEN. And that is what he is not saying.
He, of course, accepts that the spiritual world, God and demons and angels and all that are as real as the rest of the world around us. Now there are a lot of things out there that I cannot see, but have to take their existence on faith, things like microbes and atoms, that whole microscopic/submicroscopic world. And some of it, quite frankly, I don't understand. But then it isn't necessary that I do understand them. The reason I accept these things that I cannot see as being real is that there are instruments that do detect them. I can look through a microscope and see a level of reality that was completely denied to the writers of the Bible. The words I use in everyday conversation at work would mystify them: cell, molecule, virus, gene, genome, nucleus, bacteria. I use these words without thinking about how radical they are--until I have to describe my work to someone who doesn't have that background. Then the fun begins.
Anyway, to get back to the man who couldn't speak, Pastor said that some people have the wrong idea that the Bible says all disease is demon-caused. The two blind men that were healed, for example, Jesus didn't say anything about demons causing their blindness. He just went ahead and healed them. But there was something apparently different about this mute guy. Now, I have to give Pastor credit because he also acknowledged that down through the centuries people have believed that this and that condition was caused by demons, and we now know that that is not the case. Or should I say not necessarily the case.
Because here we go again with another uneasy compromise. Earlier it was the weather and natural phenomenon like earthquakes. Now it is, SOMETIMES demons can cause disease and SOMETIMES they don't. Now, I am in the business of putting disease out of business so to speak, so if demons cause disease then yes it is my business even if they only do it sometimes. Because we are getting right back to where we started. How do we know what the true cause of something is? If sometimes things happen because of unseen and undetectable forces behind the scenes, then what good is the work I do? Maybe the animal rights people are right and we are wasting our time. Because hand in hand with that idea is the idea of fatalism, that a person dies not because they had an accident or got sick but because it was their time to go. It is merely coincidence that so many people had heart attacks taking a certain drug that the FDA yanked off the market. It was their time to go and the drug had nothing to do with it. Right?
Not too long ago there was someone who did a lot of damage by making a claim about the causes of autism that turned out not to be true. Because of the scare this person engendered, diseases that were once thought to be on the decline are making a comeback big time. Children have died because of what this person said. So please do not tell me it does not matter "why" a person gets a disease. It matters very much, because if we don't know the cause we can't treat it correctly. You don't treat a disease that is caused by a virus the same as you would treat one caused by bacteria. One of the problems with antibiotics is that they have been given inappropriately and therefore have lost some of their effectiveness.
I will come right out and say that I don't think "demons" are an appropriate diagnosis for any disease, and that to bring them up is to go back to the Dark Ages. Even if it is only "sometimes." Either they exist and influence us or they do not. Some people would say that is not the province of science. I say everything that exists is the province of science. If demons exist, if the supernatural exists, then that changes the whole ball game. "Sometimes" doesn't cut it. "Sometimes" is not reliable. We need to know WHEN. And that is what he is not saying.
