In Continuum.

I am in Taiwan now, and this country is deeply superstitious as it is religious. Taoism and Buddhism are probably the dominant religions here, and Christmas is more like a grand excuse to drink and party rather than a day to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Christianity has only recently gained a moderate amount of popularity amongst the population here, simply because of how different it is from everything else and the kind of things that it offers. A lot of religions here have strange antics, things people from other religions may not understand very well. The closest example of Taoism in the Western world is probably the Pagan religion in the past, simply because of how Taoists worships ancestors as well as some aspects of nature. That is really the national religion here, which was why when the American priest came in from the States claiming the healing powers in Christianity, it became a huge thing on the local news network.

I forgot his name, but he kind of looked like the priest from The Exorcist, with his silver white hair and the skin on his face stacked neatly under his chin like a bunch of folded blanket. He was seated in a big armchair when the reporter interviewed him, and he was in the kind of 'uniform' that priests wear all the time - which I am sure, has a technical name which I am not aware of. He looked like a friendly old man, probably in his sixties or even a little older than that. There were footage of his supposed healing, volunteers with their heads rested on his palms and shaking uncontrollably to unknown forces out there. The priest chanted something under his breath, the emcee at the event translated his words and shouted them into his microphone. The Caucasian woman spoke mandarin, and she gave a detailed account of what she saw, and what she felt, as the priest attempted to exorcise her of her inner demons. So the prayers ended, the priest took his hands off the woman's head, and she smiled and went "That was amazing! Again, please!" 

That was what they call religious healing, like one of those magical healing powers you see only in fantasy movies. As the priest said in the interview, he claimed that some diseases are caused by real actual physical problems, while others are caused by demons possessed in our bodies, causing havoc within. Which is why the process of exorcism would clear our bodies of those demons, and you need to have a lot of faith in the healing process as well - or else, it simply won't work. There was this other guy who got onto the stage as well, something about his legs being uneven in length. So the priest chanted something under his breath again, and his uneven legs were conveniently healed on the spot. The same could be said about a dozen other volunteers on stage, and to them it was probably the best Christmas present ever. After all, who wouldn't want their diseases to be healed on Christmas and to be rid of them forever. Then again, of course, that is if they are really healed forever, and that the healing wasn't just another trick of the mind altogether.

Skepticism isn't a new concept to the world of religious healing. Ever since the beginning of religion, it has been the most powerful opposing force against the concept of healing through faith. Then again, it is not difficult to understand why a lot of people out there - people like myself - are skeptical of these so-called miracles. After all, only 67 cases have been officially certified by the church since 1858 to be real miracles, and we are talking about tens of thousands of people heading to various parts of the world everyday in hopes to have their diseases cured, maybe even millions of them every single day. I saw a documentary on Discovery Channel once, and there is a church in a country which I forgot, that gives out little test tubes of holy water everyday to believers, and a lot of them have claimed to feel better after drinking those water. After some laboratory testing, not a lot of difference between those water and normal drinking ones to be completely honest. A lot of people have testified against the scientific claim that holy water are just like any other water. But then again, with just 67 proven cases out of the millions, it is still pretty hard for people like us to believe. 

It is a little hard to believe why would people look away from modern day medicine to believe in just a psychological medicine, like faith. I'm sure western medicine has had a better track record throughout history, and probably a more logical basis of belief than faith, which is such an abstract concept altogether. According to Alvin Plantinga, a famous atheism scholar, he said that," The mature believer, the mature theist, does not typically accept belief in God tentatively, or hypothetically, or until something better comes along. Nor, I think, does he accept it as a conclusion from other things he believes; he accepts it as basic, as a part of the foundations of his noetic structure. The mature theist commits himself to belief in God: this means that he accepts belief in God as basic." He was also quoted as saying that religious believers do not believe doctrines in the way that scientists (at least in principle) believe theories — they do not have a readiness to reconsider their belief. 

I think the point he is trying to make is that mature devotees do not have the readiness to reconsider that perhaps their beliefs may have some flaws, like everything else in this world. They take that belief and structure their lives around it, which also means that they take it as the foundation of everything else - which is pretty much like the way they might ignore traditional medicine for the healing powers of religion altogether. What confuses me is probably how they deny everything else other than what they believe in, the way they dismiss other forms of healing and put themselves through another form of medicine that does not necessary have a rational or logical explanation. Which brings my point back to the quote at the very beginning of this entry, which may provide as an answer to those people who might be mildly offended by my skepticism of religious healing. The only way you are going to understand why I dismiss the possibility of miracles is through your understanding of why you might dismiss the possibility of other forms of medication other than religious healing. Because to me, it's just a grand scheme to have more believers, and thus more donations as an end result. Of course, they all claim to be evangelistic in nature, which I agree that most of them are. But the execution is just wrong, and I see the biggest and grandest con rather than a real healing, more than anything else.

It's just very convenient for the priest to say that some diseases are caused by real physical problems while others are by demons. It's just an easy way out from what I can see, it's easy to fight the skepticism because you've allowed some form of leeway for yourself. It's just like how a lot of people would answer to your skepticism of God in a country such as Africa. Some people would ask why would God allow the kind of things in Africa to happen, where is God in the very first place? If something good happens, it becomes a work of God. But of course, if something bad happens, then shit happens and no one can help it. Which is just another way of saying," Hey, whatever good that happened was because of me, but whatever bad things that happened ain't none of my business." Take the example of somebody not studying a night before a major examination. If he fails, he can tell others that he wasn't feeling well the night before, something came up, he was distracted, his dog at his textbook, whatever. But if he does well, he tells others that he's just a really smart student, a naturally brilliant mind, a born genius. It's the same thing, really.

Do I believe in miracles, of course I do. I do believe that good things happen to good people without the need of a logical explanation, because sometimes we really don't need those to make our lives better, especially when it complicates things sometimes. But at the same time, I do also believe in the effects of placebo, and how our minds have greater power than we believe it to possess. A girl who concentrates on getting and pregnant and convinces herself that she is pregnant has a high chance of having pregnancy symptoms, and that's the truth. If you are sick at home and you are telling yourself that none of the medicines are going to work for nuts, then none of the medicine are going to work for nuts. There is a book called "The Secret", and it tells of this 'secret' that a lot of successful people out there throughout history have used in order to succeed in life. The secret really is the faith and belief in that they will succeed, and that is why they say that by having a belief that you can achieve something, then half the battle is won. We really don't need foreign priests to spray water over our heads, or chant something under their breaths to make our illnesses go away. Half of it is in our heads really, and that's the placebo effect for you. 

I do think that as long as you are not burning down houses, raping your neighbor's daughter, robbing somebody in a dark alley every night, then it really doesn't matter what religion you are from. Similarly, if religious healing is doing people more good than harm, then I don't see it as a problem at all. But when they are using it as a tool to force the religion down the throat of other people, then I do think that it really is the wrong thing to do. There is such a thing in Islam - a term I forgot - that states that all people are equal under the eyes of their God, and that people should be allowed to believe in whatever they want to believe. I think it is a very beautiful concept, something that our modern, democratic societies should embrace, and something a certain religion should take under their wings as well. It is not right to say," It is OK if you don't believe in us, but you will go to Hell if you don't." It's a threat, and it's not right to shove things like that down the throats of people. So is it really a miracle that faith can heal people, or just placebo? I say, with absolute certainty, the latter.