Closet Conservative: Just Reminding You

July 31, 2011

Not to get sick in the UK.

Carlos Perera said...: I never cease to be amazed by the credulity of people who dismiss the great Western religions as superstition. I myself run into this sort of magical thinking all the time in my work as a physical therapist . . . e.g., belief in the "ying/yang" theory of disease (which is supposedly caused by an imbalance of the two "forces" or "energies), as in that acupuncture has preternatural properties (working by the release of "chi" to bring the body's ying/yang balance into harmony with the Tao, or universal life force); or that clusters of quartz crystals (no different chemically from beach sand) possess mystical healing powers; or that "healing energy" can flow from the hand of a healer; . . . and on and on.

The kindest thing that might be said about these "alternative healing paradigms" is that they fall well outside the standard biomedical model. Yet they seem to be embraced largely by people who consider themselves too cosmopolitan and sophisticated to believe in the personal God of the Judeo-Christian Tradition. An incisive apothegm, generally (but uncertainly) attributed to G. K. Chesterton, observes that, "When men stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything." One need only add, in the light of social devolution over the past several decades, that they will believe anything and the taxpayers shall be made to pay for it.; July 31, 2011

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