Please tell me when this golden age of believers occurred. Seriously I want to know.
ITL, when I think of these things, I like to start at the beginning and then look at where we are now. There is a vast difference, and it is harsh.
In the Bible itself, we see a lot of requests for dependence on faith. Strewn throughout this time and through history, we see vast references in writings to plants and herbs for medicine, but in the Bible itself, we see faith looking as a prerequisite for healing in the cases in the individual stories told to us of Christ walking on earth and healing people.
When we look back at charity in history, we look at people of faith. The monks, the Catholics, the people of faith, these were the ones who took on the sick, who who had healing rooms and hospitals. Monks grew their own herb gardens for healing, but they were treated the spirit and the body, not just slamming some medicine down someone's throat and sending the profits to some corporation.
It's just there, deeply rooted throughout our history. Have you read "Hortulus" by Walifred? It gives you a glimpse of a medicinal garden very early on. Check out all the herbs and what they are used for - I picked this one especially because it includes the poppy that was being thrown at me earlier. Yes, there is a real use for it, even if humans do tend to find ways to abuse things. Here is the list of plants from it, and you can click after to read the poem:
http://wyrtig.com/EarlyGardens/Continental/Walafrid/MedicinalsHortulus.htm
Pretty cool stuff, isn't it? I think it was Alexander of Clement, when he was talking about medicine, that admonished people to first be thankful to the Creator, as he is the source. Don't quote me on that though. (or shoot me if I'm wrong, I just woke up about an hour ago and haven't had my tea)
Then you can move along to the 15th, 16th, 17th centuries, which saw a bit of putting away of harmful drugs that were being made in preference for the more natural and a pretty intense look into herbals and people who wanted to study them...and then things start to go more haywire.
Now where are we? Remember when Christians started trying to teach people to not use incantations and such for healing, and replace it with prayer, and it played into faith healing in a bad way? They were trying to replace magic and such, give people something to replace that (prayer and faith) and then it went too far.
Well, now we not only have those that don't believe at all in prayer for healing, and use only only medicine, and those that don't believe in medicine at all, and use only prayer. Neither strikes a good balance or is promoted or taught or inferred in Scripture.
But getting rid of the natural and replacing it fully with synthetic? No.
And that's what I meant when I said what I said about being peace loving and going with natural as the history of believers. Who were those known in history for the orphanages, the hospitals, charity? Look at the writings on all these herbs and how old they are, how they were used.
And look at how they still exist and are still good for those purposes. Why take them, synthesize them in factories, and then charge people lots of money for what they can grow on their own, let alone convince everyone it is some type of insane wrong and not for Christians to mess with natural things, to trust the corporations instead, and even make fun of those that would rely instead on the things that are given to us?
It does need an answer. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I suppose you would espouse using "natural" treatments like herbs, vitamins, minerals, for example, krill oil, gingko biboba, garlic, etc. I do too. I take a daily multi-vitamin, vitamin C, and fish oil. But this is not an act of faith. Are you seriously saying that God gave humans the ability to figure out that using these types of things is medicinal, but He did not give humans the ability to figure out that statins can lower blood cholesterol?
I am not against all medications. I believe they are vastly over-used and that first, diet and herbs are a great thing to check out before jumping to pills.
The number of statins prescribed is pretty insane. Have you seen the fluctuating numbers for what constitutes a need for statins? Makes you wonder! Could a large number of people on statins be off of them, given a healthy diet and herbs instead? Are there people who do not change their diet because they are on a statin? YES! That's just the mindset there is with pills so often. People think they don't have to act, because the pill will fix what's wrong. Just swallow.
And why are you taking fish oil? Is your body lacking in fish oil? :tongue3:
Many, many drugs are based on plants. The most well known one is aspirin. Drug researchers are scouring the rain forests looking for novel tribal medicines that they could adapt for modern man's consumption. Are you saying that these pagan's faith in whatever god they worship is valid and they are practicing what the one true God would have them do?
Willow bark isn't pagan. This is exactly the type of thinking that gets people worried about trying to heal without harsh interventions. Willow bark existed before unbelievers existed. Everything did. Pagans eat fish. Does that make your fish oil a pagan supplement? No, it still just makes a fish a fish and your fish oil a supplement.
Drug researchers scouring the rain forests - great news. Yikes!
