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Dear Goanetters,
We have been discussing a lot on faith and religion. I would like to
provide a statement of a physician that Faith can heal.
Regards.
Fr.Ivo
Faith Can Heal, Physician Tells Science Seminar
January 23, 2009
LONAVALA, India (UCAN) -- Good health is linked to faith in God, says an
Indian
physician who has studied the role of religion in medicine.
Religious involvement and doing good for others can help maintain one's
physical
and mental health, S. Chattopadhyay told a recent Church-organized science
seminar.
Chattopadhyay researched the relevance of religion and spirituality in
medicine
and bioethics for his master of bioethics program. He holds a doctorate from
the
University of Connecticut, in the United States, and presently teaches
physiology at the Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences in Bhubaneswar, in
Orissa state, eastern India.
Neuroscientific Revolution, the Human Soul and Spirituality was the theme of
the
Jan. 1-5 seminar in Lonavala, near Mumbai, 1,410 kilometers southwest of New
Delhi. About 200 people, including university professors, researchers and
activists from India and abroad, attended the event.
The Indian Institute of Science and Religion (IISR), which Jesuit Father Job
Kozhamthadam started 10 years ago, organized the seminar in collaboration
with
three colleges, a major seminary and a university, all in Maharashtra state.
Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra state.
In his presentation, Chattopadhyay spoke on Neuroscience and spirituality:
beyond outright rejection and blind acceptance.
He said the human person cannot be reduced "to super-conscious matter" as
asserted by some neuroscientists. Human beings are "not hard-wired for
belief in
God, but deep down, human beings hunger for God," he said.
He also asserted that faith in God is beyond the intellect and is not
something
that can be measured. "But it triggers love, compassion, empathy,
forgiveness,
brotherhood and such eternal values among faith people."
Faith in God, he said, has played a great role in healing some of the worst
diseases suffered by people, such as cancer, and this has surprised doctors.
"Also, studies have shown that religious people live healthier lives, and
are
generally happier."
He noted that the World Health Organization had accepted spirituality as an
important aspect of people's quality of life.
The use of scientific tools to explore religious and spiritual phenomena and
the
knowledge thus acquired have evoked myriad responses, ranging from outright
rejection to blind acceptance, he said.
"Much of modern biomedical research, including neuroscience, reflects
reductionism theory, an approach to understand a system by reducing it to
component parts."
He said spectacular advances have been made using the reductionist
scientific
approach. However, such an approach cannot fully explain religious
experiences,
such as spiritual enlightenment achieved by spiritual leaders.
Such experiences, he added, cannot be researched and quantified on the
psychological basis of the neuronal functions of the brain".
