Science vs Jesus
“You can only use my right arm for needles.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, the doctor told me to never let anyone use my left arm.”
“Did you have a mastectomy?”
“No.”
“When did you finish your chemo treatments?”
“I never had them.”
“Then why can’t I use your right arm?”
“Because the doctor said not to. Jesus healed me.”
“Um….If Jesus cured your breast cancer, then your left arm is safe to use for an IV.”
“No. Jesus cured my cancer but the doctor said never to use this arm.”
Um….I don’t think so. But that’s not the point. The point is Magdalene thinks so. And yes, there is research to support that positive thinking is beneficial to our well-being, psyche and mood. But there is no proof that praying cures disease, heals ailments or makes paralyzed people walk again. If it worked, everyone would be in church and not the hospital. Which is why I was extremely confused to find Magdalene sitting in my ER, struggling to breathe and in need of an IV. She surely didn’t understand the connection between a lumpectomy and lymph node dissection and because I’m a nurse and not her doctor from 2004, or any doctor for that matter, she stood firm about what the doctor told her 6 years ago. And no amount of education and information I provided her educated her. It’s so hard to fight Jesus with intellect.
“She believes what she believes,” as her sister said.
I’m going to spare you the rest of the frustrating conversation that ensued and just give you Magdalene’s back story. In 2004 she had a left breast lumpectomy with lymph node dissection. It’s unclear if she was ever actually diagnosed with cancer because she never returned to that doctor. She never underwent chemotherapy, radiation, acupuncture, cupping, seance or exorcism. She never drank herbal teas, consumed antioxidants or took vitamins or herbs. She just prayed to Jesus and he took her cancer away.
This is going to make my job so much more challenging (and frustrating). But my job is never really about me anyway. So….
In addition to a “cancer” history, Magdalene also suffers from diabetes, hypertension, asthma and restrictive lung disease. When I asked her why she didn’t pray to Jesus to cure her other diseases, or at the very least her lung disease, she replied
“These are my crosses to bear.”
This makes no sense. You accept that Jesus doesn’t want you to breathe that well or to not eat chocolate cream pie whenever you want and keeps you at risk for heart attack and stroke but you don’t accept that he wants you to have cancer? That’s one too many and you ask him to take it away and he goes:
“Yeah, you’re right. My bad.”??????
Whatever happened to “God never gives us more than we can handle”?
I’m a logical being. I believe in science and what I can see, hear, smell, feel and touch. I don’t believe in mythical beings. I have never witnessed a miracle. I operate under the assumption that when sick people are coming to the hospital they are doing so because they want my help, the help of medicine and science. If you’re confused, concerned or unclear about your diagnosis, treatment and options, I’m here to help. I’ll talk with you through everything. I’ll respect your choices because you know what’s best for you. But do me a favor, don’t break out a bible or ask me to pray with you because those aren’t my beliefs. Science and religion, it seems, will never compliment one another but absence of a reason is not proof of a miracle.
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AMEN SISTER!!!!! I have been having this discussion with my family for a while now….. GOD heals you IF you heal yourself!!!!! Like you I have NEVER seen a miracle and do not think I ever will either…. But there are fools all around us….
Like most of us, I’ve known some wonderful people who’ve died due to one thing or another, illness or trauma. Few things make me angrier than the insinuation that if they had just prayed more/harder or had more faith, they wouldn’t have died. I do believe that faith can be support in trying times, but I, too, have never witnessed a miracle.
I’m a Christian, albeit a very liberal, nonliteral sort, but I have never seen anything even vaguely miraculous either. Of course, a lot of modern medicine looks miraculous, especially if you come from a premodern culture or one that predisposes you to that kind of thinking. For the patient, it probably seemed like a miracle she was cured. The real miracle, of course, is that thousands of hours of research, drug and therapy testing, diagnostics, skill on the part of her physicians and nurses and other HCPs all culminated in saving her life.
It gets even worse when she calls me “her angel” or “an angel”. No, no,no!
And it’s always a sticky situation when I’m asked to pray with them at the bedside. I always decline, offer to page a priest/chaplain/nun instead. I’ve even had families request to have a different nurse take care of their family member because I wouldn’t pray. To each their own, for sure, but I respect you, so please respect me.
Great post! The reason people think it is appropriate to ask a health care provider to pray is that there has been a certain privilege granted to religious people in this country from the day it was founded. Most of our nation’s citizens are christians, and many of them get ANGRY when there is discussion of even equal treatment for other religions like judaism, islam, hinduism, etc. Those of us who don’t believe in the supernatural are often derided as “godless atheists” which is stupidly redundant and illogical as a “slur,” but there you go.
Sorry about the soap box, just needed to get this off my chest.
Very truly yours,
(Usually) Happy atheist.
“Christians” are always the ones that get the most offended when I say that I don’t believe or won’t pray. They act like there’s something wrong with me! They are the least tolerant and least respectful of all the followers. You came to a hospital, not a church. I think we could both soap box about this all day.
Thanks for reading!
Wow..I feel SO incredibly sad for you
To deny the power of Christ so boldly and openly… WOW! God have mercy on your soul! I can 100% promise you that Christ will show you the HE is LORD one way or another. I pray that it is not in a horrible, awful situation but I have a feeling it will be 
because you are so ignorant of His amazing power! Don’t worry though because as mean and stupid as you are, He still loves you SO much that He died on a cross for YOU !!! I will pray for you tonight that one day you will turn from your totally wrong ways of thinking and accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and maybe even get to meet you in Heaven.
P.S. Hopefully you post comments from Christians as well as your fellow atheists?? Although, I doubt you will
I’ve dealt with this a lot in my short career, both from religious and nonreligious people – a weird mix of irrationalism that justifies whatever they want to think. All I can think is that the appropriate response is to let go. I mean, if they’re not in an emergency and they’re not under court order, then they’re free to come and go from under your care as they please. Seeking “your” care or the hospital’s care is, unfortunately, not a package deal, and they can put on the brakes and refuse to cooperate for whatever little thing they want.
I mean, I hope it doesn’t sound heartless, but what do I care? That woman could’ve kept avoiding medical care and stayed at home. If she comes to you and gets partial care and refuses the rest, or annoys you, that’s better than where she was at before.
So true. It is her life to pick and choose what she believes and it is my role to work within those parameters, which I do. It’s just frustrating when irrational thought impedes medical therapy, life saving medical therapy. It didn’t happen in this instance but it was delayed. But like I said, her life, I did what I could. On to the next patient……
Oh Shepard (sic)…Really? You’re gonna try and sell Nurse Me on the Christ scam by a. calling the mark, um, proselyte “mean and stupid” while b. conveniently ignoring the fact that she’s just busted her ass to SAVE the life of this Christian woman from your God’s slow and painful attempts to KILL her? With testimony like that I bet the sinners just come running to follow in your footsteps. Even if they have to keep dodging drool puddles and half-eaten crayons.
Jesus is awesome
It seems a little strange that you have requirements for a person to respect your beliefs (or non-beliefs) and priorities, but are unable to respect their beliefs and priorities. Someone else’s beliefs and priorities not making sense to you doesn’t make them wrong. It doesn’t make them less frustrating, but it doesn’t make them wrong. It definately doesn’t take away their right to have them either, just because they don’t match yours. As long as the person understands the consequenses of their choice to maintain theie priorities, and gee, well we all lokk in the mirror, don’t we, it’s not really any of your business.
It looks to me like what you do by criticizing is to reveal your own judgemental nature, and don’t get me wrong, we all have one, I’m just saying that you are throwing egg on your own face when you throw egg on your patients’.
(or in someone elses words, “by the measure that you use, you will be measured…”)