What Christian religion is against medical treatment?

[Democrats_win]

They're in the news occasionally for refusing to let their children be treated for something that is fatal if not treated.

Imagine if they were politically powerful and tried to establish this agenda: Medical treatment is abolished because it shows we don't trust God to cure us.

Stem-cell research is a taste of it.

In the middle ages, scientists had to sneak around the "Christians" and dig up graves to learn human anatomy.

Of course, the other side is that we do force this group's children to have treatment sometimes.

[Avalux]

1. Jehovah's Witnesses

won't allow blood transfusions...I almost had a patient die after surgery because she refused. Not sure if they're the same group you're speaking of though.

[Democrats_win]

8. They cause quite a dilema when someone causes their injuries and they die

because they refuse blood transfusions. Some cases have gone to higher courts.

Witnesses actually cite verses that say they shouldn't partake of blood and they interpret this to include blood transfusions.

I'm not defending or condemning them here, but it would be interesting to point this out to the political fundies who get on their high horses about following the book when there are obviously things they miss.

[bicentennial_baby]

2. Ironically...

it's the Christian Scientists who do this.

Christian Science, a homegrown American religious and medical sect, was founded by Mary Baker. She suffered from a variety of ailments--lung, liver and stomach problems, backaches, colds, fevers, "nervousness," and "depression"--and had tried a variety of remedies, including dietary cures and homeopathy, when in 1862, she traveled to Portland, Maine, to receive treatment from Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, a healer. After Quimby effected a cure through his system of massage, encouragement, and "mental healing," she became his student and associate.

Shortly after Quimby's death in 1866, she slipped and fell on an icy street. Confined to bed and given little chance of recovery, she began reading the Bible. After a period of solitary meditation, she was overwhelmed by the idea that her life was in God and that God was the only life. From this revelation followed her healing; she got out of bed, dressed, and walked out of her sickroom, to the amazement of those in attendance.

In 1875, Mary Baker published Science and Health (in later editions, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures), the founding text of Christian Science. In it, she asserted that "all is mind and there is no matter," death and sickness are only illusions, and that everything emanates from God and is perfect--healing comes from the true understanding of these doctrines.

Two years later she married Asa Gilbert Eddy, one of her students. In 1879, the Church of Christ, Scientist, was founded and in 1881 ordained Mrs. Eddy its minister. After some dissension within the ranks, the original church dissolved and in 1892, Mrs. Eddy founded the First Church of Christ, Scientist, of Boston, also called "the Mother Church."

Practically from its inception, Christian Science was embroiled in controversy in the form of disputes over Eddy's authority, and lawsuits challenging the claims and efficacy of Christian Science healing practice and the originality of Eddy's doctrine. Competition from rival mental healing sects (called "New Thought")--some of which derived their theories from Eddy's own texts--led to further contention. Despite these difficulties, Christian Science and related doctrines spread widely in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, forming an alternative, especially popular among women, to both established religion and orthodox medicine.

See also Eddy, Mary Baker; Religion.
http://www.answers.com/topic/church-of-christ-scientist

[Cassandra]

7. Medicine, in those days...

was so rudimentary that prayer was thought to have outcomes nearly as good. BTW, surgeons were not considered on a par with medical doctors around that time.

[Momgonepostal]

3. Christian scientists, I believe...

oppose certain type of treatments.

Someone here will probably know more details than I do...

[boomboom]

4. Yes

Christian Science believes in spiritual healing. No medicine, doctors, hospitals etc.

[demnan]

5. Both

I had a roommate in college who was a Christian Scientist. Really bizarre. Whenever she got a cold she thought she had sinned. So she felt crappy and guilty at the same time.

[tenshi816]

6. Christian Scientists n/t

[Democrats_win]

9. Yes, Christain Scientists. Thanks. Bush needs some of that CS guilt.

Don't ya think?

[Vanje]

10. Methodists

George Bush is a Methodist, and he is definately against medical treatment ....for middleclass and poorer Americans.

[ultraist]

11. LOL! "medical care for middle class and poor Americans"

How true!

Although, I don't think it's the Methodist beliefs he supposedly holds, but his born again ideologue that provides his "blame the poor" attitudes.