A Personal Encounter with Religion

I was working this morning at home when I heard knocking on the door. I ran downstairs--I though it my be my girlfriend who had just left--to see the faces of two men. One of them looked like a friend from New York so I thought it might be him because he's coming to Seattle at the end of the month. He wasn't--it was two Jehovah's Witnesses. I recognized the other guy who came by with someone else a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't very welcoming this time, nor the last time, but I didn't turn them away. I told him I didn't have a chance to read the pamphlets he gave me--they are called "Awake!^®" and "Watchtower", and according to the pamphlet the current average printing for the former is 34,267,000 in 81 languages!--but I was interested in religion and would like to discuss it with them next time. He asked me when I am usually home. I told him I am in and out all the time but that he can "try to stop by the same time next week." I am sure that didn't sound too encouraging from his point of view (not that I care since he is imposing himself on me).

I had some time today to read a portion of the first pamphlet the focused on health and religion. The title of the piece is, "When sickness is no more!" and is preceded by another article called "Will science cure the world?" that discusses recent and current advances in health-related issues such as nanomedicine and genomics. This piece is very general and basic but provides a list of some key advances as well as the challenges that remain--specifically diseases such as measles, HIV, malaria, etc.

The message of the articles is that while science is "achieving great things in the fight against sickness...the cause of disease has proved too complex for science to resolve fully." According to the article, "the real cause of sickness" is that Adam and Eve "were designed to live on earth forever but "it was not until they willfully rebelled against God that their bodies became susceptible to disease. (Genesis 3:17-19) By rejecting God's authority they severed their ties with the Creator, the Source of their perfect life. They became defective. As a result, they got sick and died, just as God had warned them they would. -Genesis 2:16, 17; 5:5. After their rebellion Adam and Eve could only pass on imperfection to their children. (Romans 5:12) As mentioned in the preceding article, scientists today recognize that there are inherited malfunction that contribute to sickness and death. After extensive research, a group of scientists recently concluded: 'It is an inescapable biological reality that once the engine of life switches on, the body inevitably sows the sees of its own destruction.'"

This short and simple selective application of science to religion in the article is comedic. It's funny because it's extremely stupid--an average third grader should be able to recognize it as such. Now I know why I'm sick! It's because Adam and Eve were bad and so they got sick, and then passed on their sickness to their children (us). This comes from the Bible, which is the authoritative word of God. And wait, that's not all! It is also collaborated by science, which has advanced so much recently, and shows that disease is often inherited!!! However, as the Bible states, man cannot cure sickness by himself because God says "Do not put your trust in nobles, nor in the son of earthling man, to whom no salvation belongs."-Psalm 146:3. But, here's the good news, according to the article:

"However, as the Bible declares, 'the things impossible with men are possible with God.' (Luke 18:27) Jehovah God can undo the cause of sickness. He will heal all our maladies. (Psalm 103:3) He inspired Word promises: 'Look! The tend of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his peoples. And God himself will be with them. And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.'-Revelation 21:3,4."

So when will "sickness be no more?" The article doesn't answer that question, but says that "while you await the future when sickness will be no more, the wisdom and reasonableness found in the Bible can help you to remain balanced in your pursuit of good health."

This article and the sad reality that so many people believe in it shows how gullible humans are to believing in something simply because they don't know any better. I understand if someone believed in this story a few centuries ago when we didn't have knowledge of evolution and genetics. But today the information is out there. Every scientist knows that disease happens because microbes are our Darwinian competitors, and affects probably every single animal and plant species on the planet. It's not Adam and Eve, and on a tangent, even if you didn't have any knowledge of evolutionary biology, why would you believe every scripture in the Bible if you know that there are many other religions that hold a different point of view? At the very least, that knowledge should make a person agnostic. I plan to discuss the scientific point of view--which is in part answered in this excellent article from the Scientific American--the next time I see them (in short, disease is inevitable and people will always be sick).

Incidentally, I was in Nashville for Christmas and found these church offices within a mall! I guess it's good that the marketplace for religion is alive and well.