Religious rituals in healthcare

[Gaest]

Hey everyone,

This is a repost of something I started on TTA back just before Christmas, but unfortunately the discussion kinda died and now it's so far down the list that I'm not sure it will resurface...
I spend quite a bit of time researching the topic though, so I felt like giving it a second shot on another board.

My opening post from TTA:

Hey everyone,

I considered calling this thread "the theater of healing" or something obscure along those lines, but I figured I would be a bit more direct:

Do religious rituals have a place in healthcare?

I would argue that they do to an extent. The reason I would argue they have a place along side traditional biomedical treatment is that rituals and - for religious people - religious rituals are pretty potent when it comes to unlocking the body's own medicinal cabinet through the placebo effect.

Obviously it is important to know the limits of placebo effects. You can't prayer-group yourself out of getting bitten by a snake, lacking insulin or having your appendix burst by an infection.
That being said the placebo effect can provide relief (fx by alleviating pain), have a therapeutic effect and enhance the effectiveness of pharmaceutical drugs.
They might also be able to stimulate and strengthen (?) immune responses, but I'm not sure how well established that is.

Of course more research is needed - partly because not everyone responds equally to placebo effects and partly to avoid nocebo effects - before you formally implement rituals (including religious ones) in healthcare practices, and you would need a special institution with medical professionals to vet rituals and the people performing them.

On another note the ritually induced placebo effect actually lends some credibility to the effectiveness of religious healing rituals historically and today...

Thoughts? Comments? Outbursts?

http://www.thethinkingatheist.com/forum/...healthcare