Faith Healing
Modern medicine has evolved so much in the last few decades.   Hospitals are now equipped with the best technology there is to offer and doctors are regularly performing life saving operations.   They can heal almost anything nowadays, but some people do not believe in the latest up to date treatments in the medical field.   Some people are very religious and have an extreme amount of faith that their God will perform all the healing they need.   This belief and practice is known as faith healing.
Faith healing is seen in many religions.   In Christianity faith healing is the belief that God heals people through the power of the Holy Spirit.   This often involves the laying on of hands.   It is noted in the first four gospels that Jesus cures many physical ailments that are incapable of being healed through any modern medicine.  
Faith healing in Catholicism is along the same lines.   Catholics pray to a saint or to a person capable of healing.   The 2 most notable figures of faith healing for Catholics are the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Jude.   Saint Jude is thought to have sent many life threatening diseases into remission for those that prayed to her.   Catholics actually recognize 67 miracles and 7,000 other cases of healing that are inexplicable.(Wikipedia, 2006)   These cures have to be looked at by a board of medical personnel to determine whether or not any physical mechanism was responsible for the person’s recovery.   In the above listed cases, it was determined that there was no physical mechanism which cured the individuals.
Christian Scientists have a little bit of a different view on faith healing.   They believe that healing is possible through understanding the spiritual perfection of God’s creation.   They believe that the way we understand the world is a distortion of the spiritual reality.   Faith healing to them is done through prayer if they believe they can succeed in correcting the distortion.   However, they are free to choose prayer…