ssWizard
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| | | Faith and Healing: A Forum
By Alice Park
Three experts--the Rev. George Handzo, a chaplain with the HealthCare Chaplaincy of New York City; Dr. Andrew Newberg, a radiologist and psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania; and Dr. Richard Sloan, a psychiatrist at Columbia University--discuss the role that belief should play in science
What role does religion play in health, and health in religion?
Dr. Richard Sloan: Spirituality and religion play a substantial role in helping patients overcome discomfort. But I don't think that it's any business of medicine, and I think it's extremely difficult for science to study. I am greatly supportive of the role of health-care chaplains for patients who have spiritual or religious concerns. But I don't think it's the doctor's job to be involved in that, other than to refer to a professional.
So doctors should not be taking spiritual histories?
Sloan: I don't think they should be taking spiritual histories.
The Rev. George Handzo: Dr. Sloan and I are pretty much in agreement, but it's important how one defines spiritual history and what actually goes into that. There's been a lot of fuzzy talk about what's screening, what's history, what's assessment. I would like to differentiate a history, and call that screening, and say that's the doctor's job. The physician's job, as Dr. Sloan pointed out correctly, is to discover where the problem is and get it pointed in the right direction. An assessment, a full [spiritual] assessment, would be the chaplain's job.
Dr. Andrew Newberg: My primary area of research has been looking at the neurobiology of different religious and spiritual practices, and one of the things I try to advocate is that we need to learn more about the best ways of enabling doctors to find out the questions that they need to ask. We need to learn how best to ask those questions, when to ask those questions and how often to ask those questions.
A lot of people have concerns about physicians playing too much of a role in the religious and spiritual beliefs of patients, so we need to understand what both the doctor's and the patient's motivations are and try to understand when it shouldn't be done and why it shouldn't be done.
I felt woefully unprepared to deal with those kinds of issues when I found myself having to tell a patient that they now had cancer or that they were going to die soon, or talking about a family member who's going to die soon when the family brought up religious and spiritual issues. I didn't even know who to refer to. And I think there's been some movement to at least help with that education, but I think we need to learn more about it.
Dr. Newberg, you are careful not to talk about humans as being hardwired for religion, because hardwiring implies a hardwirer, and science hasn't yet established that.
Newberg: The real issue for us is to try to look at data and to interpret it carefully. If you're doing a brain scan of somebody who experiences being in God's presence, we have to know what that means. Basically, the scan is showing you what is happening in the brain when they have the experience. It doesn't necessarily reduce it to just what is going on in the brain, and it also doesn't necessarily prove that the person was actually in God's presence.
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So I think we have to be cautious about what we do with the information that we have right now. I think we have a long way to go in terms of really learning what the nature of those kinds of experiences actually is. That's why even though I think the research shows that there are a lot of different changes that go on in the brain when people engage in religious and spiritual practices, that doesn't mean that there was somebody who came in and did the hardwiring.
Dr. Sloan, how do you react to the idea of a divine interventionist?
Sloan: Well, that conception is antithetical to science. Science doesn't deal in supernatural explanations, and that's a supernatural explanation. Religion and science address different concerns, and it's perfectly plausible, I think, as Dr. Newberg has suggested, to be a scientist and still believe in divine presence. But that doesn't mean that your belief in the divine presence finds its way into your science. Those are different things. Religion deals with a different domain.
Handzo: Yes, I would say that's right. I think part of the reason this whole debate has raised some hackles in the religious community is the perception that we're trying to prove the existence of God. And, of course, religious people, and I think rightfully so, say, No, no, no, that's a matter of faith. You are now crossed over, and you are trying to take science into the realm of religion and use scientific method and methodology to say that my faith is right or wrong. That's just not going to work, and I'm going to push back on that as a religious person.
I started out as an undergraduate as a scientist and only went to religion later, and there are those people who said to me that I couldn't be ordained because I had been a scientist, and that polluted my thinking.
Science and religion have different ways of thinking about reality that are both helpful, and both need to be accounted for. And I think in terms of health, the issue is how do we account for--in the health-care system and in the practice of health--the process of faith? And how does that integrate into how medicine gets practiced or how chaplaincy gets practiced or psychology gets practiced?
Sloan: I frankly think there is nothing that science can do that can contribute to religion, and I think it's a fatal flaw to think that you can use the methods of science to learn something meaningful about religion.
But can't the tools of science be used to teach us about the subjective experience of religion--as Dr. Newberg is describing, with brain scans and the like--and teach us something about how we process it?
Sloan: Let me ask you a different question. Would it be meaningful if we did a brain scan of someone before and after eating cheese? I don't understand the value of developing beautiful images, very appealing, aesthetic images of brain scans and people engaged in various religious experiences. I don't see the value any more than imaging people while eating cheese.
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Sloan: But why? To understand how the brain works so we can develop interventions to treat depression and to treat memory loss. And that's absolutely appropriate. Are there interventions that will come from [imaging religious experiences]?
Handzo: Well, certainly some work is pure research in order to fathom things better. There are no particular interventions that come from picking up rocks on the moon, but we do it because it teaches us more about the world around us.
Sloan: Fair enough, but there's a seductive appeal about neuroscience explanations, that there must be something significant here because you can see it in the brain scan. We're infatuated with neuroscience because of the very beautiful images that we can see, but the real question is, What do those images tell us that's of any value, whether it's basic science or applied?
Handzo: Neuroscience may be a smaller case of a larger reality. We live in a culture where I think science, the evidence of science, trumps the evidence of faith. If you give a drug that's supposed to work in six months, and three years later you get a remission, that's called delayed effect. And I've said to my oncologist colleagues, Why is that not a miracle? What evidence do you have, because you have no evidence that this is delayed effect--it's just what you're calling it. Tell me that that's not a miracle?
And the same thing in psychiatry. To be ordained in most religions, at least in Christian religions, you have to prove to a group of other people that God has spoken to you. This in psychiatry is called thought insertion. It's a diagnosis. So if I believe God has spoken to me, in the religious world I get to stand for ordination; in the scientific world, I could be diagnosed. Maybe both are right.
If you walk into my hospital room, and I say I don't believe in God, and you still provide a service, is this really spiritual at all? Could the care be the equivalent of such secular practices as meditation or yoga, and how would you distinguish that?
Handzo: Well, I think it's important to differentiate and to define spirituality and religion. Religion has to do with an organized set of beliefs. So I'm a Lutheran; I adhere to a set of beliefs that has been defined as Lutheran, and I identify with a community that's Lutheran.
Spirituality, I think, is a much broader concept, and it has to do with probably a personal quest. Lutheran is what some other people have said Lutheran is. Your spirituality is what you say it is, and so my job as a chaplain is to discover what you say it is and to help that spirituality be helpful to you in coping with the illness or whatever is going on in your life.
Newberg: I think trying to define it is absolutely one of the areas that we really need to get a handle on, because one of the mistakes that is often made in the medical context can be that, oh, somebody is this particular religion, so they believe in these things. We have to be careful about how we define and slot everybody into these different categories. Atheists as well.
Getting back to brain structure--Dr. Sloan, would you see the varying degrees of spirituality in people as being rooted in something as simple as brain architecture?
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Sloan: Well, all our experience in some way derives from the brain--everything we experience, from meditation to eating cheese. So in some way, it's rooted in the brain. The concern I have is that science operates in a reductionist way, and if you try to understand a spiritual experience or a religious experience from the science perspective, ultimately you are going to reduce it to the coursing of neurochemicals in the brain. And while that may be satisfying to a scientist, it's anathema to a theologian, which illustrates the limits of science. There are some questions for which science can't provide an adequate answer.
So, Rev. Handzo, how do you give that coursing of neurochemicals meaning? If you are counseling a patient, someone who has received a diagnosis of terminal cancer, what do you say?
Handzo: The secret is, we say as little as possible. There's nothing you can say. I mean, that alludes to this whole theological question of why does this happen--and we simply do not know. I agree with Dr. Sloan: I don't think that I want to know why God does it that way. Maybe God has nothing to do with it. I'm not sure any of those things are things I want to know, being a person of faith.
My job is to help them discover the meaning for themselves. What is the meaning for you? An example of that: I remember a mother of a child with cancer who said, "God is going to heal my son." Well, the doctors knew that God wasn't going to heal her son--I still held out--but eventually she came to the understanding that God was not going to heal her son. She said, "Well, you know, I didn't listen to God well. God has another plan for my son, a greater plan." For her, the fact that she could feel that God was still in control and understand that what God does is good--that was enough.
Sloan: So this is an issue that is periodically in the news. What do physicians--what does the health-care system--do for the patient if the mother assumes a religious stance that interferes with treatment?
Handzo: I think ethically we as a society have some duties to people who are unable to make judgments for themselves, and we have to make some judgments, right or wrong. And so I think we've done the right thing in saying sometimes, for whatever reason it is, whether it's faith or psychopathology or whatever, people who have responsibility for minor children don't make right decisions, are not fit to make right decisions --I don't care why--and the state has an interest in preserving that life.
Just as free speech has a limit, freedom of religion has a limit. There are limits in our society. And that's the way we've set society up.
Newberg: I'll be idealistic for a moment. I would love to see the practice of medicine be a team event. In a hospital setting, you can have a team where you can bring in somebody from pastoral care to talk to them about that, you can bring in a social worker to deal with the social issues, a therapist if need be. And then just as you hope that they as a family are going to make a decision, you as a team can make a decision, and then that way you have the best way of optimizing what I think are really the four dimensions of the person--the biological, the social, the psychological and the spiritual. I think we as a society, and the medical profession in general, need to really think through these issues, because it would be great to function as a team, to really take care of the whole person and to heal that person in whatever way that means.
信仰和愈合：论坛
由爱丽丝公园
三位专家-牧师乔治Handzo ，一个牧师的医疗Chaplaincy纽约市;博士安德鲁Newberg ，放射科医师和精神科医生在宾夕法尼亚大学的博士和理查德斯隆，还有一名精神病学家，哥伦比亚大学-讨论信仰的作用应该发挥在科学
什么作用发挥宗教在卫生和健康的宗教？
博士理查德斯隆：灵性和宗教发挥重大的作用，帮助患者克服不适。但我并不认为这是任何企业的药品，和我认为这是极为困难的科学来研究。我非常支持的作用，保健牧师谁的病人有精神或宗教的关切。但我不认为这是医生的工作，参与的是，除提及专业。
因此，医生不应该考虑的精神记录？
斯隆：我不认为他们应该采取精神的历史。
牧师乔治Handzo ：博士斯隆和我都非常一致，但重要的如何界定精神的历史和实际进入的。一直有很多模糊谈论的筛选，有什么历史，什么是评估。我想分化的历史，并呼吁该筛选，并说这是医生的工作。医生的工作，作为斯隆博士指出正确，是发现问题所在，并得到它指出了正确的方向。评估，充分[精神]的评估，将是牧师的工作。
安德鲁博士Newberg ：我国主要的研究领域一直在寻找在神经生物学的不同宗教和精神的做法，和的事情之一就是我尝试主张是，我们需要更多地了解的最佳途径，使医生找出的问题，他们需要问。我们需要学习如何最好地问这些问题时，要问这些问题，以及如何常常要问这些问题。
许多人都担心医生发挥太大的作用，宗教和精神信仰的病人，所以我们需要了解的医生和病人的动机，并试图了解它时，不应该这样做，为什么不应该这样做。
我觉得可悲的准备，以处理这类问题时，我发现自己不得不告诉病人，他们现在得了癌症，或他们将很快死去，或谈论一个家庭成员是谁就要死时，家人很快长大宗教和精神问题。我什至不知道谁提及。我认为有一些运动至少帮助，教育，但我认为，我们需要更多地了解它。
博士Newberg ，你小心，不要谈论人类作为硬的宗教，因为hardwiring意味着hardwirer ，科学尚未确定。
Newberg ：真正的问题，我们是试图看看数据，并解释仔细。如果您做了脑部扫描的人谁的经验是在上帝的存在，我们必须知道这意味着什么。基本上，扫描显示你正在发生什么事情时，他们大脑的经验。这不一定减少到正在发生的事情在大脑中，也并不一定证明，人实际上是在上帝的存在。
看到照片，属灵的医治世界各地。
改为“上帝的在YouTube上找到。 ”
所以，我认为我们必须谨慎，我们做什么的信息，我们现在。我认为，我们必须要走的路还很长在真正学习的性质是什么类型的经验，这些实际上是。这就是为什么即使我想，研究表明，有很多不同的变化，去大脑中当人们从事宗教和精神的做法，这并不意味着没有人来和谁也hardwiring 。
斯隆博士，你如何作出反应的想法神圣干涉？
斯隆：嗯，这概念是对立的科学。科学不涉及超自然的解释中，这是超自然的解释。宗教和科学解决不同的关切，它完全可能的，我认为，作为博士 Newberg建议，是一个科学家，仍然相信神的存在。但是，这并不意味着，你相信神的存在能利用到你的科学。这些是不同的事情。宗教涉及一种不同的网域。
Handzo ：是的，我要说的是，没错。我想部分原因整个辩论已经引起了一些令人发指的宗教社区的看法是，我们正在试图证明上帝存在的。，当然，宗教界人士，我认为正确的，也就是说，不，不，不，这是一个问题的诚意。您现在已经越过，你正在努力采取科学变成宗教和科学的方法和使用方法，说，我的信念是正确的或错误的。这不是去工作，我要推回到上，作为一个宗教人士。
我开始了作为一名大学生作为一个科学家，只有到宗教以后，有这些人谁对我说，我不能因为我是注定了的科学家，而且污染了我的思维。
科学与宗教有不同的方式思考现实，都是有益的，都必须加以核算。我认为，在健康方面，问题是我们如何帐户-在卫生保健系统和在实践中健康-的过程中信心？这是否和如何融入医学会如何如何chaplaincy练习或练习或心理学会得到实施？
斯隆：我坦率地认为，没有任何科学能做到这一点有助于宗教，我认为这是一个致命的缺陷认为，您可以使用科学的方法，了解一些有意义的关于宗教。
但不能科学的工具来教我们的主观经验的宗教-博士Newberg是描述，与大脑扫描等-并教导我们一些有关我们如何处理呢？
斯隆：让我问你一个不同的问题。将是有意义的，如果我们做了脑部扫描的人之前和之后吃奶酪？我不明白的价值，发展美丽的图像，非常有吸引力，审美意象的脑部扫描和人民从事各种宗教的经验。我没有看到任何的价值超过成像人吃奶酪。
我们探讨大脑看起来像在抑郁的人，在人们苦苦挣扎的内存问题...
看到照片，属灵的医治世界各地。
看到照片，教皇本笃十六世访问美国。
斯隆：但是，为什么？为了了解大脑是如何工作，让我们可以开发的干预治疗抑郁和治疗记忆丧失。这是绝对正确的。是否有干预措施，将来自[成像宗教经验] ？
Handzo ：嗯，当然有些工作是纯理论的研究，以便更好捉摸的东西。有没有特别的干预措施，从加快岩在月球上，但我们做到这一点，因为它告诉我们更多关于我们周围的世界。
斯隆：不够公平，但有一个诱人的呼吁有关神经科学的解释，必须有一些重要的，因为在这里你可以看到它的脑部扫描。我们很痴迷的神经，因为非常漂亮的图片，我们可以看到，但真正的问题是，这些图片是什么告诉我们，在任何价值，无论是基础科学或应用？
Handzo ：神经可能是一个较小的情况下更大的现实。我们生活在一个文化，我认为科学，科学的证据，胜过信仰的证据。如果你给的药物，假定工作6个月， 3年后会得到缓解，这就是所谓的延迟效应。和我已经说过我的肿瘤科医生的同事们，为什么会出现这种情况不是一个奇迹？有什么证据你有，因为你没有证据证明这是延迟效应-这正是你要求它。告诉我，这不是一个奇迹？
，同样的事情在精神病。要祝在大多数宗教，至少在基督宗教，你必须向一组的其他人，上帝已经给你讲。这被称为精神病学思想插入。这是一个诊断。所以，如果我相信上帝对我讲，在宗教的世界去主张协调;在科学界，我就可以确诊。也许两者都是正确的。
如果你走进我的病房，我说我不相信上帝，而你仍然提供服务，这是真正的精神呢？可以照顾相当于这种世俗的做法，冥想或瑜珈，和你将如何区分呢？
Handzo ：嗯，我认为这是很重要的区别和界定精神和宗教。宗教是同一个有组织的一套信仰。所以我是信义，我坚持了一套信仰，被界定为信义，我确定了社会的信义。
灵性，我认为，这是更广泛的概念，以及它与可能是个人的追求。路德是其他一些人说是路德。您的精神是你说的话是，所以我的工作作为一个牧师是发现你说的话是和帮助是有益的精神给你在对付疾病或正在发生的一切在你的生活。
Newberg ：我认为试图确定这是绝对的领域之一，我们真的需要来处理，因为一个错误，往往是在医疗方面可以说，噢，这个人是特定的宗教，所以他们相信这些东西。我们必须小心，我们如何界定和插槽大家到这些不同的类别。无神论者以及。
回去大脑结构-博士。斯隆，你会看到不同程度的精神在人们视为植根于东西一样简单大脑结构？
看到照片，属灵的医治世界各地。
查看前10名的科学发现的2008年。
斯隆：嗯，我们所有的经验，以某种方式来自大脑-我们所有的经验，从冥想吃奶酪。因此，在某种程度上，这是根植于大脑。我的关切是，科学的经营方式在一个简化的，如果你试图了解一个精神的经验或宗教经验的科学的角度来看，最终你将减少到coursing的neurochemicals在大脑中。虽然这可能是令人满意的一名科学家，这是诅咒一个神学家，这说明科学的局限性。有一些问题，而科学不能提供足够的答案。
因此，修订版Handzo ，你如何让这coursing的neurochemicals意思？如果您是咨询的病人，有人谁收到了诊断的晚期癌症，你说什么？
Handzo ：秘诀就是，我们说尽可能少。没有什么可以说。我的意思是，这暗示整个神学问题为什么会发生这种情况-我们完全不知道。我同意博士斯隆：我不认为我想知道为什么上帝没有这样。也许上帝与己无关的姿态。我不知道，这些事情都是我想知道，作为一个人的信仰。
我的工作是帮助他们发现自己的意义。是什么意思吗？一个例子是：我还记得母亲儿童癌症谁说： “上帝是要治愈我的儿子。 ”嗯，医生知道，上帝是不会治愈她的儿子-我仍然举行了-但最终她的理解，上帝不会治愈她的儿子。她说： “嗯，你知道，我根本不听上帝良好。上帝另一计划我的儿子，一个更大的计划。 ”对她来说，这样一个事实，她可以认为，上帝仍然在控制和理解，什么是上帝并不好-这是不够的。
斯隆：所以这是一个问题，定期在新闻中。什么医生-什么是保健制度-这样的病人如果母亲承担的宗教立场，干扰治疗？
Handzo ：我认为道德我们作为一个社会有责任的人谁无法为自己做出判断，我们必须作出一些判断，正确或错误的。因此，我认为我们已经做了正确的事情说有时，无论出于何种原因是，无论是精神或信仰或什么，人们谁负责未成年子女不正确的决定，不适合作出正确的决定-我不在乎为什么-和国家的利益在维护生命。
正如言论自由有一个限度，宗教自由的限制。有限制，我们的社会。和这就是我们设定的社会行动。
Newberg ：我将理想化了一会儿。我喜欢看到行医是一个团体比赛。在医院环境中，你可以有一个团队在这里您可以把人从牧灵工作和他们交谈的话，你可以带着一名社会工作者，以处理社会问题，所以如果需要的话。然后就像你希望他们的家庭将做出决定，你作为一个团队可以做出决定，然后你有这种方式的最佳途径优化我认为真正的四个层面的人，生物，社会，心理和精神。我认为，我们作为一个社会，医学界一般情况下，需要真的认为通过这些问题，因为这将是巨大的，作为一个团队，才能真正照顾到整个人，并治愈该人以任何方式手段。
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