So I've noticed a common thread to folks who are making certain medical claims. I'm talking about the people who think vaccines are bad, or Big Pharmacy is out to murder the population, or the government puts fluoride in our water to make us stupid. Namely: "The reason mainstream medicine doesn't support my idea is that there is a giant conspiracy against me."
Usually these people have some sort of "cure They don't want you to know about" that they are willing to sell you for only $19.95. Sometimes, however, they are sincerely misguided. They really believe that putting rock salt under your bed or wearing copper jewelry or rubbing blue lights on your thyroid will heal you of your ailments. Sometimes they are partially right--like a lot of herbalists I've read who make valid points about harvesting medications in the wild but fail to realize that a medication made from a plant is still a medication. In any case, regarding your opposition as evil is unhelpful unless your opposition is Charles Manson.
What I look for, therefore, in the discussion of someone who is advocating a non-mainstream idea, is a willingness to see good in their opponents. Do they think that all physicians are malicious jerks who are merely in it for the money? Or do they think that doctors are generally decent folks who might be honestly mistaken about whether or not ginko biloba is a good idea?
Moving from medicine to religion, do they think that "emergent church" people are truly Satanists at heart, cackling gleefully while pulling churches down around their ears? Or might they be truly decieved and misinformed about proper doctrine? In other words, do they sound more like Martin Luther on his bad days, or C.S. Lewis on his good ones? If the person trying to sell me an idea that mainstream thinking doesn't accept is willing to believe that his opponents are honestly mistaken, but not neccesarily malicious, I am much more likely to listen to him.
It's something I have to watch in myself. Am I automatically attributing bad motives to someone I disagree with, or do I at least assume that they are trying to do the right thing (albeit perhaps failing miserably)? Because honestly, how am I supposed to love people like Christ loved them when I am making all these wicked assumptions about them?
A caveat: if someone has shown you they are a manipulative jerk, then don't do business with them again. But in everything else, perhaps we could get a better hearing for or own non-mainstream idea--the Gospel--if we remember that the Bible says the mainstream--the Lost--are completely decieved and walking in darkness. Why do we expect them to act as though they can see? If there's one time when we can be sure about someone's motives, that they genuinely do not understand what they're doing or saying, it's when we're talking to an unsaved person. Our hearts should break for them when they are at their most blasphemous, because literally "they know not what they do." Instead, to my shame, I find myself getting irritated with them.
So hopefully, next time I'm talking to someone arrogantly going on against religion, I can recite to myself "vaccines cause autism and fluoride in the water makes you stupid", take a deep breath, and respond in love.
Enough serious posting for today,
Breanna
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