Medical science is required to manage many diseases, especially genetic diseases - it therefore puzzles me why people think that it will make a difference in condition or psyche to pray for someone who has a genetic disease. It is the medicine you take for the condition that makes you feel physically better and gives you peace of mind to cope with it emotionally. Before you argue that God gives you that strength to cope emotionally, take a second to think that knowing how your medicine works to combat your symptoms is much more empowering - realising that "I WILL be OK if I take my medicine" is so much easier emotionally than praying that "God will give me the strength to get through this". The latter statement is so vague and filled with maybes....in my mind its better to understand and deal with it than to just hope for the best that some external force should make it easier.
Genetic diseases cannot be seen as something prayer can change in any way, just as it cannot be seen as a punishment from God. Let me explain - a genetic disease is caused by a mutation to DNA. This mutation is present at the moment of conception or created by damage due to poor choices such as smoking or being in the sun without sunscreen. The mutation can predispose the body to developing disease or it can be the sole cause of the disease. Genetic predisposition to a disease means that under certain environmental conditions such as diet, climate, lifestyle and chance infections by pathogens (like viruses and bacteria), a mutation to the DNA results in the body not being able to cope under those environmental conditions. A DNA mutation is permanent and irreversible so no amount of praying will cause DNA to "unmutate". In the same breath, such a mutation is not a punishment from some external force because if present later in life it is due to poor choices and if present at conception it would mean that God decided to punish you before you did anything to deserve it. Of course some people do believe this: since God has a plan and knows everything, He knows u will reject Him later in life and so mutates your DNA so that your punishment awaits you duly. This of course means that one had no choice in the matter of rejection at all because the mutation was there from the start o it was inevitable. The points I am bringing up here is the matter of a wholly different debate about whether fate/destiny/God's plan can co-exist with free-choice. That is to say whether man's own choices can over power God's plan or whether it just means God planned for man to make the wrong choice and punishes him for it anyway.
I digress but my main point here is that realistic, practical and proven means are necessary to cope with genetic disease; undefined 'help from above' won't make a difference in genetic conditions no matter how real or imagined the force behind it is.
Genetic diseases cannot be seen as something prayer can change in any way, just as it cannot be seen as a punishment from God. Let me explain - a genetic disease is caused by a mutation to DNA. This mutation is present at the moment of conception or created by damage due to poor choices such as smoking or being in the sun without sunscreen. The mutation can predispose the body to developing disease or it can be the sole cause of the disease. Genetic predisposition to a disease means that under certain environmental conditions such as diet, climate, lifestyle and chance infections by pathogens (like viruses and bacteria), a mutation to the DNA results in the body not being able to cope under those environmental conditions. A DNA mutation is permanent and irreversible so no amount of praying will cause DNA to "unmutate". In the same breath, such a mutation is not a punishment from some external force because if present later in life it is due to poor choices and if present at conception it would mean that God decided to punish you before you did anything to deserve it. Of course some people do believe this: since God has a plan and knows everything, He knows u will reject Him later in life and so mutates your DNA so that your punishment awaits you duly. This of course means that one had no choice in the matter of rejection at all because the mutation was there from the start o it was inevitable. The points I am bringing up here is the matter of a wholly different debate about whether fate/destiny/God's plan can co-exist with free-choice. That is to say whether man's own choices can over power God's plan or whether it just means God planned for man to make the wrong choice and punishes him for it anyway.
I digress but my main point here is that realistic, practical and proven means are necessary to cope with genetic disease; undefined 'help from above' won't make a difference in genetic conditions no matter how real or imagined the force behind it is.
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