In Reply to: Re: ha ha ha posted by Charlie on July 12, 2004 at 00:32:28:
Hey, Charley.
There are several posts on the "Academic/Research" board about supposedly measurable physiological changes that take place in brain chemistry during various sorts of trauma. What with increasingly complex "soft tissue studies" like PET and CT scans on the rise, I pretty much believe that.
Part of living in this world has to do with some of the cumulative effects of sin entering in through Adam. In Physics, "entropy" gets everything eventually, at least hypothetically.
I believe that can include brain chemistry. I believe that verifiable science, imperfect as it is, and medicine, as imperfect a SCIENCE as THAT is, is still a gift from God.
I also believe that about half the advances in medicine over the last 50 years have come from abandoning bad science, in favor of more holistic (NOT "new age") approaches like naturally chelated meds (taken closer to the form in which God created them), and in paying more attention to primary and secondary prevention and care (tertiary sells better--people are more desperate, and it produces a higher demand market!"Skin for skin, and what will a man not give...", etc).
2 Cor 1 says we get to comfort others with the same comfort God gives us.
In view of that, I see nothing wrong with the wise use of certain antidepressive meds, etc.
It kind of goes along with the idea of Biblically giving "wine to those who are of a heavy heart", and "strong drink to those that are ready to perish"; all without causing addictions, or substituting for God's direct intervention when that is obviously needed.