Medicine: The Discovery of “How Hearts Find Peace”
Another branch of science that was affected by the collapse of atheist suppositions was medicine.
According to results compiled by David B. Larson and his team at the National Institute for Healthcare Research, a comparison among Americans in relation to church attendance yielded very interesting results. Risk of arteriosclerotic heart disease for men who attended church frequently was just 60 percent of that for men who were infrequent church attenders. Among women, suicide was twice as high among infrequent as among frequent church attenders; smokers who ranked religion as very important in their lives were over seven times less likely to have normal diastolic pressure readings than were those who did not. [Patrick Glynn, God: The Evidence, The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World , Prima Publishing, California, 1997, pp.80-81]
Secular psychologists generally explain such phenomena as having a psychological cause. In this sense, faith raises a person’s morale and contributes to his well-being. There may be some truth in this explanation, but if we look more closely we see something much more dramatic. Belief in God is much stronger than any other influence on the morale. In comprehensive research on the relationship between religious belief and physical health, Dr. Herbert Benson of the Harvard Medical School came up with some interesting results. Although he did not have any religious faith, Benson arrived at the result that faith in God and worship had a much more positive effect on human health than could be observed in anything else. Benson concludes that he has “found that faith quiets the mind like no other form of belief.” [Herbert Benson, Mark Stark, Timeless Healing, Simon & Schuste, New York, 1996, p. 203]
Why is there such a special relation between faith and human spirit and body? The result arrived at by Benson, who is a secular researcher, was, as he put it, that the human mind and body are “wired for God.” [Herbert Benson, Mark Stark, Timeless Healing, Simon & Schuste, New York, 1996, p. 193]
This fact, that the medical world is slowly beginning to notice, is a secret revealed in the Qur’an with the verse, “Only in the remembrance of God can the heart find peace.” (Qur’an, 13:28) The reason why those who believe in God, pray to Him and trust in Him are physically and mentally more healthy than others is that they behave in harmony with their nature. Philosophical systems opposed to human nature always bring pain, sorrow, anxiety and depression upon people.
The basic source of the peace experienced by a religious person is that he acts in order to gain God’s approval. In other words, this peace is the natural result of a person’s listening to the voice of his conscience. A person does not live the morality of religion simply “to be more at peace” or “to be healthier”; a person who acts with this intention cannot find peace in its true sense. God well knows that what a person stores in his heart or what he reveals. A person experiences peace of mind only by being sincere and attempting to gain God’s approval. God commands:
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So set your face firmly towards the [true] religion, as a pure natural believer, God’s natural pattern on which He made mankind. There is no changing God’s creation. That is the true religion—but most people do not know it. (Qur’an, 30:30)**
In the light of the discoveries that we have briefly indicated above, modern medicine is starting to become cognizant of this truth. As Patrick Glynn says, “contemporary medicine is clearly moving in the direction of acknowledging dimensions of healing beyond the purely material”. [Patrick Glynn, God: The Evidence, The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World , Prima Publishing, California, 1997, p.94]
SOURCE: “A Turning Point in History, The Fall of Atheism” BY HARUN YAHYA