T.B. Joshua, lead pastor of The Synagogue Church Of All Nations (SCOAN), says that he has cured at least one woman of HIV. His is only one of a growing number of evangelical churches in the UK promising HIV and AIDS healing if infected people will just stop taking their meds and start trusting God.
One Londoner says she was expressly told by a church representative her HIV could be removed with a heavy dose of devotion. “I was told they can cure any illness on Earth through prayer, including HIV,” Mary Buhari told the BBC.
Meanwhile at least three HIV+ women have already died because they stopped taking medication in favor of a prayer cure.
Image via Vik Nanda
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christopher di spirito
I’m still waiting for Jason to post the names of all the scientists and Nobel winners who say HIV doesn’t cause AIDS.
These people are certifiably insane.
Shannon1981
I do not understand how this is legal. This “faith healing” has, in many forms, KILLED PEOPLE. Sorry, but this is one time when common sense, rationality,logical thinking, and medical science should supercede the right to religious belief. The people who do these things and promote these ideas are clearly mentally ill and should be treated as such.
@christopher di spirito: Jason will not come forward with the requested information because it does not exist. Perhaps(we can only hope) your challenge, and that of others telling him to infect himself with HIV to prove his point, will rid us all of the #1 Queerty troll forever.
Ray
Arrest and execute everyone involved.
the crustybastard
Religion has ever been the excuse for the cruel and opportunistic to prey on the weak-minded and gullible*.
Naturally, religious people always feel entitled to special respect for being religious. All they’re entitled to is my contempt or pity, depending on which side of the pulpit they dwell.
[ * Excepting the two genuine and decent practicing Christians with whom I’m personally acquainted.]
Robert in NYC
No. 1, one scientist who touted HIV isn’t the cause is Peter Duesberg back in the late 80s who volunteered to inject the virus to prove his theory. He never did though as far as I know and I wonder if Jason would be willing to try?
Hyhybt
@the crustybastard: Why not the genuine and decent ones you haven’t met and don’t know who they are? Surely, if you know two, there are more.
More on topic… only the nuttiest say you should use prayer/healing/whatever INSTEAD OF taking medicine. Yes, there are entirely too many in that category.
B
No. 3 · Ray wrote, “Arrest and execute everyone involved.” Unfortunately most involved, excepting the “pastor” are either dead or are still-alive victims of his crazy ideas.
Don’t know if the pastor can be charged with practicing medicine without a license, but at a minimum, someone should send his congregation a new “hymn” to sing during their services: the World War I song, “Praise the Lord but pass the ammunition.”
On another note, I have a new estimate of how far God is from Earth. It seems that our “friend” Harold Camping, the end-of-the-world pastor who predicted the “Rapture” for May 21 claims that Armageddon is still on schedule for October 21 (this Friday, missing the start of the Halloween festivities by a week, and thus depriving people of funny and topical costumes). Now, to be fair to Camping, he’s in his upper 80s and had a stroke a few months ago, so saying some silly things might be understandable, but we can still have some fun with his concept:
At some unknown point in time, God sent out the Rapture signal (which Camping claims worked but on a spiritual, not a physical, plane, whatever that means). If God follows standard engineering practices, an ACK went back to verify that the Rapture actually occurred, at which point God would send the Armageddon signal, presumably immediately since the Rapture signal shows that he was already in the mood. The 6 month delay is the round trip propagation time, which at the speed of light puts God about 3 light months from earth. When Armageddon doesn’t happen, Camping has an out – its pretty hard to hit a target the size of the earth when aiming from 3 light months away – you miss completely if your aim is off by an angle of 0.00000016 degrees.
RT
So, no one getting AIDS from not being positive AND people getting AIDS from being positive must all just have been really really really really really really lucky coincidence.
Calling HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, is like living in the 40s saying Holocaust is not happening, and that millions of Jews were just “disappearing.”
People who are sick with AIDS are real, the breakthrough research we are doing is real, sexual education is real, and having lost your friend to HIV is VERY REAL.
But back to the subject, I am really sorry to say this, but I don’t feel much pity for the women who died. I really don’t. If someone came up to me and said, stop taking my cancer medication because God is about to heal me, I would laugh and walk away, instead of LISTENING to this guy and actually harming myself.
There are plenty of educational material out there about HIV. These women HAD HIV, meaning a doctor probably told them about how important the meds are. If these women chose to forego their common sense, listen to a zombie worshiper about what a medical professional told them, well, who can we REALLY blame? There are always nut jobs out there. I hope at least their god is real and they made it into Heaven.
RT
And believe me, if one of your friends decided to stop taking meds after going to a church meeting, you all should talk to the friend. Because that is suicide.
Chris
Everyone is talking the church/ pastors, but are we forgetting to ask ourselves who is more stupid: The stupid one, or the one who follows the stupid one?
the crustybastard
@Hyhybt: “Surely, if you know two, there are more…”
That has not been my experience.
Hyhybt
@the crustybastard: So, then: where do I fail? Genuine, decent, practicing, or Christian? And on what basis do you make that judgment?
lemon-lime
Here’s the thing, peeps. If God is going to heal you of your HIV, I’m pretty sure you’re going to get a personal memo from him. Not from your pastor.
@Hyhybt: Honestly, the fact that he admits he knows of 2 is the most acceptance I’ve heard out of him of any kind.
Hyhybt
@lemon-lime: Ah. OK. I rarely remember who has said what on other topics.
Hyhybt
@lemon-lime: Ah. OK. I rarely remember who has said what on other topics.
Still, two is an odd cut-off point. I could see saying there were none at all, and declaring that those personally known were not what they seemed to be, but once you’ve got to the point of acknowledging that such people exists… well, after all, there are billions of people you don’t know, right?
Pat Duffy
@RT: I agree. I ended up with a number of verbal brawls back in the 90’s with Duesenbergies(silly me, an ICU Nurse with full blown aids thinking I knew something about it more than some Vegan couch-surfer). Every time I’d read their Obits I’d think the planet lost at least one more Eejit….
jason
HIV does not cause AIDS. AIDS is a drastic decline in the immune system that is due to poor lifestyle choices, and not a virus. These poor lifestyle choices include promiscuous sex with strangers, poor diets, and drug abuse.
This is something that a lot of gay men have not been able to face – ie that their poor lifestyle choices are what makes them vulnerable to immune deficienty. It’s so much easier to blame a virus because then you’ve got a scapegoat whom you can blame.
What many gay men need to do is to have a good look at themselves. Their shockingly promiscuous lives are making them prone to infections. Time to exercise some morality, guys.
MikeE
@jason: Go fuck yourself Jason.. better yet, go out and let someone ELSE fuck you, without a condom.
Every single person I know with HIV/AIDS does NOT do, nor has ever done drugs, has a healthy lifestyle (exercise, eating, etc…) and always has, and has never been “shockingly promiscuous”.
It only takes ONE.
HIV/AIDS has NOTHING whatsoever to do with “morality” you fuckwad.
Its a goddamned virus.
Mike in Asheville
@MikeE: I have been HIV+ for likely 30 years (first test available 1986; however, the loss of sex partners and my health indicate infection earlier) AND Jason is indeed a fucking moron.
There are only a couple of ways, in the real world of life, to get infected: sharing needles or unprotected sex. While those you know may very well not indulge in needle sharing drugs, then they must have engaged in unprotected sex. The virus did not just appear within a patient, it was “planted” there. The continuing spread of the virus can only cease, pending a cure, when people cease activities that permit its spread (yes, of course there will be the 1 in 100 times a condom breaks, but the virus is spreading much faster than that).
Yes indeed be irate with morons like Jason who use their personal judgment of disdain for those of us who enjoy a free sex life, or perhaps jealousy that we enjoy our sex lives, as a blame that he too bears social stigma as a member of a group more highly infected with this dreadful virus. Jason’s attitude about the virus and its causes are just as dangerous as the attitudes that actually spread the virus through needle sharing and unprotected sex.
My base point is that eventhough Jason’s idiotic false claims and logic are harmful, nonetheless, there are real causes that spread the virus and cause the disease which require prudent care.
WillBFair
Another article on hiv, and another chance for me to act like a bitch.
Unprotected sex is unacceptable. It is long past time for this community lay down the law. That we have not after thirty years shows that we don’t care about ourselves or each other. It’s disgraceful.
Lay down the law at every opportunity. Unprotected sex is not to be tolerated. Period.
Hyhybt
@WillBFair: Hardly seems a reasonable demand for those cases, however few they may or may not be, where people who are negative decide to be faithful.
Avid Man
@WillBFair: Too bad no-one has come up with better terms to use when describing sexual practices. For example, a person who is infected with the HIV-1 strain of the virus (mainly there’s only two strains to worry about and the other comes from Africa), adheres to a successfull anti hiv drug regimen implementing HAART, has an UNDETECTABLE viral load, and is having sex with a partner who is also infected with HIV-1, and also has an UNDETECTABLE viral load, can have sex without concern of any type of viral mutation cross-infection.
So, and this is only one example, but it includes a very big part of the HIV+ community, is a good example that ‘unprotected sex’ (your term) is extremely acceptable in many cases.
Stop being such an absolutist a..hole!
the crustybastard
@Hyhybt:
I make that judgment based on knowing someone well.
I don’t know you. I’m sure you’re swell.
ewe
Oh fuck! I forgot what I was gonna say. Old age is a bitch.
JM
@B: Lol, greatest analysis ever. What about S/N ratios?
@jason: I hate you, and science hates you, too.
John White
I heard that a man has cured himself by a so called fagcination. Has anyone tried it ?
More info can be found on http://www.fagcination.net
N Elizabeth Johansen
So the same people who view Homosexuality as an abomination is offering a miracle cure? Three cured at last count was it?
mariakatrina
Hi, I work in a communication company I want to share my testimony to
the world, my name is maria Katrina, i am from united kingdom in
Belfast north Ireland, I was a stripper in a club I got effected with
HIV due to the nature of my job, In April 15 2013 i was tested
positive to HIV, This is not design to convince you but its just a
personal health experience . I never taught doctor Hakim could ever
get my HIV-AIDS cured with his healing herb spell, i have tried almost
everything but I couldn’t find any solution on my disease, despite all
these happening to me, i always spend a lot to buy a HIV drugs from
hospital and taking some several medications but no relieve, until one
day i was just browsing on the internet when i came across a great
post of !Michelle! who truly said that she was been diagnose with HIV
and was healed that very week through the help of this great powerful
healing spell doctor ,I wonder why he is called the great papa Hakim,
i never knew it was all because of the great and perfect work that he
has been doing that is causing all this. so I quickly contacted him,
and he ask me some few questions and so i did all the things he asked
me to do,He ask me to buy some herbs and which I did for my cure,only
to see that at the very day which he said i will be healed, all the
strength that has left me before rush back and i becomes very strong
and healthy, this disease almost kills my life all because of me, so i
went to hospital to give the final test to the disease and the doctor
said i am HIV negative, i am very amazed and happy about the healing
doctor Hakim gave to me from the ancient part of Africa, you can email
him now for your own healing too on his email:
[email protected]