If you believe in the miraculous or the paranormal or even that a highly unlikely coincidence will happen a problem arises for science. You may even argue that all three are at work at times. We will use unknown powers for them from henceforth to make this article readable.
To clarify, it is a scientific fact that remarkable lucky coincidences happen. What we object to here is the notion that one will come about to help you. That is nothing more than a craftier form of magical thinking.
Science says it is certain that drinking bleach harms and should not be done. Now what if you are saying that this is wrong at least in your case. Something is making it the right thing to do or at least the lesser evil?
You can say then that it is possible that household bleach can cure or at least improve your cancer if you drink some for three days. You may reason that if your cancer is still there that the bleach prevented another one that the doctor does not know about from taking root.
You will notice that science here is about what is a tested claim. Now you are claiming something that cannot be tested at all.
A less strong but equally irresponsible notion is that if you are treated for cancer, the main reason it works, or even the only reason, is that unknown powers are making it work. If those powers exist, then there is no reason why some undetectable energy can heal you through drinking say tap water. It can make tap water the cure. Back to the cancer treatment. Science finds it can help yes but the fact that it physically can help does not mean that is how it does it. God may be letting it help for some unknown but natural reason other than its own potential. That could end tomorrow. Or he could be putting some spiritual power in the treatment.
It may seem that pain-killers turn off the parts of the brain that cause pain but that does not mean we know all the links. A power may do the turning off that coincides with taking the pills.
The unknown powers can intervene and make the cancer its own cure. Now you have to let the cancer run riot for it is going to turn into a cure so it is for the best. Science says it should kill you and now you are saying it will burn itself out and give you wellbeing again.
The person of religion or faith will say, "I do not oppose medical intervention and treatment." They are hardly endorsing it either. They are only going along with it. They are saying that nobody really knows how medicine works.
The placebo effect can fool anybody into thinking a treatment works when it is in fact useless. And bringing in the supernatural, paranormal and coincidental into it is a placebo in itself. You get hope from the thought that the laws of cause and effect may not apply in your case and your illness may lessen or vanish which is not the norm. You get hope from feeling that God or unknown powers is going to cure your toothache and let children die of cancer - you feel that special and that important.
What if proof appears that the treatment is dangerous?
Argue that this case is the exception.
Argue that there are testimonials that say different. You will always have testimonials anyway no matter what kind of rubbish medicine you put out. Argue that many medical treatments were controversial and poorly understood for years and then were endorsed by the medical professionals. Blame the drug companies for creating scepticism towards the treatment you have invented. Argue that the bleach works best if people use it secretly and that if anybody gets sick and dies it is not down to the bleach but some unknown factor. Perhaps the unknown powers have a reason for letting the bleach cure one person and not another? Chances are you will say, "Look it did some people good so it works. Those who died after taking it did not have enough faith or it let them die for it was for the best in the divine plan".
You can ignore research that says it could kill you or permanently injure your body. You could say that it is talking about bleach that does not have unknown powers or say that bleach from now on has the power so the research doesn't apply. Anyway to believe in miracles, you have to put aside the research that says for example some illnesses cannot just disappear. They do when unknown powers make an input.
Notice how people will eventually see through it if you blame the drug companies. They will also see that though it is true some treatments that work have been condemned by medicine, that medicine will discern the truth in time. Time will tell but if a treatment is scoffed at by the medical professionals for long enough it will become clear that the treatment really is useless. Notice how once you bring "mysterious divine purpose" and unknown powers into it there is no limit to the things you can say to give the impression that an ineffective treatment is effective. Get a few testimonials and people will fall for it.
Anybody can be detached from reality. We all suffer that to some extent and some more than others. But nothing makes the bubble you put yourself in harder to burst than religion. It gives you infinite ways to excuse the inexcusable or to believe utterly impossible things.
If you really believe the miraculous, paranormal or coincidence kicks in to save the day, you will not object to the person who says bleach has powers that science cannot find there. You will say, "Maybe it does!" Or, "She has a right to her religious opinions even if they are not the same opinions as myself." Actions speak loudest.
We have shown that the Christian doctrine that God uses medicine to cure may sound science-friendly is in fact anything but. He is only hiding behind the natural to do the supernatural with it. The natural is only an accessory. For science the natural is no toy or accessory or cloak. It is central to what science is. A person who argues, "Yes there is a natural reason why chemotherapy may work but that does not mean that is why it works. There could be divine agency, unseen, silent, but active behind it. That is the real secret", is a fanatic no matter how calm they seem. That person is not a friend of the science that benefits her or him or anybody else. There has to be a passive-aggressive motive behind such a stupid unnecessary attitude such as they have.
Further Reading ~
A Christian Faith for Today, W Montgomery Watt, Routledge, London,
2002
Answers to Tough Questions, Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Scripture
Press, Bucks, 1980
Apparitions, Healings and Weeping Madonnas, Lisa J Schwebel, Paulist
Press, New York, 2004
A Summary of Christian Doctrine, Louis Berkhof, The Banner of Truth
Trust, London, 1971
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Veritas, Dublin, 1995
Catholicism and Fundamentalism, Karl Keating, Ignatius Press, San
Francisco, 1988
Enchiridion Symbolorum Et Definitionum, Heinrich Joseph Denzinger,
Edited by A Schonmetzer, Barcelona, 1963
Looking for a Miracle, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, New York, 1993
Miracles, Rev Ronald A Knox, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1937
Miracles in Dispute, Ernst and Marie-Luise Keller, SCM Press Ltd,
London, 1969
Lourdes, Antonio Bernardo, A. Doucet Publications, Lourdes, 1987
Medjugorje, David Baldwin, Catholic Truth Society, London, 2002
Miraculous Divine Healing, Connie W Adams, Guardian of Truth
Publications, KY, undated
New Catholic Encyclopaedia, The Catholic University of America and
the McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc, Washington, District of Columbia,
1967
Raised From the Dead, Father Albert J Hebert SM, TAN, Illinois 1986
Science and the Paranormal, Edited by George O Abell and Barry
Singer, Junction Books, London, 1981
The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan, Headline, London, 1997
The Book of Miracles, Stuart Gordon, Headline, London, 1996
The Case for Faith, Lee Strobel, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan,
2000
The Encyclopaedia of Unbelief Volume 1, Gordon Stein, Editor,
Prometheus Books, New York, 1985
The Hidden Power, Brian Inglis, Jonathan Cape, London, 1986
The Sceptical Occultist, Terry White, Century, London, 1994
The Stigmata and Modern Science, Rev Charles Carty, TAN, Illinois,
1974
Twenty Questions About Medjugorje, Kevin Orlin Johnson, Ph.D.
Pangaeus Press, Dallas, 1999
Why People Believe Weird Things, Michael Shermer, Freeman, New York,
1997