Question about Christian Science nonbelief in matter

[bunburry (bunburry)]

I am familiar with the Christian Science belief that there is no such thing as matter. Is this a belief that is taken seriously by most Christian Science believers? What is the origin of this idea in Christian Science? Are there any web-sites that explore the nature of matter from a Christian Science perspective? I am interested in the nature and meaning of matter from a philosophical perspective, and so am interested in people's ideas about it. Thank you.

[brightman73 (brightman73)]

www.spirituality.com (http://www.spirituality.com) can lead you to many Christian Science.

Actually they do believe there is matter. They do not believe there is mind in matter. They believe that Divine Mind (the mind of God) is bigger/stronger/more powerful that the fleshly (matter) mind.

[truth_child]

they bleive ethen that you can have mind over matter???? then if that is possible to have that and if it is true , then if i have enough mind to believ it hard enough i can bend steel and fly throught the air????? no way

[Night_Light]

Another deadly cult..WOF(Word of faith) also has similar ideas of mind over matter-they call it the power of the positive confession and people have died and suffered because of it.

Christian Science is EVIL!!!!!

[truth_child]

yes there are many "postive thinkers" who are deceiving the people. postve thing sounds so good that is why people go for it. but it is not biblical. you must do more than just "think" it you must ask in GODS WILL first of all a=nd then beleive that HE will do it according TO HIS WILL .

[truth_child]

postive thinking has ivaded many churhces, just think it they say and it will come to pass. i think even joel olsteen thinks this way.

[Night_Light]

Yes, it seems many do, it is kind of all part of that "new age" movement.. Like Jerry and Esther hicks whom I recently read about or that book called the secret..I believe the mind is powerful and being positive is a good thing but using it to cure diabetes can be a dangerous thing, and keeping children from receiving healthcare because of parental beliefs is criminal...but it happens..

A link that describes the formation of this cult.


http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Cults/science.htm (http://www.rapidnet.com/%7Ejbeard/bdm/Cults/science.htm)


The movement known as Christian Science is a religion "emphasizing divine healing as practiced by Jesus Christ." It is officially known as The Church of Christ, Scientist (CCS) (with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts), founded in 1879 by the much married Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy (1821-1910). It is one of the more sophisticated modern cults, attracting many intellectuals. Estimated membership was about 350,000 in the 1930s with approximately 2,500 branch churches, societies, and college organizations in more than 50 countries worldwide. Estimates suggest that membership has fallen to well under 100,000 at the present time. While the branches are democratic in government, they all conform to the rules laid down in Mary Baker Eddy's Manual of The Mother Church (1895); church affairs are now overseen by a self-perpetuating board of five people.
Under the leadership of Board of Directors Chairman Virginia Harris, the CCS has embarked on an aggressive, multi-faceted marketing program designed to mainstream itself and to attract new members. For example, the CCS is finding new ways to promote itself in light of our society's current interest in self-awareness, spirituality, mind/body connections, alternative medicine, and women's issues. The CCS's weekly magazine has been redesigned to include quotes from New-Age (http://www.rapidnet.com/%7Ejbeard/bdm/Cults/newage.htm) proponent Oprah Winfrey. Church representatives are also turning up at medical conferences and other places.
Mrs. Eddy was chronically sick growing up, with many ailments including paralysis, hysteria, seizures and convulsions. At 22, she married her first of three husbands, George Glover, who died within 6 months from yellow fever. Following Glover's death, she began to be involved in mesmerism (hypnosis (http://www.rapidnet.com/%7Ejbeard/bdm/Psychology/hypno.htm)) and the occult practices of spiritualism and clairvoyance (Ruth Tucker, Another Gospel, p. 152). Still ill, she married Daniel Patterson in 1853, a dentist and homeopathic practitioner (http://www.rapidnet.com/%7Ejbeard/bdm/Psychology/newmed.htm). It was during this time she met mental healer Phineas P. Quimby (1802-1866), whose influence would shape her belief of Christian Science. Quimby believed that illness and disease could be cured through positive thoughts and healthy attitudes, by changing one's beliefs about the illness. She claimed that Quimby cured her; she suddenly improved, but later the symptoms returned (Another Gospel, p. 155).
After Quimby's death in 1866, Mrs. Eddy determined to carry on his work. She had developed a "psychic dependence" on Quimby, drawing on his spiritual presence, claiming even visitations by his apparition. Eddy "reached the scientific certainty that all causation rests with the Mind, and that every effect is a mental phenomena." Eddy took Quimby's teachings one step further, claiming that sickness, death, and even our physical bodies do not exist, but are only imagined. Based on this absurdity, Mary Baker Eddy formulated her unique interpretations of Scripture upon which Christian Science was founded (and recorded in Eddy's 1875 book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. [HJB] (In 2001, the ten millionth copy of Science and Health was sold). In essence, Christian Science is a revival of ancient Pantheism. [Eddy later published 16 other books, including Retrospection and Introspection (1891), which tells of her own experience of discovering, practicing, and teaching the "science" of Christian healing.] [The CCS recently announced plans to build (at a cost of $25 million) the Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity. Scheduled to open in 2002 in Boston, the library will house over 500,000 unpublished documents and artifacts related to Mrs. Eddy. It will also allow the CCS to secure another 45 years of copyright protection for the writings under new U.S. copyright laws that take effect at the end of 2002.]
The event that Mrs. Eddy claimed as the inauguration of Christian Science occurred in February of 1866. She claimed to have had a near fatal fall on icy pavement, but was instantly healed when "the healing Truth dawned upon my senses," and the divine healing ministry was born (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 24; Science and Health, p. 107). Testimony from her attending physician as well as other correspondence from Mrs. Eddy at the time strongly dispute Mrs. Eddy's "official" version of those events (Anthony Hoekema, Christian Science, pp. 12-13).
Healing became a major distinctive of Christian Science. According to Eddy Baker, the central fact of the Bible is the superiority of spiritual over physical power. The spiritual superiority is evident in other ways than healing. Telepathy is practiced in Christian Science treatment, and may be considered a form of psychic healing. Christian Science claims to prove through the healing of disease and other difficulties that the understanding of God and his spiritual creation is as effective now as it was in Jesus' time. Its adherents, therefore, rely on "divine law" in times of sickness instead of resorting to medical and other material means. Christian Scientists do not use doctors, medicine, or immunizations. Christian Science Practitioners are used to " help people through the false reality of illness." Instead, proper prayer and training are employed to battle the "non-reality" of illness. (The right of Christian Science parents to withhold medical treatment from their children has many times been challenged in court.)
During the formative stages, the church saw many rivalries, scandals, and dissident movements. One of the dissidents was Emma Hopkins, who as an independent Christian Science leader, taught Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, who later founded the Unity School of Christianity (http://www.rapidnet.com/%7Ejbeard/bdm/Cults/unitysch.htm) (another "mind-science" cult). Because Mrs. Eddy wanted to spread Christian Science, especially to the upper class, she increased her control over all aspects of the movement and would not tolerate any disloyalty (Georgine Milmine, The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy, p.234 ff).

Publications of the Christian Science Publishing Society include the Christian Science Quarterly, containing Bible lessons for daily study; The Christian Science Journal, a monthly magazine; Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine; The Christian Science Monitor, a daily newspaper; and The Herald of Christian Science. In the 1980s, the group expanded into other media, producing both radio and television news programming. Their venture into cable-television operations was ended in 1992, when it was discovered "that the church had secretly transferred $46.5 million from endowments and pension funds to help cover huge losses on the 'Monitor Channel,' which had lost over $325 million" (Chicago Tribune, 1/27/93, p. 2). [Additionally, there were losses of $36 million and the resulting termination of World Monitor, a newspaper begun in 1988. The Christian Science Monitor is said to be losing $13 million annually (Martin Gardner, The Healing Revelations of Mary Baker Eddy, p. 218).]
Instead of preachers (the CCS has no ordained clergy), Christian Science's Sunday services consist mainly of prescribed readings from the Bible, followed by interpretive readings from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (which Eddy thought was divinely inspired -- "I should blush to write of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures as I have, were it of human origin and I apart from God its author; but [since] I was only a scribe echoing the harmonies of heaven in Divine Metaphysics, I cannot be super-modest of the Christian Science Textbook."). Eddy's "Scientific Statement of Being" (read every week from every Christian Science pulpit) begins with, "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter," and ends with, "Therefore, man is not material; he is spiritual." Wednesday meetings include testimonies of healing from the congregation. Readers, both men and women, are elected from the membership to conduct the services. Practitioners, also both men and women, devote full time to the work of "spiritual healing."
Mrs. Eddy presented Christian Science as a scientific system of healing based upon spiritual laws God (allegedly) had revealed to her. She taught these laws must be followed -- without deviation -- if a believer wishes to practice Christian Science with consistent success. She taught Christian Science cannot be mixed with any other doctrine or spiritual healing system, and, thereby, it is incompatible with medicine. Eddy also believed in "Malicious Animal Magnetism" (MAM), which is negative mental energy or power, on the level of black magic. "Reading Rooms" are local Christian Science libraries where members go to read Eddy's works to aid their spiritual evolvement.