Christian Science is a system of religious thought and practice developed by Mary Baker Eddy based on her study of the Bible and explained in her work Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures. In it, Eddy describes the teachings of Jesus as a complete and coherent divine science. Its adherents may be, but are not required to be, members of the main church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, a branch church, or both. Its central texts are the Bible and Science and Health.
The major teachings of Christian Science include the belief that spiritual reality is the only reality and all else is illusion or "error." In contrast to conventional Christian theology, Christian Science rejects both the common Christian views of the atonement and the concept of Hell as a place of eternal punishment.
Christian Scientists believe that sickness and disease are the result of fear, ignorance, or sin, and should be healed through prayer or introspection. Combined with a belief that the use of medicine is incompatible with Christian Science healing methods, this has led to outbreaks of preventable disease and a number of deaths. Its claim that sickness can be healed through prayer rather than medicine, its rejection of science as illusory, and its attempts to present itself as science make Christian Science a pseudoscience.
Read more about Christian Science: Theology, Medicine and Science, Social Views, Church of Christ, Scientist, Christian Science Monitor, Journal and Sentinel
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“We have to ask ourselves whether medicine is to remain a humanitarian and respected profession or a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering.”
—Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (b. 1926)