Christianity and hospitals

[mr friendly guy]

Among the common Christian arguments I have seen is that Christianity was responsible for the formation of hospitals. I have seen this trotted out a few times in the West Australian. Of course the West Australian is a right wing newspaper which publishes letters from Christians publishing the lock stock barrel standard Christian myths, you know the ones, that atheism = communism = humanism, Hitler was an atheist etc

Now I have used wiki and it states that the first hospital (as we would understand the term) was in non Christian (what is now Sir Lanka). Christianity may deserve the claim of having expanded the number of hospitals in regions which it controlled, but it seems hospitals had already been formed prior to that. If this is true, it seems that claiming Christianity is responsible for hospitals, is like a new car company claiming responsibility for inventing the car.

Now wiki isn't the most reliable resource, and I am feeling bit too tired to google for more details, but I was wondering if any one has come across this claim before, and is there any truth to it? Or is this just another Christian myth morons like to sprout?

[Rye]

That's a really fucking stupid claim for someone to make. Several cultures made temples or whatever dedicated to healing the sick more than 2000 years ago, so unless they were time travelling, lying christians, it's just another myth to try and make their history look more virtuous.

[Mr Bean]

Early christian hopstials were shit to boot as well, look pre-dark ages and you'll find "christian" hosptials were shit and you were much better off to find either the local witch doctor or treating yourself. We don't have fatality statistics for most such places but we do know that the chance of you catching a disease or germ from another patient was near 100%. Just based on the layouts alone of the places, patients with diffrent aliements sharing the same beds, no hand washing to speak of and of course the reusing of bandages from patient to patient.

[Ariphaos]

Considering modern medicine actually derives from ancient Greek tradition, this is effectively bunk. The only thing christians gave hospitals was the name.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Weren't the Arabs doing complicated surgery back when we Europeans still thought disease was caused by imbalance of the humors?

[Imperial Overlord]

Weren't the Arabs doing complicated surgery back when we Europeans still thought disease was caused by imbalance of the humors?

Yes. Ditto for the Chinese. A Jewish physician in the fourteen hundreds successfully performed cataract surgery on a Spannish king.

[Molyneux]

Look at it this way - do physicians today take the Jesuscratic Oath?

[Darth Wong]

Here's how to think like a Christian Apologetics master about any subject.

1) Is it a good thing?
2) If so, assume that Christianity is responsible for it.
3) Look for evidence of Christians doing it a long time ago.
4) Success!

Then there's the opposite:

1) Is it a bad thing?
2) Were Christians responsible?
3) If not, then it's proof that Christianity would have prevented it.
4) If so, then it's proof that they were not "true" Christians.

[Dooey Jo]

It's funny when Chistians claim that humanism took its ideas from Christianity. And then they completely turn around and point out that humanism is actually totally evil and immoral because it doesn't demand a belief in their god.

I wonder what those Christians will say if you point out that those early hospitals were actually free to go to for everyone, and were in fact often financed through church taxes. A form of public health insurance, or *gasp* welfare, in other words. Perhaps they weren't so "good" after all...