So if a community raises money to send a family troubled by a member's poor health to Lourdes for "healing" or "miracles" and the family member isn't helped, it is superstition. But if a community raises money to send a family troubled by a member's poor health to Sloan Kettering, or Johns Hopkins, or UCLA Medical Center and the family member isn't helped, it is...

Rational?

I'm always amused by the suggestion of rational types, who don't understand that when a body can't be cured, the spirit can still be healed.

Friends of our family had a child with an extremely rare form of cancer. They were fortunate enough to have access in their local city, to receive treatment for the child from one of the three medical experts in the world on the disorder. When the father asked the doctor what was the most important factor in curing the disease (he was asking the question in a medical sense, in terms of treatments, drugs, etc) he was startled to hear the doctor reply "The belief of the parents that the child will be cured. It is the only constant we have found that seems to make a significant difference." The same doctor also insisted that the child, then 11 years old, get therapeutic massages three times a week. Yes, there was surgery, drug therapy, etc. There were also religious ceremonies (non-Chrisitan, the family is Asian American) held by the family, and their community. The child was cured.

So what, do you suppose, cured the child and healed the family and community's spirit at the same time? Medical science? Magic (or superstition as some have called it)? Religious miracle?