Religion That Kills

by Linda S. Kramer

A child dies as its parents declare that nothing is wrong. An adult suffers silently with a treatable disease. Church members emotionally neglect each other in times of illness, convinced that talking... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1563841711
• ISBN13: 9781563841712
• Release Date: November 1999
• Publisher: Huntington House Publishers
• Length: 270 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Should be criminalized

Linda Kramer's description of Christian Science is correct. It is also a practical religion. Both the robust, healthy followers and those miraculously healed can credit the practice while those who die of it aren't around to complain. How many religions have attorneys available to represent parents whose children needlessly die due to withholding basic medical care? This is a practical religion. Logical it is not-- not in the sense of the scientific method, Law of Cause and Effect, objective observation and description of what is factually before you. To the Christian Scientist these are illusions, errors born of the material world. I also grew up in Christian Science and am well versed in Mary Baker Eddy's HEALTH AND SCIENCE WITH KEYS TO THE SCRIPTURES. My mother died of Christian Science choosing it over medical treatment for tuberculosis when it was in the treatable stage and spreading it to others. I suffered years of childhood asthma denied available medical attention in favor of paid CS practitioners, twisted logic and implicit (never articulated) blame. Some people might even consider this criminal. In Christian Science the human emotions of anger, fear, and sadness are products of the "mortal mind" and along with viruses, bacteria, diseases and all human suffering, illusions of the "material world." This is a religion built on denial. Just as an alcoholic uses denial to avoid dealing with unpleasant realities so does the Christian Scientist. Christian Science apologists will ofcourse disagree without ill will. They are above above such feelings. They understand these are all illusions.

for Suvivers of Christian Science

I was raised my first 10 yrs in their cult. I am in therapy now and they keep asking where this/that idea came from. Now I know it was from the Christian Science propaganda. My earlier surch for some insight produced nearly nothing including Martin's book. Thankyou God for such a wise women puting this information out to us. A must read for survivers of this cult.

Escape to Reality

You grew up in a religion that was respectable but seemed a little strange to everyone outside it, so you always seemed a little strange to yourself. You may have been healthy, but you saw pain and death among your co-religionists and wondered whether they were necessary. If you voiced your questions, you were told that your senses were lying to you - not the people who told you that the illnesses you saw weren't real.Finally you realized that the religion's doctrine was based on circular logic, inconsistenly-applied philosophical principles and systematic denial of half of all human experience. You left it intellectually, and then physically. You felt helpless when people you loved, who stayed in the religion, suffered and died. You didn't realize for years, even decades, that your emotional hangover continued, that the damage done to you was deeper than you thought.That's the short version of what it's like to be a former Christian Scientist. Dr. Linda S. Kramer has explained it in detail that, for an insider, is excruciating but necessary, while proving the thesis that Christian Science, despite its nice newspaper and its familiar respectability, fully qualifies as an authoritarian, mind-controlling cult. Working hard to be fair, she elaborates the religion through quotations from its own authorized sources, and ultimately lets Mary Baker Eddy and her followers hang themselves with their own spiritual (certainly not material) rope. The quotations used are representative, not snippets torn out of context.Dr. Kramer also tells her own story, of moving from blissful immersion to doubt, to rejection, to active opposition, with complete candor. You need not share her present religious convictions to benefit from her scholarship, courage and compassion."The Religion That Kills" (sensational or not, the title is factual) is required reading for anyone who has ever been in Christian Science, or who cares about a former or practicing Christian Scientist. Those who are still in that rather strange religion are the ones who probably need most to read it, but they won't think it really exists.

The Religion That Kills

For years I struggled with the contradictions taught in the Church of Christ, Scientist. I wasn't sure there was anything better than Christian Science. I could never break free completely until I read and studied this wonderful book. After seeing some of the negetive reviews regarding this book I see that that same old condescending attitude is still alive and well in the Christian Science Church today.I fully appreciate the professional manner in which the Author approaches Christian Science and it's erroneous teachings. She did so tactfully, in the TRUE spirit of Christ, and without condescending remarks. I have read the book and studied it. Any complaint from Christian Scientists are totally unfounded due to the fact that Most all of the quotes about the Church, it's doctrine and founder are from the church's own literature.I praise God through Jesus Christ that this book has been an instrument to break the "mind control" that used to keep me bound to Christian Science. I was ready to become involved in the CS church again. I prayed and asked God to show me the real truth. I found it in The Religion That Kills.Now I have a future full of hope for I've been promised true eternal life by the one and only perfect child of God, Jesus Christ. I asked him to come into my heart. I confessed with my lips that Jesus Christ is Lord. It's the free gift of salvation. I also read my Bible daily without the dead weight of Science and Health. God doesn't need Mary Baker Eddy's help.I thank God for Dr. Kramer and so many others like her that know the "real" truth through Jesus Christ.

A Great Book With A Regrettable Title

I recognize that titles are designed to sell books, but, in this case, I fear that the title may unfortunately disguise Dr. Linda Kramer's book as a bit of latter-day yellow journalism instead of framing it as the thoughtful, respectful, and groundbreaking work that it is. Like Dr. Kramer, I am a former-Christian Scientist who has extensive contact with other former-Christian Scientists. That something is wrong in Christian Science became obvious to me as I listened to the stories of other former-Christian Scientists, learned from them about the "little secrets" that family members and friends remaining in Christian Science were attempting to deny out of existence, and began to honestly assess what I had seen and experienced during the first quarter century of my life when I was a Christian Scientist. There are plenty of Christian Science children, wrenching stories of family members who suffered and died due to treatable diseases, and an entire denomination in denial about its obvious meteoric decline. It took Dr. Kramer to pull all of the pieces together and to make sense out of this. But to categorize Christian Science as a mind controlling cult? Christian Science is not the Unification Church or Hare Krishna or Jonestown or Heaven's Gate. Far from being drawn from the margins of society, Christian Scientists are typically cultured, pleasant, well educated, and, not infrequently, well-to-do. Is there heavy pressure on members from other Christian Scientists? Generally not. Food or sleep deprivation? Hardly. Lovebombing in a Christian Science Church? Uh, no. A strong, charismatic leader? But Mary Baker Eddy has been dead for almost 90 years! Dr. Kramer asserts that the key to mind control in Christian Science lies in the Church's emphasis on spiritual healing. To heal, Christian Scientists must think like Mrs. Eddy taught that they should think. In Christian Science, the mind control is self-imposed. Dr. Kramer describes it as would give us dominion over the (seeming) problems we faced in this (seeming) material existence. If we failed in one instance, we just had to study harder. Our failure was not due to our religion but to our own lack of understanding. The system was always right. We just had to understand it better-to try harder. Most of the controls which molded our thought patterns were not openly imposed upon us, but were quietly implanted through our religion's doctrine. Promises of healing, "salvation" from material limitations, a sense of spiritual superiority, and the knowledge that believing in materiality was dangerous-these enticements and "knowledge" kept us striving to understand the "ultimate truth" of Christian Science; they molded our thoughts and the way we ran our lives. (Page 93)Dr. Kramer then goes on to compare Christian Science to a common psychological mind control model (Lifton's). Her comparison, which relies heavily on pro-Christian Science sources, is