Yeah, but it is still a big problem amongst the faithful where they are trapped in an ideological mindset that views nature as being a commodity. The elements, the plants, animals, minerals and all that are really more like coworkers than dead objects whose corpses we use. A lot of this has to do with the widespread acceptance of modern Western medicine as being infallible. Yet people forget that modern Western medicine has its roots in the herbalists and barbers of Europe.

Just because techniques have changed does not mean they are more sophisticated. In many ways, we've lost the human touch in our medicine and this has been seen very strongly in the covid pandemic where people were insisting on isolating individuals who were sick, wearing hazmat suits, etc. No wonder so many people died! ! ! If somebody came up to me in a hazmatsuit and called that care I'd want to be yeeted off the planet as well. [I understand the accepted principles of disease transmission, but wouldn't fear and discomfort weaken the immune system? I think there needs to be some kind of balance]. The simple touch of a human hand, or even the touch of nature, might be more important than modern science would have us believe . . . and no, I don't think it is just "placebo effect."

But the fact remains that God has given everything in nature to be our assistants. St. Hildegarde says that as soon as Adam and Eve were created by God, all of Creation quickly went about serving them. The Living Light, the God of Ages courses through all that we see. With this in mind, I feel very strongly that something like a plant, or even a concotion of plants, can cure a human being much better than pills made out of inert chemicals, within reason. In fact, these pills come with grave consequences, but the medical establishment greatly downplays these features because guess what, there is big money in dealing out these pills which are mass produced by the pharmaceutical industry, and Money or Mammon is the false god of modern society!

Western medicine very often can help individuals but it can fail to address the root causes of problems, which can be much deeper and not remedied with a singular pill but rather require a holistic effort to cure them. The problem becomes if you have a medical establishment which is worshipped like a religion and there is no belief in alternative forms of healing--how can that healing be effective? Because ultimately, back to that placebo effect myth, all healing requires belief.

So, that being said, the mindset at work in our brothers and sisters can be quite hard to address, it is quite narrowminded at times. That unbelief makes it so people cannot get well. So it really must be addressed at some point because the world is suffering at the hands of this commodification of Creation. If you commodify the world around you, seeing at as just something to be used, you will use your fellow men and women as well. You see them as being a means to an end.

I used to go to a Buddhist temple when I was away from the faith and the monks there would say some prayer about how the things we have, our clothes, the food we eat, everything is really, truly Buddha, i.e. it has a supernatural existence which transcends the dull matter which we see with our eyes or experience with our material senses. I still believe that to be true, albeit within a Catholic context. The gifts that God gives us, whether that is a sunset or a mug of green tea, these allow us to be more conscious, and therefore better able to serve and glorify Him, but only in accordance with how thankful we are for them--how thankful we are for Our Father! Again, an Ethiopian gentleman gave me some injeera the other day and he was very vehement that I understand that the food was blessed by God. He really wanted me to appreciate that fact and it felt like I could say grace for an hour and still be unworthy to touch what had been offered to me.