Examining things yourself vs. taking other's word for it

[kanicbird]

Putting politics aside, as this is a topic that spans many disciplines. In this thread:
What are the "Birther's" arguments when confronted with the principle of "jus sanguinis"?
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=606395
md2000 posts:
The birther's response? Well look no further than Donald Trump's response today when Obama showed his full official birth certificate - Basically "We'll have to look at it carefully to see if it's real." The correlation of logic, law, and reality are irrelevant when one's mind is made up.

Again I don't care to debate the politics, but the mindset:

There were questions that were not immediately answered (in this case about Obama's birth status), this formed doubts. I feel that these doubts are legitimate due to not being answered when they were raised.

After some times documents were presented to the public to clarify one position. But the question is if the documents were available why wait, this does raise suspicion and further questions.

A person says they are presented the proof to the public, when a member of the public wants to actually examine the documents that are made available they are called closed minded. Closed minded when they want to look at the evidence for themselves and make up their own mind, instead of just blindly accepting other people's opinions.

To me it sounds quite the opposite, the people blindly accepting that the documents are real are the ones who are closed minded and the ones inquiring in a way to challenge their own opinion are the ones open minded.

[brocks]

There were questions that were not immediately answered (in this case about Obama's birth status), this formed doubts. I feel that these doubts are legitimate due to not being answered when they were raised.

You are a perfect example of the the quote you cited: "The correlation of logic, law, and reality are irrelevant when one's mind is made up. "

Logic: If you have demanded proof of every candidate's citizenship since you were old enough to vote, you are being logically consistent. If the first time you demand proof is, by an amazing coincidence, the first time a major party nominates a black man, you are not.

Law: Obama's official birth certificate was released to the public before the 2008 election. It is the document required for any legal use of a birth certificate, e.g. applying for a passport. The insistence on a "long form" (the one he released a couple months ago) was simply cynical manipulation of ignorant people.

Reality: George Bush and Dick Cheney were not shy about using the national security apparatus for political ends. And once Obama was nominated, the Bush Administration was required to provide him with millions of dollars worth of Secret Service protection before the election. Can anyone believe that they would not have verified that Obama met the requirements for President before providing that protection? Or, if they wanted to be really evil, would not have revealed that he was ineligible one week before the election?

[Marley23]

I think if you want to really discuss this topic, kanicbird, you're going to have to broaden it beyond the birth certificate thing. Almost every single thing you wrote about the birth certificate and the controversy is totally wrong.

[Cheesesteak]

Again I don't care to debate the politics, but the mindset:

There were questions that were not immediately answered (in this case about Obama's birth status), this formed doubts. I feel that these doubts are legitimate due to not being answered when they were raised. Doubts are not rendered legitimate by the way in which they are answered. They are legitimate based on the reasoning behind the doubt. In any event, these doubts were answered by providing a copy of legally binding state certified documentation of his birth status. That should have been the end of it, you raise a doubt about birth status, he provides documentation, the state confirms that the documentation is real, newspapers back up the documentation with birth announcements, we're all good.

Some folks decided that legally binding state certified documentation wasn't "good enough", so we had this idiotic goat rodeo, suggesting that he has something to hide because he's not jumping to attention and providing additional documentation to people who refuse to acknowledge the validity of a state certified document.

So, we now ask what is the validity of their doubt? We would need the government of Hawaii to be complicit in forging birth documentation. We would have Obama's parents circling the globe for no apparent purpose other than to ensure Barack's birth in Kenya, then immediately denying his Kenyan birth, to the point of getting his birth announcement listed in Hawaiian newspapers. Oh, and none of their friends from the time remember them going on a trip to Kenya while Ann was 8+ months pregnant, it was totally a secret, shhhhh!



To me it sounds quite the opposite, the people blindly accepting that the documents are real are the ones who are closed minded and the ones inquiring in a way to challenge their own opinion are the ones open minded.Do you know what a real long form Hawaiian birth certificate from 1961 looks like? I don't, and I don't have any way of knowing if a document is real or forged, so I'm going to have to trust someone who actually does know these things, you know like the Director of Hawaii's Department of Health, who certified that his documents were in order back in 2008.

[Lobohan]

I would note that every single religious person on Earth is accepting someone else's word for what God wants and what you need to do to meet those wants.

Funny enough, I'm betting a lot of birthers want more evidence for Obama's pedigree than they do for Jewish carpenters sometimes self-conceiving and later rising from the dead.

[kanicbird]

Taking it out of Obama's hands as suggested by Marley23

Part of the foundation of the scientific method is repeatability, that any person should be able to preform the experiment in the constraints listed and get a repeatable answer. Most of the time we take for granted that a scientific conclusion is sound without doing the experiment ourselves to confirm it.


I would note that every single religious person on Earth is accepting someone else's word for what God wants and what you need to do to meet those wants.

This may be true of religious but not true of spiritual people. Spiritual people do inquire for themselves with divine or at least spiritual help. They generally don't take the word of someone else blindly but will take spiritual inspired interpretations of writings of old as they are lead to examine them and come to their own conclusion.

[Cheesesteak]

Most of the time we take for granted that a scientific conclusion is sound without doing the experiment ourselves to confirm it.
People who are reasonably thoughtful do not assume conclusions are sound until they are peer reviewed, and chewed over by the scientific community. That is, we rely on people who actually know how to repeat the experiment, and know how to examine scientific conclusions to look at the claim and make a judgment. Similar to what I said about a birth certificate, do you know how to analyze environmental data to determine the impact of greenhouse gases on climate? Would you be able to tell if that data was tampered with, or the conclusion incorrect? If you don't, and I assume you're like the 99.99% of people who don't, then you have to rely on someone to do it for you and trust that they are honestly reviewing the conclusion.

People who are not thoughtful believe an idea because it sounds right to them, they use their own personal judgment on a topic they know very little about, and often go hilariously wrong. For example, homeopathy. Even if you go step by step explaining how there are 0 atoms from the original mixture in their final product, they'll still believe that the product can cure a malady.

[TriPolar]

Nobody can be absolutely sure about anything. Yet we can have enough faith in the reliability of our own observations and those of others to stumble through life somehow. Big lies will prevail, and do damage. But big truths are more abundant, they just don't create much controversy with anyone but the big liars.

[kanicbird]

..., do you know how to analyze environmental data to determine the impact of greenhouse gases on climate? Would you be able to tell if that data was tampered with, or the conclusion incorrect? If you don't, and I assume you're like the 99.99% of people who don't, then you have to rely on someone to do it for you and trust that they are honestly reviewing the conclusion.

Actually I have been schooled and have a accredited degree to do exactly that, though I really didn't chose to pursue that line. What I did discover is in that particular issue: 1 is way too large for any single person to accomplish themselves or verify themselves, and very very sadly 2 the issue is way too political and economic to trust conclusions to any degree of certainty.

People who are not thoughtful believe an idea because it sounds right to them, they use their own personal judgment on a topic they know very little about, and often go hilariously wrong. For example, homeopathy. Even if you go step by step explaining how there are 0 atoms from the original mixture in their final product, they'll still believe that the product can cure a malady.

Going into homeopathy, the belief basically stems from all healing is from love (and Love is God & God heals), not from the 'active ingredient'. This healing by Love has been the basis of early medicine for man and still practiced today in mom's chicken soup. My own personal experience and much to my amazement was with a sore throat. I prayed and was guided to pick up a homeopathic remedy in a supermarket - I didn't even know that supermarkets had them. I read the ingredients, mostly salt water with perhaps 0% chance of a active ingredient molecule in it. I felt that my prayers answer may be wrong so I put it back but was lead back to it. So I ended up buying it, taking it and 30 minutes later the sour throat was gone totally.

The problem with medical practice of double blind studies is that love, which is the real healer, is not accounted for and like Jesus said the blind leading the blind both will fall into the pit.

[Bryan Ekers]

...and like Jesus said the blind leading the blind both will fall into the pit.

And have you examined this claim, or are you just taking his word for it?

[Marley23]

1 is way too large for any single person to accomplish themselves or verify themselves
And that's one reason people take the word of others. We don't have the time or expertise to verify a great many things, and it's easy to be misled by your senses or by failures in logic like "I prayed, tried homeopathy and my sore throat went away, therefore prayer and homeopathy work."

[Lobohan]

and like Jesus said the blind leading the blind both will fall into the pit.You have no idea what Jesus said. You are accepting what someone else is telling you.

Also, love doesn't heal. That's just stupid. If you choose to live in a delusional fog and ignore modern medicine that's your choice, of course.

[Little Nemo]

There were questions that were not immediately answered (in this case about Obama's birth status), this formed doubts. I feel that these doubts are legitimate due to not being answered when they were raised.

After some times documents were presented to the public to clarify one position. But the question is if the documents were available why wait, this does raise suspicion and further questions.You're assuming the doubts were based on rational evidence - that once the doubters saw a certain document, the doubts would end.

If that was the case - if the doubts would have ceased once Document A was produced - then producing Document A as quickly as possible would have been the best course.

But the reality is the doubt here is self-sustaining. It feeds on belief not evidence. So no amount of evidence will end it because people will keep believing. Showing people Document A just made them invent a new objection to Document A. Rational evidence will never convince people who reject rational evidence.

So what purpose did the delayed presentation of the birth certificate prove? It demonstrated that the birthers were not looking for rational evidence. The birthers have been saying for two years that all they want to see is the birth certificate and they'll concede the argument. So it played out for all that time and their position was set.

And then the Obama administration released the birth certificate. It gave the birthers what they had said was all they wanted. And the birthers did not give up - they simply raised a new set of objections. So the point was to show that the birthers had been lying.

[brocks]

Going into homeopathy, the belief basically stems from all healing is from love (and Love is God & God heals), not from the 'active ingredient'. This healing by Love has been the basis of early medicine for man and still practiced today in mom's chicken soup. My own personal experience and much to my amazement was with a sore throat. I prayed and was guided to pick up a homeopathic remedy in a supermarket - I didn't even know that supermarkets had them. I read the ingredients, mostly salt water with perhaps 0% chance of a active ingredient molecule in it. I felt that my prayers answer may be wrong so I put it back but was lead back to it. So I ended up buying it, taking it and 30 minutes later the sour throat was gone totally.

The problem with medical practice of double blind studies is that love, which is the real healer, is not accounted for and like Jesus said the blind leading the blind both will fall into the pit.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that if your malady were a burst appendix, rather than a sore throat, you would opt for a hospital full of doctors trained in double blind studies, rather than love therapy.

[kanicbird]

And that's one reason people take the word of others. We don't have the time or expertise to verify a great many things, and it's easy to be misled by your senses or by failures in logic
I agree there are too many things out there for us to know all, but my point was discrediting people for asking for evidence so they can find out for themselves.

like "I prayed, tried homeopathy and my sore throat went away, therefore prayer and homeopathy work."

If you read my entire post I think you would see that the claim is that God, who is Love, does the healing, in this case for me through homeopathy therefore love works and sometimes He (or She if you prefer) sometimes will use homeopathy.

Sometimes God will even use a placebo to heal.

[kanicbird]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that if your malady were a burst appendix, rather than a sore throat, you would opt for a hospital full of doctors trained in double blind studies, rather than love therapy.

brock I have seen too many things to make such a statement. Yes if I was in such pain I would be heading that way, but that isn't always the case with things of God/Love. Such things can be halted and pain stopped and the person guided to where they should be, with that person just knowing where they need to go.

[kanicbird]

And have you examined this claim, or are you just taking his word for it?

Have you even heard that scripture quote applied to how I did (to double blind studies)? I'm pretty sure I have not, yet somehow I believe that is what it means. Is taking that His word for it? I'm sort of confident that they didn't have such studies 2000 years ago, so how could Jesus be talking about them?

[Marley23]

my point was discrediting people for asking for evidence so they can find out for themselves.
I agree that's usually not the right way to handle inquiries. But it's also true that some questions are stupid.

If you read my entire post
I did read the entire post. It sounds like an example of a person being misled by his senses and his impressions.

Sometimes God will even use a placebo to heal.
If you believe that, there's really no point in arguing with you about evidence and examining things - it indicates you're not much of a believer in evidence and proof.

[kanicbird]

If you believe that, there's really no point in arguing with you about evidence and examining things - it indicates you're not much of a believer in evidence and proof.

For something like this I may want to see it for myself not for evidence as much but for any 'spiritual' clue or insight that may come my way. What I focus on, if anything catches my eye. I want a chance to allow God to let me see though His eyes. For me this works much better then other methods.

[Marley23]

Sounds like you want us to take your word for it.

[Czarcasm]

Before debating science and evdience with kanicbird, read this:Mothers chicken soup has been known by many to be a cure for so many illnesses, including the common cold. What the cure is is not in the chemical compounds but the Love flowing from the mother to the child who is acceptive to that Love and trusts his mother. Love is what cures, Love is God and God is Spirit, so Love is Spirit, something science does not want to deal with.

When scientists get their hands on this, they analyze the chemical compounds, and remove the Love from the mother as far as possible by double blind studies, and remove the acceptance of Love and trust from the child. Then no surprise they find nothing. Or if they do find something they insist that the soup has to contain a certain compound to work, or be made a certain way. This insistence of a certain way, repeatable results, is in religion called legalism. Legalism manifests itself in Christianity in insistence of certain prayers, or rituals or the use of a certain version of the Bible. Science is no different, and they take it to a whole other level. Love does not work this way, Love is accepting and not demanding.
and walk away.

[cmosdes]

If you read my entire post I think you would see that the claim is that God, who is Love, does the healing, in this case for me through homeopathy therefore love works and sometimes He (or She if you prefer) sometimes will use homeopathy.

Sometimes God will even use a placebo to heal.
If I'm reading this right, the "medicine" you took didn't do anything for you. It was God's love. If someone else with your exact symptoms took the same medicine they wouldn't be healed unless God bestowed His love on them. So what was the purpose of taking the medicine? Was God's love in the medicine? Could it not be given to you unless you swallowed it? I would think God could have instantly healed you, so what was the purpose of Him having to "inspire" you to buy the homeopathic medicine? Why not just cure you right off?

But let's say God did inspire you to buy that particular medicine. Why a homeopathic medicine? Why not something more mainstream? Why not use just a regular glass of water?

[crowmanyclouds]

Wow, salt water for a sore throat, who'd have ever thought of that? :confused:Sore Throat - Home Treatment

Home treatment is usually all that is needed for a sore throat caused by a virus. These tips may help you feel better.

Gargle with warm salt water to help reduce swelling and relieve discomfort:
Gargle at least once each hour with 1 tsp (5 g) of salt dissolved in 8 fl oz (240 mL) of warm water.
If you have postnasal drip, gargle often to prevent more throat irritation.

http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/tc/sore-throat-home-treatment:smack:

CMC fnord!

[Jackmannii]

A person says they are presented the proof to the public, when a member of the public wants to actually examine the documents that are made available they are called closed minded. Closed minded when they want to look at the evidence for themselves and make up their own mind, instead of just blindly accepting other people's opinions.Part of the foundation of the scientific method is repeatability, that any person should be able to preform the experiment in the constraints listed and get a repeatable answer. These remarks illustrate the problem not only with "birthers", but with groups that repeatedly challenge scientific thinking on matters where the evidence is overwhelmingly against them.

No matter what solid evidence is presented to the birthers, they come up with new excuses and conspiratorial fantasies to wave it aside. Similarly, when antivaccination, anti-aspartame and anti-fluoridation advocates are presented with abundant research and clinical evidence refuting their claims, they make up new ones fertilized by conspiratorial thinking.

At some point, one has to recognize that there is a danger in being so open-minded that one's brains fall out on the floor. Enough is enough, let's stop wasting time and money on nonsense.

By the way: true believers in homeopathy may well also believe in the Healing Power of Prayer and Love, but that's not how they justify their magic potions (it's "succussion" that makes the water so very powerful). :rolleyes:

[kanicbird]

If I'm reading this right, the "medicine" you took didn't do anything for you. It was God's love. If someone else with your exact symptoms took the same medicine they wouldn't be healed unless God bestowed His love on them. So what was the purpose of taking the medicine? Was God's love in the medicine? Could it not be given to you unless you swallowed it? I would think God could have instantly healed you, so what was the purpose of Him having to "inspire" you to buy the homeopathic medicine? Why not just cure you right off?

God uses us and His creation and lives in them. He has a path of healing through Love for each of us I believe. He does use direct laying on of hands, divine spiritual instant healing and healing through creation (medicines/other objects) - as it's all God. God just doesn't want to be the Big Guy in the sky, but wants to be our brother and our world. In having multi ways of healing, but one God, we get to learn about who He is.



But let's say God did inspire you to buy that particular medicine. Why a homeopathic medicine? Why not something more mainstream? Why not use just a regular glass of water?

In the case of the homeopathic medicine it may have to disprove my false belief that there was nothing in them that could heal. This false belief was in part from the SDMB. Also to accept other's belief systems more readily and to expand mine and show that the person, in this case myself, is capable of finding a cure with divine help alone.

[kanicbird]

By the way: true believers in homeopathy may well also believe in the Healing Power of Prayer and Love, but that's not how they justify their magic potions (it's "succussion" that makes the water so very powerful). :rolleyes:

My understanding is that it is the vibration of the water by the few particles. The highest levels vibrations are of love, or something like that. I'm sure if you look into succussion far enough you will find Love in their somewhere.

[TriPolar]

kanicbird, I suspect nobody loves your brain.

[kanicbird]

Before debating science and evdience with kanicbird, read this:

Thank you Czarcasm, that was perfect, and I agree based on my post may I suggest you walk away and get some chicken soup :)

[Cheesesteak]

In the case of the homeopathic medicine it may have to disprove my false belief that there was nothing in them that could heal. Read CMC's post, there was something in that medicine that could heal. A chemical called Sodium Chloride. It may have been labeled homeopathic, and had some nonsense about a random herb that supposedly heals when diluted enough. It doesn't matter that the diluted herb does nothing, because the real medicine is the salt water, which acts in a way that can be shown by scientists who don't measure love, just the effect of treatments.

[kanicbird]

By the way: true believers in homeopathy may well also believe in the Healing Power of Prayer and Love, but that's not how they justify their magic potions (it's "succussion" that makes the water so very powerful). :rolleyes:

Wanted to go more into this. The simple answer is I don't have to know the method when it comes to God healing His child (me). I am the child and I trust the Father. This is akin to those who trust pharmaceuticals, you don't have to know if the stuff was made by fractional distillation or fractional crystallization to be cured by it, though you are free to research if you wish.

[kanicbird]

Read CMC's post, there was something in that medicine that could heal. A chemical called Sodium Chloride. It may have been labeled homeopathic, and had some nonsense about a random herb that supposedly heals when diluted enough. It doesn't matter that the diluted herb does nothing, because the real medicine is the salt water, which acts in a way that can be shown by scientists who don't measure love, just the effect of treatments.

I read that, if you believe that 2 quick sprays of salt water mist can cure a sore throat in 30 minutes Great!.

[Alka Seltzer]

Again I don't care to debate the politics, but the mindset:

There were questions that were not immediately answered (in this case about Obama's birth status), this formed doubts. I feel that these doubts are legitimate due to not being answered when they were raised.

After some times documents were presented to the public to clarify one position. But the question is if the documents were available why wait, this does raise suspicion and further questions.

Why do you find the delay in releasing the long form suspicious? I don't think that position bears up to scrutiny.

Lets say I accuse you of stealing an apple in Seattle. If you dismiss me, does that make you more suspicious? I continue to accuse you, and you eventually produce a receipt for that date from a shop in Washington. Aha, I say, why didn't you come out with that straight away? It is clearly a forgery.

It's possible to make a conspiracy theory out of anything. If the long form had been released immediately, someone would be saying "why are they taking this accusation seriously? They must have had a forged document prepared." The original release of the short form back in 2008 was in occordance with normal Hawaiian Department of Health procedures, why is that suspicious? The case was answered as far as they were concerned.

To me it sounds quite the opposite, the people blindly accepting that the documents are real are the ones who are closed minded and the ones inquiring in a way to challenge their own opinion are the ones open minded.

For the most part, the birthers are the credulous ones. Many aren't saying there is some doubt over the issue, they are asserting that Obama is not a US citizen, without any actual evidence to back this up.

Of course, it's far beyond my resources and that of most people to carry out a proper scientific investigation of this. I can't go to Hawaii and start interviewing midwives, or trawling through old documents. I don't know for sure that Obama is a US citizen. I take a practical approach, I think in terms of probability. I know that many Americans are opposed to Obama's presidency, and have a clear motive to throw dirt around. I'm very suspicious of the fact that there are multiple birther theories. There are reports of birth announcements in two local Hawaiian newspapers in 1961, which would not be an easy thing to fake. It is highly likely that Obama is in fact a US citizen.

This approach doesn't always work. I don't have enough information to make a sensible judgement on, say, what exactly happened in the Michael Jackson sexual abuse case. I also need to be wary of accepting information that confirms my prejudices.

[cmosdes]

In the case of the homeopathic medicine it may have to disprove my false belief that there was nothing in them that could heal. This false belief was in part from the SDMB.How do you reconcile that with this:
If you read my entire post I think you would see that the claim is that God, who is Love, does the healing, in this case for me through homeopathy therefore love works and sometimes He (or She if you prefer) sometimes will use homeopathy.

Sometimes God will even use a placebo to heal.
In the second quote you seem to be saying the delivery vehicle is meaningless. It is God's love that heals, not the delivery vehicle. Why would God want you to believe in something meaningless?

Either the homeopathy has healing powers or it does not. Absent the salt water, which we already knew about and doesn't require God's love, there isn't anything in the homeopathy that would be considered active. On the other hand, if it was truly God's love which healed, the homeopathy medicine was as it always has been: a placebo. Which is it?

[kanicbird]

Why do you find the delay in releasing the long form suspicious? I don't think that position bears up to scrutiny.

Lets say I accuse you of stealing an apple in Seattle. If you dismiss me, does that make you more suspicious? I continue to accuse you, and you eventually produce a receipt for that date from a shop in Washington. Aha, I say, why didn't you come out with that straight away? It is clearly a forgery.

I agree that ignoring requests that is seen as petty or distracting can be a valid strategy. It is interesting to me as to what got Obama to reveal it at so late a time when it seemed like there was no longer any reason to. It certainly is open to speculation. I would like to know more out of curiosity why the choosing to reveal it at all after not doing so for so long.



For the most part, the birthers are the credulous ones.

For the most part you are probably right (though what if the birthers are right). But isn't the birther's motto basically 'show me, I want to see proof, then I'll stop. In this case you have a birther being told that there is proof that he can see for himself, when the birther actually asks for that proof he is labeled closed minded.

Many aren't saying there is some doubt over the issue, they are asserting that Obama is not a US citizen, without any actual evidence to back this up.

From the other side, it is also you who have no evidence that he was born in the US, just hearsay reported as fact by others. A lot depends on who you trust for your information and different groups trust different sources.


I also need to be wary of accepting information that confirms my prejudices.
This is a interesting statement, wouldn't it be great if everyone strives to do this.

[kanicbird]

How do you reconcile that with this:

In the second quote you seem to be saying the delivery vehicle is meaningless. It is God's love that heals, not the delivery vehicle. Why would God want you to believe in something meaningless?

Either the homeopathy has healing powers or it does not. Absent the salt water, which we already knew about and doesn't require God's love, there isn't anything in the homeopathy that would be considered active.
It's a little awkwardly worded, the first one was to indicate that God used homeopathy as a healing method for me personally (thus in the process disproving the my (false) belief that homeopathy can't work). In the second I state that God sometimes used homoethapy as the delivery method of His love.

On the other hand, if it was truly God's love which healed, the homeopathy medicine was as it always has been: a placebo. Which is it?

The medicine was a vessel containing healing Love of God. Quite possibly scientifically indistinguishable from the next bottle of medicine on the shelf behind the one I got. But for what every reason God chose to place His Love for my healing in that stuff.

Remember also that placebo's do work and have been proven to do so, sometimes very effective.

[Lobohan]

This is great debates. Do you have any evidence for your incredibly childish notions of healing? Bullshit assertions are hardly convincing. Why should we take your word, over the evidence provided by science?

[cmosdes]

Your original quote:
If you read my entire post I think you would see that the claim is that God, who is Love, does the healing, in this case for me through homeopathy therefore love works and sometimes He (or She if you prefer) sometimes will use homeopathy.This is unambiguously claiming it was God's love that did the healing. Would the homeopathy have worked without God's love?

If yes, then God's love was unnecessary.
If no, then the homeopathy was unnecessary and nothing was proved about it.

Which is it?

If it required both, then clearly the homeopathy is useless without God's love, and therefore useless to a great majority of people. In other words, no better than a placebo. It could have been a drink from a water fountain.

The medicine was a vessel containing healing Love of God. Quite possibly scientifically indistinguishable from the next bottle of medicine on the shelf behind the one I got. But for what every reason God chose to place His Love for my healing in that stuff. So we are back to it being God's love that did the healing?

Remember also that placebo's do work and have been proven to do so, sometimes very effective.Exactly. How can you distinguish your experiences in this case from a simple placebo effect?

[kanicbird]

Your original quote:
This is unambiguously claiming it was God's love that did the healing. Would the homeopathy have worked without God's love?

If yes, then God's love was unnecessary.
If no, then the homeopathy was unnecessary and nothing was proved about it.

Which is it?

Without His Love there is no healing ever.

Would homeopathy work if God didn't place what I consider healing Love for me in it - no it would not have worked and homeopathy was unnecessary and nothing was proved about it. (again I am not trying to prove that homeopathy cures but state it is Love that cures)

But the same thing can be said of any cure including scientifically proven pharmaceuticals. They can not work without God's healing Love, and if they don't have that healing anointing of God they are unnecessary and nothing was proven about it - no matter what the substance.

If it required both, then clearly the homeopathy is useless without God's love, and therefore useless to a great majority of people. In other words, no better than a placebo. It could have been a drink from a water fountain.

If God chooses to heal through unproven substance X instead of proven substance Y that's God's will. I don't see how you can make the claim that because God uses homeopathy to cure that is useless to many people. Cured is cured. I didn't believe in homeopathy but tried it and it worked - it certainly was not useless to me. Also it is not required to believe in God to be cured by a chemical substance - I'm sure science has proven this.

So we are back to it being God's love that did the healing?

Exactly. How can you distinguish your experiences in this case from a simple placebo effect?

The placebo effect is the same thing as well as the pharmaceutical effect or the crystal healing effect. If they work it is God's Love that healed, God just chose that method.

[crowmanyclouds]

It's curious that God's Healing Love™ doesn't seem to be in a plain old relatively low molecular weight patented base of cocoa butter, cottenseed oil, sodium pyruvate, tocopheryl acetate, and petroleum jelly/white petrolatum/soft white parrafin when I put it on an infected cut, but mix some bacitracin, neomycin, and polymyxin B into it . . . and suddenly it's there!

Neosporin GHL, now with extra God's Healing Love™!

CMC fnord!
Ya'd think them sciencey types would work on getting God's Healing Love™ into some cheap and readily available substance like dirt instead of those silly, expensive, molecularly complex, pharmaceutical thingies.
Alexander Fleming was an idiot!

[Marley23]

Again, kanicbird, you've started a thread about how people should examine things for themselves, and in it, you're saying everybody should take your word about God's love and such.

[Alka Seltzer]

From the other side, it is also you who have no evidence that he was born in the US, just hearsay reported as fact by others. A lot depends on who you trust for your information and different groups trust different sources.

Not all evidence is equivalent. One birther theory is that Obama was born in Kenya, and a copy of a Kenyan birth certificate has been produced. This piece of evidence is not as strong as the Hawaiian birth certificate. For example, it says "Republic of Kenya" on it, a country that did not exist at the time (Kenya was a british colony until 1963). It's not possible for me to check all these facts myself, but I have a fair degree of trust in the mainstream press. There is nothing blind about this trust. The press is not a single monolithic entity with a single agenda, it is a large number of competing organisations, from the full range of the political spectrum. They are to a large degree self-policing, at least where reportage of the basic facts are concerned (editorials are a whole other matter). "Journalist lies" is a huge story itself, and competing news organisations are motivated to check facts for themselves. When a journalist claims something, they are putting their reputation and career on the line. I do expect journalists to carry out this kind of cross-checking. It can be a messy process, but often the truth will bubble up to the surface. There are actual reasons to have more trust in the press than some random guy on the internet.

[Hentor the Barbarian]

The problem with medical practice of double blind studies is that love, which is the real healer, is not accounted for and like Jesus said the blind leading the blind both will fall into the pit.Since experimental conditions often end up with better results than control conditions, how is it that experimenters have so frequently (and inadvertently) prevented love from acting upon one group and not the other?

If, as you argue, they've failed to account for it, then there would never be any differences between experimental and control conditions. Yet there are. Constantly.

[kanicbird]

Since experimental conditions often end up with better results than control conditions, how is it that experimenters have so frequently (and inadvertently) prevented love from acting upon one group and not the other?

If, as you argue, they've failed to account for it, then there would never be any differences between experimental and control conditions. Yet there are. Constantly.

Modern medicine and pharmaceuticals work little different then medicine men of the past being lead to certain plants and like for healing. There is the healing Love of God in those plants combined with the healing Love of God in the heart of the medicine men.

Today we have the healing Love of God for those modern medicine chemicals and processes and from the heart of some who work at the pharmaceutical plant - these people are medicine men (and women), just working in a modern setting.

People heal because God wants them to and provided a method. It usually comes in the form of stuff in creation delivered and/or provided by someone who really cares (has a heart for) the sick.


So most of the time you will find a difference in double blind studies between someone giving a sugar pill lets say made by workers who don't care about the condition and the chemical pill produced by someone who really cares and wants to see people get better.

Like in everything it is the heart that matters, and double blind studies don't measure this though there is a different level of healing love getting to one group then the other.

[kanicbird]

Again, kanicbird, you've started a thread about how people should examine things for themselves, and in it, you're saying everybody should take your word about God's love and such.

Ok, I see your point here, but that is not what I am saying. I am not saying take my word for it, I'm saying try it yourself and find out, and here is my experience.

I was very much like others on this board, thinking things like homeopathy can not work as there is no active ingredient that we can detect. Scientifically it could not make sense.

A false premise starts, that of if science can not prove it it can't heal and I dismissed it and discredited the people who use it. This based on a logically incorrect conclusion that many have formed (homeopathy can not heal), the correct conclusion is that science is unable to prove the healing qualities.

What I did is start to seek out for myself (yes I believe with divine guidance), and not take science's word for it. If it works for me what do I care if science doesn't know how it could work.

[Hentor the Barbarian]

So most of the time you will find a difference in double blind studies between someone giving a sugar pill lets say made by workers who don't care about the condition and the chemical pill produced by someone who really cares and wants to see people get better.

Like in everything it is the heart that matters, and double blind studies don't measure this though there is a different level of healing love getting to one group then the other.So the love in the manufacturing process, rather than in the application to the individual is the healing ingredient?

And you're suggesting that pharmaceutical manufacturers are full of love, whereas manufacturers of inert substances are not full of love?

What about circumstances where the comparison condition isn't a sugar pill, but is a treatment as usual condition, or the comparison between one active substance and another? In the latter condition, you have two loving pharmaceutical manufacturers laboring with love, yet one condition often leads to better healing than another.

How is that possible, given equal levels of love in the manufacturing?

What about when it isn't the administration of a substance, but an empirical test of one technique versus another? What about the comparison of a psychological treatment strategy versus another?

It seems that in your OP you are calling for empiricism, but you seem to be abandoning it now. Which shall it be? Woo or empiricism?

[kanicbird]

It's curious that God's Healing Love™ doesn't seem to be in a plain old relatively low molecular weight patented base of cocoa butter, cottenseed oil, sodium pyruvate, tocopheryl acetate, and petroleum jelly/white petrolatum/soft white parrafin when I put it on an infected cut, but mix some bacitracin, neomycin, and polymyxin B into it . . . and suddenly it's there!

Neosporin GHL, now with extra God's Healing Love™!

CMC fnord!
Ya'd think them sciencey types would work on getting God's Healing Love™ into some cheap and readily available substance like dirt instead of those silly, expensive, molecularly complex, pharmaceutical thingies.
Alexander Fleming was an idiot!

Try pine sap.

There are many plants in nature that can be used for all sorts of remedies.

On Edit here are some more:
http://www.naturaltherapypages.com.au/article/Natural_Antiseptics

[Hentor the Barbarian]

What I did is start to seek out for myself (yes I believe with divine guidance), and not take science's word for it. If it works for me what do I care if science doesn't know how it could work.Science doesn't speak. Science has no words. People do.

Apparently, the power of love is so weak that it can be undone by simple scientific blinding methods.

[Hentor the Barbarian]

Try pine sap.

There are many plants in nature that can be used for all sorts of remedies.Oooh, I forgot about this in my post above. Do trees produce things with different levels of love? So, if a natural substance does not effect healing, what is the explanation? Shouldn't natural substances be infused with god's love?

Yet they typically fail to heal! How can this be?

[Marley23]

I am not saying take my word for it, I'm saying try it yourself and find out, and here is my experience.
And why should we take your word and try it? ;) Not everyone will have your experiences with homeopathy. Why should yours be given priority? In a broader sense, we cannot try everything in the world. We need information to make decisions. That's why something like science, which offers a consistent methodology in approaching things, is useful. Your approach is that we can't or shouldn't make conclusions on a large scale, which creates two problems: we need to take someone's word for things, and we can't prioritize whose word we take.

A false premise starts, that of if science can not prove it it can't heal and I dismissed it and discredited the people who use it.
This is wrong.

If it works for me what do I care if science doesn't know how it could work.
"And you should take my word for it that it works."

[kanicbird]

Not all evidence is equivalent. One birther theory is that Obama was born in Kenya, and a copy of a Kenyan birth certificate has been produced. This piece of evidence is not as strong as the Hawaiian birth certificate. For example, it says "Republic of Kenya" on it, a country that did not exist at the time (Kenya was a british colony until 1963). It's not possible for me to check all these facts myself, but I have a fair degree of trust in the mainstream press

The mainstream press is where you place your trust in, it is who you have faith in, which is fine and you make a perfectly sound defense as to why you feel you can trust them.

I have faith and put my trust in God, and from what I have seen there is nothing blind about that either.

Other people place their trust in other things and will come to different conclusions.

[kanicbird]

So the love in the manufacturing process, rather than in the application to the individual is the healing ingredient?

And you're suggesting that pharmaceutical manufacturers are full of love, whereas manufacturers of inert substances are not full of love?

Have you every met someone who has a real heart for their work, something they love to do. And they seem to do it a little better then anyone else. Not something measurable, but you would rather go to this guy's shop for a item then any other's even if the other shops are cheaper. The difference is Love.

In this example it is more likely for the manufacturer to have workers who care about a particular condition that they are trying to cure then to get that same motivation from workers making a sugar pill. Yes the sugar pill manufacturers may care about condition X, but more likely that people who care about condition X will be the ones working specifically to cure condition X as opposed to making a generic sugar pill. Also makers of the sugar pill will find obsticalls like not including plant extracts that may be the route of healing.


What about circumstances where the comparison condition isn't a sugar pill, but is a treatment as usual condition, or the comparison between one active substance and another? In the latter condition, you have two loving pharmaceutical manufacturers laboring with love, yet one condition often leads to better healing than another.

God wants to heal a condition certain way. Though both companies have loving worker medicine men, God chooses who He wills the cure comes through.

How is that possible, given equal levels of love in the manufacturing?

What about when it isn't the administration of a substance, but an empirical test of one technique versus another? What about the comparison of a psychological treatment strategy versus another?

The caring of any people along the way are possible routes to healing. All you need is one heart that cares for the condition, perhaps even a parent of a child with such a condition who helped come up with the test, and God can use that heart. God can use anyone with such a heart.

It seems that in your OP you are calling for empiricism, but you seem to be abandoning it now. Which shall it be? Woo or empiricism?

Open minds or at least be aware when you call someone closed minded because they chose to find out for themselves instead of taking others word for it

[Jackmannii]

And why should we take your word and try it? ;) Not everyone will have your experiences with homeopathy. Why should yours be given priority? In a broader sense, we cannot try everything in the world.But this is one of the central tenets of woo-advocacy. Everyone is different, what works for one may not work for another, science is corrupt and cannot be trusted in any of its conclusions*, and you just need to keep trying things until you find something that works for you, until it doesn't and you go find something else. One alt med website termed this being "a human guinea pig", a most attractive thought.I have faith and put my trust in God, and from what I have seen there is nothing blind about that either.I have known and read the writings of numerous physicians and scientists who put their faith in God, but on a working basis rely on the tools that they feel God has given them, including the scientific method. The idea that God would tell people to use homeopathy or any other form of quackery is something they find false and repellent, if not actually blasphemous.

*unless you're bleeding out from trauma or have ruptured diverticulitis, in which case the urgency of the moment permits you to trust in Evil We$tern Medicine.

[Marley23]

Have you every met someone who has a real heart for their work, something they love to do. And they seem to do it a little better then anyone else.
If they do the job better, it doesn't matter if they love it. It might be more enjoyable to talk to someone who lives his job or visit that person's store, but it doesn't magically make the product better.

[Hentor the Barbarian]

The caring of any people along the way are possible routes to healing. All you need is one heart that cares for the condition, perhaps even a parent of a child with such a condition who helped come up with the test, and God can use that heart. God can use anyone with such a heart.Uh oh! You've undone your own "manufacturer with love" argument.

Because if anyone along the process can interject love, then the researchers (who are very invested in healing the conditions that they have devoted their lives to studying) will be involved at the point of delivery to the patient-subjects. So, healing love should be present for everyone regardless of the uncaring placebo makers. This is especially true if the researchers are blind to which group is which. Their love is a confound.

Yet we still reliably see differences, and they now cannot be attributed to manufacturers.

What now?

[Alka Seltzer]

The mainstream press is where you place your trust in, it is who you have faith in, which is fine and you make a perfectly sound defense as to why you feel you can trust them.

I have faith and put my trust in God, and from what I have seen there is nothing blind about that either.

Other people place their trust in other things and will come to different conclusions.

The two are not the same, the trust I have in the press is not unqualified. I don't have faith in the press. There is no news source I treat as authorative.

[kanicbird]

And why should we take your word and try it? ;) Not everyone will have your experiences with homeopathy.

This is true Marley23, not everyone will. But to try it is not taking my word that it will work, it's taking my suggestion to find out for yourself, be open minded to other ideas based very ancient ones that humanity has been successfully using for ages as well as modern one. One poster commented as to why they had to use a modern antiseptic for a wound to prevent infection. This shows the disconnect between people and their environment, since there is and always has been so many plants that can be used as antiseptics, yet we don't consider them because they were not made in some factory with someone stamping a seal of approval on it.



Why should yours be given priority? In a broader sense, we cannot try everything in the world. We need information to make decisions. That's why something like science, which offers a consistent methodology in approaching things, is useful.

I'm not saying not to use science. But people who trust in science to the exclusion and discreditiment of other practices make the exact same error that religious folk who refuse medical treatment because they believe God will heal them directly.

Science is just one of many method God uses, and by excluding other methods you exclude paths of healing.

To me is it as equally distasteful and borderline abusive when care is withheld from a child who is in obvious need of it on the grounds that they need to be cured only by science or only by religious prayer. Though I realize they (both groups) are doing what they feel is right so there is no blame to place.


Your approach is that we can't or shouldn't make conclusions on a large scale, which creates two problems: we need to take someone's word for things, and we can't prioritize whose word we take.

My approach is think for yourself, try things for yourself, find out what works, and when they don't keep searching.

[cmosdes]

Would homeopathy work if God didn't place what I consider healing Love for me in it - no it would not have worked and homeopathy was unnecessary and nothing was proved about it. (again I am not trying to prove that homeopathy cures but state it is Love that cures)

But earlier you said:


In the case of the homeopathic medicine it may have to disprove my false belief that there was nothing in them that could heal. This false belief was in part from the SDMB.

These two statements are 100% contradictory.


Also it is not required to believe in God to be cured by a chemical substance - I'm sure science has proven this.


The placebo effect is the same thing as well as the pharmaceutical effect or the crystal healing effect. If they work it is God's Love that healed, God just chose that method.In other words, everyone would be cured if God wills it. Is that right? It is not dependent on what you take or don't take, it is simply a matter of what God wants? If so, how do you explain the steady progression in medicine of being able to cure people today than in the past? Does God love us more now?

[kanicbird]

The two are not the same, the trust I have in the press is not unqualified. I don't have faith in the press. There is no news source I treat as authorative.

The trust I place in God is not unqualified. If you have no faith in the press you would not be using them to qualify your Obama statements.

Your last statement does not follow and is a bit of a dishonest bait and switch. You are stating there is no (single) news source you treat as authorative. That is all well and good but has nothing to do with you placing your trust and faith in the press as a whole.

To make a comparison I have faith in God, you have faith in the press. I don't take any single message as if I understood it, you don't take any single news source as authoritative. I seek out answers from God using multiple ways and draw my own conclusion, it sounds like you do the same with the various news sources. In the long term everything, even my misunderstandings are worked out, and for you even errors of the press will be exposed by the way the press works.

[kanicbird]

If they do the job better, it doesn't matter if they love it. It might be more enjoyable to talk to someone who lives his job or visit that person's store, but it doesn't magically make the product better.

We will have to agree to disagree for now on this. IMHO yes the product is magically better. :)

[kanicbird]

Uh oh! You've undone your own "manufacturer with love" argument.

Because if anyone along the process can interject love, then the researchers (who are very invested in healing the conditions that they have devoted their lives to studying) will be involved at the point of delivery to the patient-subjects. So, healing love should be present for everyone regardless of the uncaring placebo makers. This is especially true if the researchers are blind to which group is which. Their love is a confound.

Yet we still reliably see differences, and they now cannot be attributed to manufacturers.

What now?

You are forgetting about healing through creation. Certain chemicals that God may want to use combined with love coming through certain people.

[Marley23]

But to try it is not taking my word that it will work, it's taking my suggestion to find out for yourself, be open minded to other ideas based very ancient ones that humanity has been successfully using for ages as well as modern one.
That's "take our word for it."

One poster commented as to why they had to use a modern antiseptic for a wound to prevent infection. This shows the disconnect between people and their environment, since there is and always has been so many plants that can be used as antiseptics, yet we don't consider them because they were not made in some factory with someone stamping a seal of approval on it.
Does it ever occur to you that there is a reason people use modern medicines instead of older ones? They work better. They're not perfect or free of complications, but if the plants were the best alternative, people wouldn't have started looking for other options.

But people who trust in science to the exclusion and discreditiment of other practices make the exact same error that religious folk who refuse medical treatment because they believe God will heal them directly.
Again, this is a false equivalence.

Science is just one of many method God uses, and by excluding other methods you exclude paths of healing.
Why do you think God confuses people by putting so many options at their disposal without a clear way to figure out the best choice?

My approach is think for yourself
Pull the other one.

[Alka Seltzer]

Your last statement does not follow and is a bit of a dishonest bait and switch.

You should think carefully before accusing people of dishonesty.

You are stating there is no (single) news source you treat as authorative. That is all well and good but has nothing to do with you placing your trust and faith in the press as a whole.

To clarify, I trust the press as a whole more than I trust any single news channel or paper, but my trust in the process of Journalism is certainly not absolute. Journalism is only as good as it's sources at the end of the day.

The words trust and faith are not interchangeable.

[Hentor the Barbarian]

You are forgetting about healing through creation. Certain chemicals that God may want to use combined with love coming through certain people.I cannot for the life of me discern what you might mean with this combination of words.

What you have written here so far is self-contradiction and nonsense. Your position and your argument appears to expand and shift in a very mercurial fashion.

If you want to convince anyone of anything, you'll have to try harder to make yourself clear in a much more consistent fashion. If you are working from a position of love, it appears to be undermining your ability to express yourself in a manner quite impairing relative to its impact on other people. On the other hand, your ability to describe what you mean is very much like other people who are also trying to describe and discuss woo. Don't confuse love and woo.

[kanicbird]

But earlier you said:



These two statements are 100% contradictory.

God sometimes will use homeopathy to heal, sometimes He won't.


In other words, everyone would be cured if God wills it. Is that right?

Yes and no. Because of our free will God allows us to reject a method of healing. Yes God could just make everything healed, but there is another aspect, us. we are all part of God as we are His children. Because we are 'gods' in our own right, God respects our godhood and 'free will', and also has to guide us as a parent guiding his child.

It is not dependent on what you take or don't take, it is simply a matter of what God wants? If so, how do you explain the steady progression in medicine of being able to cure people today than in the past? Does God love us more now?
We are learning in many ways, and though many will disagree with the statement, even science is guided by God for our ultimate good.

[Hentor the Barbarian]

Does it ever occur to you that there is a reason people use modern medicines instead of older ones? They work better. They're not perfect or free of complications, but if the plants were the best alternative, people wouldn't have started looking for other options.I was thinking this myself, only a little more broadly.

That is, it appears common for practitioners of woo to dismiss or attack "science" as something unnatural and in some fashion malevolent.

But science is nothing more than a human creation arising from the need to evaluate practices and improve the human condition. It's something we do that we came up with out of need. If science didn't lead to improvement, we wouldn't use it.

[kanicbird]

I cannot for the life of me discern what you might mean with this combination of words.

What you have written here so far is self-contradiction and nonsense. Your position and your argument appears to expand and shift in a very mercurial fashion.

If you want to convince anyone of anything, you'll have to try harder to make yourself clear in a much more consistent fashion. If you are working from a position of love, it appears to be undermining your ability to express yourself in a manner quite impairing relative to its impact on other people. On the other hand, your ability to describe what you mean is very much like other people who are also trying to describe and discuss woo. Don't confuse love and woo.

Thank you for your constructive criticism

Perhaps look into the way medicine men work. They don't work alone but as part of a community. They inquire of the spirits for inspiration and direction, use their past (learned) knowledge, they gather certain plants and substances from nature, they process them in certain ways, they look and touch the patient, deliver the medicine, they many times state that it is not them who heals but the community and the spirits/god(s) and draw upon the power of the community.

Here you have the person anointed to be the healer (medicine man), Healing substances (plants), healing processes (processing/blending of ingredients), healing from others that the medicine man may encounter, healing from the spirits, etc. The particular healing for the person can come through any of the above or combination of the above. Whatever channel God wants to use, but whatever those channles are they contain God's healing Love.

God is Love, and that Love flows between us and unites us all as one. This is the Holy Spirit. It is one Spirit and it runs from Father God to His creation Mother Earth and all the plants and substances contained here to us. We all together act as one being to heal our sick members.

[Marley23]

But science is nothing more than a human creation arising from the need to evaluate practices and improve the human condition. It's something we do that we came up with out of need. If science didn't lead to improvement, we wouldn't use it.
Right. Like I said earlier, science is a methodology for understanding the world. kanicbird's approach is something more like optimistic cluelessness.

[kanicbird]

I was thinking this myself, only a little more broadly.

That is, it appears common for practitioners of woo to dismiss or attack "science" as something unnatural and in some fashion malevolent.

But science is nothing more than a human creation arising from the need to evaluate practices and improve the human condition. It's something we do that we came up with out of need. If science didn't lead to improvement, we wouldn't use it.
I do agree with this also

[cmosdes]

God sometimes will use homeopathy to heal, sometimes He won't.Which again contradicts your earlier statement that you received some sort of proof concerning homeopathy. Either something was proved or it wasn't.

We are learning in many ways, and though many will disagree with the statement, even science is guided by God for our ultimate good.If God is playing a shell game with the efficacy of medicine (according to you, sometimes medicines will work, sometimes they won't), how is that supposed to be scientific? Why is God's love more prevalent in ibuprofen than in a glass of water?

[kanicbird]

That's "take our word for it."


Does it ever occur to you that there is a reason people use modern medicines instead of older ones? They work better. They're not perfect or free of complications, but if the plants were the best alternative, people wouldn't have started looking for other options.

Part of the reason is also people have been made afraid of nature, thinking it as dirty and something to be avoided. A lot of this has been caused by marketing, not superior performance of manufactured drugs.


Again, this is a false equivalence.

To me it is exactly the same, the god of science or the god of religion excluding the other.


Why do you think God confuses people by putting so many options at their disposal without a clear way to figure out the best choice?

God wants us to accept other people and their beliefs as they also contain things that God wants us all to know. If God only wanted science we would have a situation where one people would go around conquering the world in the name of God. But that is not the God of Love, God Loves all His people in all creation and have placed pieces of His wisdom in differing people made to come together not to oppress but to learn and grow as a people but also children of God.

[Hentor the Barbarian]

God is Love, and that Love flows between us and unites us all as one. This is the Holy Spirit. It is one Spirit and it runs from Father God to His creation Mother Earth and all the plants and substances contained here to us. We all together act as one being to heal our sick members.To tie back in to your OP, then, it really doesn't make one bit of difference whether I check something out on my own or take someone else's word for anything. We are all united as one, and god may or may not choose to act in any particular circumstance based on his desires at that time. Thus, if god wishes me to know whether or not Obama was born in Kenya, Hawaii or on the moon, that will be the outcome.

In fact, if we are all united as one in god's holy spirit love, whatever someone else tells me is a product of that holy spirit love. There's no reason then to doubt what someone else tells me.

[kanicbird]

Which again contradicts your earlier statement that you received some sort of proof concerning homeopathy. Either something was proved or it wasn't.

I was lead to take a homeopathic remedy, I took it and was cured. What difference does not make past this point.

If a person was sick and I wished to help them I would pray and follow that leading, if there was no clear answer I may suggest something that worked for me in the past or other help.




If God is playing a shell game with the efficacy of medicine (according to you, sometimes medicines will work, sometimes they won't), how is that supposed to be scientific? Why is God's love more prevalent in ibuprofen than in a glass of water?

It's not God playing a shell game it is us trying to figure out something by looking in the wrong place. But even if we are looking in the wrong place God is still able to provide healing.

[kanicbird]

To tie back in to your OP, then, it really doesn't make one bit of difference whether I check something out on my own or take someone else's word for anything. We are all united as one, and god may or may not choose to act in any particular circumstance based on his desires at that time. Thus, if god wishes me to know whether or not Obama was born in Kenya, Hawaii or on the moon, that will be the outcome.

In fact, if we are all united as one in god's holy spirit love, whatever someone else tells me is a product of that holy spirit love. There's no reason then to doubt what someone else tells me.

Only IF that person is acting in Love, as Love is the Holy Spirit. If a person is acting our of greed, hate, lust, etc. that is not of God (yet everything is of God and will be tied back together in time as all bad stuff now will work for the eternal good, but for now they are emotions not connected to the Holy Spirit, but disconnected fragments). If you act in those you are not receiving in the Holy Spirit.

Eventually everything will go to Love, and there will be no more of the other stuff. But until then these free will emotions cause pain in our world.

[Hentor the Barbarian]

Only IF that person is acting in Love, as Love is in the Holy Spirit. If a person is acting our of greed, hate, lust, etc. that is not of God. If you act in those you are not receiving in the Holy Spirit.

Eventually everything will go to Love, and there will be no more of the other stuff. But until then these free will emotions cause pain in our world.Then we are not actually all united in god's loving holy spirit. I should not have believed you when you told me that previously. I should have checked it out for myself, even though god may or may not choose to change the facts of the matter before or after I check it out for myself.

I think it's also possible to have too much of god's love, to the detriment of the overall functioning of the afflicted.

[Marley23]

Part of the reason is also people have been made afraid of nature, thinking it as dirty and something to be avoided.
Fortunately, now that people are afraid of medications, "nature" is coming back with diseases that were under control or nearly wiped out.

A lot of this has been caused by marketing, not superior performance of manufactured drugs.
Some of it, but that's primarily about one medication compared to another, not your false dichotomy of science vs. nature.

To me it is exactly the same
I know. That's because you're poorly informed and mistrustful of the tools that can shed light on this issue.

God wants us to accept other people and their beliefs
Apaprently he wants us to believe everything. Which is not very different from believing in nothing at all, since your proposal leads to a morass of confusion where people don't know how to make sense of their illnesses or figure out what to do about them. Just try everything and go with what appears to work. Don't evaluate things critically - that's mean. This is exactly the problem we can use science to alleviate.

[kanicbird]

Fortunately, now that people are afraid of medications, "nature" is coming back with diseases that were under control or nearly wiped out.


Some of it, but that's primarily about one medication compared to another, not your false dichotomy of science vs. nature.


I know. That's because you're poorly informed and mistrustful of the tools that can shed light on this issue.


Apaprently he wants us to believe everything. Which is not very different from believing in nothing at all, since your proposal leads to a morass of confusion where people don't know how to make sense of their illnesses or figure out what to do about them. Just try everything and go with what appears to work. Don't evaluate things critically - that's mean. This is exactly the problem we can use science to alleviate.

Marley23 part of the problem is science is failing us in a way. We have put too much faith and hope into it and it is only a partial solution and never will be more then a partial solution - as it's designed to be. Many treat it as the only solution.

Like anything else, too much of a good thing is bad. A balance is needed, perhaps that's where the term holistic healing comes from . When thing get too far out in one direction a correcting is coming.

That is what we are seeing now. People have been let down by science. Yes we can do wonderful stuff in terms of medicine and science can help many many people, but if the best science can offer can not cure your athlete's foot fungus then science is not helpful for you in that no matter how many people produce double blind studies to prove that science can indeed cure it.

Science has another big problem, the cost prevents many people from accessing it. yes part of the science helps to reduce costs, but still many can not obtain the medicine they need due to cost, so that has failed us also, and health care cost seem to be increasing. Perhaps the cost issue is being used as part of the correction.

[Lobohan]

So Kanicbird, I'm gonna guess that you have no intention of debating, right? No fact, no evidence could possibly convince you that your ignorant daydreams aren't real, right? I just want to know where we stand.

You're essentially graffiti on a wall, no amount of talking or reasoning will change what you say?

[Jackmannii]

People have been let down by science.Why yes, there have been terrible letdowns. People infected with HIV are living extended productive lives with an infection that formerly killed them in a short period of time. Similarly, new antiviral regimens are curing hepatitis C infections (http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/medical/treatments/story/0/new-combination-of-drugs-offers-hope-for-hepatitis-c/48710320/1), which otherwise could lead to liver failure and the need for transplantation. Numerous cancers can either be commonly cured (as in the case of some lymphomas and testicular carcinomas), frequently eradicated through surgery and drug therapy, or halted long enough to meaningfully extend lives for many people. Many once-feared infectious diseases have been eliminated or vastly reduced in incidence thanks to vaccination and other public health efforts. Other formerly deadly infections can be successfully treated along with surgical//trauma emergencies that used to be fatal in most instances. What a horrid record of failure.Yes we can do wonderful stuff in terms of medicine and science can help many many people, but if the best science can offer can not cure your athlete's foot fungus then science is not helpful for you in that no matter how many people produce double blind studies to prove that science can indeed cure it. Is that what this is about? Your feet still itch? You'll be relieved to hear that medicine's record against athlete's foot is actually pretty good (http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/tc/athletes-foot-treatment-overview).

Of course, our health would probably be even better if there were fewer people trusting their health to their interpretation of God's Love and hearing messages from on high in the supplement aisle at the supermarket.

[Truman Burbank]

Originally Posted by kanicbird
"God sometimes will use homeopathy to heal, sometimes He won't. "
I believe he won't.
Of course, the FSM may choose to nudge me with his noodly appendage, but that usually happens when I eat a lot of cheese.
Cheese heals.

[Voyager]

Part of the reason is also people have been made afraid of nature, thinking it as dirty and something to be avoided. A lot of this has been caused by marketing, not superior performance of manufactured drugs.

Really? Ever notice how "natural" is a big advertising slogan? Plus, people go out all over the world harvesting plants to see if they might be useful for curing diseases. The reason we no long just use plants to cure is that, first, many of us don't live near the right plants any more, second, we can concentrate the chemical in the plant that does the healing, and avoid the stuff that has no use, and third, we can give people a consistent and optimal dose.


God wants us to accept other people and their beliefs as they also contain things that God wants us all to know. If God only wanted science we would have a situation where one people would go around conquering the world in the name of God. But that is not the God of Love, God Loves all His people in all creation and have placed pieces of His wisdom in differing people made to come together not to oppress but to learn and grow as a people but also children of God.
It is too bad that God left accepting other people out of the Bible.

Look, reading this thread makes me see you as the veritable poster child for the unfalsifiability fallacy. A remedy works. God loves us. It doesn't work - God has a reason. The scientific method consistently works - God wants us to find out stuff.

Assuming that God didn't really start to love us when the germ theory of disease was discovered, how come our life expectancies have shot up, how come people live now who would have died 50 years ago? If you credit God's love, please give me a method to distinguish the case that Gods love has made us more healthy from the case that God doesn't exist, and science did it. I can predict that advances in science will cure more diseases and increase life expectancy. What can you predict?

[Alka Seltzer]

One poster commented as to why they had to use a modern antiseptic for a wound to prevent infection. This shows the disconnect between people and their environment, since there is and always has been so many plants that can be used as antiseptics, yet we don't consider them because they were not made in some factory with someone stamping a seal of approval on it.

When I have a headache, I take aspirin. I don't go on a botany trip to scrape myself some willowbark (which contains a very similar chemical). The pharmaceutical version has a number of advantages. When I take my pills, I'm getting a controlled dose in an easy to take, sterile package. That's not the case if I take bark, the amount of salicin may vary widely from one sample to another, and I don't know what else I'm ingesting.

Science is perfectly capable of investigating folk remidies and determining which ones work.

My approach is think for yourself, try things for yourself, find out what works, and when they don't keep searching.

Why do you think your own experiences are more reliable than a scientific approach, which allows large numbers of tests to be aggregated? How do you determine a treatment has actually worked? Because you feel better? How do you know you wouldn't have recovered anyway? Do you understand the difference between correlation and causation?

Marley23 part of the problem is science is failing us in a way. We have put too much faith and hope into it and it is only a partial solution and never will be more then a partial solution - as it's designed to be. Many treat it as the only solution.

It is the only solution to some problems. Good luck with a holistic apporach to building an airplane for example. Science is an enabler, it opens up possibilities. It can't tell us how to live our lives, but it gives us more options, and better information to make decisions.

Science has another big problem, the cost prevents many people from accessing it. yes part of the science helps to reduce costs, but still many can not obtain the medicine they need due to cost, so that has failed us also, and health care cost seem to be increasing. Perhaps the cost issue is being used as part of the correction.

In the example I gave above, aspirin was discovered through a scientific analysis of willowbark. It offers pain relief to millions of people at very low cost. It's availability and affordability are much higher than the traditional remedy it replaced, and it has fewer side effects.

Health care costs are rising, but the major factors are availability of more advanced treatments and an ageing population. Science has vastly improved the cost-effectiveness of health care.

[kanicbird]

When I have a headache, I take aspirin. I don't go on a botany trip to scrape myself some willowbark (which contains a very similar chemical). The pharmaceutical version has a number of advantages. When I take my pills, I'm getting a controlled dose in an easy to take, sterile package. That's not the case if I take bark, the amount of salicin may vary widely from one sample to another, and I don't know what else I'm ingesting.

This is all well and good. You have been taught how much to safely take and how much you need to take for your condition. This is the same as getting the drugs from plant sources, you learn. Yes the aspirin is much more convenient, especially when it's raining out.

In our modern day society we have OTC drugs, drugs that are fairly hard to mess up taking and don't require a doctor to prescribe. In nature we have the same thing, things like pine sap as a antiseptic. Something everyone can use fairly safely. But for other medical conditions we have in the modern world we want a expert advice and we have prescriptions, this is a modern form of the medicine men, someone who has experience and insight with more difficult medications. Medicine men have the experience and insight to use the more risky drugs. I am thankful we have both.



Why do you think your own experiences are more reliable than a scientific approach, which allows large numbers of tests to be aggregated? How do you determine a treatment has actually worked? Because you feel better? How do you know you wouldn't have recovered anyway? Do you understand the difference between correlation and causation?

I am a believer in subjective reality, as such science, which depends on objective reality does not tell the full story for the individual. I also believe there is ample evidence of subjective reality and that evidence is often reported yet very few people can see it being reported. It is the care for you as a individual person that science normally excludes, and what these other methods often include.

If reality is subjective, then science is only a partial solution and always will be.


It is the only solution to some problems. Good luck with a holistic apporach to building an airplane for example. Science is an enabler, it opens up possibilities. It can't tell us how to live our lives, but it gives us more options, and better information to make decisions.

I'm not saying that science is bad, I am saying science is useful, but only useful for what it is. Extending science beyond it's ability causes failure and disappointment.



In the example I gave above, aspirin was discovered through a scientific analysis of willowbark. It offers pain relief to millions of people at very low cost. It's availability and affordability are much higher than the traditional remedy it replaced, and it has fewer side effects.

Yes and I have taken aspirin several times in my life, I don't believe I have taken willow bark. Though that is a matter of teaching, I have been taught how to acquire and take aspirin (which is a tricky word to spell btw) not willow bark.

Health care costs are rising, but the major factors are availability of more advanced treatments and an ageing population. Science has vastly improved the cost-effectiveness of health care.

This could be the case, but if the demand for science is outstripping it's supply cost rise. I believe we are at that point, peak science if you will. Not that science will run out, but our rate of advancement may be limited and we are in diminishing returns to increase it.

My views above go hand in hand with the belief that we are not alone, there is a God, and our angelic and arch-angelic family who love us (as we are their children). We were never made to make it on our own, but to get help from our parents. In time we will learn more, but we are very much a dependent child race.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Jesus, what a trainwreck. I saw the thread title and hoped it would be an interesting discussion, but all the love is clogging it up. I've started a new thread on the topic (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13952566#post13952566) with, I hope, a clearer OP.

[Marley23]

Marley23 part of the problem is science is failing us in a way.
No, it isn't.

Many treat it as the only solution.
This is nonsense, and there are far more people with faith in your type of religious glurge than in anything scientific.

People have been let down by science. Yes we can do wonderful stuff in terms of medicine and science can help many many people, but if the best science can offer can not cure your athlete's foot fungus then science is not helpful for you in that no matter how many people produce double blind studies to prove that science can indeed cure it.
Your mistake here is that you keep attributing everything to "science." That's not how the world really works. "Science" doesn't do things. You appear to think you can prove a larger point with this foot fungus thing, but I don't see it.

Science has another big problem, the cost prevents many people from accessing it.
Not all drugs are expensive, and not all folk remedies are cheap.

many can not obtain the medicine they need due to cost, so that has failed us also, and health care cost seem to be increasing.
I don't think you know what you're talking about here. Many medications and very expensive and the cost is going up, true. There are also many programs to help people get treatment when they can't afford it. And very generally speaking, the people who need expensive medications are the ones with complicated or dangerous problems like cancer and genetic diseases. Those people aren't going to by Water That Used to Have Plant Extract in it. If you take St. John's Wort or something for a cold, it probably won't hurt you because the cold will go away anyhow. People who take homeopathic stuff instead of scientifically tested medications for cancer or multiple sclerosis and things like that are probably going to suffer and die.

[kanicbird]

No, it isn't.

Well Yes, I can see it if you take science with it's limitations, it isn't and can't. Science is what it is.


This is nonsense, and there are far more people with faith in your type of religious glurge than in anything scientific.

The ironic part is I don't consider myself religious, and your stand seems almost religious, blind acceptance because it seems to work for you without questioning.


Your mistake here is that you keep attributing everything to "science." That's not how the world really works. "Science" doesn't do things. You appear to think you can prove a larger point with this foot fungus thing, but I don't see it.

Science, as we apply it to medical science is great in many instances for the 'greater good' of society, yet there are people who medical science can't help, what are they suppose to do?


Not all drugs are expensive, and not all folk remedies are cheap.

I agree, this is very true.

[Hentor the Barbarian]

Science, as we apply it to medical science is great in many instances for the 'greater good' of society, yet there are people who medical science can't help, what are they suppose to do?Trust in the holy love spirit of god?

That always works, right?

[Jackmannii]

My views above go hand in hand with the belief that we are not alone, there is a God, and our angelic and arch-angelic family who love us (as we are their children). We were never made to make it on our own, but to get help from our parents. In time we will learn more, but we are very much a dependent child race.So this is the ultimate response as to why we should not accept learned opinion and solid evidence on any subject, but instead rely on "examining things yourself", for instance following ethereal directions to buy homeopathic products? Jesus, what a trainwreck.Yes, it looks like another kanicbird tract in the guise of debate.The ironic part is I don't consider myself religious, and your stand seems almost religious, blind acceptance because it seems to work for you without questioning.The "irony" is your mischaracterization of requiring evidence as religion, when the opposite is true. As noted before, it is peculiar that religious woo-ists think that labeling the opposition as religious is the ultimate insult.Science, as we apply it to medical science is great in many instances for the 'greater good' of society, yet there are people who medical science can't help, what are they suppose to do?If they have utilized all their mainstream medical options and no cure is in the offing, they can utilize evidence-based treatment that relieves symptoms and/or prolongs life, acknowledging that there is no solution at present and contributing whenever possible to research aimed at finding that solution.

Or they can follow your example, listen to the voices in their head and buy vials of magic water, or any of the zillion ineffective remedies marketed to us by the multi-billion dollar supplement industry and the armada of quacks that promote them and other useless therapies. After all, who can really say all of it is quackery until they've tried all of it, or at least all they can buy before their money runs out?

[Vinyl Turnip]

Trust in the holy love spirit of god?

That always works, right?

Yes. And if it doesn't, you weren't trusting hard enough.

[Marley23]

Science is what it is.
This thread makes it clear you don't know what it is.

The ironic part is I don't consider myself religious, and your stand seems almost religious, blind acceptance because it seems to work for you without questioning.
What you call yourself isn't relevant to the discussion, but for the record, your posts make it clear you're into spirituality. You're not particularly interested in organized religion, but you talk about Jesus way too much to play the "I'm not religious card." You are. Religion and spirituality aren't the same thing, but for purposes of this discussion, they're the same.

In any case you don't need to have faith that science works. The fact that you think so indicates how little you know about science. What I do think, based on the evidence, is that the world is comprehensible, and that we can use scientific tools to learn more about it. On the other hand your view appears to be that that things happen for reasons we can't understand, so we should just trust in Love and everything will work out unless it doesn't.

yet there are people who medical science can't help, what are they suppose to do?
If Love and placebos could cure them, they wouldn't need medical science. I never said medical science has the cure to every disease, although it does have a much better track record than "smile and hope for the best." Some diseases are well under control, and some aren't yet but may be in the future, and until then, they'll use the best of what medical science has to offer.

[kanicbird]

As noted before, it is peculiar that religious woo-ists think that labeling the opposition as religious is the ultimate insult.

It was the science supporting side that labeled the opposition, not the other way around, I just found it ironic and pointed it out. :)