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/...d.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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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.

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by Cheesesteak

..., 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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

...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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by Marley23

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]

Originally Posted by brocks

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]

Originally Posted by Bryan Ekers

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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by Marley23

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:

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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?

SPOILER:

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...home-treatment

CMC fnord!

[Jackmannii]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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.

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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).

[kanicbird]

Originally Posted by cmosdes

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]

Originally Posted by Jackmannii

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).

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]

Originally Posted by Czarcasm

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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by Jackmannii

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).

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]

Originally Posted by Cheesesteak

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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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.

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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:

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by Alka Seltzer

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]

Originally Posted by cmosdes

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:

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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.

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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?

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by cmosdes

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?

[nitpick]Without His Love there is no healing ever. [/nitpick]

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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by Hentor the Barbarian

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by 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!

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.a...al_Antiseptics

[Hentor the Barbarian]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

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]

Originally Posted by Alka Seltzer

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.