Posted on 05/01/2008 9:58:37 AM PDT by Hank Kerchief
(If you want on or off this list please freepmail me.)
Hank
Do you have an endless supply of this kind of nonsense, or dare we hope that you will run dry sometime soon?
Not true of traditional Christianity. We believe EVERYONE EVER BORN is wicked, sinful AND deluded. The Gospel tells us that God offers us an out from this abismal state.
It depends on which traditional Christianity you mean, doesn’t it? It would be true of Calvinists and Reformed, but those following Wesley had a slightly different view of the fall. Not sure what you beliefs are, but most Christians believe there is a difference between believers and non-believers. For example:
1 Pet. 4:18 “And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?”
Hank
No it doesn't. What I described is the core of the faith. Anyone who doesn't believe that core isn't a traditional Christian.
Endless supply would be my bet. ;-)
The whole article seems to be based on a false premise, that science is based on proof. Nothing can be proven, something can only be falsified. Good Science is based on theories that we haven’t disproved, yet.
Religion seems to be based on the faith of absolute truths and consensus.
Well, that's wrong, dammit!
The matter is settled. Haven't you read the memo yet?
I disagree with a lot there. But I’ll just go with psychiatry since that affects me most directly.
There may be a lot of faddism and disease of the month in psychiatry. However, after struggling through years, in which I had repeatedly been fired or “laid off’ from various jobs in my 20s, never lasting more than two and a half years in any of them, I was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and started taking medicine for it.
Shortly after that, I started a new job, which I have now held for almost ten years. I found the patience to become a writer, as a hobby, if not for income. I found that I could be angry without a need to physically demonstrate it.
I am not saying this is the solution for everyone. If you want to say that ADD/ADHD is over-diagnosed, particularly in children, you won’t get any argument with me. But that just means there are bad psychiatrists, not that psychiatry is a fraud.
Because of psychiatry and medication, my life went from spiraling in towards what was, frankly, a suicidal course into one where I’m a productive member of society. By “productive,” I do not mean an emotionless, docile cog. I doubt that anyone who posts to sites like this can be considered docile.
Maybe it’s coincidence. Maybe it’s psychosomatic. Whatever the case, my life objectively improved after I started taking psychiatric medication. If that’ gullibility, then thank God I’m gullible.
read later
The matter is settled. Haven’t you read the memo yet?
No, but thanks for the heads-up. Wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m not a team player. I’ll go along!
;>)
Hank
I won’t argue with your experience, or at all actually.
Maybe you shouldn’t do this, but if you are interested, ask any psychologist/psychiatrist, your own possibly, if they can point you to a paper anywhere that documents any chemical imbalance in, or leision of, the brain associated with add or adhd that has ever been detected in anyone before they’ve been given psychotropic drugs. (The drugs do cause changes in the brain, so tests made after the drugs are taken are meaningless.)
I agree, by the way, it really doesn’t matter why you’ve been helped and it’s just great that you have. Some people with severe conditions seem to be helped by medical marijuana—they aren’t going to be given the same opportunity you’ve had.
Hank
So are you another one of those whose still waiting for more data on whether or not heavier than air human flight is possible?
Just wondering, since you don’t think its been proved that it is possible.
Hank
That’s “who is” not “whose”.
Sorry!
Do you have a source for that assertion. Most Scientists in the U.S. are people of faith (roughly 2/3). This was from a survey of Scientists who are faculty members at “elite Universities”. I imagine (based entirely upon personal experience and the known bias of University faculty) the % among working Scientists is even higher.
http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/050811_scientists_god.html
I don't know if they have. But I'd make a small bet that the chemical imbalance would also be put to right by smoking.
I have gathered a fair amount of anecdotal evidence over the years that people who have had attention problems did not have it, when they were smoked; or that people within a family who smoked could keep and maintain jobs, while people in the same families who did not smoke had troubles maintain employment. The difference seemed to be, still anecdotally, that the people who smoked could concentrate on their jobs.
Interestingly, the medicine I take, bupropion, is also used to help people stop smoking. I doubt any studies have or will be done along this line -- finding a benefit in smoking cigarettes being rather taboo at the moment. However, the implication is that there is something in bupropion that either is or replaces something in tobacco, that helps people concentrate.
In any case, we know of some chemicals that clearly affect mental processing. Ethanol (i.e., alcohol) is the best known. Caffeine is another. I'd have to check this, but I think there are studies that indicate that caffeine can improve mental reaction time. It is not unreasonable that there are other, lesser known chemicals, such as bupropion, that do as well.
As such, it may turn out that there is no such chemical imbalance that causes ADD, but that bupropion has an ability to enhance concentration. It may be that I was not sufficiently trained to concentrate as a child and that, as such, bupropion works as a mental crutch.
But in that case, we could apply that logic to at least some other psychiatric medications. Perhaps they do not correct imbalance, but, properly used, improve the operation of the brain.
In any case, one does not need to know how a match works in order to light a fire with one. We need merely observe the striking of one. Similarly, one does not need to know the specific workings of a medication in order to determine or, at least, have good reason to believe, that it does work.
By the way, I agree with you on marijuana.
Well yes, but you won’t like them:
http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Jesus/Intelligence%20&%20religion.htm
Lots of sources there.
But it doesn’t really matter. No truth about anything (except the truth about what people say on a census) can be established on the basis of how many people believe something.
By the way, though I am an atheist, I find the statistics on the numbers of “anti-religious,” especially the “strongly anti-religious” very alarming. Totally disagreeing with something and being “anti-” something are totally different.
Hank
You are part of the U.S.A.’s most despised religious minority; although Atheists are overrepresented in the U.S. armed forces, and underrepresented in U.S. prisons, and have not shown a tendency to fly planes into skyscrapers.
I prefer my own source, it clearly states its methods and subject group, and it accurately reflects my own experiences. I knew plenty of University level and Professional Scientists, and around 2/3rds (or more)are people of faith (as the study suggested); I have never met (AFAIK) a member of the National Academy of Sciences (the group polled that showed that very few of “elite” Scientists are believers).
“But in that case, we could apply that logic to at least some other psychiatric medications. Perhaps they do not correct imbalance, but, properly used, improve the operation of the brain.”
We know how some chemicals affect the brain, in the case of physiological problems with the brain, some drugs are moderately helpful. There are real chemical balances too, especially hormonal, and they cause severely bad feelings, but they are physiological also. As far as I know, all psychosomatic drugs, even mild sedatives are deleterious to the brain, and none are beneficial to any of its functions.
http://theautonomist.com/home/?/autonomist/article/psychiatric_drugs/
On the other hand, whatever substance an individual finds useful or helpful, nicotine, alcohol, or psychosomatic drugs, they ought to be free to use them. I am very much opposed to both forced administration of drugs as well as the forced prevention of their use.
Hank
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