Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Theism and Atheism => Topic started by: Rhiannon on February 18, 2016, 09:21:27 PM
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Just got this with my local newspaper.
http://quranproject.org/The-Quran-Project-Newspaper-Campaign-has-begun-594-d
Not in Croydon, obviously.
I feel rather irritated by it. >:(
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If anybody can tell me of an atheist group seeking to do the same thing, I shall contribute immediately.
Religious advertising can mislead young minds.
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This us my local free newspaper and it gets stuck through my letterbox uninvited. I don't want this in my home. Regardless of which religion or lack thereof.
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If anybody can tell me of an atheist group seeking to do the same thing, I shall contribute immediately.
Doesn't happen though, Len:
http://goo.gl/iKGOE9
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This us my local free newspaper and it gets stuck through my letterbox uninvited. I don't want this in my home. Regardless of which religion or lack thereof.
Obviously the Croydon Guardian do not feel strongly enough about it so as not to take the money. Ask them not to deliver to you.
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I would if I lived there. This is clearly getting rolled out to other areas.
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Doesn't happen though, Len:
http://goo.gl/iKGOE9
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
Atheists would never be that stupid ... and I am unanimous in that. ;)
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We're back in the advert in the cinema territory here. The cinema took one devision, the croydon Advertiser another. Fair enough, as long as the advert is judged ok in terms legal compliance can't see a problem.
As to various other comments, well we know that atheists have gone down the advert path previously so saying that they don't is incorrect. And pulling the old all atheists are more intelligent than the dumb theists line is simple shit stirring.
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We're back in the advert in the cinema territory here. The cinema took one devision, the croydon Advertiser another. Fair enough, as long as the advert is judged ok in terms legal compliance can't see a problem.
As to various other comments, well we know that atheists have gone down the advert path previously so saying that they don't is incorrect. And pulling the old all atheists are more intelligent than the dumb theists line is simple shit stirring.
Theists are more credulous than atheists.
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Ask them not to deliver to you.
In order to do that you would need to know in advance that it was going to be included (most people won't) and when (again most people won't) - the first most people will know about it is when it comes throughout their door, so too late.
And I doubt you'd get very far telling your local newspaper not to deliver just one copy to you. They simply wouldn't do that, and indeed I don't think they really have the mechanisms in their delivery process to selectively deliver to numbers 1, 3, 5, 9, 11, 15 etc, but not to number 7 and 13.
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Dear Leonard,
Theists are more credulous than atheists.
Really!! you guys have been banging your atheist drum since forever, still not convinced, try obstinate, theists are obstinate, or maybe that old one, we go around with our fingers in our ears singing trala trala.
Gonnagle.
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Theists are more credulous than atheists.
to go all Mandy Rice-Davies 'well, you would say that, wouldn't you?' if you think you are right not to believe then by definition you think those who do are 'credulous'. That would, if course, if one was so inclined to make massive unsubstantiated generalisations about any and all such people whose exoeriences one not only might not know about, but couldn't share because of the problems of hard solipsism.
How easy it must be to classify billions of people as credulous and stupid. Stupid , credulous Gonnagle stupid credulous Rhiannon,old sainted mother o NS, how stupid and credulous is she!
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In order to do that you would need to know in advance that it was going to be included (most people won't) and when (again most people won't) - the first most people will know about it is when it comes throughout their door, so too late.
And I doubt you'd get very far telling your local newspaper not to deliver just one copy to you. They simply wouldn't do that, and indeed I don't think they really have the mechanisms in their delivery process to selectively deliver to numbers 1, 3, 5, 9, 11, 15 etc, but not to number 7 and 13.
If I did not want the local paper delivered for a week or two or more I would simply ask the papergirl not to deliver.
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If I did not want the local paper delivered for a week or two or more I would simply ask the papergirl not to deliver.
So you would phone up the paper each week to check for any adverts you didn’t want and then pop out and tell the person delivering even if you didn't know them, or when they were delivering, so they might actually turn up when you aren't there, to not deliver the paper?
I mean, I think, Rhiannon is making a bit much of this but your solution is somewhat Heath Robinson.
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I was irritated by it. I would have been irritated if it had been any other faith or the BHS. If I want this stuff I'll go looking for it.
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Which is fine, people can be irritated by adverts, advertisers can refuse to take or accept them and the fact that some people might be irritated by them.
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I was irritated by it. I would have been irritated if it had been any other faith or the BHS. If I want this stuff I'll go looking for it.
Pretty much every single advert ever irritates me. I put up with them though because the media needs them to subsidise their business model.
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If I did not want the local paper delivered for a week or two or more I would simply ask the papergirl not to deliver.
How would you do that - do you spend all your day in the house? I don't think I have ever laid eyes on the person who delivers our free local paper, usually on a Thursday.
I also suspect that your paper-girl is not allowed to not deliver to a house on the basis of a conversation that has no record. Remember that advertiser pay their money on the basis of a set number of houses their advert (in a local paper) is delivered to. If the delivery person is making decisions not to deliver to a proportion of the properties I think there would be some sting questions being asked, and possibly a return of advertising fees if the number of 'non deliveries' becomes significant.
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Some of our neighbours have a notice somewhere at the front of their house saying, "No free newspapers, thank-you".
Some extend the notice to "No leaflet dropping" which is good if you don't want to receive junk mail.
Both appear to work well.
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How would you do that - do you spend all your day in the house? I don't think I have ever laid eyes on the person who delivers our free local paper, usually on a Thursday.
I also suspect that your paper-girl is not allowed to not deliver to a house on the basis of a conversation that has no record. Remember that advertiser pay their money on the basis of a set number of houses their advert (in a local paper) is delivered to. If the delivery person is making decisions not to deliver to a proportion of the properties I think there would be some sting questions being asked, and possibly a return of advertising fees if the number of 'non deliveries' becomes significant.
This would work for us. Someone delivers a local free paper every week so we know the delivery (in this case) boy - though the delivery person changes every couple of years or so. Of-course the deliveries are checked from time to time to ensure that as many copies as possible are distributed and not being dumped in a convenient bin.
There was a free fancy magazine, country house style, that used to be delivered - but, following a single complaint, the distributors decided to not continue delivering it to any of the houses in the area/estate - causing a certain degree of bad feeling.
Generally, there's not a lot that can be done about unwanted advertising being delivered especially if it isn't covered by the Mail Preference Service.
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Some of our neighbours have a notice somewhere at the front of their house saying, "No free newspapers, thank-you".
Some extend the notice to "No leaflet dropping" which is good if you don't want to receive junk mail.
Both appear to work well.
Sounds like the best approach.
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This would work for us. Someone delivers a local free paper every week so we know the delivery (in this case) boy - though the delivery person changes every couple of years or so. Of-course the deliveries are checked from time to time to ensure that as many copies as possible are distributed and not being dumped in a convenient bin.
It might work for you (or perhaps Humph) but certainly not for us as the delivery is not when there are people around in the house. My issue with Humph was his rather glib assertion that all you had to do was ask your delivery person not to deliver. That isn't going to be possible for loads of people.
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Some of our neighbours have a notice somewhere at the front of their house saying, "No free newspapers, thank-you".
Some extend the notice to "No leaflet dropping" which is good if you don't want to receive junk mail.
Both appear to work well.
That might work OK if you don't want a paper any week, but not on a specific week, which you wouldn't be able to determine as you'd only know that week's paper contained the offending advert when it arrived.
I've also been told that many deliverers won't take any notice of 'no leaflets' as they are paid to deliver the leaflets and that's what they will do to every house. On the basis that if the householder doesn't want the leaflet it is their responsibility to put it in the bin - the deliverers responsibility is to deliver it!!
So notes of this type may, or may not work.
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I am glad the atheists here are against those stunted atheist propaganda slogans on public transport. (snork)
The door to door atheist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG8sYuns9Uo
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Some of our neighbours have a notice somewhere at the front of their house saying, "No free newspapers, thank-you".
Some extend the notice to "No leaflet dropping" which is good if you don't want to receive junk mail.
Both appear to work well.
They don't usually take a blind bit of notice, all our junk leaflets goes into the gerbil cage unread, for it to shred!
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Why do you keep small rats?
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I am glad the atheists here are against those stunted atheist propaganda slogans on public transport. (snork)
I'm not against any advertising as long as it is not misleading or overly intrusive.
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I'm not against any advertising as long as it is not misleading or overly intrusive.
Me neither, although I don't like these over cover adverts that are often on newspapers these days (actually like the one in the OP link). To my mind when you pick up a newspaper the front page should be the front page, not an advert masquerading as the front page.
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How easy it must be to classify billions of people as credulous and stupid.
I have never said they are stupid ... just credulous. There are stupid/intelligent people among both atheists and theists.
Stupid , credulous Gonnagle stupid credulous Rhiannon,old sainted mother o NS, how stupid and credulous is she!
You are so good at creating straw men I wonder you don't start a business. :)
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no need to worry, I can't imagine ever seeing a newspaper fronting the story 'Who is Jesus?' not PC.
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no need to worry, I can't imagine ever seeing a newspaper fronting the story 'Who is Jesus?' not PC.
Never mind not PC, it's a question without a definitive answer, only beliefs that vary from one Thomas, Richard and Harold to another.
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I have never said they are stupid ... just credulous. There are stupid/intelligent people among both atheists and theists.
You are so good at creating straw men I wonder you don't start a business. :)
You previously said no atheists would be stupid to do something, making a generalised claim. That's when I challenged you and you added the word credulous either as either a qualification or extension, i simply used both posts together. No straw needed. Btw I'll still object to the idea that you can claim all theists are credulous since you don't have the information on all theists experiences to make that judgement.
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You previously said no atheists would be stupid to do something, making a generalised claim.
Yes, I was answering Shaker's posted joke site about atheist door-knocking. Go and look at it. I stand by the fact that no atheist would be that stupid.
That's when I challenged you and you added the word credulous either as either a qualification or extension, i simply used both posts together.
That's alright, I forgive you! :)
Btw I'll still object to the idea that you can claim all theists are credulous since you don't have the information on all theists experiences to make that judgement.
To believe something for which there is no verifiable evidence you have to be credulous.
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Yes, I was answering Shaker's posted joke site about atheist door-knocking. Go and look at it. I stand by the fact that no atheist would be that stupid.
That's alright, I forgive you! :)
To believe something for which there is no verifiable evidence you have to be credulous.
(a) that's a postive claim about what evidence all theists have - so prove it.
(b) there isn't variable evidence for free will so you are classifying yourself as credulous.
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(a) that's a postive claim about what evidence all theists have - so prove it.
The only evidence all theists have is personal experience, either their own or somebody else's. Not verifiable.
(b) there isn't variable evidence for free will so you are classifying yourself as credulous.
The evidence for free-will is that everybody can choose how they act. They can either follow their instinctive decision or ignore it.
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In order to do that you would need to know in advance that it was going to be included (most people won't) and when (again most people won't) - the first most people will know about it is when it comes throughout their door, so too late.
And I doubt you'd get very far telling your local newspaper not to deliver just one copy to you. They simply wouldn't do that, and indeed I don't think they really have the mechanisms in their delivery process to selectively deliver to numbers 1, 3, 5, 9, 11, 15 etc, but not to number 7 and 13.
They have the mechanism, PD, because most of these things are delivered by volunteers. All one has to do is put a 'No junk thank you' sign on the front door, and most deliverers will have been instructed to honour such notices.
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The only evidence all theists have is personal experience, either their own or somebody else's. Not verifiable.
The evidence for free-will is that everybody can choose how they act. They can either follow their instinctive decision or ignore it.
Those two comments are in direct contradiction.
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Those two comments are in direct contradiction.
I don't agree. :)
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If anybody can tell me of an atheist group seeking to do the same thing, I shall contribute immediately.
Religious advertising can mislead young minds.
Len, there are stacks of groups who do this kind of thing from an atheist pov. British Humanists immediately come to mind. Many scientific and political journals and everyday media do it as well; they may not set out to do it as part of their overt raison d'etre but many of the articles they publish are written with the underlying philosophy of how humanity can help itself.
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I was irritated by it. I would have been irritated if it had been any other faith or the BHS. If I want this stuff I'll go looking for it.
We get a lot of stuff through the door, either within magazines we have subscribed to or buy regularly, local newsletters that are delivered by hand or as part of the Royal Mail's efforts to stay a float such that they are paid by some organisations to deliver what is no more than junk mail. If I was to get het up about the waste of paper, the invasion of my privacy, etc. every time one arrived I'm not sure I'd have that much time to be involved in the board, let alone do anything else. I generally goes straight into our paper recycling container.
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I have never said they are stupid ... just credulous. There are stupid/intelligent people among both atheists and theists.
So, by that measure, there must bew credulous atheists, Len. Perhaps, unwittinhgly, you're one of them.
You are so good at creating straw men I wonder you don't start a business. :)
I think NS was simply taking a lesson from you, Len ;)
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Len, there are stacks of groups who do this kind of thing from an atheist pov. British Humanists immediately come to mind. Many scientific and political journals and everyday media do it as well; they may not set out to do it as part of their overt raison d'etre but many of the articles they publish are written with the underlying philosophy of how humanity can help itself.
That is not the same as an overt publicity campaign to promote atheistic views, which is what the op appears to refer to.
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Len, there are stacks of groups who do this kind of thing from an atheist pov. British Humanists immediately come to mind. Many scientific and political journals and everyday media do it as well; they may not set out to do it as part of their overt raison d'etre but many of the articles they publish are written with the underlying philosophy of how humanity can help itself.
Well of course. Who else is going to?
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The only evidence all theists have is personal experience, either their own or somebody else's. Not verifiable.
Wrong, there are people who have been given copies of their medical records that show healing that has had nothing to do with medical intervention. I appreciate that this kind of thing rarely gets into the news, if only because good news isn't newsworthy, but I have seen a couple of local newspaper articles that have had a copy of the documentation for folk to view - even if they have had to have a magnifying glass to read it in the photo.
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So, by that measure, there must be credulous atheists, Len.
To be credulous you have to believe something for which there is no evidence. There is no evidence for gods, so atheists are not credulous.
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Wrong, there are people who have been given copies of their medical records that show healing that has had nothing to do with medical intervention.
... which resolutely remains not-evidence-of-supernatural despite your desperate wish to make it so.
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Well of course. Who else is going to?
Precisely, the very forms of material that many of us don't think twice about buying and bringing into our houses. I actually have no problem with this - it seems more to be those here who claim to have no, or very personalised, faith positions who seem most worried.
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Wrong, there are people who have been given copies of their medical records that show healing that has had nothing to do with medical intervention. I appreciate that this kind of thing rarely gets into the news, if only because good news isn't newsworthy, but I have seen a couple of local newspaper articles that have had a copy of the documentation for folk to view - even if they have had to have a magnifying glass to read it in the photo.
That simply shows that spontaneous healing can take place. What has that to do with evidence for gods?
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... which resolutely remains not-evidence-of-supernatural despite your desperate wish to make it so.
So, you are happy to provide scientifically unverifiable evidence to counter scientifically unverifiable evidence, Shakes.
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So, you are happy to provide scientifically unverifiable evidence to counter scientifically unverifiable evidence, Shakes.
Come again?
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That simply shows that spontaneous healing can take place. What has that to do with evidence for gods?
Len, can you provide us with any evidence for scientifically verified spontaneous healing?
On top of that, can you provide evidence for any occurrence of spontaneous healing where you can also be categorically certain that someone somewhere had not prayed for the person who was healed?
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That simply shows that spontaneous healing can take place. What has that to do with evidence for gods?
Zero, that's what.
I'll see if I can retrace my online steps to an article I read not so long ago about some very recent research which is beginning to suggest that the immune system is implicated in cases of the spontaneous regression of tumours.
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Come again?
Well, spontaneous healing can't be proven scientifically. Its just a convenient way of getting around the paradox of a healing occurring which has no medical or scientific explanation.
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Len, can you provide us with any evidence for scientifically verified spontaneous healing?
On top of that, can you provide evidence for any occurrence of spontaneous healing where you can also be categorically certain that someone somewhere had not prayed for the person who was healed?
Given the amount of prayers for the sick taking place across the world on a daily basis and the random distribution of (1) full recovery, (2) life but with long-term illness and disabiity and (3) death, can you state your methodology for being able to tell the difference between successfully answered petitionary prayer and the operation of sheer random chance?
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That simply shows that spontaneous healing can take place. What has that to do with evidence for gods?
It means that there means outside of medical science and its understanding for healing to occur and therefore that one can't categorically rule out divine intervention.
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Len, can you provide us with any evidence for scientifically verified spontaneous healing?
No, but you seemed to think you were doing so when you started this exchange. Here is what you said :-
"There are people who have been given copies of their medical records that show healing that has had nothing to do with medical intervention."
That IS spontaneous healing.
On top of that, can you provide evidence for any occurrence of spontaneous healing where you can also be categorically certain that someone somewhere had not prayed for the person who was healed?
Of course I can't. But can you produce evidence that the praying has had any effect on the healing process?
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Well, spontaneous healing can't be proven scientifically.
Per #51 that may not remain the case for too much longer.
Its just a convenient way of getting around the paradox of a healing occurring which has no medical or scientific explanation.
It's an honest admission of the lack of current data, and not your preferred route of plugging gaps with whatever bedtime story you happen to find appealing.
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Well, spontaneous healing can't be proven scientifically. Its just a convenient way of getting around the paradox of a healing occurring which has no medical or scientific explanation.
Nothing can be proven scientifically, Mcfly.
You need a methodology to claim it as something else, Mcfly. You got one, this time. McFly? Or going to avoid the question as if it wasn't asked like you have run away all those other times. Come on, McFly!
(being Biff is quite relaxing)
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Me neither, although I don't like these over cover adverts that are often on newspapers these days (actually like the one in the OP link). To my mind when you pick up a newspaper the front page should be the front page, not an advert masquerading as the front page.
Agree with this - I wouldn't have noticed it inside the paper. And as it happens the proper front page of my local paper featured a story that is both important and sad, and I think this disrespectful to the family concerned.
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Nothing can be proven scientifically, Mcfly.
You need a methodology to claim it as something else, Mcfly. You got one, this time. McFly? Or going to avoid the question as if it wasn't asked like you have run away all those other times.
He will ;)
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It means that there means outside of medical science and its understanding for healing to occur and therefore that one can't categorically rule out divine intervention.
Shaker's post #53 answers that.
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Given the amount of prayers for the sick taking place across the world on a daily basis and the random distribution of (1) full recovery, (2) life but with long-term illness and disabiity and (3) death, can you state your methodology for being able to tell the difference between successfully answered petitionary prayer and the operation of sheer random chance?
I don't know the proportion of all recoveries that are recorded as having been spontaneous and therefore outside the scope of medical science, but then nor do you, so I'm not sure that you could provide a methodology for your understanding either, Shakes. Thertein lies the rub; nwither of us have sufficxient understanding of the world and all that that involves to be able to lay out a viable, let alone verifiable methodology. Your position, and that of others here, is no less guess work than anyone else's.
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I'm off to bed now, guys. Will catch up in the morning.
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Well, spontaneous healing can't be proven scientifically. Its just a convenient way of getting around the paradox of a healing occurring which has no medical or scientific explanation.
All it really means is the recovery (full or partial) from some physical problem where the precise mechanism isn't yet known or isn't fully understood - it doesn't mean there is the possibility of supernatural intervention, where the term 'healing' as you use seems to suggest this as a possibility: spontaneous recovery is how I would describe it.
That there are unknowns is no great surprise: turn the clock back just a few decades in medicine and what is common knowledge today would be back then unknown.
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I don't know the proportion of all recoveries that are recorded as having been spontaneous and therefore outside the scope of medical science, but then nor do you, so I'm not sure that you could provide a methodology for your understanding either, Shakes. Thertein lies the rub; nwither of us have sufficxient understanding of the world and all that that involves to be able to lay out a viable, let alone verifiable methodology. Your position, and that of others here, is no less guess work than anyone else's.
I'm not guessing.
You're insinuating gods - that's guessing par excellence.
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I'm off to be now, guys. Will catch up in the morning.
Buenos noches amigo ;)
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Shaker's post #53 answers that.
If one is gullible or - what was your word, Len - credulous.
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If one is gullible or - what was your word, Len - credulous.
Well that fits you to a T.
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That IS spontaneous healing.
Which is just another way of saying that medical science had nothing to do with this recovery. Its a non-term.
Of course I can't. But can you produce evidence that the praying has had any effect on the healing process?
To return to Shakes' invoking of chance, if the spontaneous healing occurs very close in time to when prayer can be proven to have occurred, the chance that it had an involvement is statistically quite high.
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Well, spontaneous healing can't be proven scientifically. Its just a convenient way of getting around the paradox of a healing occurring which has no medical or scientific explanation.
There is no paradox - there will be a medical/scientific explanation: it is simply the case that the explanation is not yet fully known. Your focus on 'healing' is also misleading, since your are using it to imply the possibility of the divine in special cases only: those where the explanation is not yet available, which conveniently excludes all those where the explanation is understood.
The 'not yet known or fully understood' position doesn't just apply to unexpected recoveries of course, since at one time many of the conditions medical science has developed explanations for were similarly unknown. For example, the characteristics of Down's Syndrome was accurately described long before its cause (it is a chromosome abnormality) was known.
Seeing current ignorance as creating a gap for your god of choice is a fairly hopeless approach given that medical science hasn't stopped investigating.
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To return to Shakes' invoking of chance, if the spontaneous healing occurs very close in time to when prayer can be proven to have occurred, the chance that it had an involvement is statistically quite high.
No. This is an absolute travesty of reasoning. You've just added yet another one to your vast array of fallacies - this one is known as the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
For those who prefer their world evidence-based however, here's a long but clear and informative article on spontaneous cancer remission and the growing science behind it:
http://goo.gl/07Mezn
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Which is just another way of saying that medical science had nothing to do with this recovery. Its a non-term.
Nonsense - you are confusing medical intervention with physical processes: your body already uses physical processes to 'heal' without medical intervention, such as when blood clots in cases of traumatic haemorrhage.
To return to Shakes' invoking of chance, if the spontaneous healing occurs very close in time to when prayer can be proven to have occurred, the chance that it had an involvement is statistically quite high.
Let's see your workings then: for example, what data do you have and what statistical tests were best suited to your data so as to calculate probability: since you are implying 'cause and effect' then your data is presumably parametric so we're into T-test territory, rather than non-parametric stuff such as Spearman's rank correlation coefficient: right?
I suspect it is more likely you're just thinking fallaciously again (in this case the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy)!
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Let's see your workings then: for example, what data do you have and what statistical tests were best suited to your data so as to calculate probability: since you are implying 'cause and effect' then your data is presumably parametric so we're into T-test territory, rather than non-parametric stuff such as Spearman's rank correlation coefficient: right?
I had to look that up.
I now need a drink :o
I suspect it is more likely you're just thinking fallaciously again (in this case the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy)!
Great minds ... ;)
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All it really means is the recovery (full or partial) from some physical problem where the precise mechanism isn't yet known or isn't fully understood - it doesn't mean there is the possibility of supernatural intervention, where the term 'healing' as you use seems to suggest this as a possibility: spontaneous recovery is how I would describe it.
That there are unknowns is no great surprise: turn the clock back just a few decades in medicine and what is common knowledge today would be back then unknown.
Exactly.
Gordon and Shaker, you are both far more capable than I am of dealing with Hope's deliberate refusal to accept the obvious. Good work!
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Well, spontaneous healing can't be proven scientifically. Its just a convenient way of getting around the paradox of a healing occurring which has no medical or scientific explanation.
Wouldn't you agree that no matter what phenomena science is yet incapable of explaining, filling in the gaps with one's deity(ies) of choice and associated myths which challenge the very laws of nature as we know them is a bad idea?
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Wrong, there are people who have been given copies of their medical records that show healing that has had nothing to do with medical intervention.
Three weeks ago I caught a virus and lo! I got better without medical intervention. It's a miracle.
(Or the body's own self repair mechanism).
I appreciate that this kind of thing rarely gets into the news, if only because good news isn't newsworthy,
No, it doesn't get into the news because people getting better happens all the time. When it comes to bone fide miraculous cures, it turns out the evidence is zero.
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Well, spontaneous healing can't be proven scientifically. Its just a convenient way of getting around the paradox of a healing occurring which has no medical or scientific explanation.
You really are desperate Hope.
ippy
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You really are desperate Hope.
ippy
No more so than those who have to provide a totally unscientific explanation for the process.
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Wouldn't you agree that no matter what phenomena science is yet incapable of explaining, filling in the gaps with one's deity(ies) of choice and associated myths which challenge the very laws of nature as we know them is a bad idea?
If it were filling in the gaps, yes I would; but as I don't believe that science is the answer to all our issues (nor ever will be), its a moot point in the first place, Khat.
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Three weeks ago I caught a virus and lo! I got better without medical intervention. It's a miracle.
But no-one, let alone yourself, treats this as spontaneous healing. The idea of SH is only ever invoked when someone who has been told that there is nothing else that medical science can do to help. I'm afraid that your attempt at a straw man, and Gordon's references to "physical processes: your body already uses physical processes to 'heal' without medical intervention, such as when blood clots in cases of traumatic haemorrhage"are nothing more than that.
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The idea of SH is only ever invoked when someone who has been told that there is nothing else that medical science can do to help.
Which you seize upon as being a gap into which you can then insert your God, so we need to take into account who is bigging-up the spontaneous recovery as being potential divine intervention as opposed to the more rational 'not fully understood', and whether these claims are little more than anecdotes to start with.
Mrs G (now a community nurse until she retires next year) worked in hospital based oncology (particularly cancers of the neck/head/throat), and also cardiology, for a number of years so I just asked her about whether any of the professionally trained medical or nursing staff she had ever worked with over the years ever suspected divine intervention when someone did a little better than expected to the extent of seemingly recovering from a terminal/serious illness.
She says that even when some people did do a little better that their prognosis suggested, and here she says not many did, in these cases the prognosis is an estimate based on knowledge of the progress of the main condition and its treatment, where some remissions are a direct result of treatment, but as regards the gravelly/terminally ill there are often other secondary illness processes going and that if successfully treated, along with carefully managed pain control, can give the impression of a temporary improvement for a while.
However, she was quite clear that never once over many years was the idea of divine intervention ever raised by professionally trained staff in any formal case reviews as being a serious option, and went on to say that her view is that it would be unprofessional for trained staff to speculate in this way. She added that even colleagues who she knew were religious never ever went down the miracle route.
Mrs G also said that the reality is that those patients who are told (to use your turn of phrase) that 'there is nothing else that medical science can do to help' generally died in line with the estimate they were given, and that some died sooner due to the likes of infections or the effects or analgesia, and that even if professional medical and nursing staff might be surprised at the occasional unexpected resilience of some who are very gravelly ill they wouldn't speculate that divine intervention occurred and that generally speaking temporary improvements were exactly that - temporary.
Let's face it, if divine intervention was a real option we'd see some proper academic studies in peer-reviewed clinical publications confirming that there was empirical evidence that was best explained by a 'miracle' having happened - so, do you have any to hand?
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If it were filling in the gaps, yes I would; but as I don't believe that science is the answer to all our issues (nor ever will be), its a moot point in the first place, Khat.
You're not filling in the gaps?
So "God did it" is not the answer to explain away what we don't yet know?
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No more so than those who have to provide a totally unscientific explanation for the process.
I don't think you could have checked or read through this post of yours before you sent it?
ippy
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I don't think you could have checked or read through this post of yours before you sent it?
ippy
Both Hope and Sass are so eager to spout their nonsense that they are at times unintelligible.
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But no-one, let alone yourself, treats this as spontaneous healing. The idea of SH is only ever invoked when someone who has been told that there is nothing else that medical science can do to help. I'm afraid that your attempt at a straw man, and Gordon's references to "physical processes: your body already uses physical processes to 'heal' without medical intervention, such as when blood clots in cases of traumatic haemorrhage"are nothing more than that.
And the body also possesses the mechanisms to deal with all sorts of other damage and disease processes. And in many, if not most cases, the point of therapeutic intervention is to support that natural healing process in some manner, where otherwise it is usually inadequate to deal with the disease.
And the key word here is usually - spontaneous healing events are rare but not so rare as to not be explainable as one end of a spectrum of natural healing ability within the body, and indeed in some cases seem to be associated with some secondary infection which will have a major effect on the action of the immune system. In other cases apoptosis (another well known physiological process) appears to be involved.
Do we know everything about its mechanisms in every case - well of course not - but it does not sit outside of normal physiological mechanisms. To attribute spontaneous healing to 'god of the gaps' or even more ludicrously to prayer is, frankly, non-sense and bonkers.
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Obviously the Croydon Guardian do not feel strongly enough about it so as not to take the money. Ask them not to deliver to you.
I used to keep the phone number of the distributor of a free paper because I had to keep phoning them to insist that I did not want it.
I see that I'm pages behind on this - sorry!!
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But no-one, let alone yourself, treats this as spontaneous healing.
Yes they do: I just did.
The idea of SH is only ever invoked when someone who has been told that there is nothing else that medical science can do to help.
The body is capable of healing a lot of diseases that medical science can't cure. The common cold is the obvious example.
I'd be really surprised if you could produce verifiable evidence of anybody spontaneously recovering from any disease that has a 0% recovery rate. Nobody, for instance, has ever spontaneously regrown a lost limb.
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Yes they do: I just did.
The body is capable of healing a lot of diseases that medical science can't cure. The common cold is the obvious example.
I'd be really surprised if you could produce verifiable evidence of anybody spontaneously recovering from any disease that has a 0% recovery rate. Nobody, for instance, has ever spontaneously regrown a lost limb.
That's correct - the basic physiology of the human body does 'spontaneous healing' all the time. Cut yourself and what happens - that wound is healed through natural physiological processes. Break your leg, and the same will happen. And the body also deals with many disease processes, by getting rid of pathogens and tissue damaged through disease of other means and replacing it with functioning tissue.
Now this does work perfectly in all cases, and of course one of the main things medical intervention does is to support and augment natural healing - why do you wear a cast if you break your leg - to help the natural healing process to occur. Why do you take antibiotics - to knock out a large proportion of bacterial pathogens allowing the body to be better able to deal with the rest etc etc.
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But no-one, let alone yourself, treats this as spontaneous healing. The idea of SH is only ever invoked when someone who has been told that there is nothing else that medical science can do to help. I'm afraid that your attempt at a straw man, and Gordon's references to "physical processes: your body already uses physical processes to 'heal' without medical intervention, such as when blood clots in cases of traumatic haemorrhage"are nothing more than that.
I haven't looked on wikki but I'll assume there will be something there about interferon, give it a lookand see Hope.
As far as I know this has been known about for at least thirty to fourty years, last I can rember about it is, that it's very expensive and there is nothing magic about it.
ippy