This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Live
PTR
10.2.7
PTR
10.2.6
Beta
HsR's Demographics of Wowhead: Religion
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
ExDementia
Did you even read the rest of my post? I responded because, without even watching the movie to see what it was about, you made a post casting religion into a negative light.
Why don't you stop using ad hominem and actually respond to my arguments?
I didn't say anything about bad about anything, I just recanted fact. I didn't mean for it to cast a negative light on anything but stupidity. It's not saying anything bad about religion unless you take it that way, the way I take it is the people were not mentally fit to care for their child, their reason for doing so being religion makes no difference to me.
I haven't watched that but there was a family on the news who didn't take their kid to the hospital when he had a very cure-able disease because they thought god would heal him. The kid died and they were charged with negligence.
^I purposefully added no opinion to that post, just the fact of what happened. I even said I didn't watch the video.
So what was your argument? That the news was old? Or that you didn't like what I posted?
Post by
Monday
Because you didn't even watch the video in question but decided to throw in a little tidbit showing that religious families are stupid.
If that wasn't he purpose of your post, what was it? Why else would you post something like that?
Post by
Orranis
Because you didn't even watch the video in question but decided to throw in a little tidbit showing that religious families are stupid.
If that wasn't he purpose of your post, what was it? Why else would you post something like that?
You're both right! He said that stupid people do stupid things, and sometimes use faith as a reason, and you're saying the exact same thing!
He didn't watch the video, and neither did you! Neither did I! We can't!
Post by
Monday
Because you didn't even watch the video in question but decided to throw in a little tidbit showing that religious families are stupid.
If that wasn't he purpose of your post, what was it? Why else would you post something like that?
You're both right! He said that stupid people do stupid things, and sometimes use faith as a reason, and you're saying the exact same thing!
He didn't watch the video, and neither did you! Neither did I! We can't!
*head asplode*
Post by
ExDementia
Because you didn't even watch the video in question but decided to throw in a little tidbit showing that religious families are stupid.
If that wasn't he purpose of your post, what was it? Why else would you post something like that?
Where did I say that? Please, show me where I even implied that. If you read my last post, I said pretty much the exact opposite of that. Saying that one incident makes all religious families stupid is like saying everyone who owns a gun kills people.
Like I said before, I think the family was just unfit to care for their child. They were stupid with or with out religion, they just so happened to do this for religious reasons.
I think the idea of passing up medical treatment in favor of "faith healing" is stupid and dangerous, BUT I know that
99% of
most religious families are perfectly reasonable people and would NOT let this happen to their child.
Post by
Tartonga
BUT I know that
99% of religious families
are perfectly reasonable people and would NOT let this happen to their child.
I really don't know about the numbers, but you may want to check
this
.
Post by
Monday
Where did I say that? Please, show me where I even implied that. If you read my last post, I said pretty much the exact opposite of that. Saying that one incident makes all religious families stupid is like saying everyone who owns a gun kills people.
Sorta ties in with religon, it is a documentary on faith healing.
Warning 1hr and 15mins long
I haven't watched that but there was a family on the news who didn't take their kid to the hospital when he had a very cure-able disease because they thought god would heal him. The kid died and they were charged with negligence.
This is the original post. Nowhere does it say "I think most families aren't that dumb" or anything close. It consisted of a whole two sentences, which tells the story of a religious family who thought God would heal their child, and he died.
My response to the post was perfectly valid, as nowhere does it say or even hint at anything along the lines of "I don't think religious families are that dumb." It was a direct attack on faith healing (which is an iffy matter, but still).
Post by
ExDementia
This is the original post. Nowhere does it say "I think most families aren't that dumb" or anything close. It consisted of a whole two sentences, which tells the story of a religious family who thought God would heal their child, and he died.
My response to the post was perfectly valid, as nowhere does it say or even hint at anything along the lines of "I don't think religious families are that dumb." It was a direct attack on faith healing (which is an iffy matter, but still).
That's the thing! It was not an attack! It was merely a statement of something that has happened as a result of faith healing.
If it was an attack, I would have injected some opinionated adjectives in there, and maybe follow it up with a statement against faith healing. My post had none of those.
I'll leave you with this though:
U.S. death toll among infants and children: In 1998-APR, Dr. Seth Asser, a critical-care pediatrician at Methodist Children's Hospital in San Antonio, and Rita Swan, head of the advocacy group Children's Healthcare is a Legal Duty (CHILD) authored a paper in the professional journal Pediatrics. Asser studied 172 reported deaths of infants and children between 1975 and 1995. Deaths were found in 34 states among members of 23 religious groups. They belonged to families of Christian Scientist, Faith Tabernacle, Faith Assembly and several other religious groups that practice faith healing. He compared the cause of death with the expected survival rates if the children had received routine medical care. They found:
-- 140 children would have had a 90% chance of surviving if they had been treated medically.
-- 18 children would have had a 50 to 90% chance of surviving
-- 11 children would have received some benefits from medical care
-- 3 would not have been helped from medical care
The 172 deaths are presumably some unknown fraction of the total deaths among children whose parents used faith healing in place of medical treatment.
Also unknown are the numbers of children who died after having received medical treatment who would have been saved by faith healing. As structured, the study only analyzes one side of the story.
Many of the conditions and diseases that killed the 172 children were "ordinary ailments seen and treated routinely" e.g. appendicitis, labor complications, dehydration, antibiotic-sensitive bacterial infections and vaccine-preventable disorders. They cited cases in which:
-- A 2 year old child choked on a piece of banana and died an hour later, while her parents frantically gathered other church members into a circle to pray.
-- Children with an infection who would have been saved with a single injection of penicillin.
-- Babies who would have lived if they received oxygen.
-- Five mothers died from relatively common and treatable complications during labor.
-- Several children died after long periods of terribly painful suffering. 5,6
The article concludes:
"The children of members of faith-healing sects deserve the same protections under the law as other children have. We believe that the repeal of exemption laws is a necessary step toward assuring such protection...before hundreds more children suffer needlessly and die prematurely."
Robert Gilbert of the Christian Science Committee on Publication said the study was biased and misleading:
"The assumption here is that you can judge a religion only by its failures, when the fact is we have quite a good record in the 130-plus years of Christian Science healing. And it's a tragedy whenever a child dies."
Unfortunately, the denomination does not release its data to the public; the effectiveness of its healing methods remains unknown.
Edit - Make sure you read that whole quote, it includes counterpoints so it isn't one sided. This is not an attack, it is quoting facts.
Post by
Squishalot
Well, no, you can still report facts in a one-sided manner. By not representing the examples of child deaths in secular hands, nor by looking at the number of healed cases, by definition, they're only looking at negatives, as Robert Gilbert points out.
Consider all the problems that occur within a secular environment. One of the more high profile cases recently is when a lady was supposed to be given an epidural or some other anaesthetic, and instead had antiseptic injected into her spine. You have to admit, faith healing wouldn't ever cause that! Nor would it assist in the development of Golden Staph or other antibiotic resistant bugs.
You stating a bunch of facts that portray faith healing in a negative light, without conveying any other facts that either a) criticise the alternative, or b) show the benefits of faith healing, is indeed essentially 'attacking' faith healing, or at the very least, showing your bias.
Now, personally, for what it's worth, I think Christian Science is complete bollocks. In my personal opinion, it is essentially just placebo healing.
Post by
ExDementia
Well, no, you can still report facts in a one-sided manner. By not representing the examples of child deaths in secular hands, nor by looking at the number of healed cases, by definition, they're only looking at negatives, as Robert Gilbert points out.
Consider all the problems that occur within a secular environment. One of the more high profile cases recently is when a lady was supposed to be given an epidural or some other anaesthetic, and instead had antiseptic injected into her spine. You have to admit, faith healing wouldn't ever cause that! Nor would it assist in the development of Golden Staph or other antibiotic resistant bugs.
You stating a bunch of facts that portray faith healing in a negative light, without conveying any other facts that either a) criticise the alternative, or b) show the benefits of faith healing, is indeed essentially 'attacking' faith healing, or at the very least, showing your bias.
Now, personally, for what it's worth, I think Christian Science is complete bollocks. In my personal opinion, it is essentially just placebo healing.
I tried to find any numbers or statistics or even certifiable claims on faith healing succeeding but I couldn't find anything. Anything I did find was hearsay or those videos of the priests smacking people on the forehead and shouting a lot.
I'm trying to be objective on this, it just isn't easy. That's why I quoted that article where it had a counter opinion on it. It even says in the article i quoted that this is only one side of the story, since there isn't any real documentation for argument on the otherside. Try to find something that actually shows faith healing working, I couldn't find even one actual documented case.
Also unknown are the numbers of children who died after having received medical treatment who would have been saved by faith healing. As structured, the study only analyzes one side of the story.
Post by
Squishalot
I tried to find any numbers or statistics or even certifiable claims on faith healing succeeding but I couldn't find anything. Anything I did find was hearsay or those videos of the priests smacking people on the forehead and shouting a lot.
Define 'certifiable'. A peer-reviewed journal is not necessarily 'certifiable' or 'reliable', nor even 'correct'. Unless I understood how a study was put together, I wouldn't prescribe any sort of validity or credibility to published papers, simply because I know how flawed many of them can be.
I'm trying to be objective on this, it just isn't easy. That's why I quoted that article where it had a counter opinion on it. It even says in the article i quoted that this is only one side of the story, since there isn't any real documentation for argument on the otherside. Try to find something that actually shows faith healing working, I couldn't find even one actual documented case.
"It's not representative of all atheists, obviously, but the people who claim to be atheists on this forum are stupid as they are really agnostics dressing themselves up to be atheists."
"There are aspects about you that I haven't observed, but the facts that you have posted on this forum suggest that you intend to attack faith healing."
Caveats are meaningless - if you don't have both sides of the argument, then it shouldn't be raised, unless you intend to only present one side of the argument, or request (in a non-confrontational manner) for the other side of the argument to be raised for your information.
Funden is absolutely correct in this case - you've presented a fact (argument) about a case when faith healing doesn't work, and it is implied that this is your opinion - that faith healing doesn't work - based on the lack of any further argument to suggest that you don't actually believe this. If the video was about how African-American parents are more nurturing than Anglo-Saxon parents, and you responded with:
"I didn't watch the video, but I saw in the news that the foster care system is currently overloaded with African-American kids from broken homes."
... is that not suggesting that you disagree?
Passive aggressive argument is still aggressive.
Post by
Skreeran
On the topic of Agnosticism and Atheism, incidentally, I've been pondering, and I think I found the problem we had in communicating. I still maintain that lack of belief is not the same as disbelief, for one thing. I disbelieve in a theistic god, once who performs miracles and talks to people and generally intervenes in human affairs. A universe that is micromanaged by a interventionary deity would seem to be a different universe than the universe we observe in reality.
I am agnostic in respect to a deistic god, though. What got me so flustered when you, HSR, and I were arguing about the difference between atheism and agnosticism was was the fact that we were discussing a god that by definition cannot be detected. I don't remember if it was you or HSR who said it, but one of you said something like "I call it irrelevant. If it cannot possibly be detected, science cannot speak at all on behalf of its likelihood." (or something to that effect.) After some thinking, I have to agree. A deistic god--one who set the constants and initial conditions of the universe and then sat back and watched--really is irrelevant. I do not disbelieve in it in the sense that I have said positively that I believe it's not true. It could be true. It could also be true that I am a pink cow dreaming all of this up. There's no way to know, and it's thus irrelevant. I don't believe it's true, but I don't believe it's necessarily not true either. I believe that it's a useless hypothesis that, while perhaps interesting to consider in passing, contributes no real truth.
Just thought I'd let you know what I've been thinking about.
Post by
Tartonga
I suggest you should present your side of the story showing that faith healing does work, so we can have a better panorama of how actually things are. If you can't, then Funden is wrong, because what ExDementia said was the whole point of view and thus not attacking anything.
Post by
Monday
I suggest you should present your side of the story showing that faith healing does work, so we can have a better panorama of how actually things are. If you can't, then Funden is wrong, because what ExDementia said was the whole point of view and thus not attacking anything.
It wasn't the whole point of view. It was one incident showing faith healing to not work.
The problem is, any incident showing faith healing does work is dismissed as coincidence. /shrug
Post by
Tartonga
As a side note; hey Funden, I owe you an apology.
I have a subject at my university called "Mental Health" and my teachers are real psychiatrists, and we had this debate in class that we ended talking about homosexuality and they think that the theory that says that there is gen that gives people more chances to be gay is far from the truth. The situation was like this:
Me: But isn't there a gen that somehow determinates which one is our sex orientation going to be?
They: Pff, no, not really...that's just a bunch of theories.
*embarrasement face*
So yeah...I apologize.
Post by
Skreeran
Although, that's not to say that the gene theory is wrong. Psychologist naturally attribute it more to psychology, and biologists naturally attribute it more to physiology. It's probably a mixture of both.
Post by
Tartonga
You know what? I have "Mental Health" once a week and I have it tomorrow. I will ask my teachers what they argument the homosexuality is about. And then we contrast it with what this theories say.
I mean, I really don't know what I think of this at the moment, perhaps this helps me choose something.
Post by
Squishalot
Although I sortof agree with the statement, I believe it was HSR who said that, but I'm sure he appreciates that you agree with him now.
Where I'd disagree with the statement is in terms of its irrelevancy. I don't think that the question of whether a deistic god exists is irrelevant, if only because to consider it irrelevant would be to remove it from discussion :P
Re: gene theory, my girlfriend recently wrote a response paper on the topic of whether psychology should be a purely biological science. A philosophical problem in psychology at the moment is that a great many more people are treating psychological problems using solely biological science (e.g. drugs to treat abnormal biological 'causes' such as hormonal imbalances and the like). This effect is taking away from the 'core' psychology idea that it's a behavioural science - the interaction between people.
Really, it is a mixture of both, and it would be wrong to consider that it should be purely a behavioural or biological science, because you lose insights that the other can provide.
On the topic of 'what causes homosexuality', there are a lot of theories, because nobody's confirmed anything. If your psychology teachers suggest that there is a consensus that "this is why people are homosexual", they're probably wrong. But given their response to your question about the 'homosexual gene", they're probably smarter than that.
Post by
Tartonga
Well, I will make a post tomorrow on this very thread with the explanation they give me, or at least I hope they'll give me, haha. Also, you should know an important factor which is supposed to be taken in account: I go to the UBA (University of Buenos Aires), which is one the 3 best universities in Latin America, being the other 2 the University of Sao Paulo and the National Autonomous University of Mexico. What I mean with all this, is that even though it's a good university, it's a university from the third world and the answer I get here won't be the same as the answer I would get if I ask a teacher from Harvard =/.
Post by
Squishalot
Heh, see how it goes. Third world doesn't necessarily mean incompetent. I've seen a lot of good research come out of non-developed world universities.
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.