Look, you're redefining atheism to fit your paradigm. The rejection of a belief based on lack of evidence is no more a belief than "bald" is a hair color or "not collecting stamps" is a hobby.
There are certain bits of evidence that should exist if there were a God (answered prayer being one such thing). These things *don't* exist. Therefore, while it's not certain (since nothing in science is about certainty, just the best explanation for phenomena based on the evidence), the evidence *against* a deity is stronger than the evidence for.
"Atheism is not merely not believing in a particular deity or any proposed deity, atheism is believing there is NO (not even an unlikely) possibility that there could be a deity."
If you need to define it that way to argue against it, fine. But you won't find many atheists who say that. There's *always* a possibility that we're wrong. We just don't think we are, based on what we do and don't observe.
Atheism is a rejection of belief in a deity. The rejection is the conclusion. There are no "beliefs" required of atheists. The word just means "without a deity".
You do realize that a single medical study is not nearly enough to establish a trend, right? Even if it appears to give statistically significant results, if it isn't correlated to another study with similar results, it could just be an outlier, or the result of bad controls, etc.
Maybe, but government facilities aren't supposed to beso lax about stuff like that. They're so caught up in red tape when it comes to PCs that (for example) we recently wound up buying bulk quantities of a new type of video card (just a standard video card, nothing special) for over $200 each. Cannibalizing doesn't happen, and when it does someone gets fired. Our machines are locked inside a steel frame with a padlock on it; the only openings are for the CD drive and the power button.
I work at one of our many other nuclear research labs and the security is airtight there. I can't imagine how terrible a job the guards must be doing at Los Alamos.
I never said a WORD about not understanding WHAT A GUT FEELING WAS. I asked you WHAT IT WAS that your gut was telling you. You're INTENTIONALLY DODGING THE QUESTION. Read what I said:
WHAT is a gut feeling? You're claiming that you believe in SOMETHING, but that it isn't possible to know WHAT it is. What on earth is it that you claim to believe in? How can you say that you BELIEVE IN something if you don't even know WHAT it is? If you were to say this about anything but God, you'd understand that this is an absurd statement.
Notice that all-caps means emphasis. I emphasized the "WHAT" in "WHAT is a gut feeling". If I were asking for a definition of a gut feeling, the "is" would be emphasized.
Now, ANSWER. You are claiming that the existing of a higher power is verified, to you, by a "gut feeling". What is it that this intuition is TELLING you, and why do you believe it's a higher power? What is the rationalization for that assertion?
Since you didn't actually answer the question, but dodged it, allow me to repeat it. I did not ask for a definition of FAITH. I know what faith is.
WHAT is a gut feeling? You're claiming that you believe in SOMETHING, but that it isn't possible to know WHAT it is. What on earth is it that you claim to believe in? How can you say that you BELIEVE IN something if you don't even know WHAT it is? If you were to say this about anything but God, you'd understand that this is an absurd statement.
"It's a gut feeling for me, for other people it's faith."
WHAT is a gut feeling? You're claiming that you believe in SOMETHING, but that it isn't possible to know WHAT it is. What on earth is it that you claim to believe in? How can you say that you BELIEVE IN something if you don't even know WHAT it is? If you were to say this about anything but God, you'd understand that this is an absurd statement.
"I believe in the flying gazorp. I don't know what it is, but I don't care - I believe in it!"
The idiots who spent their time getting blazed out of their minds are NOT who we have to thank for modern science. You are *kidding* yourself.
Re:Herbal medicine has limited value
on
Trick or Treatment
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I have no problem with other options, as long as they've been thoroughly tested, and proven both safe and effective. Most "alternative" medicines aren't effective, and some simply aren't safe, yet people go on promoting them even after thorough testing has shown these things to be the case.
Put simply, if someone managed to make a pill that could cure everything, do you really think that they'd sell it?
Of course they would. They'd be "the company that cured everything". That recognition alone would net them trillions for decades to come. And do you honestly think they'd spend the millions of dollars on research, development, and testing if they had no intention of selling it? The mere suggestion is ludicrous.
"The irony is that homeopathy actually did a lot of good for its patients in the early days. That's because the inventor also advised improved diets, exercise, and cleanliness, which weren't in vogue in the medical community at the time. Better to get a harmless remedy that has no effect at all than to visit a blood-letter or take bizarre concoctions."
That, and the fact that the mainstream medical treatments of the time weren't precisely... sanitary. Drinking plain old water beat out being bled any day, back before the germ theory of medicine.
Re:Herbal medicine has limited value
on
Trick or Treatment
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· Score: 2, Informative
"After all, in the first ever modern clinical trial where it was established that limes cured scurvy, the original source of the idea was folk wisdom."
No. It wasn't folk wisdom. It was the observation that sailors on ships who ate citrus fruit didn't get scurvy, and those who didn't eat citrus fruit did get scurvy.
Luckily we have the FDA looking out for our health and best interests (joke!).
You do realize that the FDA employees and their families use this medicine, right? They've got a bit of a vested interest in actually looking out for us.
Even to my surprise, a study from a couple years ago showed that Echinacea has been found to more than halve the risk of catching the common cold
More recent, better-controlled studies have said it has no more effect than a placebo. I mean, come on, READ the article you just linked: "The results in The Lancet Infectious Diseases conflict with other studies that show no beneficial effect." Here's one such study. Here's another. Here's a much more damning one, which found that "popular herbal medicines, including ginkgo, ginseng and garlic, can cause serious complications during surgery". Cherry-picking a positive study isn't doing research.
I'm sure if more research was done into natural and traditional remedies, many others would also be found to also have value.
Argument from ignorance and unstated major premise. You're implying that there HASN'T been much research done, either because you don't know or you don't accept the negative findings. You're quite wrong - herbal medicines and "traditional" remedies have been extensively studied and almost universally found not to provide the benefits their creators/practitioners claim. Hence the reason they're not allowed to claim to cure anything.
Problem is, if you can pick it from a forest or a field, there's no money in it for the shareholders... unless you can purify/extract/synthesize and patent it (after all, aspirin was originally derived from willow bark).
You claim that a company would not develop a medicine if it can't turn them a profit. Then you provide a direct contradiction of your claim. If no company had further developed aspirin, we'd still only get it from willow bark.
"The Morita aspects of Constructive Living emphasize 1) knowing ones purpose, 2) accepting ones feelings (and all of reality), and 3) doing what you need to do in your life. The Naikan perspective of Constructive Living helps us to look at the whole of reality and not just those parts which favor our self image. We learn to recognize in specific detail the ways in which we are supported by persons and objects in our world. Together the two approaches offer a perspective on life that is positive, practical and realistic."
"the concept that if something is toxic in large doses that a small dose might have medicinal effects is not crazy at all."
If you're talking about homeopathy... the best way to cure yourself with homeopathic medicine is by never taking it, since homeopaths claim that the MORE dilute a medicine is, the MORE effective it is.
Name an alternative medicine and it almost certainly HAS been looked into and debunked. These people are True Believers. They don't let pesky things like scientific dismissal of their ideas get in their way.
Yes, you're right. There was a study on the effect of branding on medical effectiveness. They basically did a double-blind in which the subjects received a bottle, either with or without a label, and it contained either a placebo or a real medicine. In both the real medicine and the placebo, the branded bottles had a higher incidence of 'treatment'. Yay placebo effect.
"Essentially you are relying on trusting that KHQA changed their story on facts and not because it has become inconvenient for the President-elect. The timing is more than suspect."
In other words, in your mind, a lack of evidence of a conspiracy is evidence of a conspiracy. Do you ever bother to think about what you're saying?
Slashdot Mirror
Look, you're redefining atheism to fit your paradigm. The rejection of a belief based on lack of evidence is no more a belief than "bald" is a hair color or "not collecting stamps" is a hobby.
There are certain bits of evidence that should exist if there were a God (answered prayer being one such thing). These things *don't* exist. Therefore, while it's not certain (since nothing in science is about certainty, just the best explanation for phenomena based on the evidence), the evidence *against* a deity is stronger than the evidence for.
"Atheism is not merely not believing in a particular deity or any proposed deity, atheism is believing there is NO (not even an unlikely) possibility that there could be a deity."
If you need to define it that way to argue against it, fine. But you won't find many atheists who say that. There's *always* a possibility that we're wrong. We just don't think we are, based on what we do and don't observe.
Atheism is a rejection of belief in a deity. The rejection is the conclusion. There are no "beliefs" required of atheists. The word just means "without a deity".
You do realize that a single medical study is not nearly enough to establish a trend, right? Even if it appears to give statistically significant results, if it isn't correlated to another study with similar results, it could just be an outlier, or the result of bad controls, etc.
Maybe, but government facilities aren't supposed to beso lax about stuff like that. They're so caught up in red tape when it comes to PCs that (for example) we recently wound up buying bulk quantities of a new type of video card (just a standard video card, nothing special) for over $200 each. Cannibalizing doesn't happen, and when it does someone gets fired. Our machines are locked inside a steel frame with a padlock on it; the only openings are for the CD drive and the power button.
I work at one of our many other nuclear research labs and the security is airtight there. I can't imagine how terrible a job the guards must be doing at Los Alamos.
Maybe it's just me, but I have no clue what 'the cloud' is.
I never said a WORD about not understanding WHAT A GUT FEELING WAS. I asked you WHAT IT WAS that your gut was telling you. You're INTENTIONALLY DODGING THE QUESTION. Read what I said:
Notice that all-caps means emphasis. I emphasized the "WHAT" in "WHAT is a gut feeling". If I were asking for a definition of a gut feeling, the "is" would be emphasized.
Now, ANSWER. You are claiming that the existing of a higher power is verified, to you, by a "gut feeling". What is it that this intuition is TELLING you, and why do you believe it's a higher power? What is the rationalization for that assertion?
Since you didn't actually answer the question, but dodged it, allow me to repeat it. I did not ask for a definition of FAITH. I know what faith is.
WHAT is a gut feeling? You're claiming that you believe in SOMETHING, but that it isn't possible to know WHAT it is. What on earth is it that you claim to believe in? How can you say that you BELIEVE IN something if you don't even know WHAT it is? If you were to say this about anything but God, you'd understand that this is an absurd statement.
"It's a gut feeling for me, for other people it's faith."
WHAT is a gut feeling? You're claiming that you believe in SOMETHING, but that it isn't possible to know WHAT it is. What on earth is it that you claim to believe in? How can you say that you BELIEVE IN something if you don't even know WHAT it is? If you were to say this about anything but God, you'd understand that this is an absurd statement.
"I believe in the flying gazorp. I don't know what it is, but I don't care - I believe in it!"
If it is beyond your understanding, how do you claim to believe that it exists? What is it that you claim exists??
'I'm not saying your theory is completely flawed. It has its weaknesses. That is a theory, after all: "I believe it so".'
No. That's a belief. That is not what a scientific theory is. It is founded on much stronger stuff than simple assertion.
It'll happen. Give it a week or two :)
An argument ad absurdum and a No True Scotsman fallacy! I feel so privileged.
'You can say how there are all sorts of "atrocities by Christians", but what you really mean is "atrocities by people who call themselves Christian."
There's a huge difference.'
Not when it's the "atrocities by people who call themselves Christian." that have ACTUALLY HAPPENED. Semantics are irrelevant.
Besides, I think you'd be hard-pressed to show me a single person in the modern world who was truly Christlike.
"Christians actually have a purpose and generally act very sensibly"
I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you; I was talking to an invisible man who I can't see or hear.
LOL
The idiots who spent their time getting blazed out of their minds are NOT who we have to thank for modern science. You are *kidding* yourself.
Of course they would. They'd be "the company that cured everything". That recognition alone would net them trillions for decades to come. And do you honestly think they'd spend the millions of dollars on research, development, and testing if they had no intention of selling it? The mere suggestion is ludicrous.
"The irony is that homeopathy actually did a lot of good for its patients in the early days. That's because the inventor also advised improved diets, exercise, and cleanliness, which weren't in vogue in the medical community at the time. Better to get a harmless remedy that has no effect at all than to visit a blood-letter or take bizarre concoctions."
... sanitary. Drinking plain old water beat out being bled any day, back before the germ theory of medicine.
That, and the fact that the mainstream medical treatments of the time weren't precisely
"After all, in the first ever modern clinical trial where it was established that limes cured scurvy, the original source of the idea was folk wisdom."
No. It wasn't folk wisdom. It was the observation that sailors on ships who ate citrus fruit didn't get scurvy, and those who didn't eat citrus fruit did get scurvy.
You do realize that the FDA employees and their families use this medicine, right? They've got a bit of a vested interest in actually looking out for us.
More recent, better-controlled studies have said it has no more effect than a placebo. I mean, come on, READ the article you just linked: "The results in The Lancet Infectious Diseases conflict with other studies that show no beneficial effect." Here's one such study. Here's another. Here's a much more damning one, which found that "popular herbal medicines, including ginkgo, ginseng and garlic, can cause serious complications during surgery". Cherry-picking a positive study isn't doing research.
Argument from ignorance and unstated major premise. You're implying that there HASN'T been much research done, either because you don't know or you don't accept the negative findings. You're quite wrong - herbal medicines and "traditional" remedies have been extensively studied and almost universally found not to provide the benefits their creators/practitioners claim. Hence the reason they're not allowed to claim to cure anything.
You claim that a company would not develop a medicine if it can't turn them a profit. Then you provide a direct contradiction of your claim. If no company had further developed aspirin, we'd still only get it from willow bark.
"The Morita aspects of Constructive Living emphasize 1) knowing ones purpose, 2) accepting ones feelings (and all of reality), and 3) doing what you need to do in your life. The Naikan perspective of Constructive Living helps us to look at the whole of reality and not just those parts which favor our self image. We learn to recognize in specific detail the ways in which we are supported by persons and objects in our world. Together the two approaches offer a perspective on life that is positive, practical and realistic."
Sounds like a religion to me.
"the concept that if something is toxic in large doses that a small dose might have medicinal effects is not crazy at all."
If you're talking about homeopathy... the best way to cure yourself with homeopathic medicine is by never taking it, since homeopaths claim that the MORE dilute a medicine is, the MORE effective it is.
Name an alternative medicine and it almost certainly HAS been looked into and debunked. These people are True Believers. They don't let pesky things like scientific dismissal of their ideas get in their way.
Yes, you're right. There was a study on the effect of branding on medical effectiveness. They basically did a double-blind in which the subjects received a bottle, either with or without a label, and it contained either a placebo or a real medicine. In both the real medicine and the placebo, the branded bottles had a higher incidence of 'treatment'. Yay placebo effect.
"Essentially you are relying on trusting that KHQA changed their story on facts and not because it has become inconvenient for the President-elect. The timing is more than suspect."
In other words, in your mind, a lack of evidence of a conspiracy is evidence of a conspiracy. Do you ever bother to think about what you're saying?