Faith Healing

I saw this article recently:

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/21008/followers-of-christ

It got me thinking about faith healing and other nonsensical and irresponsible ways of treating disease (including homeopathy, magnets, etc..).

The problem is that our society respects faith more than things like magnetic therapy, even though they are both equally (in)effective in treating ailments.

There are some faiths that suggest that they can't have a blood transfusion (I think it's jehovah's witnesses?).

In this case parents refused to use real medicine and turned their faith to faith healing and were charged. Under what cases is refusing medical treatment of any sort legitimate for a child using faith as a reason?

If you refuse your child a blood transfusion that would save their life, shouldn't you be charged too?

I think this highlights an argument I first came across in "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. It is an argument agains the popular claim that believing in God is harmless if God does not in fact exist.
Religious people often give an unusual amount of leeway to other religious people whatever their beliefs.

Here in South Africa, "The Apprentice" Season Four is running on tv. There was one candidate who refused to dress up in a costume because she felt very strongly that it would tar her image. She later tried to use the 'my religion' excuse. Mr Trump said that if she had used that in the first place then everyone would have been happy to excuse her.
If you think about it it is a very common scenario. If someone feels very strongly about something they are given less lee way than if they feel very strongly about something but call it their religion.

Originally posted by PsychoPawn
I saw this article recently:

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/21008/followers-of-christ

It got me thinking about faith healing and other nonsensical and irresponsible ways of treating disease (including homeopathy, magnets, etc..).

-- and Prozac?

I think you'll find that people who won't accept blood transfusions on religious grounds are a picturesque minority. To proceed from the existence of such cults and claim that belief in God is therefore harmful is about as intellectually honest as claiming that the actions of Mao are somehow attributable to his atheism.

A nut is a nut whether it believes in God or not.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
A nut is a nut whether it believes in God or not.

I agree. But his point was:

Originally posted by PsychoPawn
The problem is that our society respects faith more than things like magnetic therapy, even though they are both equally (in)effective in treating ailments.

You see a nut who believes in God is given more tolerance for nutty behavior than us atheist nuts.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
-- and Prozac?

I think you'll find that people who won't accept blood transfusions on religious grounds are a picturesque minority. To proceed from the existence of such cults and claim that belief in God is therefore harmful is about as intellectually honest as claiming that the actions of Mao are somehow attributable to his atheism.

A nut is a nut whether it believes in God or not.

As for Prozac, can you explain why using a tested and effective drug is "nutty"?

As twhitehead mentioned, my point isn't that people who believe in god are nutty or crazy.

I think in many cases modern drugs scare people because they have side effects that obviously people don't want.

Homeopathy, magnet therapy, faith healing and the like have NO side effects because they have no effects at all!

I do think our society does seem to respect religious reasons for these things a little more readily than other reasons.

Originally posted by PsychoPawn
As for Prozac, can you explain why using a tested and effective drug is "nutty"?

Tested and effective? Ha ha. Sorry. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb/26/mentalhealth.medicalresearch

As to whether religious nuts are given more tolerance, that seems to stem from some sense of persecution. The religious nuts are all out to get you! Actually, it's just as likely that useless medicine gets a free ride because it's cloaked in the mantle of science. Call it the snake oil principle. What really counts is that stamp that says 'scientically proved'. That gives the person taking permission to believe in it -- opening the door for the placebo effect to work its magic.

Personally, I (fail to) adhere to Dr. Averroes' recipe for health: "Eat right, do right, go to bed at night."

Originally posted by twhitehead

You see a nut who believes in God is given more tolerance for nutty behavior than us atheist nuts.

I beg to differ. Take a look at the case of Matthias Rath:

http://www.tac.org.za/community/node/2024

On what chariot of dogma is this charlatan getting a free ride?

Originally posted by PsychoPawn

Homeopathy, magnet therapy, faith healing and the like have NO side effects because they have no effects at all!

I do think our society does seem to respect religious reasons for these things a little more readily than other reasons.

Except the seemingly miraculous placebo effect ... Like the cancer victim who attributed his 'miraculous' cure to his visualising the blood of Jesus flowing through his veins ... Could have been the breath of Madonna ... Is research into the placebo effect receiving much funding?

'Our society' ... Canada? Aren't Canadians obliged to respect everything, from religious mania through to oil-sands extraction?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
On what chariot of dogma is this charlatan getting a free ride?

It says so in the article you posted: "politically-supported AIDS denialism"

That doesn't contradict my claim though.

I must admit that in South Africa things like Homeopathy and magnet therapy are given a lot of legitimacy.

Originally posted by twhitehead
It says so in the article you posted: "politically-supported AIDS denialism"

That doesn't contradict my claim though.

I must admit that in South Africa things like Homeopathy and magnet therapy are given a lot of legitimacy.

The vested interests behind AIDS denialism are using the patina of scientific respectability that Rath has tried so hard to build up make the case that antiretrovirals are 'bad science'. Why aren't they using religion in support of their cause? (They should be -- if I were them, I'd use every available vehicle of distortion -- but I haven't heard of it).

Alternatively: Rath is a 'science nut'; yet he's been given a free hand by the establishment of this particular country. This shows that in South Africa at least that there's equal opportunity for 'bad science' and 'bad religion' alike when it comes to perpetrating cons on society.

Do you, as an atheist, feel oppressed in Cape Town?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
The vested interests behind AIDS denialism are using the patina of scientific respectability that Rath has tried so hard to build up make the case that antiretrovirals are 'bad science'. Why aren't they using religion in support of their cause? (They should be -- if I were them, I'd use every available vehicle of distortion -- but I haven't heard of it ...[text shortened]... d science' and 'bad religion' alike when it comes to perpetrating cons on society.

I agree. But that does not get religion off the hook. It just highlights the fact that one should not give extra credit to anyone simply because he claims to be scientific just as we should not do so simply because they claim to be religious.
To add to your example, creationists in the US also try very hard to add the label science to their claims for the same reasons.

Do you, as an atheist, feel oppressed in Cape Town?
Not particularly. We have a wide variety of religions here and quite a lot of atheists. In Zambia I was discriminated against more.(oppressed doesn't really fit.).
But I don't think that is relevant to the argument.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I agree. But that does not get religion off the hook. It just highlights the fact that one should not give extra credit to anyone simply because he claims to be scientific just as we should not do so simply because they claim to be religious.
To add to your example, creationists in the US also try very hard to add the label science to their claims for the same reasons.

Sure, but the original poster claimed that religious cons somehow get more leeway than science cons. (Scientology flawlessly combines them both). Maybe they do in Canada. In South Africa, I find people quite credulous when it comes to medicine. If I'm irked by anything, it's probably the cheesier 'New Age science' claims -- but that's a function of packaging, not content.

As for the creationists, the whole category mistake discussion gives you extra ammunition to use against them. An argument based on a category mistake is one thing, but a product!

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Tested and effective? Ha ha. Sorry. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb/26/mentalhealth.medicalresearch

As to whether religious nuts are given more tolerance, that seems to stem from some sense of persecution. The religious nuts are all out to get you! Actually, it's just as likely that useless medicine gets a free ride because it's cloaked i ...[text shortened]... to) adhere to Dr. Averroes' recipe for health: "Eat right, do right, go to bed at night."

Your article shows not science being deficient, but corrupt companies not doing science.

Your own article shows that science showed that the medicine was wrong - the scientific method corrected itself.

The "mantle" of anything can be used to convince anyone of something, what real science has is a real logical method to determine the efficacy of something.

The article you posted was using a claim that prozac is innefective under that mantle of science!

"Eat right, do right, go to bed at night" is good advice, but it's not a replacement for proper medicine when you have a real problem. It won't cure a tumor in your head.

That stamp of scientifically proven wouldn't be given to bad medicines if people were doing proper science. As your own article suggests, the company releasing prozac hid and ignored legit studies that showed prozac to be inneffective - that's ignoring good science.

All you proved there is that companies with a profit motive can do corrupt things.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Except the seemingly miraculous placebo effect ... Like the cancer victim who attributed his 'miraculous' cure to his visualising the blood of Jesus flowing through his veins ... Could have been the breath of Madonna ... Is research into the placebo effect receiving much funding?

'Our society' ... Canada? Aren't Canadians obliged to respect everything, from religious mania through to oil-sands extraction?

Someone attributing a cure to something other than what actually cured them isn't the placebo effect. If I take an antibiotic for an infection and scratch my head twice a day and say "Well, scratching my head cured my infection" - that's not the placebo effect, that's me attributing the wrong factor to what happened.

I don't know how much research into the placebo effect is being done, I think it might be worthwhile to do some, but not because it's a valuable cure.

Why would Canadians be obliged to respect everything? What ridiculous source do you have for that crap?

Originally posted by PsychoPawn


All you proved there is that companies with a profit motive can do corrupt things.

That is kind of the point. You were quite convinced that Prozac was 'tested and effective' until you read that article, weren't you? Why?

Problem is pure science is invariably corrupted when it's put at the service of the profit motive (Mammon 🙂 ).

Speaking of tumours -- did you say you know of a pill, or anything, that will make them go away?