Topic: Health and Religion - page 39. (Read 210914 times)

LOL.  You guys are in a cult.  It is ok to be hurt because God hears your pain and he suffers with you.  He knows better.  Do not question him but be patient with him etc.

Saying that God gave life freedom and he suffers with us as we experience pain is like saying he is helpless or he does not give a fuck.

He created something he cannot control or fix.  Nice going.

We are talking about non-existent entity that obviously cannot influence the real world and you guys still try to find some justification in his existence and his presumed inaction.  Talk about faulty logic. LOL.

I think you all have lost your mind.  I really do.

I have read all three articles.  Complete nonsense.

Science might march, but it never has even a hint of a chance at catching up to what religion knows instinctively.

Trust God because He has shown He is trustworthy. How has He shown this? By sending the Savior, Jesus Christ, to make a way to salvation for all who choose to believe.


That's correct, because so much of science is involved in attempting to believe that unproven things are real, while at the same time trying to believe that proven things - like God - are not real.



Perhaps you might remember C&E whereby God programmed the making of the computer from the Beginning when He created the world.

Why did God not intervene?
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You sound like a mother of a serial killer saying that her son is "a good boy...
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What is wrong with you Christians, no compassion?  Have you lost your humanity?  You all sound like Bronze Age sadistic killers.

I asked a valid question.  
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You are a God groupie.  He fucks you in the ass with a barbwire, punches you in the face and you say: "wow that hurt, but it is ok because he loves me".

But god works in mysterious ways that we should blindly trust for absolutely no reason. Science will indeed march meanwhile religion does nothing like always.

''The jury is very much still out on just how well science "works" for humanity.''

Oh is that right? Having a lifespan longer than 30 years old or not dying prematurely is not working for humanity? - There are many people who live way longer than science can extend life, and without science.
How about all the treatments for all kinds of diseases? - We are finding out the much of the treatment of disease is more detrimental than the disease itself... standard cancer treatment as a simple example.
How about all the technological improvements in medicine overall, we even have bionic arms, what more do you really need to say science is working for humanity? - The goal is earning money. Even though there are many people who are sympathetic, and epathize with others, the goal is earning money.
How is prayer working for humanity? - God answers. But even if He doesn't, the placebo-like effect of pray works wonders.
As I usually say, next time you are sick, pray to god, don't go to a hospital - I haven't been to a doctor or hospital for over 30 years. Rather, I have read the Bible. And look. My logic is so great that you can barely answer any of it logic for logic. Just take a little more medicine, and poison yourself the rest of the way, right?
and next time you need to travel somewhere, ask god to teleport you there, that way you will not only get there instantly but you would also prove god existence to someone that was witnessing it. - Why teleport? God is getting us where He wants us to go as the solar system moves a million miles a second through space.
Oh wait, god doesn't do such things because, I guess it would be too obvious that exists and he doesn't want that? Where are all the amputees growing arms back? Oh I guess god doesn't answer those prayers either, in fact it seems to me that he wont answer any prayers that would seem to literally have no explanation because that would be too obvious. - Since you don't believe in God, and since you won't even allow yourself to recognize that He exists through what is here, what good would it do for Him to answer you on your own terms? You still wouldn't believe in Him. Eve, in the Garden of Eden, had, from God, the promise of death if she ate the fruit. Did she believe Him? No. She went and ate the fruit anyway. And then she gave some to her husband to drag him down along with her. God isn't going to let Himself be dragged down by your willful unbelief. Believe, or die like Eve did.

Next time you are about to type something, think of how science and humanity (not god) created the computer you are writing from.

I think that the assoiciation of the two concepts are lacking and inconsistent. Up until now there is no sufficient evidence that will show that religion affects our health. Yet, I think that our health affects our religion. Scientifically speaking, there is no relationship between the two. But as for me, I opposed to the ideology that atheism leads to good health. Because I do believe that it affects each other the positive way. If you are in a good religion, then you feel good. It means that less stress and therefore you are becoming healthy. If your health is in good condition, then you can be involved into much more religious activities since you are fit to take on the tasks. However, I also believe that higher IQ associated with atheism. But I do also believe that the higher the IQ, the lower the EW. Thus, people with high EQ has the lower chance of becoming mentally stressed and therefore, capable of being healthy.

Flew was convinced (that life was designed by some supreme Intelligence) by the lack of explanation of the origin of life, particularly that of self-replicating primordial DNA.  Get your facts straight.  

Nothing new, another God of the Gaps follower.

Alfie Evans is dead. The 23-month-old boy died Saturday morning at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, England, five days after his life support was removed on orders from the United Kingdom’s High Court. There is no other way to understand the boy’s death than to say that the government of the United Kingdom decided he must die—against the wishes of his parents and against the pleas of the Vatican, the governments of Italy and Poland, and countless supporters throughout the world.

Together with the death of Charlie Gard last year, whom British authorities would not allow to be taken to the United States for an experimental treatment, Evans’ death seems to confirm British policy in such matters: children belong to the state, and when the state decides that they should die, they will die.

Extraordinary international efforts were undertaken to save the boy’s life. Italy, which granted Evans citizenship, kept a specially equipped plane from the Italian defense ministry on standby to transport the boy to a Vatican hospital in case the U.K. courts ordered his release. Pope Francis issued a personal appeal to British authorities and met with the parents. None of it made any difference in the end.

Given the facts of the case, it is hard to see what purpose was served by Evans’ death other than to demonstrate, before a gaping world, the unquestioned power of the United Kingdom over its subjects.

‘The Object Of Power Is Power’

In that way, the boy’s death illustrates, in horrifying detail, the cold logic of the mature welfare state. The purpose of the welfare state is to exercise power over its subjects—and make no mistake, they are subjects, not citizens—and that’s it. Nothing more and nothing less.

That power is not exercised for anyone’s good, or for the good of the people at large, or even for some collective goal. It is exercised for its own sake. “Power is not a means; it is an end,” says O’Brien, the party official in George Orwell’s “1984,” as he tortures Winston. “One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”

Of course, no government, not even a brutal dictatorship like the North Korean regime (or the fictional regime of Oceania in “1984”), would ever come out and publicly admit that its entire raison d’être is to exercise unchecked power over its subjects. Such governments always justify their exercise of power in positive terms: security and safety, victory over a common enemy, economic prosperity, health and well-being.

Health and well-being are especially potent justifications for the welfare state’s use of power because they’re directly connected to the larger justification of the regime: welfare. The state wants you to be healthy, so it will set up a national health service. The state wants what is good for you, so it will compel you to participate in the national health service. The state is looking out for your best interests, even if you are not, so it will empower the national health service to make decisions for you and your children, against your will, if necessary.

Sometimes, in extreme cases, the national health service will decide that what is in your best interests is to die.

From Alfie Evans to Involuntary Euthanasia

Obviously, this makes no sense. But the brazen illogic of the state insisting that it is in your own best interests if you cease to exist serves the overarching logic of the welfare state, which is power. When the national health service decides, for instance, that your sick child must be allowed to die because it is in the child’s best interests, what it really means—but is not quite willing to say outright—is that is in the best interests of the state that your child be allowed to die.

We do not have to speculate about this because it has been happening for some time in Europe, where in some countries euthanasia is commonplace. In Belgium and Holland, the elderly and infirm are sometimes killed without their consent. Children as young as twelve can be euthanized in Holland, with parental consent. In Belgium, children of any age can be euthanized if they are terminally ill.

The most outlandish rationalizations are put forward for these killings. Holland allows euthanasia for those who are neither terminally or mentally ill but are merely “tired of life.” Some patients need not even give consent before they are killed. One study found that in Belgium, nearly a third of all euthanasia deaths occurred without the patient’s request or consent. Most of those euthanized were comatose, but in 8 percent of those cases the physicians said “discussing it with the patient would have been harmful to that patient.”

Any state that asserts such a nonsensical justification for euthanasia or denial of medical care will, in time, be free to apply it to any class of people it chooses—not just the elderly and infirm but also the disabled and the sick, the addicted and mentally ill, perhaps even the poor and destitute.

All of this can be done for what sound like reasonable, even compassionate motivations, like relieving a person of unbearable and incurable suffering—even if the suffering is only mental or psychological, as was the case with a perfectly healthy 29-year-old Dutch woman who earlier this year requested to be killed and was obliged by state doctors.

But of course when it comes to life and death, reasonable and compassionate motives are beyond the ken of physicians and bureaucrats and high courts. As C.S. Lewis wrote in a 1958 essay entitled, “Willing Slaves of the Welfare State,” specialists in power are acting outside their area of expertise: “Let scientists tell us about sciences. But government involves questions about the good for man, and justice, and what things are worth having at what price; and on these a scientific training gives a man’s opinion no added value. Let the doctor tell me I shall die unless I do so-and-so; but whether life is worth having on those terms is no more a question for him than for any other man.”

The brains of hundreds of pigs reportedly survived for up to 36 hours after they were decapitated
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Once the pigs had been decapitated, their brains were resuscitated and attached to the “BrainEX” closed-loop system that provided them with artificially oxygenated blood.
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The team found that billions of cells in the 100-200 pig brains tested were not only surviving but healthy and functional. Sestan called the result “unexpected,” even “mind-boggling.” He also claimed that not only could the brains be kept alive indefinitely with this method...

Why do you think it is a problem?
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I wonder where did you get an idea that we are so special that we should not go extinct?  

Personally, I think water/carbon life forms are inefficient and eventually will have to be replaced.
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It seems to me you have some Luddite tendencies.

Science will march forward, regardless of what religious folks and their Gods think or do.

Science works, your metaphysical bullshit pseudo science doesn't. Science keeps bringing results meanwhile religion does nothing. Ok, sometimes they try to disrupt science like with stem cells.

Gene drives force an artificially engineered trait to spread through the natural population until it becomes ubiquitous or crashes that population. The first working gene drives were demonstrated at the end of 2014 using a new gene-editing technique known as CRISPR-CAS9. They work by setting up a genetic enforcement mechanism which copies itself from parent to child, cascading from one generation to the next by sexual reproduction.

Gene drives can entirely re-engineer ecosystems, create fast spreading extinctions, and intervene in living systems at a scale far beyond anything ever imagined. When gene drives are engineered into a fast-reproducing species they could alter their populations within short timeframes, from months to a few years, and rapidly cause extinction. This radical new technology, also called a “mutagenic chain reaction,” [1] is unlike anything seen before. It combines the extreme genetic engineering of synthetic biology and new gene editing techniques with the idea that humans can and should use such powerful unlimited tools to control nature. Gene drives will change the fundamental relationship between humanity and the natural world forever.

The implications for the environment, food security, peace, and even social stability are significant. Dealing with this run-away technology is already being compared to the challenge of governing nuclear power. [2]

...The ethical, cultural and societal implications of gene drives are as enormous as the ecological consequences. Civil society groups (and even some gene drive researchers) are alarmed by this newfound ability to reshape the natural world. However, such an omnipotent power to control nature is immensely tempting to those who may not be constrained by either common decency or common sense. Gene drive technology is commanding the attention of the world’s most powerful military, agribusiness, and social change organizations. Gene drive technology also appears to be relatively simple and cheap, so it could easily fall into the hands of those, including governments, who might use it as a weapon.

Contributing to one of the most controversial topics to date, a panel of science experts in the U.S. just examined and gave their support for germline editing. This means that in the future, parents will likely be able to tamper with the genetics of their children pre-birth.
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The panels were made up of experts from two of the most prestigious scientific institutions in the U.S., both of which recommended that germline editing be viewed as a serious option in the future and not be prohibited.

“[W]e’re going to be creating a world in which the already privileged and affluent can use these high-tech procedures to make children [with] biological advantages,” - Marcy Darnovsky from the Center for Genetics and Society

“Previously, it was easy for people to say, ‘This isn’t possible, so we don’t have to think about it much now we can see a path whereby we might be able to do it..." - Richard Hynes MIT researcher , who helped lead the committee

Which god should I chose? Does anyone pick his God based on research or rather indoctrination and luck? That is the problem with religion and gods. I can't just blindly believe in things.

That's too bad. Well, was nice chatting with you for a while. We coulda had a great time through all eternity. But... your choice.

The British government’s decision to allow two critically ill babies to die in two years is a natural reflection of the culture of death and the steady increase in totalitarian tendencies among Western governments

Last year, the British government ordered life support removed from Charlie Gard, ending his life when he was just 11 months old. Now, Alfie Evans – just 23 months old – has received what amounts to the same death sentence. On Monday, he was removed from life support by court order – against the wishes of his parents.

Then something remarkable happened. The child confounded his doctors and refused to die.

As of the time I am writing this, Alfie Evans is still alive and is breathing unaided. This is despite the claim made by a medical professional during a court hearing that Alfie would die quickly – possibly in “minutes” – if taken off life support.

At least twice in two years we have seen a supposedly free country’s court system impose what amounts to a death sentence on its most innocent citizens.

But even this display of the power of the human spirit to defy the expectations of the supposedly rational and objective state did nothing to sway the minds of the British courts and state-run medical apparatus.

On Wednesday, another legal appeal by Alfie’s parents to be allowed to try and save their son’s life was denied.

The secular system has asserted its right to define what lives are worth living and is determined to prevent its authority from being questioned. Alfie Evans’ life – like Charlie Gard’s before him – has been determined to be limited by the standards of the secular state, and therefore without value.

These tragic government-imposed death sentences for innocent infants should frighten all of us about increasing secularism in society and the steady shift towards a totalitarian willingness to control our lives – down to and including ending them – on the government’s terms.

This is a direct assault on the core premise of the Declaration of Independence. We Americans asserted that we “are endowed by (our) Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” In the American Revolution, in our fight against the British crown, we asserted that rights come from God – not from government.

However, our secular, liberal culture increasingly dismisses the concept of God and asserts that our rights come from a rational contract enforced by government.

In the original American model, we asserted our God-given rights against the power of a potentially tyrannical government. In the emerging left-wing secular order, since there is no God our rights depend on a secular state controlling itself.

Britain is giving us a vivid, tragic sense of how dangerous and heartless government tyranny can be once God is rejected and there is nothing between us and the government.

Ironically, this latest decision was made the same year Stephen Hawking died – 55 years after he was diagnosed with ALS (commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) and told he had only two years to live.

Apparently, the British government learned no lessons from Hawking’s remarkable lifetime of work and achievement, which he pursued despite having to battle an extraordinarily challenging illness.

In fact, in 1985 Hawking contracted pneumonia while he was writing “A Brief History of Time,” and his wife was asked if his life should be terminated. She refused, and Hawking went on to live another 33 years and publish one of the most acclaimed books of the 20th century, which has since sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. This was all after it was suggested he be taken off life support.

Hawking should be a permanent reminder that the human spirit is more important than the human body, and that the will to live and achieve should not be destroyed by the state.

Yet in the very country that produced and nurtured Hawking, the government still ordered the removal of life support from two babies. In both cases there has been an organized alternative to government-imposed death.

Charlie Gard’s condition was potentially treatable by an experimental process in the United States. An American hospital and other organizations were willing to treat him. Supporters gave more than 1.3 million pounds (about $1.8 million) to pay for the travel and treatment.

Charlie’s parents wanted him to have the chance to live. However, the British bureaucracy took time to consider if he could go to the U.S. for treatment. During that bureaucratic process, his condition worsened. Then it was too late.

While the bureaucratic deliberation continued, Charlie’s parents and those who wanted to try to save him were told they had no right to help their own child. The child belonged to the government, and the government would decide whether he had the right to live.

This year, Alfie Evans had international support for an opportunity to live. The “pope’s hospital” – Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital in Rome – has offered to treat Alfie (as it did with Charlie). Pope Francis has publicly appealed to the British government to allow the young boy to be taken to Rome.

An air ambulance was sent to Alfie’s hospital earlier this week to bring him to the doctors who wanted to try for a miraculous cure.

What better place is there to hope for a miracle than in the pope’s pediatric hospital, which has helped many children with rare diseases?

This appeal for hope fell on the deaf ears of the state, which refused to allow Alfie’s parents to transfer their child to Rome. In fact, The Telegraph reported that despite a judge ruling that Alfie’s parents could “explore” taking the child home, doctors treating the child have been against this because they fear that “in the ‘worst case’ they would try to take the boy abroad."

In other words, the “worst case” scenario would be for Alfie’s parents to seek medical help to save their child.

This is monstrous. It is difficult to understand the arrogance and coldness of British judges who prefer to order death rather than allow parents to fight for the lives of their children. Yet at least twice in two years we have seen a supposedly free country’s court system impose what amounts to a death sentence on its most innocent citizens.

Some of this cruelty and inhumanity is a function of the growing culture of death and the expanding sense that secular values must drive religious values out of public life.

Some of it comes from Britain’s National Health Service, which must bureaucratically define what is worth investing in and what is not. In a world of limited medical resources, little babies with rare conditions become expendable “for the greater good.” The fact that we are all diminished makes no difference to the atheist bureaucratic left.

Those who say they favor socialism must be made to confront this inhumanity, which is an integral part of socialist implementation. When the government controls everything, the government defines everything, and humanity is crushed beneath petty rules and petty rulers.

In America, we are watching the steady growth of intolerance and the totalitarian impulse. Look at the campuses that now seek to control speech. Look at the polls that show young people are being educated into support for censorship.

Look at the California Legislature, which is considering legislation that – taken to its logical conclusion – will outlaw the sale and distribution of the Bible and the Koran (the secular society sees both as intolerant, dangerous documents).

When you read about these two babies being denied life support by a supposedly free government, remember what John Donne warned when he wrote “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

In these two years, we have seen two babies effectively sentenced to death by a government we would once have considered humane. What will the next horror be?

You keep repeating yourself, I was a believer, his ''revelations'' worked at first but only because I was indoctrinated that way. When I had doubts and asked for help he didn't, otherwise I wouldn't be here telling you how I don't believe in god. I absolutely wanted to believe in him at the time even when I had my doubts, why wouldn't I? A god like that would be a good thing, unfortunately as I said, he didn't help me with my doubts. There is nothing to change, I can't force myself into believing in something. God doesn't exist.

The whole Bible was a big revelation from God to you. The miracle of nature is another. I, in this forum, am another. Since you don't want to believe the revelations He offers, He isn't going to allow you the privilege of twisting Him out of perfection, so that He does the revelation thing your way. Why not? Because you still wouldn't believe Him, even if He did it your way.

If you don't believe Him, will you even be convinced while you are burning in Hell? Who knows? You will find out. But by then it will be too late to do anything about it. Change now while you still have time.