Topic: Health and Religion - page 68. (Read 210900 times)

CBS News reported earlier this week that Iceland is leading the world in “eradicating Down syndrome births.” One might be forgiven for assuming that Iceland has developed an innovative treatment for the chromosomal disorder. It turns out Iceland’s solution is much simpler, and much more sinister: using prenatal testing and abortion to systematically exterminate children with Down syndrome. This isn’t progress; it’s eugenics.

Prenatal testing is optional in Iceland, but the government mandates that doctors notify women of that option. About 85 percent of expectant mothers undergo the test, and close to 100 percent of those women choose to abort if their child is diagnosed with Down syndrome. Just two children with Down syndrome are born in Iceland each year, often as the result of faulty testing.

The CBS article does little to accord this subject the moral gravity it deserves. “Other countries aren’t lagging too far behind in Down syndrome termination rates,” the authors note casually. CBS News’s tweet promoting the story read simply: “Iceland is on pace to virtually eliminate Down syndrome through abortion.”

But Iceland isn’t “eliminating Down syndrome” at all. It’s eliminating people. The callous tone of the piece makes selective abortion sound like a technological innovation rather than what it really is: the intentional targeting of “unfit” persons for total elimination.

What kind of culture does it require to foster such a mindset, to foster a society in which nearly every mother of a Down-syndrome child chooses to abort? Iceland is at the high end of the spectrum in this regard — and was one of the first countries to normalize widespread prenatal testing, in an effort to identify fetal abnormalities and eliminate them through abortion — but it is far from alone.

Ninety percent of women in the United Kingdom who receive a positive Down-syndrome diagnosis choose to abort. In the U.S., that percentage falls somewhere between 67 and 90, according to a recent meta-study of Down-syndrome termination rates over the last few decades. In Europe as a whole, somewhere around 92 percent of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted. This targeting of individuals with Down syndrome is borne out not just in astronomical abortion rates, but in a cultural attitude that often regards them as less than human.

In France, for example, the State Council banned from the airwaves a video featuring children with Down syndrome talking about their happy lives. The advertisement was meant to comfort mothers who received a prenatal diagnosis and assure them that their children would have beautiful, largely normal lives. The ad was forbidden by the French government because the smiles of the children would “disturb the conscience of women who had lawfully made different personal life choices” — in other words, because seeing them happy would upset women who had aborted their Down syndrome children.

Meanwhile, prenatal testing is praised nearly universally for its ability to give women a full array of “options” for their pregnancies, but many women report feeling pressured by their doctors — whether to be tested in the first place or to choose abortion if the test reveals Down syndrome or other abnormalities. It is taken for granted in the medical community that no woman would carry a Down-syndrome pregnancy to term.

This pressure reveals the pervasive belief that selective abortion is somehow an actual health-care solution. Instead of seeking real treatment for the ailments that plague people with Down syndrome, or even finding potential cures, we have settled for a false vision of progress that kills people with a disorder rather than treating them.

A counselor at an Iceland hospital sees the issue even more starkly. “We don’t look at abortion as a murder,” she said. “We look at it as a thing that we ended. We ended a possible life that may have had a huge complication . . . preventing suffering for the child and for the family. And I think that is more right than seeing it as a murder — that’s so black and white. Life isn’t black and white. Life is grey.”

It is in this supposed gray area that the desire to promote health and well-being morphs into the insidious view that people with Down syndrome are better off dead — and that we will be a more advanced society for having relieved them of the burden of a “limited” life. Too many people today believe it is preferable, and indeed more humane, to murder children rather than allow them to suffer. But what life doesn’t have suffering?

Jerome Lejeune, the French geneticist who discovered the chromosomal basis for Down syndrome, once offered this perspective: “It cannot be denied that the price of these diseases is high — in suffering for the individual and in burdens for society. Not to mention what parents suffer! But we can assign a value to that price: It is precisely what a society must pay to remain fully human.”

The title of the CBS piece asks, “What kind of society do you want to live in?” The article’s implicit response seems to be, “One dedicated to eliminating abnormality and suffering by any means necessary.” But no admirable society eradicates suffering by eradicating those who suffer. To achieve true moral progress, we must reject the killing of the vulnerable and condemn any backwards society that promotes such a regime as a solution.

Christianity is spreading in North Korea as fewer citizens in the hermit state consider dictator Kim Jong-Un a god, the Telegraph has learned from an anonymous defector.
Using figures found in the latest International Religious Freedom Report authored by the U.S. State Department, Breitbart News has determined that the Christian population in North Korea has increased dramatically—at least five-fold—from about 37,000 known practicing Christians in 2012 to between 200,000 and 400,000 now.

The State Department, which gleaned the Christian population figures from data maintained by the United Nations and the Cornerstone Ministries International (CMI), acknowledged the number of Christians in North Korea may be higher.

State learned from CMI that an estimated “10-45 percent” of people imprisoned in North Koreans detention camps are Christians.

“An estimated 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners, some imprisoned for religious reasons, were believed to be held in the political prison camp system in remote areas under horrific conditions,” points out State in its report. “CSW [Christian Solidarity Worldwide] said a policy of guilt by association was often applied in cases of detentions of Christians, meaning that the relatives of Christians were also detained regardless of their beliefs.”

An unnamed North Korean defector confirmed the significant increase in North Korea’s Christian population.

“In the past, the people were told to worship the Kim family as their god, but many North Koreans no longer respect Kim Jong-Un”, the defector, now a member of the Seoul-based Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea, told the Telegraph. “That means they are looking for something else to sustain their faith.”

“In some places, that has led to the emergence of shamans, but the Christian church is also growing and deepening its roots there”, he also said, adding, “Even though people know they could be sent to prison—or worse—they are still choosing to worship, and that means that more cracks are appearing in the regime and the system.”

North Koreans who practice any form of religion can face jail, torture, or even execution in the communist country, reveals the International Religious Freedom Report for 2016.

“The government continued to deal harshly with those who engaged in almost any religious practices through executions, torture, beatings, and arrests,” stresses the report.

Citing a 2014 report of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Human Rights Situation of North Korea, State reports that the communist country considers Christianity a serious threat.

Christianity “challenged the official cult of personality and provided a platform for social and political organization and interaction outside of the government,” notes State. “The report concluded Christians faced persecution, violence, and heavy punishment if they practiced their religion outside the state-controlled churches.”

Although the North Korean constitution provides protection for the right to freedom of religious beliefs, the communist nation denies its people the right to freedom of thought and religion.

In North Korea, “there was an almost complete denial by the government of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, and, in many instances, violations of human rights committed by the government constituted crimes against humanity,” notes the State report, which covers about 200 foreign jurisdictions, criticizing American allies and foes alike for their religious freedoms shortcomings.

This thread was helpful for those who are religion centered and wants to know more about the outside things of the religion. although we could see that many are believers of religion but still we can conclude that not all people are not believing in it including me.

Plan to send 20,000 evangelicals to SE Asia and Mideast creates dilemma for Beijing

At a Sunday service in an underground church in Beijing, worshippers clap their hands and vow to spread their Christian faith in China, and beyond.

“Use me as an instrument, Lord, send me out in the world,” they sing. “I will go make you known. Lord send me.”

A Protestant revival in China has swelled the church’s membership to tens of thousands, and its ambitions are no longer limited to the country

Beijing’s Zion church is one of dozens in the country to have sent missionaries overseas, as evangelical Christians follow their country’s huge infrastructure push into Southeast Asia and the Middle East, creating a dilemma for the officially atheist Communist party.

There are about 1,000 Chinese missionaries outside the country, compared with virtually none a decade ago, according to churches and academics.Church leaders hope to increase their number to 20,000 by the end of the next decade.

Those leaders say missionary activity is a natural extension of China’s Protestant movement, which has grown rapidly in recent decades and now numbers about 100m.

“When a country develops religion to a certain level it will engage in missionary activity. This is very normal,” says Cui Qian, pastor of the Wanbang Missionary Church in Shanghai.

Mr Cui’s church has 20 missionaries overseas, mostly in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. They work as Chinese teachers or at state-owned enterprises, and learn local languages, says the pastor, who recently visited a missionary couple in Lebanon.

Nearly all Chinese missionaries are from “underground” churches independent of China’s state-controlled Protestant association, which for decades have been subject to Communist party crackdowns.

That experience makes them ideal for low-profile activities in countries including North Korea, Mr Cui says. “It’s Chinese-style missionary work. We don’t build churches and we don’t need much organizational structure. We survived the Cultural Revolution. So we have experience”.
...
Chinese churches’ most ambitious plan is “Mission China 2030”, which aims to send 20,000 faithful overseas by the end of next decade. The number, calculated in part on an estimate of the number of foreign missionaries who died in China, was affirmed at a meeting of 1,000 Chinese church representatives in South Korea last summer.

thx for longread
iam not atheist but im not religion man and it was interesting

Women who attend religious services at least once a week may have a lower risk of suicide than those who never attend services, according to a study led by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Tyler VanderWeele, professor of epidemiology, and coauthors analyzed health data from 89,708 women participating in the Nurses’ Health Study from 1996 through June 2010. Most of the women were white and Catholic or Protestant.

Compared with women who never attended religious services, women who attended once per week or more had a five times lower risk of committing suicide during the study period, the researchers found.

The authors noted that their study used observational data and did not account for factors such as impulsivity or feelings of hopelessness. In addition, the findings may not be generalizable to other populations.

Suicide is among the 10 leading causes of death in the United States. The major world religions have traditions prohibiting suicide.

“Our results do not imply that health care providers should prescribe attendance at religious services,” they wrote. “However, for patients who are already religious, service attendance might be encouraged as a form of meaningful social participation. Religion and spirituality may be an underappreciated resource that psychiatrists and clinicians could explore with their patients, as appropriate.”

Euthanasia is becoming a major cause of death in the Netherlands. Seems it may only be a matter of time now before it becomes a full blown industry complete with target numbers and quotas.

Euthanasia has become a common way to die in the Netherlands, accounting for 4.5 percent of deaths, according to researchers who say requests are increasing from people who are not terminally ill.
...
 People must be “suffering unbearably” with no hope of relief — but their condition does not have to be fatal.
...
“These are old people who may have health problems, but none of them are life-threatening. They’re old, they can’t get around, their friends are dead and their children don’t visit anymore,” he said. “This kind of trend cries out for a discussion. Do we think their lives are still worthwhile?”

A man lies on a hospital bed, conscious and fully aware of his surroundings. As family members look on, a doctor injects him with two drugs.

The first renders the patient unconscious, putting him in coma, the second, a muscle relaxant, stops his heart.

Time, now, is very much of the essence. A few minutes are allowed for the relatives’ final farewells before he is pronounced dead and a team of surgeons swings into action, removing his liver, kidneys and pancreas.

As each organ is extracted, it is immediately transferred to separate operating theatres where medics are on hand to transplant it into a patient who lies waiting.

Slick, fast-paced and brutally efficient — while it may sound like some sci-fi scene set in the future, in fact, this chain of events unfolded in a hospital in Holland earlier this year.

What, of course, makes it so extraordinary is that the man, who has not been identified, died at the hands of a doctor.

Having suffered a stroke he had decided that his quality of life was so poor that he wanted to end his life. In the Netherlands, he was able to do this because euthanasia has been legal since 2002.
...
An academic paper published last week by a Dutch medical researcher explores the possibility that, in future, doctors might be allowed to remove organs from euthanasia patients who are still alive.

What is being suggested is that the patient could be anaesthetised — but not killed — and their organs removed, including the heart and lungs. It would be the removal of the heart that would lead to death.
Medically, this would mean that organs for transplant — hearts and lungs in particular — were more likely to be viable.

The Dutch medical fraternity insists there are as yet no plans to go down this route, but even the discussion of such a possibility has prompted campaigners to warn of the dangers of a slippery slope.

‘The trend is deeply worrying,’ says anti-euthanasia campaigner Lord Carlile of Berriew, who warns that when patients are at their lowest ebb in the immediate aftermath of a serious illness — for example, a stroke — they could be susceptible to persuasion.

‘The pressure to agree to provide a transplantable heart, lung or liver might be huge,’ he says.

‘The evidence of protection of the vulnerable in Belgium and Holland is sketchy at best. The boundaries of euthanasia are pushed yet further back and the potential for doctors to “engineer” these events grows.

If deity is denied - or, nowadays, not so much 'denied' as ruled-out a priori on the basis of unexamined and unacknowledged metaphysical assumptions regarding the nature of reality...

Without deity then Life devolves to how we feel about life, currently; and therefore all possible problems devolve to therapy - because the solution to all possible problems is to change how we feel about them. Full stop - nothing more to be said.

And, changing how we feel about things is not innocuous; because it includes the possibility of Not-feeling. IN other worlds any and all problems can be solved temporarily by obliterating feelings; perhaps by obliterating awareness, obliterating The Self; maybe with drugs, surgery or some other technology...

Or we abolish feelings by death. Because without deity - death is the end of consciousness.

So all possible problems can permanently be solved by death...

Further, all problems can be prevented - by never being alive in the first place. Prevention of life.

So the therapeutic society is continually sliding down a slippery slope towards the idea of universal and permanent extinction of Life, as the one sure way of preventing suffering.

Death is the ultimate therapy for everything!

OR - if that sounds... wrong to you; then you might discover and reconsider your metaphysical assumptions which lead to that conclusion; then re-examine the possibility of deity?...

Something weird is going on with human sperm production. For decades, scientists have warned that sperm counts are dropping among Western men, but no one has really been able to prove it. In what is now the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind, scientists have presented compelling evidence in support of this rather alarming assertion, showing that sperm counts have dropped more than 50 percent in just four decades.

The sperm count decline is real and it’s not showing any signs of slowing down, according to new research published in Human Reproduction Update. By conducting a meta-analysis of 185 studies published between 1973 and 2011, researchers from the Hebrew University-Hadassah Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai documented a 52.4 percent decline in sperm concentration, and a 59.3 percent decline in total sperm count among men living in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
...
Scientists don’t actually know what’s causing the sperm count crisis.

False ideas that modify behaviour may also happen to impact health outcomes.

The placebo effect for example, is very real.

Health and religion. Two important things that can not be separated. Because according to my religion (Moslem). Many activities of worship that can make our body become healthy. For example solat. In solat one of them there is a prostration movement, where the head is flat with the ground so the brain will contain a lot of oxygen that can facilitate the performance of the brain. And many other examples. So healthy in religion will always be healthy in life. 

The suicide rate among teen girls reached a 40-year high in 2015, according to new analysis from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

Researchers found a substantial increase in suicides among teen girls and boys in the U.S. from 1975 to 2015, with the rate among girls hitting a record high. From 2007 to 2015 alone, suicide rates doubled among teen girls and by more than 30 percent among teen boys.

While the suicide rate fell in 2007—3.7 to 2.4 per 100,000 girls and 18.1 to 10.8 per 100,000 boys—it spiked again in 2015 to 5.1 per 100,000 girls and 14.2 per 100,000 boys. To put it another way: In 2015, 5 girls per 100,000 committed suicide compared to 14 boys.

Overall, this analysis speaks to a rising national trend, CDC suicide expert Thomas Simon told CNN.
"We know that overall in the U.S., we're seeing increases in suicide rates across all age groups," he said, adding that the pattern is "pretty robust."

Against a grim backdrop of rising suicide rates among American women, new research has revealed a blinding shaft of light: One group of women — practicing Catholics — appears to have bucked the national trend toward despair and self-harm.

Compared with women who never participated in religious services, women who attended any religious service once a week or more were five times less likely to commit suicide between 1996 and 2010, says a study published Wednesday by JAMA Psychiatry.

It’s not clear how widely the findings can be applied to a diverse population of American women. In a study population made up of nurses and dominated by women who identified themselves as either Catholic or Protestant, the suicide rate observed was about half that for U.S. women as a whole. Of 89,708 participants aged 30 to 55, 36 committed suicide at some point over 15 years...

The suicide-prevention effect of religion was clearly not a simple matter of group identity: Self-identified Catholics who never attended mass committed suicide nearly as often as did women of any religion who were not active worshipers.

Instead, the authors suggested that attendance at religious services is “a form of meaningful social participation” that buffers women against loneliness and isolation — both factors that are strongly implicated in depression and suicide. “Religion and spirituality may be an underappreciated resource that psychiatrists and clinicians could explore with their patients, as appropriate,” wrote a team of researchers led by Tyler J. VanderWeele of Harvard’s  T.H. Chan School of Public Health.