For going on 15 years now, I've been outspoken on the blogosphere. Admittedly, much of the time spent blogging is/was dedicated to my advocating a certain sphere of thought, and that is one of humanity before religion, reason before faith, evidence before feelings, and for today, it will be science before pseudoscience.
Recently there's been another victim at the hands of pseudoscience being peddled as science, or more precisely, someone is dead because of alternative medicine being peddled as modern, real medicine. A young woman who was very popular with the alternative medicine camp has succumbed to a rare form of cancer after a 7 year battle. She was just 30 years old. Actually, the way it was described by her and her league of online supporters, many of whom, BTW, are students of this woman's former school of thought, is that she "thrived with cancer", ever since her diagnosis in her early 20s until her death. Her name was Jess Ainscough, AKA, "The Wellness Warrior". You may have heard of her, but if not, you can do your own research if you please. For the purpose of this post, and mostly for brevity, I'm going to try to encapsulate the details based on the limited reading I've done on this young woman's life. In other words, this isn't so much about one person's fight with cancer, but more so, it's about the *big picture, which is this: The danger of opting for unproven medical alternatives over those actually proven to work.
To back up a bit, at around 22 yrs old, Jess Ainscough developed a rare form of cancer called Epitheloid Sarcoma . I should interject right now that her mother had died from terminal breast cancer, and the reason for this was because Jess' mother opted for alternative, natural treatments, in lieu of modern, conventional treatments, just like Jess did. The treatment that Jess and her mother used in an attempt to cure their own cancer was called Gerson Therapy, and this was the very same "therapy" that Jess peddled online, making multiple videos and even making personal appearances, appearances that mainly involved "how to" presentations and inspirational talks. This, in part, included instructions on vegan dieting, juicing, taking vitamins, and exercising. Jess charged $100 a head.
In other words, Jess would come to make a fairly lucrative living selling pseudoscience. Needless to say, she had a lot riding on this, so much so that she was forced to start lying after it started to become very clear that her "self-treatment" was failing. She would have go into hiding, in fact.
The biggest hit came when Jess' mother's treatment didn't work, and she died. Now, Jess, who opted for, promoted, and even made a living selling her personalized "approach" to dealing with cancer..i.e..Gerson Therapy, is dead too. The Gerson Therapy, an unproven natural method of healing, failed these two woman, and now they're both dead. In Jess' case, her cancer doctors told her that her best chance of surviving her disease would be to amputate her left arm at the shoulder blade, because it was her left arm that was the origin of the cancer, which eventually progressed to open, bleeding wounds the size of a golf ball.
Jess opted out of the doctor's recommendations, deciding to take on her cancer herself. But here's the million dollar question: Where did she get this idea that she could heal herself? She certainly didn't pull it out of thin air. So?... who told her that she and her mom could beat their own respective cancers with "natural healing" methods?
And alas, this is the problem, one that I contend will continue to needlessly claim lives until/unless something is done about those who continue to perpetuate and extol unproven medical methods, and in some cases, demonstrable false methods. It should be noted that in this particular case, Jess Ainscough started out right, seeking the advice of qualified, medically-trained oncologists. However, since she didn't like what she heard, she opted to take a chance rather than be disfigured the rest of her life. Well, she lost. Her "faith" in bad ideas did her in.
Leading up to the end of Jess' life, excuses we're eventually being made as to why her public appearances, her "how to" videos, and her blog posts, were becoming more and more sparse, when she seemingly vanished from the public eye entirely.
The next-saddest thing to a woman being struck down from cancer in the prime of her life - and this is perhaps the scariest part - is that her supporters still stand by her decisions, and it will only be a matter of time until similar life-decisions are made for the same reasons, yielding the same results. And when I say this, I don't mean that Jess' decision to treat her own cancer isn't or shouldn't be her own decision; I'm saying that, even in the face of evidence that something does not work, people still support it. It's sickening, really, and this is one of the most irresponsible, not to mention, deadly, schools of thought plaguing mankind today. At its face-value, it's barely less superstitious than the olden days when they thought that they were "healing" leprosy by smearing bird's blood on the patient.
In a twisted sort of way, Jess Ainscough is like a "martyr" for pseudoscience. That is, the impression given is that she'd have rather died than admit that her "faith" was misguided. And just as sad(and scary), her brethren in "woo" are right by her side.
The one who was seen as a "bright spark" is now dead. The spark went out.
RIP Jess Ainscough http://jessainscough.com/in-loving-memory/
*Disclaimer: I am not suggesting nor advocating that modern medicine is fail-safe, and anyone who attempts to counter anything I've said herein misses the big picture when/if he or she interjects that fact.
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Consequentialism: FAIL
Because I am not one to back down at the first sign of disagreement, and/or, because I'm very direct in my approach, and/or, by sheer virtue that I'm an Agnostic Atheist, I am frequently accused of things like being a contrarian, "negative", a "know-it-all", "close-minded", "difficult", a big meanie, and most recently, I wasn't given the benefit of doubt when it came to something that most of us take for granted, such as, which personal attributes are noble to acquire and keep.
As one might guess, I contend that I am none of the above, and instead, I would chalk it up to the fact that I just have a low tolerance for bull$hit. It's more complex than that, of course; that was just in a nutshell. And what most likely led to this intolerance is the fact that I was fed bull$hit, even starting as early as prior to when I had theory of mind..i.e..2, 3, 4 yrs old. Of course, I speak mainly of my indoctrination of Christianity by Christian relatives. From those early years until about my mid-30s, I wasted a good chunk of my life believing bull$hit was actually "good", and good was actually "bull$hit", or as one of my fellow bloggers puts it, "good is evil", and "evil is good"(thanks Alice)
See, Christianity and its Christians teach consequentialism, which holds that consequences for the way one acts are the basis for the judgement of those acts. IOW, "moral" and "immoral" depend on the consequences of an act. Welp, sorry, but no..... wait....not just "no", but hell, no(pun intended).
For starters, if one behaves in a certain way simply because they're commanded to do so, then they're neither being "moral" or "immoral"; they're merely obeying orders. And? You know the next question, right? It's this: How do you know that what you're being commanded to do is actually "moral"????? Answer: You filter the command through your own, innate sense of morality and common sense, that's how. If you're commanded to "love your neighbor", that's a no brainer, because you know damned-well that since you expect to be treated with respect, you can therefore safely conclude that you should do the same for your neighbor. What if your neighbor looks at your wife and thinks, "Dang, I'd like to hit that!"(assuming they tell you they just thought that)??? Should they be put to death? Did they just commit "adultery"??? Or wait.....what if your neighbor actually invites men into the bedroom? Is that which is technically "adultery", still immoral?
These questions require good answers, and I contend that religion and its "consequentialism" cannot provide such answers, and in fact, it can only provide the lousiest of answers.
In the last post I talked about instances where "black'n white" thinking is actually a good thing. Now I'm going to shift things around and talk about instances when such thinking is a bad thing. I contend that it is a bad thing to do something/refrain from something based solely on the respective reward/punishment. In doing so, you're not even acting as moral agent; you're simply acting out of fear and selfishness. And really, it goes beyond "good" Vs "evil", because with Divine Command Theory, there is no "good" or "evil"; there is only what "God" commands.
IOW, with DCT, rightness and wrongness instantly becomes a relative thing, and therefore, it isn't, and cannot be, the objective morality that believers claim that it is. If nothing prevents "God" from commanding something that we'd all agree is evil, then the problem becomes obvious. On the other hand, if something external prevents "God" from commanding something that we'd all agree is evil, then that very clearly illustrates that this "God" follows an external standard of "morality".
And then of course there's the fact that, since my becoming an Atheist - and subsequently, since I no longer believe in "Hell" - not once have I got the urge to ax murder anyone or eat any babies. So far, something besides a shallow threat is keeping me from doing all these vile things that Atheists supposedly are "free" to do. And if it's "written on my heart", that sort of flies in the face of "free will", doesn't it???
Like clockwork, it just doesn't add up.
As one might guess, I contend that I am none of the above, and instead, I would chalk it up to the fact that I just have a low tolerance for bull$hit. It's more complex than that, of course; that was just in a nutshell. And what most likely led to this intolerance is the fact that I was fed bull$hit, even starting as early as prior to when I had theory of mind..i.e..2, 3, 4 yrs old. Of course, I speak mainly of my indoctrination of Christianity by Christian relatives. From those early years until about my mid-30s, I wasted a good chunk of my life believing bull$hit was actually "good", and good was actually "bull$hit", or as one of my fellow bloggers puts it, "good is evil", and "evil is good"(thanks Alice)
See, Christianity and its Christians teach consequentialism, which holds that consequences for the way one acts are the basis for the judgement of those acts. IOW, "moral" and "immoral" depend on the consequences of an act. Welp, sorry, but no..... wait....not just "no", but hell, no(pun intended).
For starters, if one behaves in a certain way simply because they're commanded to do so, then they're neither being "moral" or "immoral"; they're merely obeying orders. And? You know the next question, right? It's this: How do you know that what you're being commanded to do is actually "moral"????? Answer: You filter the command through your own, innate sense of morality and common sense, that's how. If you're commanded to "love your neighbor", that's a no brainer, because you know damned-well that since you expect to be treated with respect, you can therefore safely conclude that you should do the same for your neighbor. What if your neighbor looks at your wife and thinks, "Dang, I'd like to hit that!"(assuming they tell you they just thought that)??? Should they be put to death? Did they just commit "adultery"??? Or wait.....what if your neighbor actually invites men into the bedroom? Is that which is technically "adultery", still immoral?
These questions require good answers, and I contend that religion and its "consequentialism" cannot provide such answers, and in fact, it can only provide the lousiest of answers.
In the last post I talked about instances where "black'n white" thinking is actually a good thing. Now I'm going to shift things around and talk about instances when such thinking is a bad thing. I contend that it is a bad thing to do something/refrain from something based solely on the respective reward/punishment. In doing so, you're not even acting as moral agent; you're simply acting out of fear and selfishness. And really, it goes beyond "good" Vs "evil", because with Divine Command Theory, there is no "good" or "evil"; there is only what "God" commands.
IOW, with DCT, rightness and wrongness instantly becomes a relative thing, and therefore, it isn't, and cannot be, the objective morality that believers claim that it is. If nothing prevents "God" from commanding something that we'd all agree is evil, then the problem becomes obvious. On the other hand, if something external prevents "God" from commanding something that we'd all agree is evil, then that very clearly illustrates that this "God" follows an external standard of "morality".
And then of course there's the fact that, since my becoming an Atheist - and subsequently, since I no longer believe in "Hell" - not once have I got the urge to ax murder anyone or eat any babies. So far, something besides a shallow threat is keeping me from doing all these vile things that Atheists supposedly are "free" to do. And if it's "written on my heart", that sort of flies in the face of "free will", doesn't it???
Like clockwork, it just doesn't add up.
User-Friendly
When we think of "user-friendly", I'll wager that some of the words that come to mind for most of us are words such as "ergonomic", "convenient", "comfortable", and the like. In other words, we think easy-to-use.
Okay, let's take something like the driver's manual:
Operating a motorized vehicle is something that most every adult does at some point in their lives. But it's not quite as easy as it sounds, because if people got a hankerin' to go somewhere and they just hopped in the nearest car or truck and hit the gas, the intelligent among us know that this would prove to be a monumental disaster.
'Point being, we need rules and regulations in place if billions of people are going to be sharing the same roadways. For instance, if someone doesn't know what to do at a stop sign, it will only be a matter of time before someone gets T-boned, seriously injuring them, or possibly even resulting in death(s). Or, if someone doesn't know that driving while intoxicated is lethal and that it's therefore against the law to drink and drive, then someone's going to get hurt or killed. It's just a matter of time. And note, I'm not talking about whether or not laws are broken, here. They clearly are. There's no "debate" about that. I'm talking about consensus that DUI is breaking the law, and if you cannot understand that, your driving privilege is revoked.
So, it would seem that any manual or book that exists for the express purpose of delineating the "ins 'n outs" of driving would need to be concise, comprehensive, and thorough. Getting around is important, but public safety is more important. This, I contend, is one of the those instances where a "black 'n white" application is not only fine, but is completely necessary. We can't, on page 3, read that a complete halt should be made at all red, octagon-shaped signs with the letters "S T O P" on them, and then in chapter 7 read that we can circumnavigate that sign as long as it's on a Tuesday. If we read in chapter 11 that the laws don't apply to the law-makers, IOW, that the ones who make the laws don't have to follow them, we'd think something is totally screwy and amiss, and we could easily foresee HUGE problems.
That only makes sense, and speaking of which, if we can't agree that a book or manual as important as the driver's manual needs to make sense, then all discussion on the matter is utterly pointless. The idea of "user-friendly" swiftly becomes disconbobulated mess. We instantly see that "intuition", while it can be useful at times, it has its limitations.
If all I've said makes sense so far, then let's proceed a bit more: What about something even more important than operating an automobile? What about, say, "spirituality", specifically, the religious claims of knowing what's important in life and how it will affect us in the next life? In Christianity, we see that it attempts to have a monopoly on such knowledge. If true, it is definitely more important that we understand the Christian philosophy than some measly ol' driver's manual.
So, by extension, there should be consensus that the Bible, which we are to believe is the most important, reliable source for learning about the Christian philosophy, be a user-friendly document and make complete sense. This is especially true and reasonable if we are to also believe that the Bible's redactors were inspired and overseen by the Bible's leading character, "Yahweh", aka, "God", a being that we are to believe is the most supremely intelligent entity in existence.
Well, a fellow blogger who also fairly recently deconverted from the faith wrote on the topic of "healing", a topic that led to an exchange on "black'n white" thinking, and the defense of one of her Christian readership was that, since fallible man took the dictation, then the parts that don't make sense to us we can simply write-off as man getting "God" wrong. Conversely, the balance..i.e..whatever makes sense and resonates with us, we can safely conclude that man got "God" right.
In other words, we were admonished to not read the Bible with a "black 'n white" mindset, and this reader further suggested that such thinking is "dangerous" in nearly every situation.
So, let's go back to the driver's manual for a second: Is it dangerous to read the driver's manual in "black'n white"? We've already established that, no, it's not only not dangerous, but if there's any real danger at all, it's to not read it in "black'n white". We don't get to pick and choose which rules of the road resonate with us, and throw out the rest. In other words, the danger, if any, is when we cherry pick the Bible or driver's manual, because any resultant interpretation is then indistinguishable from our own, subjective take on things. For instance, when it comes to the Bible and its claim to be an objective moral guide, what it boils down to is believers filtering the passages through their own innate sense of "right" and "wrong", AKA, cherry picking. All believers do this.
There is evidently a thin line between "user-friendly" and recipe for disaster.
Monday, February 09, 2015
Open Letter to Christians
This post is going to be kept short 'n sweet, getting right to the point:
Dear Christians,
As most of you know, a Jordanian pilot was recently burned alive. If you haven't seen the video, feel free to see the provided link at the bottom of the post. Once you do that, here's my question for you:
If it makes you cringe to watch a fellow human being be incinerated while still alive; if it's an unsettling feeling to watch a man scream in agony as his skin melts off of his face and drips to the ground, OR..if the video description alone is just too grotesque for you to watch it, then I'm curious, how are you okay with most of humanity suffering a similar fate, only worse, because they are not permitted to die and must suffer the agony 24/7, for all of eternity. Well? Anyone?
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4030583977001/warning-extremely-graphic-video-isis-burns-hostage-alive/?#sp=show-clips
Dear Christians,
As most of you know, a Jordanian pilot was recently burned alive. If you haven't seen the video, feel free to see the provided link at the bottom of the post. Once you do that, here's my question for you:
If it makes you cringe to watch a fellow human being be incinerated while still alive; if it's an unsettling feeling to watch a man scream in agony as his skin melts off of his face and drips to the ground, OR..if the video description alone is just too grotesque for you to watch it, then I'm curious, how are you okay with most of humanity suffering a similar fate, only worse, because they are not permitted to die and must suffer the agony 24/7, for all of eternity. Well? Anyone?
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4030583977001/warning-extremely-graphic-video-isis-burns-hostage-alive/?#sp=show-clips
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