Health and Religion

[CoinCube]

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.

Ultimately I think you will be disappointed with your religion. The jury is very much still out on just how well science "works" for humanity. The best that can be said is so far so good and even that is a very utopian conclusion.

The high priests of science in their white coats promise answers but does the emperor have no clothes?

We are a heartbeat away from utterly remaking all of nature twisting it to our whims and fancies wielding a power that vastly exceeds our wisdom.  

Gene Drives and the End of Nature
http://www.synbiowatch.org/2016/08/reckless-driving/

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.

Do the scientists and their committees have everything figured out? Let's see what they have to say.

"We are walking forwards blind. We are opening boxes without thinking about consequences. We are going to fall off the tightrope and lose the trust of public." – Gene drive developer Kevin Esvelt, MIT, on the current rising interest in gene drive applications.

Having overstepped our rights and and corrupted/remade nature to suit our whims it is inevitable that we will turn our tools on ourselves.

GENETICALLY MODIFIED HUMANS ARE COMING: U.S. SCIENTISTS JUST BACKED PERMANENT GENE EDITING IN HUMANS
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2017/02/16/genetically-modified-humans-are-coming-u-s-scientists-just-backed-permanent-gene-editing-in-humans/

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.
...
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

It will start with targeting disease of course. Then it will spread legally or illegally to biological advantage. Parents will soon be faced with the choice of "upgrading" their offspring or condemning them to poverty and the lowest rungs of society.

If we survive long enough a second wave of technological upgrades will follow for ultimately the time will come when even the optimized biological cannot compete with the technological.

Those who believe that "science works" should hope more then most that there is a spiritual future for humanity. Indeed that could be the only possible future as we celebrate our biological demise and upgrade ourselves into extinction.

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[CoinCube]

Why do you think it is a problem?
...
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.
...
It seems to me you have some Luddite tendencies.

Humm why do I think it is a problem?

Perhaps it is because I think it is insane to celebrate the extinction of ones species and gleefully rush towards it.

Or maybe it's because I do not trust the judgement of those who lead this charge. So many of our scientists are atheists/agnostics often basing their world view in Nihilism which holds that life itself is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value and that there is no such thing as inherent morality.

Perhaps I fear hell not in the afterlife but here on earth the endpoint of a philosophy that ultimately rejects the truths necessary to sustain life.

Or maybe I do have some Luddite tendencies. I do sometimes wonder if the Amish don't have it right after all. They will have front row seats and may get to watch in horror as the rest of humanity hurtles towards extinction like an out of control railway car. Assuming of course that their inefficient presence continues to be tolerated. The future may decide that they must be forcefully "upgraded" as well for their own good of course.

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

Indeed I think you are correct.

That ultimately is my interpretation of Genesis 2:17

[CoinCube]

Pig Brains Kept Alive Outside Bodies
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/04/26/revolutionary-step-toward-immortality-pig-brains-kept-alive-outside-bodies/

The brains of hundreds of pigs reportedly survived for up to 36 hours after they were decapitated
...
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.
...
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...

[CoinCube]

Alfie Evans’ Death Illustrates The Monstrous Logic Of The Welfare State

It wasn't in the 'best interests' of Alfie Evans to die. It was in the best interests of the British welfare state to demonstrate its power.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/04/30/alfie-evans-death-illustrates-monstrous-logic-welfare-state/

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.”

[JBLHIFI]

Atheism is top poison, because it moves its people away from the only thing that can keep them from eternal damnation and destruction.

At least theism allows its people the opportunity to find out that they can have eternal life through God... the only way it comes to anyone.

[Astargath]

Alfie Evans’ Death Illustrates The Monstrous Logic Of The Welfare State

It wasn't in the 'best interests' of Alfie Evans to die. It was in the best interests of the British welfare state to demonstrate its power.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/04/30/alfie-evans-death-illustrates-monstrous-logic-welfare-state/

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.”

Why did God not intervene?  Why did God abandoned Alfie?  Why did God allow Alfie to have this degenerative brain condition?

I tell you why not?  Because your God does not exist!!!  That is why.

This should be your exhibit A. 

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? How about all the treatments for all kinds of diseases? 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? How is prayer working for humanity? As I usually say, next time you are sick, pray to god, don't go to a hospital 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. 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.

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

[BADecker]

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.

Many people have chosen their faith as a result of research. For example famous skeptic Anthony Flew was convinced by evidence from biology.

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.

There isn't any God of the Gaps, because there aren't any gaps. Cause and effect act on all things right from the Beginning... C&E set up by God.

Theists who believe in a God of the Gaps, simply have forgotten about the all-pervading quality of C&E. That's why they believe in the gaps. But, they still believe in God.

You don't have any excuse for not believing in God, because you know about C&E.

[BADecker]

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.

Science has to do with things that happen. Big Bang is a concept that is scientifically proven out by mathematics. Nobody has any proof for the actual BB. But many people believe it. Thus, science is religion, as is faith = placebo effect (when not interfered with by God).

So, science is religion is health (or lack of health, because placebo-like effect works in reverse when your doctor tells you that you only have 2 months to live).

[BADecker]

Alfie Evans’ Death Illustrates The Monstrous Logic Of The Welfare State

It wasn't in the 'best interests' of Alfie Evans to die. It was in the best interests of the British welfare state to demonstrate its power.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/04/30/alfie-evans-death-illustrates-monstrous-logic-welfare-state/

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.”

Why did God not intervene?  Why did God abandoned Alfie?  Why did God allow Alfie to have this degenerative brain condition?

I tell you why not?  Because your God does not exist!!!  That is why.

This should be your exhibit A. 

Why would you think that God didn't intervene? Alfie will never get to the point of doubt in God so that He will lose his salvation. His soul worked right along with God as God made him in the womb. His faith stayed so strong in God that he is in Heaven right now, awaiting the resurrection so that He can get His glorified body at the time of the return of Christ.

If you don't change, you won't receive your glorified body in heavenly life. Rather, it will keep you alive throughout the torments of Hell for eternity... alive, but in the pain of continual death.

[BADecker]

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

[BADecker]

Alfie Evans’ Death Illustrates The Monstrous Logic Of The Welfare State

It wasn't in the 'best interests' of Alfie Evans to die. It was in the best interests of the British welfare state to demonstrate its power.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/04/30/alfie-evans-death-illustrates-monstrous-logic-welfare-state/

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.”

Why did God not intervene?  Why did God abandoned Alfie?  Why did God allow Alfie to have this degenerative brain condition?

I tell you why not?  Because your God does not exist!!!  That is why.

This should be your exhibit A.  

Why would you think that God didn't intervene? Alfie will never get to the point of doubt in God so that He will lose his salvation. His soul worked right along with God as God made him in the womb. His faith stayed so strong in God that he is in Heaven right now, awaiting the resurrection so that He can get His glorified body at the time of the return of Christ.

If you don't change, you won't receive your glorified body in heavenly life. Rather, it will keep you alive throughout the torments of Hell for eternity... alive, but in the pain of continual death.

Sorry buddy.  Your hell does not scare me one bit.  I am over it.

Your morals are quite skewed.  You sound like a mother of a serial killer saying that her son is "a good boy; he wanted to help the old lady, he killed her because she was too old anyway.  He just showed her mercy and killed her".  

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.  Why did God not intervene?  

The boy was sick and died.  God did not care or was too busy killing gays and stoning people who work on Saturdays?

Don't you see you have issue in your dogma?

The way I see it there are three reasons why God did not intervene:
 
1. God does not exist
2. God does not care
3. God likes when people die

You sound like a guy driving along and passing a sign that says "The Bridge is Out." But who cares. The bridge really isn't out. It just doesn't scare you. Hey, and that's okay. As you and your car are falling towards the rocks in the canyon below, see how many times you can say, "The bridge is safe," before you hit the rocks below.

You got a valid answer. God intervenes. He intervenes in everything. But you constantly push aside his intervention in your life. He tells you that the bridge is out, but you won't even accept that He exists. Then you want to ask why He didn't intervene. How in the world crazy are you?

Haven't you noticed, yet? Everybody dies... some younger and some older. God intervened with Alfie and took him to Heaven. But you are resisting God's intervention in your life. Forget Alfie. He's in joy right now. Think about yourself.

[CoinCube]

Why did God not intervene?
...
You sound like a mother of a serial killer saying that her son is "a good boy...
...
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.  
...
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".

It's probably pointless but in the off chance you are genuinely interested in the topic of how to reconcile the reality of human suffering with a loving God here are three more answers for you.

The first highlights the views of devout Christians. The second is the teachings of a Jewish Rabbi. The third is the writings of a devoted follower of Islam.

Why does God let bad things happen in the world?
http://explorefaith.org/world.html

Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?
http://www.aish.com/h/9av/aas/Why_Do_Bad_Things_Happen_to_Good_People.html?mobile=yes

When bad things happen to good people.
https://www.onfaith.co/onfaith/2012/12/18/muhammad-when-bad-things-happen-to-good-people-maintain-trust-in-god/10329

[Astargath]

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

''If you were born in 1900, you had a pretty good chance of dying by your 50th birthday. Today, thanks to improved health and safety around the world, that would be — in many countries — a life cut short by at least a few decades.''

https://www.buzzfeed.com/kdries/12-deadly-diseases-modern-medicine-has-cured?utm_term=.sk56RXBk9#.vhb6MR2ek
http://vivacommunications.com.au/blog/five-deadly-diseases-that-modern-science-has-cured/


''God answers.'' But there is absolutely no proof of this, it wouldn't be hard to prove prayer works. There are in fact plenty of studies showing how it doesn't work.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2009/05/15/study-concludes-intercessory-prayer-doesnt-work-christians-twist-the-results/
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficacy_of_prayer


''I haven't been to a doctor or hospital for over 30 years.'' LOL

''Since you don't believe in God, and since you won't even allow yourself to recognize that He exists through what is here'' Fallacy since I was already a believer.

[BADecker]

Why did God not intervene?
...
You sound like a mother of a serial killer saying that her son is "a good boy...
...
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.  
...
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".

It's probably pointless but in the off chance you are genuinely interested in the topic of how to reconcile the reality of human suffering with a loving God here are three more answers for you.

The first highlights the views of devout Christians. The second is the teachings of a Jewish Rabbi. The third is the writings of a devoted follower of Islam.

Why does God let bad things happen in the world?
http://explorefaith.org/world.html

Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?
http://www.aish.com/h/9av/aas/Why_Do_Bad_Things_Happen_to_Good_People.html?mobile=yes

When bad things happen to good people.
https://www.onfaith.co/onfaith/2012/12/18/muhammad-when-bad-things-happen-to-good-people-maintain-trust-in-god/10329

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.

At leas Coincube is acknowledging science form all the different directions. But you are denying the science that shows that health and religion have anything to do with each other. So, you are the one in the cult of denial.

[CoinCube]

LOL.  You guys are in a cult.

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

...

Now you are just letting your anti-religious hatred get the better of you.

You asked a question and I provided three slightly different but interestingly similar answers.

Between the three of them we probably capture the views of several billion of your fellow thinking and reasoning human beings and your reply is that I am in cult?

You should turn that criticism on yourself.

Here is a simplified mathematical summary of our recent discussions.

CoinCube: If A then B.

af_newbie: A is false.

CoinCube: A cannot be disproven.

af_newbie: A is false.

CoinCube: Not A leads to terrible consequences.

af_newbie: A is false. Extinction and death is inevitable.

CoinCube: You have not presented an alternative to A.

af_newbie: A is false... Humans suffer therefore Not A.

CoinCube: Here are three different reasons Humans may suffer yet A.

af_newbie: You are in A CULT! ... A is false

CoinCube: Have a nice day?

af_newbie: A is false.

[CoinCube]

Why do people care so much about religion?
https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2018/04/why-do-people-care-so-much-about.html?m=1

Because they Do.

Naturally, people care more about religion than any other 'big idea' - more than about politics, nations... and certainly more than about their own comfort, convenience, peace and prosperity.

Naturally...


But it is probable that the reader finds this an incredible, perhaps ridiculous, idea. Probable that he looks within himself and observes: "Well, I don't care much or anything about religion!"

That may well be true. Because this blog is read mostly in the West, in developed nations, among the intellectual or leadership class - and this class of people (including you, me...) are mentally sick.

They (we) are insane - as can be seen from their behaviour; which is not just passively indifferent to the primary realities of life (marriage, family - as well as religion); and passively doing nothing to sustain the living conditions they supposedly value (for example science, technology, education, law have all been allowed to become destroyed, utterly, by politics) -- but they are also strategically destroying themselves and their living conditions by multiple active means...

(I mean: Politically correct leftist policies of many types from socialism, multi-culti, diversity, antiracism, and the sexual revolution; through mass immigration, through the global warming fraud, to deliberate incitement of civil and international conflict by systematic propaganda of resentment, entitlement, fear...)

In fact - religion is the One And Only Big Idea that people naturally, spontaneously care about.

Delete religion (or alternatively corrupt, subvert and invert it) and the result is simple demotivation and despair - alleviated by self-distraction, aimed-at suicide.

Our culture has deleted religion. Modern political 'substitutes' simply don't work - because nobody really cares about politics.

They just don't - politics is almost-entirely a mixture of covert selfishness, idle gossip and projection; which are insufficiently strong motivators - and insofar as politics is a real motivator it is feeble, unstable, subjective - useless for the heavy-stuff of living.

*

Why do people care so much about religion?

Why wouldn't they? Because religion is real (albeit distorted fragments of reality); and religion is about truth, life, consciousness - the fundamental assumption - and these are necessary.

And nothing else except religion even tries to provide them.


Of course there has been frequent, massive and hostile disagreements about religion in the past... but never the idea that religion didn't matter.

Never that religion was purely subjective.

Never the idea that religion could simply be deleted from Man and Society, and this deletion would actually improve Man and Society!...


That's just crazy. As religious people can see all around.

It amounts to the cardinal sign of insanity - lack of insight... The non religious are so crazy that they cannot perceive the fact - it's the one fact they cannot perceive; despite the chaos in their minds and the chaos all around.

So crazy that each individual supposes he is the only sane thing in a mad universe...

And the escape begins with recognising that fact.  

[CoinCube]

Jordan Peterson: IS SCIENCE TRUE?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7eywNDTMts

[BADecker]

LOL.  You guys are in a cult.

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

...

Now you are just letting your anti-religious hatred get the better of you.

You asked a question and I provided three slightly different but interestingly similar answers.

Between the three of them probably capture the views of several billion of your fellow thinking and reasoning human beings and your reply is that I am in cult?

You should turn that criticism on yourself.

Here is a simplified mathematical summary of our recent discussions.

CoinCube: If A then B.

af_newbie: A is false.

CoinCube: A cannot be disproven.

af_newbie: A is false.

CoinCube: Not A leads to terrible consequences.

af_newbie: A is false. Extinction and death is inevitable.

CoinCube: You have not presented an alternative to A.

af_newbie: A is false... Humans suffer therefore Not A.

CoinCube: Here are three different reasons Humans may suffer yet A.

af_newbie: You are in A CULT! ... A is false

CoinCube: Have a nice day?

af_newbie: A is false.

More like:

CoinCube: If A then B.

af_newbie: A does not exist

CoinCube: A might exist, you are wrong.  You are looking in the wrong places.

af_newbie: Provide any evidence that A exist.

CoinCube: I cannot.  Nobody can.  You cannot prove that A does not exist or that A does exist.

af_newbie: So what are we talking about?

CoinCube: Methaphysical substrate that is embedded in all of us.

af_newbie: Say whaat?  Sorry, I just fell of my chair.  I am back.

CoinCube: Metaphysics supplements science and allows us to learn the real truth about A

af_newbie: But I am convinced that A does not exist.  What do I do wrong?  Where is my mistake?

CoinCube: Well, it does, all of us are made in the image of A

af_newbie: Sorry, we have to take 5 here, your medication is coming...

CoinCube: Ok, let's talk some more, meanwhile watch some videos about methaphysical attibutes.

af_newbie:  Yeah, sure.  Take it easy.  Don't drive any heavy machinery.

CoinCube:  Ok.  God Bless.  'Angels on your body'...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP9-Wcy6zzQ

What's the matter? You can't come up with anything logical, so you start to badmouth and criticize Coincube, right? Sounds like you have been on too much medication.

[CoinCube]

What's the matter? You can't come up with anything logical, so you start to badmouth and criticize Coincube, right? Sounds like you have been on too much medication.

Oh well at least he is somewhat funny. I must admit his little imaginary back and forth made me laugh.

Ultimately the inability or unwillingness of many atheists to even attempt an articulation of an integrated and coherent system of belief leads me to the conclusion that they are often hypocrites possessed by incomplete ideas and unwilling to explore the logical conclusions and assumptions of their own positions.

I have been watching Jordan Peterson videos recently as he is coming to my town next week and I have tickets to his presentation. I found this video on hypocrites particularly enlightening.

Nietzsche on how to spot Hypocrites - Jordan Peterson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taF8yk7MRV8

[kiumilo0o]

Keeping faith at a moderate level, religion can bring benefits such as lowering blood pressure, boosting the immune system and prolonging the life span.