Vets Day second thoughts

While not intending to disparage veterans, it's hard to honestly thank them for their "service." We've had a volunteer army for many decades now so they know what they're getting into. It's more important to remember that our soldiers haven't really "defended" us from anything in a long, long time. Most of the lives and bodies expended since Vietnam have been in the service of politics, in undeclared wars of occupation in sovereign nations far from our shores.

PS: I do thank them for being willing to defend with their lives in the case of any actual attack.

My response to LATimes article on spiritual healing and legislation

Thanks for your article "Healthcare provision seeks to embrace prayer treatments." As a former Christian Science practitioner ("healer") for over 30 years I can vouch for the statements from the critics to which you refer:

But critics say the measure could have a broader effect, conferring new status and medical legitimacy on practices that lie outside the realm of science.

There is no true "spiritual healing." Most of what passes for it are anecdotes where there is no objective diagnosis or controlled testing, from people whose main problems are psychosomatic. Herbert Benson, MD and others have shown that a "relaxation response" accounts for the relief from such problems.

Toward the end of my involvement with Christian Science, and becoming suspicious of the claims I had been taught, I carefully observed if my prayer or lack of it made a difference in my patients. It didn't. People who believe in spiritual healing, and Christian Scientists in particular, are quite defensive about challenges to their faith in this approach to health care and eagerly strive to provide "evidence" for its efficacy. It's also why the Christian Science church in Boston has a large department of people who do nothing but lobby around the world for the kinds of accommodations being advocated in the present health care legislation.

I agree with Dr. Norman Frost, quoted in your article, that more resources need to be devoted to "evidence-based medical practices" and less to long-disproved, and dangerous, systems.

Deus ex machina galore!

My impressions of “The Lost Symbol”

Dan Brown is no William Gibson. He's obviously writing a movie treatment - you can see the shot setups, the key dialogue bits, etc. His language is pedestrian and utilitarian, and strains when it attempts to be dramatic or deep.

Thematically, the book is a kind of cross between “What the Bleep” and “The DaVinci code.” It launches from the kinky field of “noetics,” a pseudo-science that attempts to give verification to the power of the human mind to alter the physical world. It drapes itself in the mantle of human progress, when all the world will be united in benevolence because of the universal power for good that each person can possess. This is, of course, pure BS, though as a former believer I can attest to the attraction of this hypothesis. Brown is playing to the significant segment of the population that disappointingly believes in mystical dimensions. He also pimps the Masons.

The book starts up slowly but eventually gets interesting as the plot action unfolds. Chases, encounters with the villain and various CIA characters, and some historical info provide a modicum of interest, though there is not much that’s surprising in any of this. We know that Robert Langdon, as the central and continuing character of Brown’s previous and certainly future books, will not really die, even though he is encased in a box that fills with water, which he eventually involuntarily inhales (i.e. he drowns). The explanation for his survival depends on the doctrines of noetics, i.e. he doesn’t really die since his soul can exit and enter his body at will. Kinda.

There are puzzles everywhere, but they are ultimately simplistic and subservient to moving the “spiritual” plot along. They are also predictable, if you’re interested in that sort of thing. For example, it’s not hard to guess that the final chapter will be #133 (although an “epilogue” will cue the triumphant big orchestral strains of a glorious new world a-dawning). Even the villain’s true identity is easily guessed - or at least comes as no surprise when it’s revealed. There’s plenty of deus ex machina action.

Brown’s motive for writing this book is also obvious - he has to provide another treatment for a movie that will make much more money than a mere book. My advice is to skip this potboiler and wait for that movie and the more interesting talents of Mr. Hanks and the producers.

God on the brain

Sam Harris worked on a study using fMRI that sought to compare the brain's behavior when it considered two kinds of topics: god and "tables and chairs." In other words, intangible vs. tangible objects. What the study found is that belief in god was functionally the same as NOT believing in god. Both were identified as "facts" by the person being studied. However, either experience was not considered by the brain as being as solid as the "facts" of physical objets. A different part of the brain is engaged when considering "tables and chairs" and the like. The conclusion is that there is room for some degree of doubt about abstract things. So a believer may reserve just a teeny bit of doubt about the existence of god, and the atheist may have a slight suspicion that god exists.

I have been trying to get in touch with the authors of this study to ask a question that pertains to my experience: what is going on when someone turns into an atheist after having been a believer? And vice-versa. What happens when a "fact" becomes seen as an error - and vice-versa. Maybe I'll find a way to ask.

I still feel the religious "twitch" even though I now am so convinced that theology is the study of fantasy, not of anything real. I suppose one doesn't unlearn twitches that were 60+ years in the making. According to Gladwell, I have way more than 100000 hours of repetition of religious concepts, beliefs and practices. And it is the one "skill" I wish I didn't have. I wonder what I might be now if I had put in even half that time into musical study. Maybe just another burnt out junkie. But maybe not.

Group vs. Individual Health Insurance

A relative who works in the health insurance industry confirms that people in a group plan are not subject to the same vulnerabilities as those with individual policies. This means that the health insurance debate is not only about the 46 million Americans who have no health insurance at all, but also those who do have individual policies and therefore can be dropped, excluded for pre-existing conditions or have their rates hiked to the skies. So, granted that most people are covered by group plans, that sill leaves a significant portion of the population at great risk for dying or being bankrupted by a health problem.

That's why it's really a moral issue. Should anyone be allowed to die or be financially devastated just because they get sick? America is the only country in the world where this can happen. Even those of us who are covered by group plans, including Medicare and Medicaid, should not rest easy. We have a moral responsibility to care for the population as a whole. That's the idea behind insurance - those who don't need it are paying for those who do need it.

We have an outrageously costly military because it's deemed important that we protect everybody from any possible enemy. We may not need it at any given moment but we pay for it anyway - just in case. Disease and injury are universal and present enemies. We need to design - re-design - our systems to extend that care to everyone. And we could probably pay for it by diverting some of our tax money away from the military - a few planes ships or missiles should do it - in addition to eliminating waste.

Eddie Izzard on Religion

A clip from Dress to Kill by one of the most intelligent and articulate actors today.

Savior of Animal-kind

Somebunny up there loves you.

What is an atheist?

It's not just a person who doesn't believe that your god exists. An atheist is one who lives without professing or believing in the existence of what anyone calls a god. Everybody's atheistic about something. If you are a Catholic you are probably atheistic about the Hindu gods. The Christian Scientist (my former brand) is atheistic about Jesus, defining him as only an especially inspired human. Religion, then, tends to be in some kind of battle stance with at least some other religious systems, despite most of their claims to be life-affirming, loving and peaceful.

Here's a fuller treatment of the subject by John Loftus, a former Christian apologist who runs the Debunking Christianity web site.

I am an atheist. What do I mean when I use this word? I mean that I do not think there are any supernatural beings or supernatural forces. It’s not that I have no beliefs about them. I do. I believe they do not exist. People who do not have any beliefs about such beings are people who have never considered them in the first place.

Full text of the article.

"The Second Declaration" is a piece of crap

There, I said it. And I appear to be the only person in the world who has said it.

What is this book? Well, if you search the Internet, in dozens of entries you'll be told, in these same words, it's

Absolutely original, with vivid style, verve, imagination and sharp view points, The Second Declaration is a fascinating vision of future economies, the development trends of future cultures, and the development trends of future mankind.

Supposedly written by a young (21) Chinese female phenom,

Wang Xiaoping is President of the Beijing Humankind Great Success Educational, Scientific and Cultural Research Institute and Counselor of the Beijing Enlightenment Education Group. She is also a bestseller writer, an academic orator and a thinker. She has been acclaimed as ‘a talented girl’, ‘a legendary girl’ and ‘a goddess of wisdom’. She is the youngest cover girl for the famous magazine China Women.

I tried to listen to the audiobook version of this and couldn't finish it. But that's OK, I keep one part of it on my iPod for when I need a cure for insomnia. It's hard to tell if the original Chinese is well written, but the translation is abysmal. Combine it with a rushed yet almost comatose reading by Marguerite Gavin, who otherwise seems to be competent - and you have a torrent of word-like noise that zaps you like a stun gun. (Poor Marguerite even commits the unforgivable narrator's gaffe of pronouncing "misled" as "my zeld")

And don't bother looking up "1stWorld Publishing," the supposed publisher of this drivel. If you click on the link for it on Amazon, you'll be informed that the item does not exist. If you search for it on the Internet you'll get directed to a website that offers to sell you that domain name.

The strangest thing is that I can find no civilian review of this book. Surely someone else has read it, or tried to - maybe even liked it. But apparently all the "reviews" are by Chinese professionals who are universally ecstatic about the book. I suspect a well-financed promotion campaign that somehow squelches all criticism.

So, if search engine crawlers come across this blog, will the fact that I say "The Second Declaration" is a piece of crap show up in their results lists?

Lucky and selfish

THE FOLLOWING WAS A REPLY TO AN OP-ED PIECE IN THE CS MONITOR ABOUT HEALTH CARE THAT WAS NOT PRINTED:

RE: What if I don't want health insurance?

Would that we all were as lucky as Becky Akers. She's got good genes, time to run, hike and bike to meetings and leads an apparently healthful, comfortable and affluent life. And she hasn't had any accidents or catastrophic health problems.

But she is not typical. Most of the 50 million uninsured need health care, and cannot afford to get that care without insurance. And one of the things that makes insurance work is that people who don't need it at the time, pay for people who do need it at the time. It's called sharing the burden, something it seems libertarians are loath to do.

I also suspect Ms. Akers has the robustness of youth on her side. Which is an asset she will eventually lose. The elderly don't cope with physical challenges as well as younger people. And their incomes tend to be far less than they were in their prime. I, too, was without health insurance for over 30 years and was lucky enough not to need medical attention. But as I got into my 60s it became harder to stay healthy, and in fact I have had several problems that are considered routine for my age group but serious enough that I had to have medical attention. Fortunately, I eventually qualified for Medicare and for the most part have received good treatment without serious financial challenges in my retirement.

Yes, costs are way too high, and the quality of health care is diminished by onerous rules and paperwork. But the “free market,”€ so beloved of the lucky and well off, has not been truly free because it lacks the essential element of competition. The only entity big enough to give that competition is the government, which is another way of saying: all of us sharing the burden.


TEXT OF THE ORIGINAL OP-ED PIECE:

New York - I'm one of the nearly 50 million Americans who don't have health insurance. I don't want it, either.

But the bill the House of Representatives is debating would force me to buy it. How good can any product be if Congress compels me to purchase it?

Politicians and interest groups have been trying virtually all my life to foist medical insurance on me. But their proposals rest on mistaken and even insulting assumptions.

First, they presume that everyone wants, needs, and should have abundant medical attention. But I come from a long-lived and healthy family, I've been a vegetarian since childhood because I've never liked the way meat tastes, I don't smoke, and I love to hike – the more miles the better.

I am disgustingly healthy, so much so that the only doctors I see – or try to: I'm near-sighted – are ophthalmologists. Could I be hit by a bus tomorrow when I head out for my daily walk? Possibly. But that's such an unlikely disaster that I've chosen to spend my money on more personally pressing needs than medical insurance.

On the other hand, unlikely disasters do happen. So I might purchase catastrophic coverage if it were reasonably priced – just as I might visit doctors for lesser complaints if their care were reasonably priced.

But the government's meddling is what helped mess-up the medical market to begin with.

The federal government perverts costs with its Medicare and Medicaid programs: Recipients of this largess have no incentive to save money since someone else pays their bills.

In fact, the incentives run the opposite way as patients demand more procedures and tests while magnifying problems I resolve out of my medicine cabinet into emergency-room runs. Doctors who get away with charging Medicare hundreds for diagnosing Grandpa's indigestion would charge me the same.

Meanwhile, state governments shackle the insurance industry, mandating that policies cover everything from chiropractic care to hormone replacement. These launch premiums into the stratosphere. I'd much rather pick and choose the coverage I want at a price I'm willing to pay than buy the plan bureaucrats and special interests decree.

But the universal-healthcare crowd thinks it knows better than I do how to spend my money. Why can't they leave me alone? I'm not forcing them to eat flaxseed and bike to meetings instead of hopping into their limousines. It's time for them to return the favor.

Besides, if that bus does hit me tomorrow, I want – and will pay for – top-notch care. And that's not what government-run medical systems dispense. Delays, expedient rather than proper treatment, and double standards of care depending on who you are and whom you know characterize universal-healthcare systems.

Which makes sense. We live in a world of finite resources and infinite desires, where medical care must be "rationed" like all other products and services.

Though we can't choose whether goods are rationed, we can choose how they are. Either the politicians and bureaucrats who bring us long lines at DMVs, failing public schools, and the endless war in Iraq will decide who gets what kind of treatment, or the free market will.

Fans of universal healthcare deride the market: They say it's cold and cruel because we each have to pay for the care we demand. But government healthcare can be far colder and crueler. Its care is inferior: Contrast an inferior, run-down veteran's hospital with a general one. And it's expensive. Dr. Jeffrey Anderson recently wrote in Investor's Business Daily, "Since 1970 ­– even without the prescription drug benefit – Medicare's costs have risen 34 percent more, per patient, than the combined costs of all health care in America apart from Medicare and Medicaid…."

Absent such meddling, the price of medical care would return to reasonable levels. It benefits no provider of any service to charge such astronomical fees that customers can't afford to patronize him.

Then, too, in a market free of the state's stranglehold, doctors and hospitals would compete with one another to lower prices and attract the ill or injured.

That doesn't mean everyone could finally buy all the procedures they wanted or even needed – but that's where private charity would come in. Humanitarians who send inner-city kids to summer camp and volunteer their time or money at soup kitchens would strive to ensure that needy Americans received medical care.

President Obama says, "We have no choice but to fix the healthcare system because right now it's broken for too many Americans." But the only fix we need is for government to get out of medicine.

Becky Akers is a freelance writer and historian.

Sure fire INSOMNIA CURE

Taking a break from the usual carping about religion or politics to post part of a reply to a friend about a method of dealing with insomnia.

I've had many nocturnal ceiling study opportunities. Usually it's some kind of worry, but too often it's just plain speed. I discovered the audiobook trick after falling asleep listening to audiobooks I'm actually interested in. When that happens it's difficult to find my place again. Since it's so reliable I realized it would work with books where it doesn't matter where I leave off - just as long as I leave. I've got two books on my iPod now that qualify: "The Second Declaration" and "The Slan Hunter." The former is a stiff translation from the Chinese original where the author spouts off all kinds of futuristic expectations. This would be interesting to me but the writing style and some of the content is abysmal. The reader also has a boring voice and appears to not understand what little is coherent in the text. so it has just enough interest to suck me in now and then and all the sleep-inducing qualities of audiobooks. The one problem is that sometimes I get riled up about the incompetence and get back to square one. The other sleeper is "Slan Hunter," a science fiction book written in the 50's that is very poorly written, with a lame and predictable plot. It reminds you of a story. Again, the critic/editor in me sometimes gets too aroused and threatens to keep me awake. But boredom usually wins the night.

Brainwashing children

I will have more to say later about Barbara Bradley Hagerty's new book, "Fingerprints of God." When I have more time, I will take up some of the issues raised in this well-written book. Suffice it for now that her book confirms for me the fact that those raised in a religion find it very difficult to depart from it even when reason and solid, testable facts intrude. I believe this is especially true for people raised in Christian Science. Where other kids may recoil from stern fundamentalism - and thus be ripe for apostasy - most CS kids are raised in such an atmosphere of pleasantness and self control that they come to associate the metaphysical claims with goodness. So even when their theology is refuted by facts, they still cling to the notion that there MUST be something to the concepts they were raised with. Hagerty's book confirms this. Even after interviewing articulate atheists and scientists, she still, in the end, relaxes into the belief system that gave her comfort and hope.

I am not such a person I was raised as a Catholic, and though I was assiduous in my practice I eventually left the religion, though I clung to the idea of some kind of God for many years afterward. Now that I am free of all that I notice the stickiness of religious education, and recoil against it. I see great wisdom in Dan Dennett's proposal that all kids be required to learn about all religions. Only in this way can the relentless drumming of one orthodoxy be prevented from establishing tyrannical control of a person's mind.

You don't have to be an Einstein to figure this out...

.. but I so happens that he did anyway.

“As the first way out there was religion, which is implanted into every child by way of the traditional education-machine. Thus I came — though the child of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents — to a deep religiousness, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of twelve. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. Mistrust of every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions that were alive in any specific social environment-an attitude that has never again left me, even though, later on, it has been tempered by a better insight into the causal connections. It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth, which was thus lost, was a first attempt to free myself from the chains of the ‘merely personal,’ from an existence dominated by wishes, hopes, and primitive feelings. Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned as a liberation, and I soon noticed that many a man whom I had learned to esteem and to admire had found inner freedom and security in its pursuit. The mental grasp of this extra-personal world within the frame of our capabilities presented itself to my mind, half consciously, half unconsciously, as a supreme goal. Similarly motivated men of the present and of the past, as well as the insights they had achieved, were the friends who could not be lost. The road to this paradise was not as comfortable and alluring as the road to the religious paradise; but it has shown itself reliable, and I have never regretted having chosen it.”

- Albert Einstein

Saint George Carlin slays the media dragons

Click the play button below. I disabled annoying autostart.

UFO Believers vs. Religious Believers

See more like this on kontraband.com

Young people and religion

A recent Pew poll states:

Historically, the percentage of Americans who said they had no religious affiliation (pollsters refer to this group as the "nones") has been very small -- hovering between 5 percent and 10 percent. However ... the percentage of "nones" has now skyrocketed to between 30 percent and 40 percent among younger Americans. (via ABC news)

I certainly know what it is to be young and religious. I was raised as a Catholic and was quite faithful until my mid-30s, when I locked onto Christian Science. But it took until my mid-60s to see what more and more young people today are seeing, according to the above poll.

It is only now after having been away from the absurdity of religion the past four years that I am gaining a sense of what I lost. For over 30 years I fancied myself - and tried hard to be - a spiritual healer, a thinker, a defender of the faith, a biblical scholar, a visionary, and at times even a savior of a church. Though along the way I met a few interesting and lovable co-religionists, in the end I just couldn't abide the hypocrisy, the dullness, the meanness and the arrogance of those who were supposed to be my leaders and examples. Also, unknowingly, I was slowly (at first) losing my ability to swallow some of the absurd beliefs and traditions of both conventional and unconventional religion.

Yes, this took a long, long time to devolve. Shortly after I left the fold, I resumed being the person I was when I was took the leap of faith and set off on a spiritual career. That's why these days I often say I'm immature for my age.

It took a few years, but I gradually reestablished my interest in music. Today I play in a brash blues dance band and work part time at a cool computer store. I can't help wonder where I would be by now if I had stayed on a musical path, developed my skills as a writer and composer, poet, essayist, etc. I'll never know. What I'm grateful for is that during that lost period I somehow managed to keep those embers glowing - though on a back burner.

So I'm somewhat resentful - ya think? - that I wasted my youthful years - truly wasted them since I never really fulfilled even the religious/spiritual expectations. I don't want to admit it, but I am getting to be an old man and while I rejoice in my present activities I know that I will never ever achieve my potential since I am 30+ years behind where I would be if I’d continued to develop along my natural, non-religious lines.

That's why I occasionally speak out against religion - especially for young people. I know what a comfort it can be to adhere to what seems certain, authoritative, and beneficent. When things get crazy in your life the orderliness and fixedness of religious belief seems like safety. But it isn't. It's a huge waste of your time. Get to your true potential - explore it, hone your skills, learn from your mistakes. Yes, if you're going to make mistakes - and you certainly will - let them be in the right direction. Don't let them be like mine, thousands of mistakes within a single Big Mistake.

Your life is yours to develop, not some supernatural being's, not some evangelical community's, not some spiritual leader's or some sacred book's. Religion has been invented to give you the assurance you crave but can never achieve. The ultimate facts are that we live and then we die. In between, we develop our talents and abilities - and have some fun. Work on those and don't waste your time on fantasies of salvation or eternal happiness.

How to ruin a Good Book:over-praise it!

After 35 years of reading and reading about the Bible, this formula worked for me. Even so, it's amazing how long people can stay deluded.

http://unreasonablefaith.com/2009/05/04/keep-praising-the-bible-it-breeds-freethinkers/

Why I am no longer polite to god

One kind of wisdom says to forget the past and move forward. Another kind, like that espoused by HL Mencken in 1925, says it's noble to contend with stupidity. I might not be so motivated by the latter if I hadn't spent most of my life as a believer. I consider those days a waste, and painfully embarrassing to even contemplate. This is my way of coping.

The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by persons who should no better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame.

The WEAK in CS

So a Jewish guy thinks Christian Science is cool. But he really gives no reasons other than he likes it and it seems right to him. The remnant of the swiftly languishing CS church is so desperate for any kind of recognition that they'll interview any blowhard who has anything nice to say about them. As Kent Jones would say (on Madddow): WEAK!

https://admin.secure.streamos.com/streamos/player/flv/?url=http://csps.edgeboss.net/flash/csps/bol/clearspace_media/david_louis_final_tmcy_flash_high.flv

God and Elvis

Don't tell me that god exists because you KNOW it from experience. That's not a proof and not a reason why anyone should agree with you. Don't try to argue with Sam Harris!

7 Things You Need to Know About Chiropractic Therapy

It's easy to take shots at conventional medicine, because it's not 100% perfect, and there is lots of waste and even fraud connected with it. But realistically, it's effective enough for most people to use it instead of "alternative" methods. Having practiced "spiritual healing" and seen it fail for over 30 years, I'm convinced it is mostly useless for physical problems. Chiropractic is another "alternative" that many people use and it may be even more dangerous than prayer as an alternative to good medicine. Glad I never tried it.

Original article at: http://unreasonablefaith.com/2009/04/06/7-things-you-need-to-know-about-chiropractic-therapy/

7 Things You Need to Know About Chiropractic Therapy
April 6, 2009 by Daniel Florien
1) It was founded by a quack.

Daniel David Palmer discovered the power of spinal manipulation by allegedly healing a deaf man by repositioning a vertebrae in his spine. Shortly after, he healed someone with heart trouble through the same technique. Convinced he discovered a new medical technique, he opened the Palmer School of Chiropractic in 1897.

Palmer claimed that 95% of all diseases were caused by displaced vertebrae, a belief many chiropractors today still hold. To explain this, he invented new terms like “subluxation” (a displacement of the spine), which resulted in a blockage of the body’s “innate intelligence.” Whatever that means.

He refused to acknowledge the role of germs in sickness and was taken to court numerous times. His “persecution” put fuel on the fire of his new religion, where he compared himself to Jesus, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, and Martin Luther.

2) It was spread by the quack’s son, a fraud.

In 1913, Daniel Palmer was ran over in a parade by his son, Bartlett Palmer. He died a few weeks later. Some believe it was no accident, as the father and son were quarreling over chiropractic treatments. Bartlett was an entrepreneur and invented the “neurocalometer,” which he claimed detected subluxations. He sold them to 2,000 gullible graduates from his college for the price of a house.

His customers ended up dissatisfied with his product, so he was sued. It ended up all the device contained was a thermocouple — that is, an electric thermometer.

With his new riches, he created one of America’s first radio stations in 1922. In between news and general programming, the station carried lectures by Palmer, helping the chiropractic movement gain unwarranted credibility and popularity.

3) There are two kinds of chiropractors: straight and mixers.

Think of straights as fundamentalists and mixers as liberals. Straights strictly adhere to Palmer’s original teachings about subluxations and innate intelligence. They are skeptical about germ theory and vaccinations and believe chiropractic therapy can heal 95% of diseases. They are, in other words, quacks. We can only be thankful Palmer didn’t prescribe blood letting, lest these zealots try and continue the practice today.

Mixers do away with the original dogma and only claim to help with back and neck problems. If you need to go to a chiropractor because conventional medicine isn’t working for you, be sure to go to a mixer.

4) Chiropractic neck manipulations can cause strokes.

Don’t let a chiropractor snap your neck. There are two arteries that are threaded through the neck vertebrae, causing them to kink. This is usually fine, except when the neck is stretched and suddenly turned — exactly what chiropractors do. It can tear the lining of the artery, which can form a blot clot.

This has caused strokes for patients. For instance, it happened to Laurie Mathiason in 1997, as well as several other documented cases.

5) Chiropractic therapy is no more effective than therapeutic exercise, and is more expensive and risky.

Back problems are difficult to live with and difficult to treat. Conventional medicine has struggled to produce very effective treatments for back problems, so it is tempting to try alternative treatments — especially chiropractic therapy. But studies have not shown that chiropractic therapy is any more effective than conventional medicine. Worse, it is usually more expensive and risky.

After reviewing the studies done on chiropractic therapy compared with conventional medicine, the authors of Trick or Treatment? had this to say:

In terms of dealing with the underlying problem, doctors might recommend physiotherapy or exercise. And in terms of dealing with symptoms, doctors often prescribe non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NASIDs), such as ibuprofen. These approaches are, however, only mildly or marginally effective. A truly life-changing cure for back pain has not been found.

When the two approaches are compared against each other, spinal manipulation versus conventional medicine, the result is that each is just about as effective (or non-effective) as the other…. Spinal manipulation might help those who suffer with back pain, but conventional approaches offer similarly marginal levels of benefit….

Because physiotherapeutic exercise is a much safer treatment than chiropractic manipulation, we would strongly recommend the former rather than the latter as the first choice.

6) A “Doctor of Chiropractic” (DC) does not mean they are a medical doctor.

Most chiropractors put “Dr.” before their name. This might fool you into thinking they’re a medical doctor — but they’re not. A DC means the practitioner completed a 4 year chiropractic course.

That might make them an expert in cracking backs and snapping necks, but it does not make them a medical doctor, and they should not serve as a primary healthcare provider. They did not attend medical school, unless they have more than a MD as well as a DC, which is rare.

7) Chiropractors have a high fraud and sexual transgression rate.

According to a California survey in 2004, compared to medical doctors, chiropractors are:

2x more likely to be involved in malpractice
9x more likely to be practicing fraud
2x more likely to transgress sexual boundaries
Be sure to check the reputation of a chiropractor if you are going to see one.

Conclusion

Chiropractic therapy can legitimately help some back problems. But instead of being the first option, it should probably be the last. The science of it is shaky, the risks are real, and even for back problems, it has not been shown to be more effective than conventional treatments like therapeutic exercise or pain relievers.

* * *

Further Resources

Barrett, Stephen M.D. “Chiropractic’s Dirty Secret: Neck Manipulation and Strokes“
Ernst, E. “Adverse effects of spinal manipulation: a systematic review” (Royal Society of Medicine, 2007)
Keating, JC. “Chiropractic: science and antiscience and pseudoscience side by side” (Skeptical Inquirer, July 1st, 1997)
Nelson, Craig. “Spinal Manipulation and Chiropractic: Views of a Reformist Chiropractor” (American Council on Science and Health, 1999)
Singh & Ernst. Trick or Treatment (2008)
Chirobase - A Skeptical Guide to Chiropractic History, Theories, and Current Practices
Neck911USA - A volunteer group who provide consultations on complications due to neck manipulation
H.L. Mencken on Chiropractic
See more links at ChiroLinks

Why there is no spiritual healing industry, cont.

The reason there is no spiritual healing industry, no massive IPOs for companies offering new spiritual healing methods, products or practitioners, no TV spots or infomercials touting spiritual healing, is because it just plain doesn't work and isn't worth the investment. Sure, there's a huge market - all of us - but after millennia of wishing for it, no one has come up with a legitimate, testable, mass marketable product. That wish is extremely strong, so strong that it leads some people to impute to prayer remarkable healing power. But no amount of magical thinking can effect the kind of change in physical conditions that make prayer an effective tool that millions of people would gladly pay money for. Having been a sincere practitioner of spiritual healing for over 30 years, I speak from experience. The market is so small that a decent living can't be made solely from the practice. That "market" is a tiny bunch of magical thinkers, most of whom belong to some kind of church that promotes spiritual healing as proof for the validity of its theology.

Here's the kind of "testimony" that won't be made in those churches:

I go to a private religious university, and for the most part I get a nice, secular education. Occasionally, though, someone will stand up in a cafeteria and announce that they witnessed a miracle or some such. "He was in constant pain but after we prayed the cancer went into remission" -- that kind of crap.

One day, I had had enough of it, so immediately after one girl told her magical success story, I stood up and cleared my throat:

"I'd like to follow my friend's story with a similar tale of my own. I had an uncle who never took care of his body, and eventually he developed type II diabetes. He wouldn't listen to his doctors or do anything to treat his condition. Eventually it got so bad that they had to amputate his foot. This all but destroyed his lifestyle. He spent his entire day at his job on his feet, and he couldn't do anything with his new disability; he couldn't even afford a prosthetic. None of us in my family was religious at the time except for my mother, but she convinced us all to join hands in prayer, as that was the only thing we could really do. We were skeptical, but we humored our mom and asked God to help our uncle in anyway He could, and his foot grew back!"

See See more here
And Why won't God heal amputees

Continuing the dialog about the lack of a spiritual healing industry

"Anonymous" asks:

Are you aware of other long-time practitioners who have rather suddenly left the practice and taken a 180, so to speak?

No. I know that some dropped out suddenly but I never heard any explanations, certainly not as much as I'm willing to divulge.

Among your former colleagues in the healing work, were there ever discussions of discouragement, disillusionment, etc.?

No. It's considered "unscientific" to be negative or doubtful about the theology and institutions based on it. I'm sure there are doubts in a few, but they are kept on the QT, just as mine were for the last few years of my affiliation. Some of them will "stray" and teach heretical ideas and then eventually get kicked out. My "180" came about a degree at a time and as the result of much thought and wider reading.

Most of the "career" practitioners I know seem to genuinely think they've answered a high calling and have spent their lives in a very productive way.

That accounts for 25 or so years of my career. But being convinced of something - even for a long time - doesn't make one right. Fortunately, I lived long enough to break the spell.

The biographies of Mary Baker Eddy record healings that, if true, would impress just about anyone. Do you believe these accounts are fabricated or exaggerated?

Fabricated and exaggerated out of ignorance or unscientific analysis. I don't see how we can take seriously accounts written over 130 years ago in an era of crude science and testing. And even today, there are no credible research studies involving double-blind techniques that confirm that prayer is effective in healing. As I offered initially, if such evidence were available, there would be a huge spiritual healing industry. There isn't, and there isn't.

The prostate of the union

I didn't have surgery for cancer, but Jennings' experiences are very similar to mine recently. "Yes, yes and yes — lust is essential. But right now, sex seems quaint, old-fashioned."

By Dana Jennings

I vividly recall those first few hours in the hospital room after my prostate cancer surgery last July: the plastic thicket of I.V. tubes; the leg cuffs huffing and chuffing to ward off blood clots; my throbbing incision packed with gauze. But, most important, I remember peering through the post-surgical haze to see my wife, Deb, sitting there, smiling at me.

These days, I epitomize the “in sickness” part of the wedding vows that Deb and I took back in 1981.

rest of story

Reply to comment: Why there's no spiritual healing industry

I got an interesting - and rare - comment to my last post, but thought it worth replying with another post instead of burying it in the comments section. The commenter asks:

Why did it take you 30 years to reach the conclusion that spiritual healing doesn't work? How did you survive that long without being able to make a living? I ask these questions sincerely, as a prospective spiritual healer myself, and not out of any sense of hostility towards your position.

Religion works because it offers desperate people a way to find meaning in their lives. It shuts down the critical faculties and gives one a place not only in the universe but in an earthly community. It's like the neighborhood tavern, “where everybody knows your name” and you can obtain the drug that makes you forget the inconsistencies and unfairness of life. I had been raised in a religion that I eventually rejected and had been on my own for 15 years. But when relationships broke up and life got scary I was ready for some kind of general anesthesia. What I found promised not only an explanation for my problems (they weren't real) but a community and a career path that I could join.

Of course there wasn't any money in it but the theology made me feel I was doing something worthwhile and that I would be rewarded with good luck. And I was. I had some investments and a spouse who worked. And then the church started giving me some paying – non-healing - work to do, eventually even hiring me to work at headquarters. So, while the actually “healing” practice didn't pay, there were a lot of auxiliary sources of income.

That's how most people do it. I don't know anyone who makes a full living out spiritual healing work. Some of them make a lot more than I did, but they also tend to be independently wealthy and more charismatic or connected with more affluent and more loyal clients than I was. But if that's all they had to live on I'm sure they couldn't do it – unless they're willing to live at or below the poverty line.

And then there are the people. Such a strong positive theology makes most – but not all - of them cheery and optimistic, and they love to radiate happiness and confidence. They are nice to be around – more pleasant than the fire and brimstone crowd. And they appreciate that their practitioners are making a financial sacrifice in order to be available to shower them with cheer and confidence when they are hurting.

But of course, reason and evidence issues kept nagging away. As I grew older I had physical problems that neither I nor other practitioners could heal. I had to turn to medicine – with a great sense of guilt of course. But further thought and reading forced me to admit that the whole thing is bogus. I now survive on social security, pensions, investments and a part-time job.

Again, if there were real healing, business would be great. But most “patients” are as eager to affirm the efficacy of the practice as the practitioners are. So they will ascribe just about any tiny improvement to the prayer, and are willing to take comfort in – and pay for - the fact that somebody cares about them. Physical healing is mostly the effect of the body's amazing ability to fix itself - it had to be in order to survive eons of evolution. Spiritual healers co-opt this innate ability that is enhanced when patients relax and feel confident - which is the practitioner's main tool. Most older believers – those who survive neglect – get regular medical help, most of the time in secret.

If you're seriously thinking of getting into the spiritual healing racket make sure you have lots of money in reserve. Otherwise, go practice your ministry by helping others in more practical, less dangerous and more remunerative ways. Good luck.

Why there is no "spiritual healing" industry

For over 30 years I practiced "spiritual healing" and never could make a living from it. And I never knew anybody else who got rich off that kind of practice. The little money I did make was from faithful people who believed they should support the practice, or from people too timid to complain they weren't healed, or from people who simply wanted a dial-a-friend. (Yes, there are a lot of lonely, hurting people who just want someone to say nice, positive things and express some love to them.)

But aside from the theological issues, a strong reason I stopped that kind of quackery is that there's no money to be made in it because spiritual healing simply does not work. If it did, it would be the hottest industry in the world. There would be millionaire spiritual healers. IPOs would spring up like mushrooms over every latest wrinkle in prayer technique or practice. Apologists for spiritual healing explain the vacuum by citing the evil materialism of opponents, even while they often admit that medical practitioners are sincere and humanitarian. In other words, most people who rely on or practice medicine just aren't spiritual enough.

And yet, in spite of - or even because of - their greed, there would be a spiritual healing industry larger than modern medicine. Sheer pecuniary interest would make converts of atheists and those billions of vulgar materialists - just as they now invest in the oil and defense industries, that while they do so much damage still have huge markets for their products.

But there's no such investment opportunity. Spiritual healers are pretty much loners, cultivating groups of followers who have more faith in them as shamans than in the spiritual "science" they purport to practice. And I'm not talking about the flashy televangelists who mesmerize millions with their obviously tricked up displays of faith healing. I'm talking about "professional" solo entrepreneurs, like I used to be. And even ordinary folk who offer to pray for sick people.

In the following article, Why Use Medicine If Prayer Works?," this conversation sums it up:

Nurse: “Would you like me to say a prayer for you?”

Me: “Feel free. Now I’d like to ask you a question… why did you go through all the necessary medical training if you believe that prayer can heal people?”

Why do people believe in god despite the lack of evidence?

As a former believer (addict) I concur with Larry Beinhart's explanation, excerpted below. This is one in a series of articles he's writing for AlterNet.

Needs that can't be satisfied don't go away.

Hunger doesn't cease when there's no food, thirst when there's nothing to drink, the desire for sex when there's no appropriate partner, the yearning for love when everyone hates us.

Our being is built to keep pushing itself. The chemical goads don't relent. The pain does not stop.

At this point we have a choice.

We can accept that this particular need can't be satisfied. That our knowledge is insufficient. Or, in modern times, that the universe does not mean anything in the terms we want to hear about.

The pain remains.

Until someone creative comes along and says, "I have an answer. There's a God." Actually, prior to about to about 1300 BC, when monotheism was invented, they would have said gods. "He's like the king. But bigger and better. He knows it all. He has a master plan. You're included. So it all has meaning, in relation to you."

Even if it's not true, if you accept it, the pain suddenly stops.

When we have a toothache, it's not just the tooth that's out of whack. Our whole being is out of balance. When it's fixed we feel good all over.

Then, on top of that, we get a hit of joy juice from our being. It's a reward for fixing the problem. So we feel really, really good.

If it's Tuesday and the dentist can't see us until Friday, we take a painkiller. It doesn't fix the problem, but it does make us feel better, allows the rest of our body to come into balance, and makes it so we can go on about our business.

That's why we believe in God, even when one doesn't exist.

Because a false answer is better than no answer at all. And that's our only choice, no answer or a false one.

Read the full article here.

New sidebar listing

This blog, MT_Space, has been added to The Atheist Blogroll. You can see the blogroll in my sidebar. The Atheist blogroll is a community-building service provided free of charge to Atheist bloggers from around the world. If you would like to join, visit Mojoey at Deep Thoughts for more information.

Economic stimulus: best bang for the buck?

A year ago Moodys put out a report on the impact of the Bush tax cuts. It concluded that the best bang-for-the-buck comes from increasing SPENDING on unemployment insurance, food stamps, general aid to states and infrastructure. NOT TAX CUTS! Why are we letting the Repugnicans sing their same old song?

You can read the lengthy paper but below is a chart from the report that summarizes the story.

Thanks to Rachel Maddow on Twitter for this.

Non-believers: we're #2!

In his inaugural address, President Obama (love that phrase!) mentioned - for the first time, I think - "non-believers" as part of America's "patchwork heritage." This comports with the latest Pew research findings, which show that though Christians comprise 78% of the population, "non-believers" are the second largest group. This is probably a low number considering that of those Christians, many are faking it - including many in Congress.

In a fluffy "statement," the Christian Science Church makes a wild claim that the Obama era marks a trend toward more spirituality:

As significant as this shift in US government is, we are convinced a far more momentous change has been stirring globally—a spiritual transformation.

You have to be pretty selective where you look to make a statement like that. While it's true that in certain parts of the world, poor and underdeveloped countries for instance, the influence of fundamentalist religion is rising, the larger world is decidedly going the other way. Educated and prosperous areas see in rapidly developing breakthroughs in science and technology less and less need for a miraculous imaginary friend to solve their problems.

Bush and Obama represent a stark contrast of vision: Bush smacks of the Manichean black/white world view. Obama is more "ecclesiastical," seeking to include many shades of thought. A good article on this can be found here.

One of those shades of meaning is non-belief in a deity, and I'm glad to be included in the real transformation that the Obama era has begun.

Sagan: "The dragon in my garage."

Wanting, needing, feeling better because you believe it, doesn't make a delusion true. And it certainly isn't worth killing unbelievers for.

The following is an excerpt from "The Demon-Haunted World: Science As A Candle In the Dark" by Carl Sagan, a Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author.

The Dragon In My Garage
by
Carl Sagan

"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage"
Suppose (I'm following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle--but no dragon.

"Where's the dragon?" you ask.

"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.

"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."

Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."

You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick."

And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.

The only thing you've really learned from my insistence that there's a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head. You'd wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me. The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind. But then, why am I taking it so seriously? Maybe I need help. At the least, maybe I've seriously underestimated human fallibility.

Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded. So you don't outright reject the notion that there's a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. You merely put it on hold. Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you're prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you. Surely it's unfair of me to be offended at not being believed; or to criticize you for being stodgy and unimaginative-- merely because you rendered the Scottish verdict of "not proved."

Imagine that things had gone otherwise. The dragon is invisible, all right, but footprints are being made in the flour as you watch. Your infrared detector reads off-scale. The spray paint reveals a jagged crest bobbing in the air before you. No matter how skeptical you might have been about the existence of dragons--to say nothing about invisible ones--you must now acknowledge that there's something here, and that in a preliminary way it's consistent with an invisible, fire-breathing dragon.

Now another scenario: Suppose it's not just me. Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you're pretty sure don't know each other, all tell you that they have dragons in their garages--but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive. All of us admit we're disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence. None of us is a lunatic. We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on. I'd rather it not be true, I tell you. But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren't myths at all.

Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they're never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon's fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such "evidence" -- no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it -- is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.