Prayer plus chemotherapy can cure cancer.

[Deep13]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=247&topic_id=9606&mesg_id=9606

Cross post from skeptics forum.

[woo me with science]

1. Cheez Doodles plus chemotherapy work too. nt

[TommyO]

2. What about Bisquick biscuits?

[spinbaby]

6. Only if you add cheese

I recommend some grated cheddar in the biscuit mix. Then brush the tops of the biscuits with garlic butter before you bake them.

[seemunkee]

3. The have been clinical trials that show support groups/counseling

along with standard treatments increases chances of remission.

[Deep13]

8. Yes, but prayer is irrelevant.

In fact, it may be harmful as "stage fright" puts stress on patients to recover quickly for their god.

The point of the post was to show that this mother's thinking is typical of fundy thought. She credits god for saving her kid when god had nothing to do with it and modern medicine had everything to do with it. On the other hand, she assigns no divine cause for the cancer in the first place.

[Beaverhausen]

10. Don't you mean decreases?

[Deep13]

14. Increases the chance of remission...

...means that a cure is more likely than without it.

[Beaverhausen]

17. oops- I was reading "remission" but thinking reoccurance. My bad

:blush:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Promiscuous sex plus penicillin cured my clap.

:thumbsup:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

5. ...

:rofl:

[mike_c]

7. scepticism plus chemo works too....

Wow, that is so cosmic!

[CC]

9. A positive attitude no matter

how you get there and chemo do wonders. My SO's doctors all told him repeatedly a positive attitude was 50% of the cure. Some people use prayer to get there. What ever works for that person, their family and friends they should go for it.

[flamingyouth]

12. I agree.

I was just diagnosed with cancer again (my second bout) and feel the same way. :)

[Beaverhausen]

18. oh

:hug:

Lots of healing light to you!

[flamingyouth]

21. Thank you.

I feel good about it. I have a great doctor - she's awesome, not only brilliant but kind to boot, so I know I'm in good hands. :hug:

[Deep13]

23. good luck

I can only hope you do all right. What they are doing these days for cancer patients is truly wonderous.

[CC]

25. Sorry to hear you were

diagnosed with it again. We have been through 3 bouts with it here. Keep that good attitude and best wishes to you.

SO has been through treatment 3 times now. This last one is the longest he has been in remission. New drug last time too so we are keeping fingers crossed he ends up "cured" instead of just remission. His doctors consider his a chronic disease (NHL) now instead of a terminal one.

[Deep13]

15. see post 13

[Beaverhausen]

11. If you've ever known anyone on chemo, you know how important it is to have a good mental state

if prayer helps some people get through it, no matter what they are praying to, I say good for them.

[Deep13]

13. I'm not talking about the mental state of the patient.

I'm talking about the mother crediting divine providence for the patient's recovery while admitting in the same paragraph that it was modern medicine that did it. All the while she ignores the fact that god fell asleep at the switch in letting her kid get cancer in the first place. This is the rapture ready website, so her comments about god are not in the least bit metaphorical.

[Beaverhausen]

16. What does it matter to you who she credits the recovery to?

Why not be glad the child is recovering?

[Deep13]

22. Her faith is at odds with the process that made recovery possible.

I care about religious fundamentalism because I care about the human condition. Science is what has made medicine possible. Medicine before the 19th century can hardly be called medicine with a straight face. Apart from a few brutal surgical procedures, doctors had almost no influence on their patient's prognosis except to make it worse with bleeding an other so-called heroic procedures. Physicians like Galen and Paracelsis were little more that mystical quacks groping in the dark. There ideas about balancing humors, bad air and astrological influences had no basis in fact at all. It was only by abandoning faith in the conventional and asking real questions about how the world works and, more importantly, investigating it that any progress was possible.

If people of faith had their way, we would still be in the dark because we would have never dissected cadavers to see how they worked. The churches were against this because it made it impossible for someone to return to life on Judgment Day. Well, now fundies accept established science when it suits them but reject further advances in genetic or stem cell research because we are playing god (as if curing cancer is not). They deny global warming which may kill us all. They reject all modern psychology and psychiatry because of their non-moralistic approaches. Most of all, they reject the foundation of all life sciences, evolution, because it eliminates original sin and, therefore, the need for divine redemption.

I am not going to be subjectively glad the kid survived. I don't know him and only know that he is one of thousands of people who either survive or die from cancer every year. I cannot be emotionally invested in all of them. What concerns me are attitudes that inhibit progress because of superstition and other folk prejudices.

[CC]

26. Oh I see what you mean.

I am a "to each his own" person. It might not make sense to me but whatever works for her as long as she doesn't push it on me. They do scare me when they get into creating rules for everyone else.

[JVS]

19. That's not what my pastors say

[LaraMN]

20. Can mean prayers CAUSE cancer?

I think they can.
:P

[Deep13]

24. That is the origin of blastphemy prohibitions.

What we call prayers, some religions call magic spells. Good ones ask god for all the stuff people want, fertility, health, peace etc. Bad ones are characterized as witchcraft and result in crop failures, natural disasters and illness among people and livestock. Words were thought to have meaning beyond their symbolic associations and the most powerful word was the name of god. This is why using the name of god is prohibited by each version of the 10 Commandments.