Is Faith Evidence of Things Not Seen?

[mikkel_the_dane]

You would like evidence of what? Physical processes generate effects. Fire. Color. Wetness. Thoughts. Do you think that all of those are non-physical? I would need evidence that the non-physical is a candidate explanation.

No, we can't proceed before you accept unknown and without evidence as valid. If you operate under the idea that you can give evidence for everything, than that is where we start:

1. I have evidence for X and thus not Y.
2. I have evidence for Y and thus not X.
3. I have evidence for neither X nor Y.

As long as I am not certain that you can accept #3 as valid, there is no reason to proceed.

Note: We are playing naturalism, supernatural and "bracket" the world phenomenology. The answer could be that it is neither physical nor non-physical.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I think that you are playing fast and loose with the word control. As far as I am concerned I am controlling the keys.

Yes, now think them away as a way of control.

 

[loverofhumanity]

Depending on your favorite translation, Hebrews 11:1 reads:

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Some religious folks believe that their faith itself is evidence that what they have faith in is actually true. This is particularly the case, it seems, when it comes to supernatural claims or ones that don't have good evidence for them.

In my view, this is a manifestly absurd and circular position. People believe all kinds of things, some true, some untrue. The fact that I believe, for example, that the world is flat, is not evidence that I'm correct about that.

Do you believe faith is the evidence of things not seen? Why or why not?

Hello. I think belief must be based on knowledge and reason not on blind imitation. I can hypothesise certain indisputable facts that lead me to be intellectually certain a God exists but then there’s also intangible subjective personal experience which only the individual can verify but some reasoning is required.

A pure heart I believe, can intuitively recognise truth so I rate intuition as a power that does cut through a lot of jargon but it needs always to be verified with reason as occasion ally it can be just superstition.

 

[Deeje]

How many unbelievers did you query to arrive at that answer? I've never met a single unbeliever who didn't care about believing things that are true. What we have to lose is our life, our ability to successfully navigate and understand the world.

I was assuming that the question was about spirituality, not generality.

Again, how many unbelievers did you ask about this? I care very much about freedom of religion.

Sorry, I assumed that you were an atheist for some reason.....but being "Buddha conscious", doesn't mean being a Buddhist though does it? I have not heard anyone identify this way before....can I ask you what it means in practice?

Is it your own or other people's freedom of religion you value? What place does religion have in a world that is so divided along so many lines?...religion being one of the main dividers.

How much formal science education do you have?

I have no formal education in science but I have read many articles and literature that others have posted here and on the net to reinforce their views on the subject. If there was any proof for their assertions they would have produced them by now. No one has.

I personally like Berkley's approach for students because it dispenses with the scientific jargon and presents its case in language I understand. When you strip away the jargon, you see the bare bones and they don't have much flesh on them.

It's not convenient, it's just definitional. Science deals in evidence. Proof is for math and logic.

Well I'm sorry but.....no "proof" means no facts. You can't present something as truth if there are only suggestions. Suggestions are not science. The language of truth has no "maybe's". Evolution is all maybe's.

Do you hear that a lot? Why do you think that is?

The 'emperors' don't like to be exposed as 'naked'. They think that their garments are beautifully tailored, but when it is pointed out that their pet theory is unsupported by any real evidence, the name calling begins and it can get ugly. Its like you're insulting their gods.

So you have a problem with beliefs that are untestable, is that right?

Of course not....I have a problem with untestable beliefs being presented as absolute truth. Have you listened to Dawkins and his ilk? That is what I have a problem with.
If evolution is a belief, it should be presented as such.

No, it doesn't. This is a strawman. For someone who's supposedly read "all" the threads on evolution on this site, I'm baffled that your misunderstanding would be this basic.

Their position is consistent, but so is mine.....you cannot win this argument on evidence because there is no real evidence on either side. At least we admit to a faith based belief, science never will. There will be only one way to prove this issue, and we believe it is on the Creator's agenda to sort this out once and for all. You can believe that.....or not.

Again, there are members here who thrive on evolution threads and would be eager to answer your questions/objections as they have done for creationist after creationist. I'm not one of them, though.

Alas they have tried, and have since retired....

I'm not buying what they are selling. I don't think you realize how "faith" based their theory is. Have you done any research?

I'm professionally part of the health system, so yes I have a decent idea how it works. We have no reason to lie about the efficacy of masks. If we're wrong, people die. People who are worth much more to us alive, if you think we're driven by pure greed.

I assume that you know the history of the health system in America? Its an interesting read, as its tentacles have spread all over the world. Big Pharma runs your show, which is in itself not a criticism of health care workers, but a criticism of the system under which they operate.

Doctoring these days is little more than prescribing pills for symptoms rather than getting to the bottom of any nation's health issues. One only has to watch the elderly or those who suffer with a multitude of health issues to see how it is handled. Baskets full of pills at the pharmacy.....Pills with horrible side effects, and more pills to make them manageable. Cher-ching $$$$ These are groomed to be customers for life, dependent of these drugs to keep them alive.....or so they have been told.....

Our purpose is literally to save people's lives.

I do not doubt that for a moment. I have the utmost respect for the hard working health care professionals.....front-line workers especially. Its the system they work in that I have a problem with. You are trained into that system and no one is allowed to step outside of it's very narrow approach to treatment options. Doctors must remain within its confines or they will lose their license, even when they know how often these expensive treatments do not work.

That you want to dismiss us with a conspiracy theory is honestly rather insulting to the many, many people who dedicate their lives to public health.

Its not a conspiracy theory...it is a very inconvenient truth. The universities that train physicians are teaching them to be nothing more than 'pimps' for the wealthy drug companies that fund them. But their 'doctoring' isn't getting good results, which is why people are turing to alternative medicine in their droves and actually getting well. Nowhere is this more demonstrated than in the increasingly common auto-immune disorders. One of my dearest friends has been suffering horribly from misdiagnosed Parkinson's Disease. The medications just made her worse yet the specialists kept prescribing them. Fed up, she decided to ditch her physicians and seek alternative medicine.....she is on cannabis now and enjoying a much better quality of life. She has also changed her diet as food intolerances were making her ill as well.....she is a new woman after 15 years of bad doctoring. She is not alone. Many others are getting the same results.

Big Pharma has now changed its mind on cannabis and wants a big slice of that pie after 7 decades of demonizing a harmless plant in order to peddle their expensive, synthetic poisons. It is a very corrupt system but not so that you would notice because of the dedicated health care workers who keep that sinking ship afloat. I am sad for them....and you. You have not been told the truth.

This is another con job of mammoth proportions.....the world is not ruled by nice people......those who put greed first....and people last. Money drives everything.

 

[Quagmire]

Yes, the hard problem of consciousness in a sense. How come we are not p-zombies and all that? I do think that is a derail, so we might not want to go there.

You read wàaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy too much into that post.

 

[blü 2]

What would be evidence for no God? You cannot prove God does not exist because you cannot prove a negative.

First, a little technical point: you can indeed prove (satisfactorily demonstrate) a negative. You can demonstrate, for example, that there's nothing in the box; that I'm not POTUS; that you're not on Mars at the moment; and so on.

Second, a big technical point: there is no concept of a real god ─ a god with objective existence, a God found in nature / reality / the realm of the physical sciences. God instead is immaterial, supernatural, spiritual, divine &c; but no test can distinguish those from the imaginary / purely conceptual. That's why I can't tell whether (as I'm known to say) this keyboard I'm typing on is God or not. I can tell it's not beluga caviar, not gasoline fumes, not a marmoset, not light in the violet band, not a unicorn ─ but I can't tell whether it's God or not.

So if believers don't know what real thing they intend to denote when they say 'God', what is it I'm supposed to show doesn't exist? If the expression 'real God' is meaningless, there's nothing for me to do except nod, no?

you could say you do not believe in God because you see suffering in the world

That doesn't show there's no God. It only shows that if there's a God, God is either not omnipotent, or not benevolent, or both.

Here are some statements about truth and reality that we can start with:
“What does it mean to investigate reality? It means that man must forget all hearsay and examine truth himself, for he does not know whether statements he hears are in accordance with reality or not. Wherever he finds truth or reality, he must hold to it, forsaking, discarding all else; for outside of reality there is naught but superstition and imagination.” – Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 62.

Well put! That appears to mean that you agree with my definition of truth, yes?

So when you've told me what a real god is, we can move onto that mountain of evidence I mentioned.

Or we can just have a cup of coffee and work out who should be Biden's veep.

 

[blü 2]

Knowledge is the patron saint of the dharma which is contains all things.

What is the demonstration that shows the dharma contains all things? Or like omniscience, is it just an assertion?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

First, a little technical point: you can indeed prove (satisfactorily demonstrate) a negative. You can demonstrate, for example, that there's nothing in the box; that I'm not POTUS; that you're not on Mars at the moment; and so on.

Second, a big technical point: there is no concept of a real god ─ a god with objective existence, a God found in nature / reality / the realm of the physical sciences. God instead is immaterial, supernatural, spiritual, divine &c; but no test can distinguish those from the imaginary / purely conceptual. That's why I can't tell whether (as I'm known to say) this keyboard I'm typing on is God or not. I can tell it's not beluga caviar, not gasoline fumes, not a marmoset, not light in the violet band, not a unicorn ─ but I can't tell whether it's God or not.

...

Now I googled foundational assumptions in science and got those:

• Nature is orderly, and the laws of nature describe that order. ...
• We can know nature. ...
• All phenomena have natural causes. ...
• Nothing is self evident. ...
• Knowledge is derived from acquisition of experience. ...
• Knowledge is superior to ignorance.

Understanding science: scientific assumptions | News24

Now if you can prove or otherwise show these assumptions as true and what not, I will listen to you. But I think, you are conflating methodological naturalism with the philosophical one.

It means that we end here:

Science doesn't draw conclusions about supernatural explanations
Do gods exist? Do supernatural entities intervene in human affairs? These questions may be important, but science won't help you answer them. Questions that deal with supernatural explanations are, by definition, beyond the realm of nature — and hence, also beyond the realm of what can be studied by science. For many, such questions are matters of personal faith and spirituality.

Science has limits: A few things that science does not do

Regards
Mikkel

 

[blü 2]

Now I googled foundational assumptions in science and got those:

Understanding science: scientific assumptions | News24

Now if you can prove or otherwise show these assumptions as true and what not, I will listen to you. But I think, you are conflating methodological naturalism with the philosophical one.

It means that we end here:

Science has limits: A few things that science does not do

Regards
Mikkel

Thanks. I have a pretty good idea how science works, and what it can and can't claim to do.

Science explores, describes and seeks to explain reality. Reality in this sense is the world external to the self, the world we know about through our senses. It's where we get our air, water, food, shelter, society and mate.

God is said to be real, but there's no concept of a real God ─ one we can find out there in the world external to the self. If God were real, [he]'d have a real description, and seekers after God would be looking for something real. There would be no reason in principle why God shouldn't have [his] own TV show, net site, YourPrayersAnswered call center. make house calls &c.

And there'd be an objective test which would tell me whether my keyboard was God or not.

But God exists only as a set of concepts with no real counterpart. Nor is any real counterpart imagined for [him] (though even the unicorn has an imagined counterpart). God is purely a mental construct, made by each individual, and possibly helped along by tendencies that have evolved to suit the survival and breeding of gregarious primates.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Thanks. I have a pretty good idea how science works, and what it can and can't claim to do.

Science explores, describes and seeks to explain reality. Reality in this sense is the world external to the self, the world we know about through our senses. It's where we get our air, water, food, shelter, society and mate.

God is said to be real, but there's no concept of a real God ─ one we can find out there in the world external to the self. If God were real, [he]'d have a real description, and seekers after God would be looking for something real. There would be no reason in principle why God shouldn't have [his] own TV show, net site, YourPrayersAnswered call center. make house calls &c.

And there'd be an objective test which would tell me whether my keyboard was God or not.

But God exists only as a set of concepts with no real counterpart. Nor is any real counterpart imagined for [him] (though even the unicorn has an imagined counterpart). God is purely a mental construct, made by each individual, and possibly helped along by tendencies that have evolved to suit the survival and breeding of gregarious primates.

Well, you can define God in coherent manner. God is objective reality in itself independent of the self. Now this God exists, but is unknowable and supernatural as per "of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe". Now this God is not religious as such, but rather meta-natural.
In other words this God is philosophical as per Descartes(the problem of a trickster God or Boltzmann Brain universe) and Kant as per "das Ding an sich".

So yes, God exists, but is unknowable other than the cognitive/rational analysis that there must be an objective reality in itself independent of the self.
In practice science is a form of phenomenology, which simply takes for granted that objective reality behaves in this manner:

• Nature is orderly, and the laws of nature describe that order. ...
• We can know nature. ...
• All phenomena have natural causes. ...
• Nothing is self evident. ...
• Knowledge is derived from acquisition of experience. ...
• Knowledge is superior to ignorance.

As for your "real". The word "real" has no objective referent, it is a subjective concept, which you believe is real. That is what marks you as a believer. You haven't solved epistemological solipsism, so you use an in effect dogmatic definition of real being objective. "Real" is your God.

 

[Kenny]

#57 wasn't Deeje and a cursory effort didn't find it

What I mean is that many religious claims don't have evidence for them that's demonstrable and independently verifiable. In other words, the kind of evidence you'd expect to reasonably accept any other proposition.

I don't agree. When a doctor (which is independent) doesn't have an explanation and sometimes even admits "seems like a miracle to me" - In my view, that is evidence

Usually what happens is the a person who just doesn't agree with the viewpoint says things like, "there's another explanation; must have been an x-ray error - it's happened before; the body has a way of healing itself etc; show me the doctors report (when it generally isn't given out;" or, in other words, there never is enough evidence. (I've seen that consistently)

A title deed would be a solid piece of evidence that the piece of land exists, that's true, because of what we know about title deeds. We have literally millions of examples of title deeds that correspond to actual pieces of property. And if we really want to be sure, we can go and see that, in fact, the land listed on the title deed exists. That's exactly the kind of evidence we don't have for supernatural claims.

That was only a definition to give understanding.

When you receive a check, a promissory note, you have faith that there is money in the bank although you don't know what the balance is in the bank or even if there is money there -- you have faith that what is written has the backing. When you get the money - you know that it is a good check.

When God writes a promise on paper (a check so to speak) and you believe the check is good, you have faith that they backing is there. When it manifests, you know that it was good.

So 51 years ago when the doctor said to my pregnant wife and I, "don't come to the next appointment without a $100 payment" and true faith was exercised on the written promise "God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus" - we just didn't enter into worry.

In the morning on the day of the next appointment a young man, who had no idea of our situation, gave me a handshake that had a folded piece of paper. A folded $100 bill and we went to the appointment. in the afternoon

Of course people will say "coincidence; someone told him (when we didn't tell anyone)" and any other reason, but when it consistently happens again and again, you just learn to trust God on His written word with faith.

 

[blü 2]

Well, you can define God in coherent manner. God is objective reality in itself independent of the self.

If you can show that, it will be a great start.

Now this God exists, but is unknowable

Unknowable? Then no informed statement can be made about [him]. None. Zip. Nada.

So yes, God exists, but is unknowable other than the cognitive/rational analysis that there must be an objective reality in itself independent of the self.

The existence of objective reality in no way points to or requires a 'god'. Otherwise this god would be one of the first things an enquirer into reality would encounter. Instead there's nothing but the reality of the physical world.

In practice science is a form of phenomenology, which simply takes for granted that objective reality behaves in this manner:

But don't lose sight of the fact that science proceeds by empiricism and induction, so none of its conclusions can ever be final ─ simply our best understanding at this time.

The word "real" has no objective referent

That's because it's an adjective. Its related noun, 'reality', has an objective referent which goes by various names ─ nature, the world external to the self, the realm of the physical sciences, the sum of all entities and processes with objective existence, and so on.

it is a subjective concept, which you believe is real.

As I've mentioned before, I proceed on three assumptions ─ that a world exists external to the self; that the senses are capable of informing us of that world; and that reason is a valid tool. The joke here is that you share at the least the first two of those assumptions, or you wouldn't be posting here; and I trust you also think reason is a valid tool.

That is what marks you as a believer. You haven't solved epistemological solipsism, so you use an in effect dogmatic definition of real being objective. "Real" is your God.

My parents were real. I was born into reality. So were you. I will die in reality and thus cease to exist in reality. So will you, eventually. As long as you breath real air, eat real food, shelter from the real rain, live in a real society, converse on real net sites, vote in real elections, watch real TV or movies, wear clothes, and a watch, and so on, and so on, you're no less a user, believer and enjoyer of reality than I am.

 

[Left Coast]

#57 wasn't Deeje and a cursory effort didn't find it

It was #56, sorry.

I don't agree. When a doctor (which is independent) doesn't have an explanation and sometimes even admits "seems like a miracle to me" - In my view, that is evidence

Evidence of what? All it's evidence of is that something we don't understand happened. That happens all the time. You can't jump from "I don't know what happened" to "my God must have done it." You've got work to do in the middle there.

Usually what happens is the a person who just doesn't agree with the viewpoint says things like, "there's another explanation; must have been an x-ray error - it's happened before; the body has a way of healing itself etc; show me the doctors report (when it generally isn't given out;" or, in other words, there never is enough evidence. (I've seen that consistently)

First, all those explanations are possible and would have to be ruled out if you wanted to demonstrate some religious miracle. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, as they say. The body does heal itself; testing sometimes can be erroneous; and I've dealt with enough patients to know that their recollection of their condition and care is often not accurate...which one verifies by looking at their records.

When you receive a check, a promissory note, you have faith that there is money in the bank although you don't know what the balance is in the bank or even if there is money there -- you have faith that what is written has the backing. When you get the money - you know that it is a good check.

If by "faith" you mean "confidence," yes when I'm given a check I do have a proportional degree of confidence that that money is in the bank, because again we understand how checks work and have millions of verifiable example of it working. However, even that's not absolute...checks can and do bounce. Again, the "faith" here is proportional to the evidence and based on independently verifiable, empirical evidence.

When God writes a promise on paper (a check so to speak) and you believe the check is good, you have faith that they backing is there. When it manifests, you know that it was good.

God hasn't ever verifiably written a promise on paper. What has happened is that humans have written promises on paper and claimed they speak for God. So again, the bank analogy breaks down because that's exactly the kind of evidence we don't have.

Now, if someone claiming to speak for a deity writes on paper, "you should wash your hands to prevent illness," does the fact they're right about that mean God gave them that information?

So 51 years ago when the doctor said to my pregnant wife and I, "don't come to the next appointment without a $100 payment" and true faith was exercised on the written promise "God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus" - we just didn't enter into worry.

In the morning on the day of the next appointment a young man, who had no idea of our situation, gave me a handshake that had a folded piece of paper. A folded $100 bill and we went to the appointment. in the afternoon

Of course people will say "coincidence; someone told him (when we didn't tell anyone)" and any other reason, but when it consistently happens again and again, you just learn to trust God on His written word with faith.

The problem here is you're ignoring the countless people whose needs weren't supplied despite their faith. Theists love to talk about answered prayer examples. They don't so much talk about the many, many prayer requests that aren't ever fulfilled. The countless people who don't ever get the money for their next doctor's visit, the countless people who succumb to their terminal illness, who lose their homes, whose lives are shattered by natural disaster, who pray for whatever it is that just doesn't happen. And of course, there are ways those effects are rationalized:"it wasn't God's will," and so on. But if we're just counting Ws and Ls, you can't just count the Ws and claim your method is a proven success. The truth is, prayer and the kind of faith you're talking about is a crap shoot. Sometimes it works, even in ways that are spectacular. Other times, just as frequent if not more so, it fails, sometimes in ways that are spectacular. Which, again, is nothing like a bank issuing a check.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

If you can show that, it will be a great start.
Unknowable? ...

Well, you haven't solved Agrippa's Trilemma, epistemological solipsism or what reality is independent of the mind other than independent. So for knowledge you haven't yourself presented reasoning, that solves these problems.
So in effect, you believe in something, which is unknowable. So do I. I just admit it.

 

[ppp]

Yes, now think them away as a way of control.

Pfui. You aren't paying attention to your own claims. There is nothing that one can do everything with. Including one's own thoughts. If that is your actual standard, then there is nothing that is you. Nothing.

 

[ppp]

No, we can't proceed before you accept unknown and without evidence as valid.

Then we cannot proceed. Your #3 is not a rational foundation.

 

[Left Coast]

Sorry, I assumed that you were an atheist for some reason.

I am.

but being "Buddha conscious", doesn't mean being a Buddhist though does it? I have not heard anyone identify this way before....can I ask you what it means in practice?

It means I'm not formally Buddhist but I appreciate Buddhism's teachings and find them insightful and helpful.

Is it your own or other people's freedom of religion you value?

Both.

What place does religion have in a world that is so divided along so many lines?...religion being one of the main dividers.

Religion is a personal matter, and bleeds into culture. The point of secularism (and by extension, freedom of religion) is that religion and government should remain separate. We've had enough examples of theocracy in the world to know it's not a good idea.

I have no formal education in science but I have read many articles and literature that others have posted here and on the net to reinforce their views on the subject. If there was any proof for their assertions they would have produced them by now. No one has.

You're making a few assumptions there. If you have no formal scientific education, I'd recommend if this topic genuinely interests you that you pursue some. Audit a few classes at a local college. Ask the professor questions - they have graduate education in the subject and will likely have more expertise than your typical random person on the internet.

I personally like Berkley's approach for students because it dispenses with the scientific jargon and presents its case in language I understand. When you strip away the jargon, you see the bare bones and they don't have much flesh on them.

Without formal education in the subject, and based on your caricatures of what evolution is so far in this thread, I don't think you actually have as strong an understanding of it as you think you do.

Well I'm sorry but.....no "proof" means no facts.

Well I'm sorry but...wrong. A fact is a proposition that is so well attested by the evidence that it is virtually certain. That we are chatting on religiousforums.com is a fact. That Donald Trump is President of the US is a fact. That the Earth is round is a fact. None of those things are absolute certainties. But they are so well substantiated that it would be foolish not to act on the assumption they're true.

You can't present something as truth if there are only suggestions. Suggestions are not science. The language of truth has no "maybe's". Evolution is all maybe's.

Incorrect, again. Science never deals in certainties. The science that is enabling this conversation over the internet isn't absolutely certain. But hey, it's happening.

The 'emperors' don't like to be exposed as 'naked'. They think that their garments are beautifully tailored, but when it is pointed out that their pet theory is unsupported by any real evidence, the name calling begins and it can get ugly. Its like you're insulting their gods.

Or perhaps, many people have tols you the same thing because...you're not as informed as you think you are on this subject? Which is consistent with the evidence we have: you have no formal education on the subject, and even in this brief interaction your summaries of the subject have been caricatures, strawmen that misuse language and seem not to understand the basic ideas involved.

So rather than posit conspiracy...perhaps it would be wise to admit they might understand something you don't?

Of course not....I have a problem with untestable beliefs being presented as absolute truth. Have you listened to Dawkins and his ilk? That is what I have a problem with.
If evolution is a belief, it should be presented as such.

Again, nothing in science is absolute truth. We have relative certainty proportional to the evidence. And the evidence for evolution is substantial.

Alas they have tried, and have since retired....

I'm not buying what they are selling. I don't think you realize how "faith" based their theory is. Have you done any research?

Yes.

I assume that you know the history of the health system in America? Its an interesting read, as its tentacles have spread all over the world. Big Pharma runs your show, which is in itself not a criticism of health care workers, but a criticism of the system under which they operate.

"Big Pharma" has nothing to do with whether masks prevent germs from spreading. It's unfortunate, because you're bringing up a legitimately concerning issue but presenting it as a caricature of what the actual problem is and in what way it is.

Doctoring these days is little more than prescribing pills for symptoms rather than getting to the bottom of any nation's health issues. One only has to watch the elderly or those who suffer with a multitude of health issues to see how it is handled. Baskets full of pills at the pharmacy.....Pills with horrible side effects, and more pills to make them manageable. Cher-ching $$$$ These are groomed to be customers for life, dependent of these drugs to keep them alive.....or so they have been told.....

Sometimes that's the case, though the tide is turning. I speak and work with doctors daily. They are not all pill pushers. In primary care particularly, they genuinely do make efforts to get to the root of what causes people's health issues. There's a whole area of public health and medicine concerned with it: social determinants of health.

And masks aren't pills. So that's an irrelevant example to the efficacy of mask wearing.

I do not doubt that for a moment. I have the utmost respect for the hard working health care professionals.....front-line workers especially. Its the system they work in that I have a problem with. You are trained into that system and no one is allowed to step outside of it's very narrow approach to treatment options. Doctors must remain within its confines or they will lose their license, even when they know how often these expensive treatments do not work.

Massive oversimplification of the issue. Doctors "step out" and try new treatments all the time.

Its not a conspiracy theory...it is a very inconvenient truth. The universities that train physicians are teaching them to be nothing more than 'pimps' for the wealthy drug companies that fund them.

Incorrect. Again.

But their 'doctoring' isn't getting good results, which is why people are turing to alternative medicine in their droves and actually getting well. Nowhere is this more demonstrated than in the increasingly common auto-immune disorders. One of my dearest friends has been suffering horribly from misdiagnosed Parkinson's Disease. The medications just made her worse yet the specialists kept prescribing them. Fed up, she decided to ditch her physicians and seek alternative medicine.....she is on cannabis now and enjoying a much better quality of life. She has also changed her diet as food intolerances were making her ill as well.....she is a new woman after 15 years of bad doctoring. She is not alone. Many others are getting the same results.

Big Pharma has now changed its mind on cannabis and wants a big slice of that pie after 7 decades of demonizing a harmless plant in order to peddle their expensive, synthetic poisons. It is a very corrupt system but not so that you would notice because of the dedicated health care workers who keep that sinking ship afloat. I am sad for them....and you. You have not been told the truth.

This is another con job of mammoth proportions.....the world is not ruled by nice people......those who put greed first....and people last. Money drives everything.

What you're bringing up can be an issue, in some contexts. Pharmaceutical companies of course do want to sell drugs. And drugs often are bandaids that treat symptoms rather than the root issues. Other times, drugs are incredibly effective and resolve people's concerns very successfully.

All of that is perfectly irrelevant to whether you should wear a mask to prevent the spread of a respiratory illness.

 

[Sunstone]

The notion that "the language of truth has no 'maybes'" would seem to me to express a psychological need on the part of anyone who believes such a thing, rather than a conclusion based on an astute grasp of the nature of truth.

 

[Left Coast]

The notion that "the language of truth has no 'maybes'" would seem to me to express a psychological need on the part of anyone who believes such a thing, rather than a conclusion based on an astute grasp of the nature of truth.

I've noticed this as well. People who gravitate towards fundamentalism are usually very uncomfortable with uncertainty or shades of grey. I'm not sure if it's learned or just a part of some people's personality.

 

[Sunstone]

I'm not sure if it's learned or just a part of some people's personality.

I'm not sure either, but that's a fascinating question.