Christians. Could you be wrong?

[Bad Wolf]

Let me ask you something, do you own a car?

No no, we're not doing this, I know where you're going. I don't accept your definition of faith.

[Ryantology]

The placebo effect doesn't cure anything. It just tricks a person psychologically into feeling like their condition is improving. Your article essentially said as much.

It's sort of like how religion makes some people behave better because they are tricked into thinking that an invisible authority figure is always watching them. Some people can do fine without that. Fake medicine is of no use to healthy people, after all.

[Huggy Bear]

How do you figure i'm squirming away when i clearly established my position from the beginning.

My point was that faith healing was real and corroborated by scientific studies on the "placebo effect". Faith has absolutely nothing to do with God or religion but is simply defined in the bible as "the substance of things hoped for".

So how do you explain nocebos occurring during placebo studies? Or the reverse?

Placebos are not a defined mechanism whereby the wishes of the patient are automatically translated into a regression of symptoms or indeed a 'cure'. Indeed, as I've already stated to you and you ignored, the presence of a placebo in the absence of a physical active ingredient that causes the hypothesised effect is actually evidence of no physical effect. That's why double blind studies are conducted.

---

Firstly your article states "The nocebo effect is less well-studied and well-known, by both scientists and the public, than the placebo effect." So to try and make a comparison between the two is futile since both were not studied to the same degree.

But since I've been saying all along that faith is A-religious, it can act in the positive or negative.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Firstly your article states "The nocebo effect is less well-studied and well-known, by both scientists and the public, than the placebo effect." So to try and make a comparison between the two is futile since both were not studied to the same degree.

But since I've been saying all along that faith is A-religious, it can act in the positive or negative.

But the nocebo exists, as do paradoxical instances of its result in placebo based trials. Is written right there. You can't dismiss it simply because it's an unknown entity to a slightly larger degree than placebo.

Which, by the way, still doesn't act in the way you've said it does. I don't know how many times you can ignore this point.

[vorlon13]

{scary when I use math!!!}

If you have 100 Lutherans and 100 Catholics, you definitely have at least 100 wrong Christians.

Add 100 Methodists, and you have at least 200 wrong Christians

Add 100 Mormons, and you'll have at least 300 wrong Chrisitians

Add 100 Seventh Day Adventists, and have at least 400 wrong Christians

Add 100 Jehovah's Witnesses, and you're up to at the the very least, 500 wrong Christians.




How many more you want? I can line them up in vans . . .

[jughead]

As an atheist I am willing to admit that I could be wrong. God may exist. Your Bible may be 100% accurate. All I need is evidence.

Is there anything that could convince you that the God of the Bible may not exist?

If a Christian believed this they would be an agnostic. You either believe or you don't. Believers operate on faith and wishful thinking. They do not do well with actual fact. They must turn a blind eye to fact.

When your in a religion you believe the dogma even if it is ridiculous. The only ones that can be objective are those outside the religion. It does not matter to the Christians that none of the writers of the bible ever met Jesus. They need the fantasy to get though life.

[Ravenshire]

"Christians. Could you be wrong?"

Of course not. After all, they have the one true source of eternal perfect truth. How could they possible be wrong?!?

[Esquilax]

But since I've been saying all along that faith is A-religious, it can act in the positive or negative.

However, one doesn't have faith in a medical placebo, as you have the evidence of, oh, I dunno, the entire history of modern medicine to demonstrate that doctors are quite adept at curing things.

You really are trying for the false equivocation double reacharound here, aren't you? First you attempt to equate faith healing in the religious sense with the placebo effect, and then in order to make that comparison at all functional you're attempting to equate reasonable expectations of success based on evidence, with blind religious faith.

Don't you ever feel bad, that the only way you can defend your belief in god is to devalue the meaning of other words? Isn't that a tacit admission that the terms of your religion can't stand on their own, without other terms being handicapped?

[Huggy Bear]

But since I've been saying all along that faith is A-religious, it can act in the positive or negative.

However, one doesn't have faith in a medical placebo, as you have the evidence of, oh, I dunno, the entire history of modern medicine to demonstrate that doctors are quite adept at curing things.

You really are trying for the false equivocation double reacharound here, aren't you? First you attempt to equate faith healing in the religious sense with the placebo effect, and then in order to make that comparison at all functional you're attempting to equate reasonable expectations of success based on evidence, with blind religious faith.

Don't you ever feel bad, that the only way you can defend your belief in god is to devalue the meaning of other words? Isn't that a tacit admission that the terms of your religion can't stand on their own, without other terms being handicapped?

Of course one doesn't have faith in a placebo, the point is for them not to know it's a placebo, but are told it is a revolutionary procedure, That is what they have faith in.

As it was stated in the article I posted: a man is dying of cancer of the lymph nodes, has difficulty breathing, and is bedridden. He receives injections of a new anticancer drug called Krebiozen (a placebo). Within days the tumors shrink by half and he is eventually released from the hospital. After he finds out he was given a placebo, he dies days later.

Since you say faith has nothing to do with it, why don't you try explaining how this phenomena works?

[Simon Moon]

Of course one doesn't have faith in a placebo, the point is for them not to know it's a placebo, but are told it is a revolutionary procedure, That is what they have faith in.

As it was stated in the article I posted: a man is dying of cancer of the lymph nodes, has difficulty breathing, and is bedridden. He receives injections of a new anticancer drug called Krebiozen (a placebo). Within days the tumors shrink by half and he is eventually released from the hospital. After he finds out he was given a placebo, he dies days later.

Since you say faith has nothing to do with it, why don't you try explaining how this phenomena works?

Is this a real case, or are you just pulling it out of your butt?

When doing animal cancer studies, a group of rats will be given cancer. Some will be treated with an experimental drug, some will not (the control group).

Among the control group with cancer but not given any drug, a certain percentage of the rats will spontaneously have remissions. It happens. No faith required.