(January 26, 2021 at 11:40 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: So opium doesn't count because it wasn't used widely in one area of the world for a couple centuries?
Willow bark is essentially where we get aspirin from and it's been in use for thousands of years.
I know you don't like to be wrong, but on the idea that pain relief medications/remedies are a new thing is not correct.
Well, I am trying to get to the bottom of this. I mean the article is what people used in the past to relieve pain, but that doesn't mean it was successful, like the willow bark you single out - after all these years there are no conclusive evidence that it works, and at best it seems to work in the range of aspirin.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
