Why Attack Christianity?

[RevJP]

I was just wondering about reasons for what people do. I understand why Christians evangelize. Our faith tells us that we have an eternal soul and that the eternal dispensation of that soul is determined by what happens here on earth. Eternal life, living with the almighty God is based on our faith and acceptance of Him and failure to accept Him as Lord results in our eternal seperation from Him. The choice is clear, eternal glory, or eternal suffering.

So we are commanded to spread the Good news, to allow everyone to accept Christ, and we do so for the sake of their eternal soul, altruistic? Perhaps, but we do it out of love, His love working through us.

So what I am really wondering about is why non-believers need to attack our faith, or feel the need? narrowing it down a bit, why would a non-believer come to a Christianity discussion forum to denounce that faith, or try to persuade those there that their faith is wrong?

I'm really wondering at motivation. We understand the motivation of the Christian for spreading the Word of his/her faith, but what is the motivation for the non-beleiver to attack it? What do they gain or lose? What reward hinges upon them being successful or not at convincing someone to abandon their faith, or to turn away from considering adopting that faith?

If my faith is wrong, and there is no God, no heaven, no hell, what do I lose? In this life nothing, in eternity nothing? As a Christian I lose nothing. For the rabid non-beleiver however, the answer is quite different is it not? If their view is wrong and there is a God in heaven and a devil in hell, what do they lose?

So I'm wondering at why....

[Lotan]

Regarding acupuncture...

Of course it doesn't work.

My father in law is an MD as well as an atheist. About 10 years ago he learned to use acupuncture to control pain (his specialty is sports medicine). It works. I won't pretend to know how, but it works.
Folk remedies may be little more than the placebo effect but they are still better than nothing. 'Faith healing' was about the only kind of medical treatment available until relatively recent times.

[Dilettante]

trencacloscas and Lotan,

My father was a doctor and my mother a nurse. That doesn't mean anything. Doctors are not necessarily scientists, medicine is not a science, but a set of techniques and practices. Of course, medical therapies that work are based on scientific discoveries and are subjected to rigorous tests.

The placebo effect exists, I'm not disputing that, and perhaps for some people it is especially effective psychologically if exotic paraphernalia such as acupuncture needles are involved. Still, it is believing in something which isn't there.

My point (including the jab at the Argentinians, no offence intended) was that "perfectly rational people", if they exist at all, are a small minority. Most of us believe in something we cannot "see", and don't realize that believing it to be true does not make it true. So it's not a matter of intelligence, it's just a human "frailty" if you will. And our intelligence plays tricks on us: we (atheists and theists alike) are equally human and fall for certain things not because we're stupid, but precisely because we are intelligent.

Here's a link on acupuncture:
http://skepdic.com/acupunc.html

Here are some links explaining why "alternative therapies" seem (but only "seem") to work:

www.csicop.org/si/9709/beyer.html
www.quackwatch.org/ 01QuackeryRelatedTopics/altbelief.html
www.horsemagazine.com/CLINIC/R/RAMEY_DAVID/Ramey.html
www.encyclopedia.lockergnome.com/s/b/Magical_thinking

And about Mr. Sigmund Freud, please read this:

www.skepdic.com/psychoan.html

Dr. Freud (or "Fraud", as some call him today) was never a scientist and psychology does not owe him that great a debt. His once popular theory of dreams is the laughing stock of modern psychologists. No doubt he raised a good racket and may have caused some real researchers to become interested in the human psyche, but that's about it. He wasn't even the first to posit the existence of the subconscious. After reading the excellent articles on Freud by Martin Gardner, my heart goes out to Freud's unwitting victims!

[LillSnopp]

Error

[LillSnopp]

My point (including the jab at the Argentinians, no offence intended) was that "perfectly rational people", if they exist at all, are a small minority.

I know we are, that was my point.

[MagusYanam]

Dilettante, I agree that there are many branches of alternative medicine that may be little more than just the placebo effect in action. There are New Agers who believe a lot of silly stuff will help them overcome illness. As regards TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), however, I think the assertion of 'bogus treatment' is a non-starter.

Firstly, you have to take into account the length of time TCM has been around. The experimentation with folk remedies in China has been going on for between four thousand and six thousand years, and it's still around. That alone says nothing for its efficacy, but it does when it is coupled with the fact that the Confucian mindset encourages induction and pragmatism - not exactly the scientific method, but for a very long time (thanks to the down-to-earth realism of Confucian thought) TCM has gone with what works.

And work it does. People come in routinely to hospitals around China to be treated with TCM or a combination of TCM and Western techniques. For example, a patient with a brain tumor could be given a combination of Western anaesthetic and acupuncture before undergoing the operation. The patient will only be given half the drugs s / he would be given in the West, and will still be conscious and able to speak during surgery - and feel no pain. That would be a drastic example, but other forms of therapy, like Qigong, do work to help keep people healthy - just ask the 72-year-old patient who had been told s / he wouldn't live to see his / her 60th birthday.

Also, there is a different POV for a traditional Chinese doctor than for a Western doctor. The Western doctor is interested in the malefactor - the microparasite or abnormality that is causing the disease, and how to rid the body of it. The Chinese doctor is more interested in finding a way for the patient to bring him- or herself back into a harmonious (healthy) state.

So, from a Western medical standpoint, do we know how it works? Not really. Does it work? Well, with 4000 years of existence and probably 2500 years of close pragmatic scrutiny, I'd be surprised if it didn't, and the data say TCM techniques do work beyond the placebo effect.

(By the way, I've checked out CSICOP before. I respect that scepticism and the sceptical methodology have definite merit, but the people at CSICOP seem to hold the methodology of scepticism as something almost sacred, an attitude which I find very hypocritical and unbecoming to people claiming to be sceptics, so you will pardon me if I don't take what they say concerning TCM at face value.)

[Nyril]

Firstly, you have to take into account the length of time TCM has been around. The experimentation with folk remedies in China has been going on for between four thousand and six thousand years, and it's still around. That alone says nothing for its efficacy, but it does when it is coupled with the fact that the Confucian mindset encourages induction and pragmatism - not exactly the scientific method, but for a very long time (thanks to the down-to-earth realism of Confucian thought) TCM has gone with what works.

Argumentum ad antiquitatem

This is the fallacy of asserting that something is right or good simply because it's old, or because "that's the way it's always been." The opposite of Argumentum ad Novitatem.

"For thousands of years Christians have believed in Jesus Christ. Christianity must be true, to have persisted so long even in the face of persecution."

And work it does. People come in routinely to hospitals around China to be treated with TCM or a combination of TCM and Western techniques. For example, a patient with a brain tumor could be given a combination of Western anaesthetic and acupuncture before undergoing the operation. The patient will only be given half the drugs s / he would be given in the West, and will still be conscious and able to speak during surgery - and feel no pain. That would be a drastic example, but other forms of therapy, like Qigong, do work to help keep people healthy - just ask the 72-year-old patient who had been told s / he wouldn't live to see his / her 60th birthday.

Source please.

Well, with 4000 years of existence and probably 2500 years of close pragmatic scrutiny, I'd be surprised if it didn't, and the data say TCM techniques do work beyond the placebo effect.

Argumentum ad antiquitatem.

[MagusYanam]

Argumentum ad antiquitatem

Wrong. Check my argument again.

Firstly, you have to take into account the length of time TCM has been around. The experimentation with folk remedies in China has been going on for between four thousand and six thousand years, and it's still around. That alone says nothing for its efficacy, but it does when it is coupled with the fact that the Confucian mindset encourages induction and pragmatism - not exactly the scientific method, but for a very long time (thanks to the down-to-earth realism of Confucian thought) TCM has gone with what works.

I am not saying 'it's good because it's old', I'm saying 'it's good because it works well enough to have stood up to Confucian inductive scrutiny'. This is not argumentum ad antiquitatem.

And work it does. People come in routinely to hospitals around China to be treated with TCM or a combination of TCM and Western techniques. For example, a patient with a brain tumor could be given a combination of Western anaesthetic and acupuncture before undergoing the operation. The patient will only be given half the drugs s / he would be given in the West, and will still be conscious and able to speak during surgery - and feel no pain. That would be a drastic example, but other forms of therapy, like Qigong, do work to help keep people healthy - just ask the 72-year-old patient who had been told s / he wouldn't live to see his / her 60th birthday.

Source please.

Healing and the Mind by Bill Moyers - the host of the PBS news series, Now. Probably one of the more reputable and careful journalists of our time. In Healing and the Mind Moyers approaches TCM from a very Western POV and walks away with a very positive impression, having seen the pragmatic results.

[Nyril]

Wrong. Check my argument again.

Here's what I see.

Firstly, you have to take into account the length of time TCM has been around. The experimentation with folk remedies in China has been going on for between four thousand and six thousand years, and it's still around. That alone says nothing for its efficacy, but it does when it is coupled with the fact that the Confucian mindset encourages induction and pragmatism - not exactly the scientific method, but for a very long time (thanks to the down-to-earth realism of Confucian thought) TCM has gone with what works.

You harp continuously on the length of time it's been around. If you removed those references from your statement, it would look like this.

Confucian mindset encourages induction and pragmatism - not exactly the scientific method, (thanks to the down-to-earth realism of Confucian thought) TCM has gone with what works.

Which is a manifestation of the pragmatic fallacy Dilettante brought up.

I am not saying 'it's good because it's old', I'm saying 'it's good because it works well enough to have stood up to Confucian inductive scrutiny'. This is not argumentum ad antiquitatem.

That scrutiny starts at the point which assumes acupuncture works. Its the same as having witchcraft refined over the past 1000 years in which witches stopped boiling toads and started boiling salamanders because they found the second worked better in curses. It's not actual refining, it's just doing nothing a different way.

Healing and the Mind by Bill Moyers - the host of the PBS news series, Now. Probably one of the more reputable and careful journalists of our time. In Healing and the Mind Moyers approaches TCM from a very Western POV and walks away with a very positive impression, having seen the pragmatic results.

I looked it up and found it here.

Bill Moyers reports on a new dimension to healing that reveals a connection between mind and body. Moyers talks with professionals conducting mind-body research and with a range of people about their experience with these new practices and how their ideas of sickness and health are being redefined. Includes The Mystery of Chi, The Mind and Body Connection, Healing From Within, The Art of Healing, and Wounded Healers.

That's the VHS, here's their description of the book.

Addressing the issues associated with alternative medicine, a companion volume to a successful PBS series demonstrates how mind/body medicine is being effectively applied to such conditions as stress, cancer, and neonatal problems.

I suppose I'll need to read/watch these before I can pass effective judgement, but the topics suggested by those descriptions are not topics I accept as givens.

[MagusYanam]

You harp continuously on the length of time it's been around. If you removed those references from your statement, it would look like this.

Yes, I did mention several times that TCM had been around for quite a while. But never did I use the argument that this alone was a good criterion for accepting the validity of TCM. There is a difference.

Which is a manifestation of the pragmatic fallacy Dilettante brought up.

How is pragmatic value a fallacy? If it produces results, you want to find out how those results were produced, but if you can't find out how from a specific standpoint, you don't dismiss the results. That's bad (Western) science. You seek another explanation and do further testing.

That scrutiny starts at the point which assumes acupuncture works. Its the same as having witchcraft refined over the past 1000 years in which witches stopped boiling toads and started boiling salamanders because they found the second worked better in curses. It's not actual refining, it's just doing nothing a different way.

Okay, then, how did modern Western medicine come about, if not by assuming that Hebrew and Arabic folk remedies and knowledge of anatomy worked, and then subjecting them to inductive scrutiny? The Chinese worked on their own system of medicine this way, so I fail to see the difference. From here, it looks like you're begging the question:

TCM doesn't work.
Inductive inquiry cannot 'actually refine' that which doesn't work.
_______________________
TCM doesn't work.

You see the problem here, right?

[Dilettante]

LillSnopp wrote:

Quote:
My point (including the jab at the Argentinians, no offence intended) was that "perfectly rational people", if they exist at all, are a small minority.


I know we are, that was my point.

Of course, I can always tell a perfectly rational person from us regular mortals by the way they eat their smorgasbord. BTW, wasn't Immanuel Swedenborg a great Swedish rationalist?

MagusYanam wrote:

Firstly, you have to take into account the length of time TCM has been around. The experimentation with folk remedies in China has been going on for between four thousand and six thousand years, and it's still around. That alone says nothing for its efficacy, but it does when it is coupled with the fact that the Confucian mindset encourages induction and pragmatism - not exactly the scientific method, but for a very long time (thanks to the down-to-earth realism of Confucian thought) TCM has gone with what works.

Thanks for your response, Magus. I always appreciate your common sense posts. However, I can't agree with you about TCM. Precisely because it has been around for so long, I would expect to have seen revolutionary progress in its techniques (think about how much progress Western medicine has made in the last decades only). But actually, acupuncture has not changed significantly for millenia. That's the hallmark of pseudoscience right there.

In addition, if no one can describe how it works, how do they know it works? In many cases it might be just that the illness has run its natural course. And just what does it mean to bring a patient to a state of harmony with his/her environment? I understand (perhaps someone can correct me) that dissection of the human body was a taboo or was forbidden in ancient China, which would explain the mystical notions about mysterious energies circulating through conduits called "meridians".

Also, anecdotal evidence doesn't really count for much. I know people who firmly believe that brandy can cure a common cold faster than just lying in bed drinking water (probably it just seems faster to him after the first swigs). I'd like to see rigorous studies validating acupuncture, so far I have seen none, although it has been claimed that electric stimulation of certain nerve endings--not acupuncture points--with special needles can have some effect. I don't want to put Bill Moyers down, but the media are not reliable in general because they are always under pressure to come up with a "good story" and something newsworthy, so it's common for them to stretch the facts.