What Does It Mean To Be Human? Don’t Ask A Darwinist

_{Donald McLaughlin

November 19, 2019

Intelligent Design

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Intelligent Design}

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“What does it mean to be human?” is one of the fundamental questions we all ask. Every once in a while something happens to remind us that those influenced by Darwinism usually only answer the question with “not much”. As a case in point, just today it’s being reported that the father of a son born with two rare diseases was trying to raise money for medical expenses. He had put up signs at a local mall to raise awareness and funds.

“KC Ahlers said he posted six signs around the Franklin Park Mall in Toledo, Ohio to spread awareness about an upcoming fundraiser for his 4-month-old son, RJ. The father told WTVG on Friday that he discovered three additional signs posted next to his that read: “Stop asking for money. Let the baby die. It’s called Darwinism. Happy Holidays.”

And there you have it. “Only the fit survive, and your diseased child isn’t fit to survive, so just let him die!” Only a true Darwinist would say that.

Comments

MatSpirit:
LIVING ORGANISMS ARE MADE OF MATTER. There’s no magic involved.
LIVING ORGANISMS ARE MADE OF MORE THAN MATTER. Design is not magic, dippy-do.ET_{November 27, 2019
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MatSpirit claims that "You place matter before life and you decide that matter has existed for all eternity.<,,, you have presented precisely zip to say it was life first." Actually, that claim is false, and proves that MatSpirit is NOT reading for comprehension. in post 88 I specifically referenced the Big Bang and the falsification of realism,
indeed today, not even close to ten thousand years hence, we find abundant evidence that matter has not existed for all eternity, (you know the whole Big Bang thing?), where space-time, matter-energy, themselves were created? Not to mention the falsification of realism in quantum mechanics that proves that consciousness must precede material reality. Thus Louis Pasteur was very much correct in his intuition. Matter, according to our best evidence from both cosmology and quantum mechanics, certainly has NOT existed for all eternity and life itself, (i.e. God), not matter, is what has existed through all eternity. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/what-does-it-mean-to-be-human-dont-ask-a-darwinist/#comment-688468
MatSpirit then claims that " LIVING ORGANISMS ARE MADE OF MATTER. There’s no magic involved." Yet, as has been repeatedly pointed out to MatSpirit and other atheistic materialists, living organism are not made of ONLY matter. Besides matter and energy, life is also made of information, and information ONLY comes from a mind.
Stephen Meyer: DNA and Information https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c9PaZzsqEg
Then MatSpirit once again moved the deck chairs around with the whole 'significantly improved longevity correlated with going to church' thing. Apparently he wants to claim that the increase in longevity is due solely to socialization. MatSpirit should have taken care to read my links more closely for comprehension. He would have saved embarrassing himself once again:
Can Religion Extend Your Life? – By Chuck Dinerstein — June 16, 2018 Excerpt: The researcher’s regression analysis suggested that the effect of volunteering and participation accounted for 20% or 1 year of the impact, while religious affiliation accounted for the remaining four years or 80%. https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/06/16/can-religion-extend-your-life-13092
bornagain77_{November 27, 2019
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BA77: "MatSpirit also derided going to church as improving longevity, but the facts are what they are no matter how he tries to avoid it." I also posted some of the reasons why going to church (or [gasp] temple or {gasp gasp} Mosque) or any other activity gets you out of the house and embedded in the society around you, but of course that probably didn't make it pass your Christian colored filter.MatSpirit_{November 26, 2019
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BA77 @ 101: "MatSpirit, Uh, please read for comprehension." I did and I suggest you do the same, although I don't think you're really capable of that, at least for anything that threatens your religion. Here's what you've posted at least twice in this thread: "I have been looking for spontaneous generation for twenty years without discovering it. >>No, I do not judge it impossible.<>You place matter before life and you decide that matter has existed for all eternity.< life relationship has only gotten stronger while you have presented precisely zip to say it was life first. LIVING ORGANISMS ARE MADE OF MATTER. There's no magic involved.MatSpirit_{November 26, 2019
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MatSpirit, Uh, please read for comprehension. When Louis Pasteur, a Christian mind you, states "that life has existed during eternity", he is making reference to God as the source for all life, certainly not 'molten life' as you falsely imagine in your fevered materialistic imagination.
Louis Pasteur on life, matter, and spontaneous generation – June 21, 2015 “Science brings men nearer to God.,, Posterity will one day laugh at the foolishness of modern materialistic philosophers. The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. I pray while I am engaged at my work in the laboratory.,, The Greeks understood the mysterious power of the below things. They are the ones who gave us one of the most beautiful words in our language, the word enthusiasm: a God within.,,, I have been looking for spontaneous generation for twenty years without discovering it. No, I do not judge it impossible. But what allows you to make it the origin of life? You place matter before life and you decide that matter has existed for all eternity. How do you know that the incessant progress of science will not compel scientists to consider that life has existed during eternity, and not matter? You pass from matter to life because your intelligence of today cannot conceive things otherwise. How do you know that in ten thousand years, one will not consider it more likely that matter has emerged from life? You move from matter to life because your current intelligence, so limited compared to what will be the future intelligence of the naturalist, tells you that things cannot be understand otherwise. If you want to be among the scientific minds, what only counts is that you will have to get rid of a priori reasoning and ideas, and you will have to do necessary deductions not giving more confidence than we should to deductions from wild speculation.” [en francais, Pasteur et la philosophie, Patrice Pinet, Editions L’Harmattan, p. 63.] https://uncommondescent.com.....eneration/
Here is a verse to help you understand what Christians actually believe about life existing for all eternity
John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
Particularly note Verse 4 if you will MatSpirit, "In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind." Then Matspirit, after revealing his complete ignorance about what Christians actually believe about 'life existing for eternity', goes on about healthcare. Yet, he did not refute my points, but he just kind of pushed the deck chairs around a little without really addressing the meat of my points,, so I will simply relist my points: Canada would basically be a third world country without the US for a trading partner,
These animated maps show Canada has so much more to lose in a trade war than the U.S. BY MAX HARTSHORN GLOBAL NEWS – July 4, 2018 Canada and the U.S. share the largest and most comprehensive bilateral trade relationship on earth, according to the U.S. State Department. Both the U.S. and Canadian government claim that trade between the two countries generates over $1 trillion worth of commerce and investment annually, and is responsible for millions of jobs on both sides of the border. But the trade relationship is far from equal. Publicly available data from the U.S. and Canadian governments, along with trade statistics from the UN, show just how critical business with the U.S. is to Canada’s economy. The U.S., on the other hand, is both less reliant on international trade than Canada and far less reliant on Canada as a trade partner than we are on the U.S. https://globalnews.ca/news/4297411/canada-us-trade-war-animated-maps/
Europeans and Canadians both take massive advantage of Americans with unfair drug pricing and Trump, as is characteristic of him in establishing fair trade deals, is working in a bipartisan manner to close the loophole(s) that allows the Europeans and Canadians to cheat Americans in drug pricing.
America Needs to Stop Subsidizing Europe and Canada’s Prescription Drugs – 2019 Excerpt: The Europeans and Canadians (as well as the rest of the world) are free-riding on the back of American medical innovators. European countries and Canada – our trading allies – impede access and set artificially low prices for prescription medicines. If U.S. companies refuse to acquiesce on prices, these foreign governments threaten to steal their patents by using compulsory licensing. It’s that simple: Europe and Canada refuse to pay their fair share forcing Americans to pay more. Americans pay the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world. In 2016, U.S. spending on pharmaceuticals totaled more than $450 billion – a rate that’s two to six times higher than the world average.,, With the USTR’s 2018 Special 301 Report, the Trump administration is showing a bipartisan way forward on drug prices. President Trump could accomplish what both Presidents Bush and Obama failed to do: put forward a bipartisan effort by leveraging trade agreements to help Americans get greater access to the medicines they need at prices they can afford. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/05/02/america_needs_to_stop_subsidizing_europe_and_canadas_prescription_drugs.html How the United States Subsidizes the World Matt Wiltshire explains that a comparison between national healthcare expenditures is flawed and should result in altering the goals (and policies for achieving those goals) of government intervention. – July 12, 2018 Excerpt: I can show that Western social democracies leverage American spending to their benefit (in much the same way they do with NATO). In effect Americans subsidize the cost of European and Canadian healthcare in such a way that comparing international prices results in, at best, misleading information and, at worst, a misguided path that ends in the total elimination of private medical research. https://bigjolly.com/how-united-states-subsidizes-world/
and again, "one-size-fits-all Medicare for all is the wrong way forward.”
Five (Inconvenient) Facts About Medicare For All “Together, we can bring down costs and extend coverage to millions more Americans. But one-size-fits-all Medicare for all is the wrong way forward.” https://americashealthcarefuture.org/five-facts-about-medicare-for-all/
MatSpirit also derided going to church as improving longevity, but the facts are what they are no matter how he tries to avoid it.bornagain77_{November 25, 2019
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BA77 @ 91 Canada's population is 38 million - about the size of California. Whatever are you getting on about who would win a trade war?MatSpirit_{November 24, 2019
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All: Remember Part D Medicare? It's the part that pays for drugs. It was passed in the Bush administration. Remember that funny little part that Bush stuck in there, the part that forbids Medicare to negotiate drug prices? That's why medicare pays $300.00 for a $30.00 insulin pen. That's why medicare pays top dollar for ALL drugs. Canada's Medicare negotiates prices and pays much less. Other countries negotiate prices and pay much less. Your hospital negotiates prices and pays much less than you do. Only Medicare and people without health insurance pay full prices for drugs. Except that without health care, most people don't have the $300.00 to spare, so they go without and eventually die. BA, I was surprised to read you've had health care all or most of your life. I used to read your descriptions on this blog of how you lived before you became a Christian and frankly, I had pictured you as a down and outer. Now I find out you've had enough money for health insurance most of your life. Who paid for your health insurance when you were a baby? Did you get it through work as an adult? If you had a good enough job to pay health insurance, then I wonder if you might have been exaggerating your secular faults, as so many do after conversion. Also, you've brought up going to church as a prophylactic. That works with all religions, including Buddism, which is Atheist. It also works with marriage, bowling leagues, golf, softball and hundreds of other activities. Anything that gets you out of the house and interacting with other people extends your lifetime. If nothing else, when you have a heart attack, somebody is there to call the ambulance. A lot of activities that stop you from going to church also kill you early. Anybody living on the streets during a northern winter isn't going to church for instance, but they're only one really cold night away from death and getting worn down by sleeping on the streets every day. I'd like to see a really good study on what extends and shortens life in the real world, but it's so hard to measure. I notice that the study you recommend above looked at obituaries to see if they mention religion. If they did, then you're counted as a church goer. Wow! I used to have neighbors who fought every day. The husband was absolutely worthless. I once saw him sober. His wife earned all the money in the family. Neither ever went to church that I know of, but when he died, (at a rather advanced age) his obituary made him out to be a model Christian and possible candidate for sainthood. He would have shown up in the Christian column in your source.MatSpirit_{November 24, 2019
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BA77 @ 88 “Then MatSpirit states this non sequitur, “The Earth started out molten. I think they knew this in Louis Pasteur’s day and you know it today. I doubt very much if they will have discovered molten life in ten thousand years.” OK MatSpirit, did YOU even read what you yourself quoted?” Yes. Louis Pasteur claims that maybe life made matter. Yet we know today that all the matter on earth started out molten and no form of life we've ever found can live in lava. Lava is material, so material existed before any life existed on earth. Pasteur got that wrong, but you quoted him anyway because he agrees with you. As far as I can tell, that's your sole criterion for quoting. “Then after that huge blunder on MatSpirit’s part, he goes on to ask, “But forget that, I’d just like to know why you think it’s so cool to spend twice as much per capita as every other country on health and not even cover forty million Americans. Do you honestly think that’s good for the country? Or do you just think it’s cool to spend $300.00 for an insulin pen that goes for $30.00 in Canada? Do you perhaps own stock in a drug company?” Yet IF MatSpirit would have actually read my post in 79, in the concluding remark from an expert on the subject, after extensive analysis, he would have found this sentence by the expert, “Together, we can bring down costs and extend coverage to millions more Americans. But one-size-fits-all Medicare for all is the wrong way forward.” https://americashealthcarefuture.org/five-facts-about-medicare-for-all/” Yes, we can bring down cost and cover millions more, but we've got FORTY MILLION more to cover. You never answered my questions: Do you think spending twice as much per capita as other countries and leaving 40 million Americans in the lurch is good for the country? Do you think it's cool to spend $300 taxpayer dollars on a $30.00 insulin pen? Another question: “One-size-fits-all Medicare” means you get sick, you go to the doctor and Medicare pays. I've been living with that for seven years. People in all the industrialized countries live quite well with that. Why is it supposed to be the wrong way forward?MatSpirit_{November 24, 2019
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Read the article for comprehension R.P. Canada would basically be a third world country without the US for a trading partner,
These animated maps show Canada has so much more to lose in a trade war than the U.S. BY MAX HARTSHORN GLOBAL NEWS – July 4, 2018 Canada and the U.S. share the largest and most comprehensive bilateral trade relationship on earth, according to the U.S. State Department. Both the U.S. and Canadian government claim that trade between the two countries generates over $1 trillion worth of commerce and investment annually, and is responsible for millions of jobs on both sides of the border. But the trade relationship is far from equal. Publicly available data from the U.S. and Canadian governments, along with trade statistics from the UN, show just how critical business with the U.S. is to Canada’s economy. The U.S., on the other hand, is both less reliant on international trade than Canada and far less reliant on Canada as a trade partner than we are on the U.S. https://globalnews.ca/news/4297411/canada-us-trade-war-animated-maps/
As well read these following articles for comprehension. Pronounce each word slowly if it helps:
America Needs to Stop Subsidizing Europe and Canada’s Prescription Drugs – 2019 Excerpt: The Europeans and Canadians (as well as the rest of the world) are free-riding on the back of American medical innovators. European countries and Canada – our trading allies – impede access and set artificially low prices for prescription medicines. If U.S. companies refuse to acquiesce on prices, these foreign governments threaten to steal their patents by using compulsory licensing. It’s that simple: Europe and Canada refuse to pay their fair share forcing Americans to pay more. Americans pay the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world. In 2016, U.S. spending on pharmaceuticals totaled more than $450 billion – a rate that’s two to six times higher than the world average.,, With the USTR’s 2018 Special 301 Report, the Trump administration is showing a bipartisan way forward on drug prices. President Trump could accomplish what both Presidents Bush and Obama failed to do: put forward a bipartisan effort by leveraging trade agreements to help Americans get greater access to the medicines they need at prices they can afford. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/05/02/america_needs_to_stop_subsidizing_europe_and_canadas_prescription_drugs.html How the United States Subsidizes the World Matt Wiltshire explains that a comparison between national healthcare expenditures is flawed and should result in altering the goals (and policies for achieving those goals) of government intervention. – July 12, 2018 Excerpt: I can show that Western social democracies leverage American spending to their benefit (in much the same way they do with NATO). In effect Americans subsidize the cost of European and Canadian healthcare in such a way that comparing international prices results in, at best, misleading information and, at worst, a misguided path that ends in the total elimination of private medical research. https://bigjolly.com/how-united-states-subsidizes-world/
bornagain77_{November 23, 2019
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BA77
Reapers Plague also tries to divert attention away from the fact that Canada is very much dependent on America for its prosperity, (and thus is very much dependent on America for, basically, subsidizing its government run healthcare). Thus to repeat the animations for the proud but dependent Canadian, i.e. Reapers Plague:
I think you have a problem with economics. How does Canada spending more on US goods than US does on Canadian goods constitute a subsidy? We are talking about goods that are being bought from private companies. Private companies don’t subsidize their clients. On a similar note, why is Trump pushing to allow Americans to buy cheaper foreign drugs (much of them from Canada). We don’t subsidize our drug companies.Reapers Plague_{November 23, 2019
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Of related note:
How the United States Subsidizes the World Matt Wiltshire explains that a comparison between national healthcare expenditures is flawed and should result in altering the goals (and policies for achieving those goals) of government intervention. - July 12, 2018 Excerpt: I can show that Western social democracies leverage American spending to their benefit (in much the same way they do with NATO). In effect Americans subsidize the cost of European and Canadian healthcare in such a way that comparing international prices results in, at best, misleading information and, at worst, a misguided path that ends in the total elimination of private medical research. https://bigjolly.com/how-united-states-subsidizes-world/ America Needs to Stop Subsidizing Europe and Canada’s Prescription Drugs - 2019 Excerpt: The Europeans and Canadians (as well as the rest of the world) are free-riding on the back of American medical innovators. European countries and Canada – our trading allies – impede access and set artificially low prices for prescription medicines. If U.S. companies refuse to acquiesce on prices, these foreign governments threaten to steal their patents by using compulsory licensing. It’s that simple: Europe and Canada refuse to pay their fair share forcing Americans to pay more. Americans pay the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world. In 2016, U.S. spending on pharmaceuticals totaled more than $450 billion – a rate that’s two to six times higher than the world average.,, With the USTR’s 2018 Special 301 Report, the Trump administration is showing a bipartisan way forward on drug prices. President Trump could accomplish what both Presidents Bush and Obama failed to do: put forward a bipartisan effort by leveraging trade agreements to help Americans get greater access to the medicines they need at prices they can afford. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/05/02/america_needs_to_stop_subsidizing_europe_and_canadas_prescription_drugs.html
bornagain77_{November 23, 2019
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Reapers Plague has a reading comprehension issue. To repeat, the solution to the problems within private healthcare are not found within government run healthcare: Again the concluding remark
Five (Inconvenient) Facts About Medicare For All “Together, we can bring down costs and extend coverage to millions more Americans. But one-size-fits-all Medicare for all is the wrong way forward.” https://americashealthcarefuture.org/five-facts-about-medicare-for-all/
Reapers Plague also tries to divert attention away from the fact that Canada is very much dependent on America for its prosperity, (and thus is very much dependent on America for, basically, subsidizing its government run healthcare). Thus to repeat the animations for the proud but dependent Canadian, i.e. Reapers Plague:
These animated maps show Canada has so much more to lose in a trade war than the U.S. BY MAX HARTSHORN GLOBAL NEWS – July 4, 2018 Canada and the U.S. share the largest and most comprehensive bilateral trade relationship on earth, according to the U.S. State Department. Both the U.S. and Canadian government claim that trade between the two countries generates over $1 trillion worth of commerce and investment annually, and is responsible for millions of jobs on both sides of the border. But the trade relationship is far from equal. Publicly available data from the U.S. and Canadian governments, along with trade statistics from the UN, show just how critical business with the U.S. is to Canada’s economy. The U.S., on the other hand, is both less reliant on international trade than Canada and far less reliant on Canada as a trade partner than we are on the U.S. https://globalnews.ca/news/4297411/canada-us-trade-war-animated-maps/
And please note that Reapers Plague, again, still refused to address the fact that people who believe in God live significantly longer than atheists do. That little factoid in and of itself kind of demolishes his entire atheistic worldview. But no matter, I'm sure that R.P. believes that government can fix that little problem too if only you give government enough of your money,bornagain77_{November 23, 2019
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BA77@81, yet your president keeps saying that Canada has a trade surplus with the US. Are you calling Trump a liar?Reapers Plague_{November 23, 2019
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BA77
Reapers Plague at 87, So what? I can claim many of the exact same things that you claim about not having to foot enormous medical bills because of emergency procedures, from the fact that I have been covered by private insurance, not government run healthcare, from childhood until now, practically my whole life.
So you are willing to bankrupt the millions of people who aren’t covered by private healthcare? That’s not very Christian of you. Besides, you ignore the fact that Canada still has private health coverage. ET
LoL! Canadians have what they do thanks to the USA.
Things like insulin, the pacemaker, open heart surgery, the discovery of T-cell receptors for cancer immunology, the discovery of transplantable stem cells, developing the HAART treatment to prevent HIV from progressing to AIDS, infant meningitis vaccine, identification of cystic fibrosis gene, use of aspirin for stroke prevention, discovery of heparin for blood clots, adding vitamin D to milk to prevent rickets, discovery of first cancer antigen, creation of the cobalt-60 bomb for radiation therapy, first combined vaccine for diphtheria pertussis and tetanus, Ebola vaccine, etc?Reapers Plague_{November 23, 2019
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Canadians are a proud lot though, so perhaps an animation or two to get the point across
These animated maps show Canada has so much more to lose in a trade war than the U.S. BY MAX HARTSHORN GLOBAL NEWS - July 4, 2018 Canada and the U.S. share the largest and most comprehensive bilateral trade relationship on earth, according to the U.S. State Department. Both the U.S. and Canadian government claim that trade between the two countries generates over $1 trillion worth of commerce and investment annually, and is responsible for millions of jobs on both sides of the border. But the trade relationship is far from equal. Publicly available data from the U.S. and Canadian governments, along with trade statistics from the UN, show just how critical business with the U.S. is to Canada’s economy. The U.S., on the other hand, is both less reliant on international trade than Canada and far less reliant on Canada as a trade partner than we are on the U.S. https://globalnews.ca/news/4297411/canada-us-trade-war-animated-maps/
bornagain77_{November 23, 2019
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LoL! Canadians have what they do thanks to the USA.ET_{November 23, 2019
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Reapers Plague at 87, So what? I can claim many of the exact same things that you claim about not having to foot enormous medical bills because of emergency procedures, from the fact that I have been covered by private insurance, not government run healthcare, from childhood until now, practically my whole life. So that specific criticism against private healthcare is irrelevant. Sure there are problems with private run healthcare, but they are not nearly as bad as the problems inherent in government run healthcare, as was outlined in post 79: Again, to repeat the concluding remark of the article, “Together, we can bring down costs and extend coverage to millions more Americans. But one-size-fits-all Medicare for all is the wrong way forward.”
Five Facts About Medicare For All Concluding remark: “Together, we can bring down costs and extend coverage to millions more Americans. But one-size-fits-all Medicare for all is the wrong way forward.” https://americashealthcarefuture.org/five-facts-about-medicare-for-all/
Of related note to improving mental and physical health, I note that the atheistic trolls on UD did not even attempt to address the fact, outlined in post 80, that believing in God is the single most important thing a person can personally do to increase their life expectancy:
Can attending church really help you live longer? This study says yes – June 1, 2017 Excerpt: Specifically, the study says those middle-aged adults who go to church, synagogues, mosques or other houses of worship reduce their mortality risk by 55%. The Plos One journal published the “Church Attendance, Allostatic Load and Mortality in Middle Aged Adults” study May 16. “For those who did not attend church at all, they were twice as likely to die prematurely than those who did who attended church at some point over the last year,” Bruce said. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/06/02/can-attending-church-really-help-you-live-longer-study-says-yes/364375001/ Study: Religiously affiliated people live “9.45 and 5.64 years longer…” July 1, 2018 Excerpt: Self-reported religious service attendance has been linked with longevity. However, previous work has largely relied on self-report data and volunteer samples. Here, mention of a religious affiliation in obituaries was analyzed as an alternative measure of religiosity. In two samples (N = 505 from Des Moines, IA, and N = 1,096 from 42 U.S. cities), the religiously affiliated lived 9.45 and 5.64 years longer, respectively, than the nonreligiously affiliated. Additionally, social integration and volunteerism partially mediated the religion–longevity relation. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/study-religiously-affiliated-people-lived-religiously-affiliated-lived-9-45-and-5-64-years-longer/ Can Religion Extend Your Life? – By Chuck Dinerstein — June 16, 2018 Excerpt: The researcher’s regression analysis suggested that the effect of volunteering and participation accounted for 20% or 1 year of the impact, while religious affiliation accounted for the remaining four years or 80%. https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/06/16/can-religion-extend-your-life-13092
Thus if the atheistic trolls on UD were really as concerned for healthcare as they want to pretend to be, then the number one thing that they themselves can do right now to greatly improve their own, as well as others, health, (both mental and physical health), is to personally embrace and publicly promote Christianity.bornagain77_{November 23, 2019
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MatSpirit asks me "do you even read the messages you cut and paste? I like to follow down your links and see where you went off the rails.", and then he quotes part of my quote from Louis Pasteur,
Louis Pasteur on life, matter, and spontaneous generation – June 21, 2015 “Science brings men nearer to God.,, Posterity will one day laugh at the foolishness of modern materialistic philosophers. The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. I pray while I am engaged at my work in the laboratory.,, The Greeks understood the mysterious power of the below things. They are the ones who gave us one of the most beautiful words in our language, the word enthusiasm: a God within.,,, I have been looking for spontaneous generation for twenty years without discovering it. No, I do not judge it impossible. But what allows you to make it the origin of life? You place matter before life and you decide that matter has existed for all eternity. How do you know that the incessant progress of science will not compel scientists to consider that life has existed during eternity, and not matter? You pass from matter to life because your intelligence of today cannot conceive things otherwise. How do you know that in ten thousand years, one will not consider it more likely that matter has emerged from life? You move from matter to life because your current intelligence, so limited compared to what will be the future intelligence of the naturalist, tells you that things cannot be understand otherwise. If you want to be among the scientific minds, what only counts is that you will have to get rid of a priori reasoning and ideas, and you will have to do necessary deductions not giving more confidence than we should to deductions from wild speculation.” [en francais, Pasteur et la philosophie, Patrice Pinet, Editions L’Harmattan, p. 63.] https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/louis-pasteur-on-life-matter-and-spontaneous-generation/
Then MatSpirit states this non sequitur, "The Earth started out molten. I think they knew this in Louis Pasteur’s day and you know it today. I doubt very much if they will have discovered molten life in ten thousand years." OK MatSpirit, did YOU even read what you yourself quoted? Louis Pasteur did not claim that life came from "molten life", he claimed that "You place matter before life and you decide that matter has existed for all eternity.,,, How do you know that in ten thousand years, one will not consider it more likely that matter has emerged from life?". And indeed today, not even close to ten thousand years hence, we find abundant evidence that matter has not existed for all eternity, (you know the whole Big Bang thing?), where space-time, matter-energy, themselves were created? Not to mention the falsification of realism in quantum mechanics that proves that consciousness must precede material reality. Thus Louis Pasteur was very much correct in his intuition. Matter, according to our best evidence from both cosmology and quantum mechanics, certainly has NOT existed for all eternity and life itself, (i.e. God), not matter, is what has existed through all eternity.
John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
Then after that huge blunder on MatSpirit's part, he goes on to ask, "But forget that, I’d just like to know why you think it’s so cool to spend twice as much per capita as every other country on health and not even cover forty million Americans. Do you honestly think that’s good for the country? Or do you just think it’s cool to spend $300.00 for an insulin pen that goes for $30.00 in Canada? Do you perhaps own stock in a drug company?" Yet IF MatSpirit would have actually read my post in 79, in the concluding remark from an expert on the subject, after extensive analysis, he would have found this sentence by the expert,
"Together, we can bring down costs and extend coverage to millions more Americans. But one-size-fits-all Medicare for all is the wrong way forward." https://americashealthcarefuture.org/five-facts-about-medicare-for-all/
bornagain77_{November 23, 2019
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MatSprit
Do you even read messages replying to you? Or do you just grab something off your disk drive of crank literature and quote-mines of scientific papers?
Is this a trick question?
But forget that, I’d just like to know why you think it’s so cool to spend twice as much per capita as every other country on health...
And, in most instances, obtain poorer outcomes. When I was 17 I had surgery for scoliosis and spent three months in hospital. The only cost to my lower middle class parents was the cost of the rental TV in my hospital room. When I was 22 I had a collapsed lung and required surgery to patch it and a week in hospital. My only cost was my parking bill. After my three kids were born I had a vasectomy. At no cost. A few years ago I had triple bypass surgery. Again, at no cost to me. In all cases my treatment was rapid, performed by very skilled doctors, and my recoveries were quick and uneventful. Several years ago my wife had breast cancer. She had a double mastectomy and underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatments. And next year we will be retiring comfortably because our savings weren’t drawn down by paying off medical debt. And, as is almost inevitable, we will both have to avail ourselves of the health care system in the coming years. But the one thing we won’t have to worry about is going bankrupt because of medical bills. Thank God that I live in Canada.Reapers Plague_{November 22, 2019
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Too much sugar, junk food and over-packaging isn't good for the country. When it comes to health and healthcare we are our own worst enemies. Being reactionary with universal healthcare is a stupid way to go about it. In an otherwise healthy society/ population, those insulin pens would go for $30.00 max- probably less. Why do liberals not want to face the real issues with our healthcare?ET_{November 22, 2019
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Do you even read messages replying to you? Or do you just grab something off your disk drive of crank literature and quote-mines of scientific papers? In fact, do you even read the messages you cut and paste? I like to follow down your links and see where you went off the rails. Take this, for example: "I have been looking for spontaneous generation for twenty years without discovering it. No, I do not judge it impossible. But what allows you to make it the origin of life? You place matter before life and you decide that matter has existed for all eternity. How do you know that the incessant progress of science will not compel scientists to consider that life has existed during eternity, and not matter? You pass from matter to life because your intelligence of today cannot conceive things otherwise. How do you know that in ten thousand years, one will not consider it more likely that matter has emerged from life?" The Earth started out molten. I think they knew this in Louis Pasteur's day and you know it today. I doubt very much if they will have discovered molten life in ten thousand years. But forget that, I'd just like to know why you think it's so cool to spend twice as much per capita as every other country on health and not even cover forty million Americans. Do you honestly think that's good for the country? Or do you just think it's cool to spend $300.00 for an insulin pen that goes for $30.00 in Canada? Do you perhaps own stock in a drug company?MatSpirit_{November 22, 2019
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Whereas on the hand, assuming Intelligent Design holds great promise for medical breakthroughs. For instance,
Fighting Cancer with Intelligent Design – Casey Luskin – December 25, 2015 Excerpt: “In fighting antibiotic resistance, Darwin’s theory actually provides little guidance. Indeed, quite the opposite. As SUNY Professor of Neurosurgery Michael Egnor has written here, “Darwinism tells us that … bacteria survive antibiotics that they’re not sensitive to, so non-killed bacteria will eventually outnumber killed bacteria. That’s it.” To create drugs that outsmart evolving bacteria or cancer cells, biomedical researchers must use a process of intelligent design. They create drug cocktails that bank upon the fact that there are limits to how much living things can evolve on their own. Far from being evidence for Darwinian theory, antibiotic resistant bacteria point to what Michael Behe has called “the edge of evolution,” beyond which unguided Darwinian processes are powerless.” In simple terms, Darwinian evolution tends to work fine when only one mutation is needed to give an advantage. But when you need multiple mutations to gain an advantage, the process tends to get stuck. By throwing lots of antibiotic drugs at an organism, we force it to evolve lots of mutations — more than Darwinian evolution can produce — in order to survive. In this way, we can beat antibiotic-resistant microbes.,,, Dr. M. William Audeh at UCLA School of Medicine. He makes the same point with regard to fighting cancer.,,, He says we kill cancer cells by using many (“combinations of”) drugs — more than they can possibly evolve resistance to. When he says that we can “overcome the adaptive potential of the population,” he means there are limits to how much cancer cells can evolve. If we intelligently design combinations of drugs that would require more mutations than could possibly arise via Darwinian evolution, then we kill cancer cells before they evolve mutations to evade our therapy techniques. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/12/merry_christmas_1101861.html Guide of the Perplexed: A Quick Reprise of The Edge of Evolution – Michael Behe – August 20, 2014 Excerpt: If there were a second drug with the efficacy of chloroquine which had always been administered in combination with it (but worked by a different mechanism), resistance to the combination would be expected to arise with a frequency in the neighborhood of 1 in 10^40 — a medical triumph (over malaria). http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/08/guide_of_the_pe089161.html
In fact, the multiple drug strategy that has been so effective in bringing HIV under control uses much the same strategy of being beyond the ‘edge of evolution’ that Dr. Behe has elucidated:
When taking any single drug, it is fairly likely that some mutant virus in the patient might happen to be resistant, survive the onslaught, and spawn a resistant lineage. But the probability that the patient hosts a mutant virus that happens to be resistant to several different drugs at the same time is much lower.,,, it “costs” a pest or pathogen to be resistant to a pesticide or drug. If you place resistant and non-resistant organisms in head-to-head competition in the absence of the pesticide or drug, the non-resistant organisms generally win.,,, This therapy has shown early, promising results — it may not eliminate HIV, but it could keep patients’ virus loads low for a long time, slowing progression of the disease. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/medicine_04
Thus again, Darwinian evolution has been useless, even harmful, to medical practice in particular and the development of medicine in general. Whereas assuming Intelligent Design holds great promise for both. In fact, assuming Intelligent Design lay at the founding of modern medicine. Hospitals themselves grew out of medieval Christianity with its emphasis of caring for the sick and the poor. As the following article states, "The roots of Western medicine, we learn, can be found in the transformative effects of Judeo-Christian traditions."
Limited role of Darwinism in medicine – May 2, 2014 Excerpt: In eight well-written and thoroughly researched chapters, Ferngren takes the reader from ancient times to the Greco-Roman period, early Christianity, into the Middle Ages and the Islamic world, to the early modern period, and on into the 19th and 20th centuries. The roots of Western medicine, we learn, can be found in the transformative effects of Judeo-Christian traditions. But the story told here is also about the eclipse of those traditions. While it is not a book on or about Darwinism, Ferngren states accurately that “Darwin’s theory did not make a significant contribution to clinical medicine.” https://uncommondescent.com/evolutionary-psychology/limited-role-of-darwinism-in-medicine/
Supplemental notes:
smallpox: Edward Jenner was an English physician and scientist who was the pioneer of smallpox vaccine,,,, His father was the Reverend Stephen Jenner,,, "The most famous champion of vaccination was a Christian doctor, *Edward Jenner* who did his work against fierce opposition and in the teeth of threats against himself. In effect he wiped out smallpox from among the diseases that terrify mankind. He died from a cold caught carrying firewood to an impoverished woman." http://www.rae.org/pdf/influsci.pdf polio and measles: John Enders, MD Death Bed: "On a September evening at their water front home in Connecticut, in 1985, Enders was reading T.S. Eliot aloud to his wife, Carolyn. He finished and went to bed, then quietly died. He was eighty-eight. At his memorial service his friend, the Bishop F.C. Laurence, said, "John Enders never lost his sense of wonder - wonder at the great mystery that exists and surrounds all of God's creation. This awareness is what gave him his wide vision and open mindedness, his continued interest in all things new, his ability to listen, his humility in the presence of this great mystery, and his never-ending search for the truth." His widow said that John briefly revealed his heart when he told her, concerning how creation ran, "There must be a mind behind it all." http://www.scienceheroes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=69&Itemid=117 Ernst Chain: Antibiotics Pioneer Excerpt: In 1938, Chain stumbled across Alexander Fleming’s 1929 paper on penicillin in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology, which he brought to the attention of his colleague Florey.7 During their research, Chain isolated and purified penicillin. It was largely this work that earned him his numerous honors and awards, including a fellow of the Royal Society and numerous honorary degrees,8 the Pasteur Medal, the Paul Ehrlich Centenary Prize, the Berzelius Medal, and a knighthood.9,,, Chain concluded that he “would rather believe in fairies than in such wild speculation” as Darwinism.,,, Chain made it very clear what he believed about the Creator and our relationship to Him. He wrote that scientists “looking for ultimate guidance in questions of moral responsibility” would do well to “turn, or return, to the fundamental and lasting values of the code of ethical behaviour forming part of the divine message which man was uniquely privileged to receive through the intermediation of a few chosen individuals.”19 http://www.icr.org/article/ernst-chain-antibiotics-pioneer/ Louis Pasteur on life, matter, and spontaneous generation - June 21, 2015 "Science brings men nearer to God.,, Posterity will one day laugh at the foolishness of modern materialistic philosophers. The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. I pray while I am engaged at my work in the laboratory.,, The Greeks understood the mysterious power of the below things. They are the ones who gave us one of the most beautiful words in our language, the word enthusiasm: a God within.,,, I have been looking for spontaneous generation for twenty years without discovering it. No, I do not judge it impossible. But what allows you to make it the origin of life? You place matter before life and you decide that matter has existed for all eternity. How do you know that the incessant progress of science will not compel scientists to consider that life has existed during eternity, and not matter? You pass from matter to life because your intelligence of today cannot conceive things otherwise. How do you know that in ten thousand years, one will not consider it more likely that matter has emerged from life? You move from matter to life because your current intelligence, so limited compared to what will be the future intelligence of the naturalist, tells you that things cannot be understand otherwise. If you want to be among the scientific minds, what only counts is that you will have to get rid of a priori reasoning and ideas, and you will have to do necessary deductions not giving more confidence than we should to deductions from wild speculation." [en francais, Pasteur et la philosophie, Patrice Pinet, Editions L’Harmattan, p. 63.] https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/louis-pasteur-on-life-matter-and-spontaneous-generation/
bornagain77_{November 22, 2019
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Since the subject of medical care has come up, it might interest the Darwinian atheists to know that Darwinian evolution has been useless, even harmful, to medical practice in particular and the development of medicine in general. For instance, (ignoring the horror of eugenics), the false Darwinian assumption of vestigial organs has led to much medical malpractice in the past:
Evolution’s “vestigial organ” argument debunked Excerpt: “The appendix, like the once ‘vestigial’ tonsils and adenoids, is a lymphoid organ (part of the body’s immune system) which makes antibodies against infections in the digestive system. Believing it to be a useless evolutionary ‘left over,’ many surgeons once removed even the healthy appendix whenever they were in the abdominal cavity. Today, removal of a healthy appendix under most circumstances would be considered medical malpractice” (David Menton, Ph.D., “The Human Tail, and Other Tales of Evolution,” St. Louis MetroVoice , January 1994, Vol. 4, No. 1). “Doctors once thought tonsils were simply useless evolutionary leftovers and took them out thinking that it could do no harm. Today there is considerable evidence that there are more troubles in the upper respiratory tract after tonsil removal than before, and doctors generally agree that simple enlargement of tonsils is hardly an indication for surgery” (J.D. Ratcliff, Your Body and How it Works, 1975, p. 137). The tailbone, properly known as the coccyx, is another supposed example of a vestigial structure that has been found to have a valuable function—especially regarding the ability to sit comfortably. Many people who have had this bone removed have great difficulty sitting. http://www.ucg.org/science/god-science-and-bible-evolutions-vestigial-organ-argument-debunked/ LSU Ophthalmologist Commends a “Design Approach” in Appraising Supposedly Vestigial Organs – December 8, 2016 Excerpt: I am a pediatric ophthalmologist and I teach residents how to perform eye muscle surgery. The plica semilunaris is the curvilinear pinkish tissue in each person’s eye nasally. According to neo-Darwinian advocates, the tissue is a useless holdover from evolution, a vestigial tissue of the nictitating membrane in other mammals. Residents, who are generally a bright bunch, routinely quote this “truth” to me each year. Thus, residents tend to be careless with this tissue unless taught properly. When performing surgery for esotropia (“crossed eyes”), one must be very careful with the plica semilunaris. The tissue can easily be improperly attached too far temporally,,, I explain to the residents that the plica is needed to allow the eye to move outward or temporally, and sewing the plica in the wrong location can not only result in a dreadful red appearance to the eye, but the eye can be drawn inward.,, In the first few years of my practice, I saw an unfortunate Vietnamese gentleman, ,, He had a benign growth on the nasal portion of his eyes (a pterygium). The operation to remove this lesion is usually straightforward, but whoever performed his surgery neglected the plica and sewed the plica semilunaris too far temporally, resulting in very crossed eyes and double vision. Understandably upset, I had to perform eye muscle surgery (strabismus surgery) to restore his vision to normal. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/12/lsu_ophthalmolo103350.html
And as Dr. Michael Egnor explains, “Evolutionary explanations by themselves are worthless to medicine”, and "doctors and medical researchers pay no attention to Darwinian speculations in their work, and their work has been astonishingly successful."
Darwinian Medicine and Proximate and Evolutionary Explanations – Michael Egnor – neurosurgeon – June 2011 Excerpt: 4) Evolutionary explanations by themselves are worthless to medicine. All medical treatments are based on detailed proximate explanations. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/darwinian_medicine_and_proxima047701.html Against “Darwinian Medicine” – Michael Egnor – August 9, 2016 Excerpt: Darwinist Randolph Nesse has been peddling “Darwinian Medicine” for years.,,, He argues for integration of Darwinian science into medical school curricula,,, The very admission that Darwinism has had no role in medical science is a telling argument not for its inclusion, but for its irrelevance. Medical science is remarkably successful. Antibiotics, cybernetics, cancer chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants, hip replacements, heart transplants, and a host of near-miraculous advances have greatly extended our lifespan and improved the quality of our lives — all without Darwin. Whether or not Darwinian hypotheses can be teased out of some medical advances, it is simply a fact that doctors and medical researchers pay no attention to Darwinian speculations in their work, and their work has been astonishingly successful. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/08/against_darwini103058.html
As to the development of medicine in general, The late Philip S. Skell states that "“Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming’s discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin’s theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No."
“Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming’s discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin’s theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No. I also examined the outstanding biodiscoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin’s theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss.,,, From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology.” Philip S. Skell – (the late) Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. – Why Do We Invoke Darwin? – 2005 http://www.discovery.org/a/2816
Even Jerry Coyne admits that Darwinian evolution has been useless for the development of medicines, among other things:
Doctors and Evolution – May 19, 2015 Excerpt: Coincidentally, a correspondent today sends across my desk this from biologist Jerry Coyne, of Why Evolution Is True fame. Writing in Nature (“Selling Darwin”), Coyne has conceded: “[T]ruth be told, evolution hasn’t yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn’t evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of ‘like begets like’. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/05/how_is_it_possi096181.html
In fact, all of science can get along quite well without Darwinian speculations,
“In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, and physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all.” Marc Kirschner, Boston Globe, Oct. 23, 2005 “While the great majority of biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky’s dictum that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”, most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas. Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superflous one.” A.S. Wilkins, editor of the journal BioEssays, Introduction to “Evolutionary Processes” – (2000).
Moreover, testing medicines on animals is largely a huge failure precisely because of the false evolutionary assumption of common ancestry:
What scientific idea is ready for retirement? – Mouse Models Excerpt: A recent scientific paper showed that all 150 drugs tested at the cost of billions of dollars in human trials of sepsis failed because the drugs had been developed using mice. Unfortunately, what looks like sepsis in mice turned out to be very different than what sepsis is in humans. Coverage of this study by Gina Kolata in the New York Times incited a heated response from within the biomedical research community. AZRA RAZA – Professor of medicine and director of the MDS Centre, Columbia University, New York http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/12/what-scientific-idea-is-ready-for-retirement-edge-org Animal Testing Is Bad Science: Point/Counterpoint Excerpt: The only reason people are under the misconception that animal experiments help humans is because the media, experimenters, universities and lobbying groups exaggerate the potential of animal experiments to lead to new cures and the role they have played in past medical advances.,,, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has noted that 92 percent of all drugs that are shown to be safe and effective in animal tests fail in human trials because they don’t work or are dangerous.,,, Physiological reactions to drugs vary enormously from species to species. Penicillin kills guinea pigs but is inactive in rabbits; aspirin kills cats and causes birth defects in rats, mice, guinea pigs, dogs, and monkeys; and morphine, a depressant in humans, stimulates goats, cats, and horses. http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-experimentation/animal-testing-bad-science.aspx Comparing the human and chimpanzee genomes: Searching for needles in a haystack – Ajit Varki1 and Tasha K. Altheide – 2005 Excerpt: we have many characteristics that are uniquely human. Table 1 lists some of the definite and possible phenotypic traits that appear to differentiate us from chimpanzees and other “great apes”2. For the most part, we do not know which genetic features interact with the environment to generate these differences between the “phenomes”3 of our two species. The chimpanzee has also long been seen as a model for human diseases because of its close evolutionary relationship. This is indeed the case for a few disorders. Nevertheless, it is a striking paradox that chimpanzees are in fact not good models for many major human diseases/conditions (see Table 2) (Varki 2000; Olson and Varki 2003). http://genome.cshlp.org/content/15/12/1746.full
bornagain77_{November 22, 2019
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Like the Evolutionist and The Climate Changer, the Statist operates assuming the conclusion. In this case, The State is the Answer. Generally, there's no point in trying to have a rational discussion with any of them. Andrewasauber_{November 22, 2019
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If the USA is going to have universal health care and it increases our taxes, then the gov't would need to heavily regulate junk food, fast food and outlaw cigarettes. Most of our health problems are our own fault. So if we cannot control ourselves the gov't needs to do it for us.ET_{November 22, 2019
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Since the atheistic trolls on UD are seemingly SO concerned with improving healthcare for people with a one size fits all health plan, might I suggest that they start in their own backyard and that they themselves become Christian and that they actively encourage everyone else to become Christian? Christianity, and the acceptance thereof, is the greatest contributing factor in improving ones overall mental and physical well being In making this point clear, it is first important to note that the atheistic worldview, (besides denying that you exist as a real person),
What Does It Mean to Say That Science & Religion Conflict? - M. Anthony Mills - April 16, 2018 Excerpt: Barr rightly observes that scientific atheists often unwittingly assume not just metaphysical naturalism but an even more controversial philosophical position: reductive materialism, which says all that exists is or is reducible to the material constituents postulated by our most fundamental physical theories. As Barr points out, this implies not only that God does not exist — because God is not material — but that you do not exist. For you are not a material constituent postulated by any of our most fundamental physical theories; at best, you are an aggregate of those constituents, arranged in a particular way. Not just you, but tables, chairs, countries, countrymen, symphonies, jokes, legal contracts, moral judgments, and acts of courage or cowardice — all of these must be fully explicable in terms of those more fundamental, material constituents. https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2018/04/16/what_does_it_mean_to_say_that_science_and_religion_conflict.html
,,,the atheistic worldview, (besides denying that you exist as a real person), also denies that there is any real meaning, beauty, and/or purpose for life.
Dawkins’ Non-Answer to the Meaning of Life - Rev. Mr. Matthew Newsome - Jan 23, 2017 Excerpt: For the benefit of those who like to skip ahead to the last page of a novel, Dawkins’ answer is that life has no meaning other than what you give it. It’s entirely subjective. https://testeverythingblog.com/dawkins-non-answer-to-the-meaning-of-life-e55ba6e99d79
Needless to say, a worldview that is devoid of any real meaning, beauty or purpose, for life is a severely impoverished, even a severely depressing, worldview for anyone to have to hold. Indeed, such an impoverished view of life goes a very long way towards explaining exactly why Christians report being much happier than atheists are,
'Believers are happier than atheists' - Jonathan Petre - 18 Mar 2008 People who believe in God are happier than agnostics or atheists, A report found that religious people were better able to cope with disappointments such as unemployment or divorce than non-believers. Moreover, they become even happier the more they pray and go to church, claims the study by Prof Andrew Clark and Dr Orsolya Lelkes. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1581994/Believers-are-happier-than-atheists.html
and also explains why Christians have significantly fewer suicide attempts than atheists do,
Of snakebites and suicide - February 18, 2014 RESULTS: Religiously unaffiliated subjects had significantly more lifetime suicide attempts and more first-degree relatives who committed suicide than subjects who endorsed a religious affiliation. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/of-snakebites-and-suicide/
and also explains why Christians report having greater life satisfaction than atheists do,
Associations of Religious Upbringing With Subsequent Health and Well-Being From Adolescence to Young Adulthood: An Outcome-Wide Analysis Ying Chen, Tyler J VanderWeele - Sept. 10, 2018 Excerpt: Compared with no attendance, at least weekly attendance of religious services was associated with greater life satisfaction and positive affect, a number of character strengths, lower probabilities of marijuana use and early sexual initiation, and fewer lifetime sexual partners. Analyses of prayer or meditation yielded similar results. Although decisions about religion are not shaped principally by health, encouraging service attendance and private practices in adolescents who already hold religious beliefs may be meaningful avenues of development and support, possibly leading to better health and well-being. https://academic.oup.com/aje/advance-article/doi/10.1093/aje/kwy142/5094534
and also explains why Christians have less mental and physical health issues than atheists do,
“I maintain that whatever else faith may be, it cannot be a delusion. The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally. If the findings of the huge volume of research on this topic had gone in the opposite direction and it had been found that religion damages your mental health, it would have been front-page news in every newspaper in the land.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health - preface “In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life; higher self-esteem; better adaptation to bereavement; greater social support and less loneliness; lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less delinquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction… We concluded that for the vast majority of people the apparent benefits of devout belief and practice probably outweigh the risks.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health – page 100 https://books.google.com/books?id=PREdCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA100#v=onepage&q&f=false
and also explains why Christians live significantly longer than atheists do.
Can attending church really help you live longer? This study says yes - June 1, 2017 Excerpt: Specifically, the study says those middle-aged adults who go to church, synagogues, mosques or other houses of worship reduce their mortality risk by 55%. The Plos One journal published the "Church Attendance, Allostatic Load and Mortality in Middle Aged Adults" study May 16. "For those who did not attend church at all, they were twice as likely to die prematurely than those who did who attended church at some point over the last year," Bruce said. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/06/02/can-attending-church-really-help-you-live-longer-study-says-yes/364375001/ Study: Religiously affiliated people live “9.45 and 5.64 years longer…” July 1, 2018 Excerpt: Self-reported religious service attendance has been linked with longevity. However, previous work has largely relied on self-report data and volunteer samples. Here, mention of a religious affiliation in obituaries was analyzed as an alternative measure of religiosity. In two samples (N = 505 from Des Moines, IA, and N = 1,096 from 42 U.S. cities), the religiously affiliated lived 9.45 and 5.64 years longer, respectively, than the nonreligiously affiliated. Additionally, social integration and volunteerism partially mediated the religion–longevity relation. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/study-religiously-affiliated-people-lived-religiously-affiliated-lived-9-45-and-5-64-years-longer/ Can Religion Extend Your Life? - By Chuck Dinerstein — June 16, 2018 Excerpt: The researcher's regression analysis suggested that the effect of volunteering and participation accounted for 20% or 1 year of the impact, while religious affiliation accounted for the remaining four years or 80%. https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/06/16/can-religion-extend-your-life-13092
Thus if the atheistic trolls on UD were really as concerned for healthcare as they want to pretend to be, then the number one thing that they themselves can do right now to greatly improve their own, as well as others, health, (both mental and physical health), is to personally embrace and publicly promote Christianity. Something tells me that even their own health and well being is just a bridge too far for them to ever cross to personally embrace Christianity. Which is a sad, yet realistic, testament to their irrational hatred of God. i.e. They hate God so much that they end up basically hating the well being of their very own lives.
John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 15:25 But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: 'They hated me without reason.'
bornagain77_{November 22, 2019
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4.26.19 / UPDATES Five Facts About Medicare For All As the House Committee On Rules prepares to hold a hearing next Tuesday, April 30, on “Medicare for all” legislation, here are five key facts to keep in mind regarding this proposal to completely eliminate the foundations of American health care – including the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Medicare and Medicaid – and start from scratch with a one-size-fits-all system: 1. The Costs Would Be Enormous, And Would Hit Middle Class Families With Unaffordable Tax Increases Let’s start with the bottom line: “There’s no possible way to finance [Medicare for all] without big middle class tax increases,” as Marc Goldwein, CRFB’s senior vice president, explained to The Washington Post. National polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation indicates that six in 10 Americans oppose Medicare for all once they learn it forces families to pay more in taxes. While the Medicare for all bill introduced in the U.S. House notably “doesn’t include a price tag or specific proposals for financing the new system,” independent analyses conducted by both the liberal-leaning Urban Institute and the libertarian-leaning Mercatus Center at George Mason University estimate that even a less expansive Medicare for all program would cost taxpayers approximately $32 trillion over 10 years. NBC News reports that such a system “requires a massive new source of tax revenue.” The Washington Post reports that Medicare for all “would require tax hikes on middle class families,” a fact on which analysts agree. In fact, the Mercatus Center warns that “doubling allfederal individual and corporate income taxes going forward would be insufficient to fully finance the plan,” while the centrist Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) found that enacting Medicare for all “would mean increasing federal spending by about 60 percent (excluding interest)” and “would require the equivalent of tripling payroll taxes or more than doubling allother taxes.” Speaking to The Washington Post on Medicare for all and other costly proposals, Jim Manley who as a senior member of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) staff played a key role in passing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), offered this warning: “Democrats have to be careful here: If they’re going to pay for these programs, the math suggests middle-class taxpayers are going to be hit,” said Jim Manley, who served as an aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). “And that’s not what Democrats have traditionally stood for.” Already, high costs and unaffordable tax hikes have doomed similar plans to implement single-payer health care on the state level: The New York Times editorial board acknowledged recently that “[i]n Vermont and Colorado, legislators dropped bids for a state-run single-payer system when it became clear that people would not support the tax increases needed to sustain such a program.” Roll Call reported that Vermont’s Democratic governor, who campaigned on a platform of single-payer health care, later admitted that the 11.5 percent payroll tax and 9.5 percent income tax that were proposed to finance the system were too much for taxpayers to accept: “The final bill was too much for the state to bear, he said. ‘The biggest problem was money,’ Shumlin said at Harvard. And he couldn’t promise lawmakers that they wouldn’t need to hike taxes again later to accommodate rising health care costs. ‘I couldn’t with a straight face turn to them and say, no, we’ve got this figured out,’ he said.” In a recent interview with The Atlantic, Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was blunt about the political and fiscal realities of implementing a single-payer health care system in the Empire State, saying “no sane person will pass it,” and “you’d double everybody’s taxes” to pay for it. 2. For Patients, The Uncertainties And Negative Impacts Would Be Significant Today, roughly 90 percent of Americans are covered – more than at any time in our nation’s history. U.S. Census data indicate that more than 217 million Americans benefit from private coverage – including 180 million who receive coverage through their employers and 10 million who shopped forcoverage through the marketplaces last year. More than 20 million seniors are enrolled in the popular Medicare Advantage program. Notably, public opinion research shows that a majority of Americans are satisfied with their coverage and care. “Perhaps the greatest political danger for Democrats is that Medicare for allwould disrupt coverage” for every one of those Americans, Bloomberg notes. Medicare for all would eliminate all of this, along with traditional Medicare and Medicaid, and force each and every American – young or old, sick or healthy – into a one-size-fits-all system run by Washington. Medicare for all would shift health care decisions away from patients and doctors and put them in the hands of Washington politicians and bureaucrats. For Americans, Medicare for all means more politics in their care and fewer choices when it comes to their coverage and treatments. And to make matters worse, serious questions are arising about how Medicare for all would impact children, as Bruce Lesley of First Focus on Children notes that it “would actually repeal Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and private health insurance coverage options for children and other populations and move them to an entirely new health care or single payer system.” Lesley aptly notes that “[w]hile some progressive health reform advocates and the media are criticizing those that do not sign up for [Medicare for all] as being vague or not bold, I would argue the opposite. In fact, the truth is that this approach is the one most lacking in the way of details.” 3. Americans Want Their Leaders To Focus On Improving & Building Upon What Works, Not Scrap It For Medicare For All A new national survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that a majority of Americans want elected leaders to focus on “targeted actions” to improve and build upon what is working and fix what isn’t, and not on scrapping our existing health care system in favor of starting from scratch with Medicare for all. In fact, Kaiser finds that most Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents “say they want Democrats in Congress to focus their efforts on improving and protecting the ACA,” while previous national polling by Kaiser reveals that Americans don’t support Medicare for all once they understand what it would mean for them. Earlier this year, Kaiser found that “net favorability [for Medicare for all] drops as low as -44 percentage points when people hear the argument that this would lead to delays in some people getting some medical tests and treatments. Net favorability is also negative if people hear it would threaten the current Medicare program (-28 percentage points), require most Americans to pay more in taxes (-23 percentage points), or eliminate private health insurance companies (-21 percentage points).” At the ballot box last fall, very few winning candidates in the House seats that delivered Democrats the majority endorsed Medicare for all proposals. In fact, not one of the 11 Democratic candidates who won in House districts where a majority of voters supported Republican presidential candidates in the past decade ran on a platform of support for Medicare for All, and 74 percent of allHouse Democrats who won seats in Republican-leaning districts did not support Medicare for All. Instead, the party netted 40 seats and took the House majority largely on a platform of protecting Americans with pre-existing conditions and other policies aimed at improving and building upon our current health care system. As one Democratic strategist put it to The New York Times: “Most of the freshmen who helped take back the House got elected on: ‘We’re going to protect your health insurance even if you have a pre-existing condition,’ not ‘We’re going to take this whole system and throw it out the window.’” “[A] majority of those [Democratic Members] who flipped their seats from red to blue focused on strengthening the 2010 health care law and protecting coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions,” Roll Call reports, noting the significant “risks for any politician that proposes dramatic change and uncertainty in a system that is central to Americans’ well-being.” 4. Key Democratic Leaders Are Expressing Serious Concerns About Medicare For All Given these facts, it is no surprise that a growing chorus of leading Democrats is sounding alarm bells on the high costs and political risks associated with Medicare for all. As the Washington Post notes, these Democratic leaders are worried by such proposals, which “require middle class tax hikes that will prove hurtful for economic growth and the party’s political fortunes.” For example: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently exclaimed to Rolling Stone: “And by the way, how’s it gonna be paid for?” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Chairwoman Rep. Cheri Bustos said to The Hill that “the $33 trillion price tag for Medicare for all is a little scary,” and later doubled down on those comments in an interview with CNN. The Washington Examiner notes that “Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee, also has drawn attention to the cost.” President Barack Obama “warned a group of freshman House Democrats … about the costs associated with some liberal ideas popular in their ranks, encouraging members to look at price tags” in what was widely seen as “a cautionary note about Medicare-for-all,” The Washington Post reports. As the House Medicare for all bill was rolled out, “[k]ey players whose support would be vital to the success of Jayapal’s bill were muted, while a group of moderate House Democrats called for instead improving the Affordable Care Act and expanding existing private channels of health coverage,” The Washington Post reported. The Hill reports that “[c]entrist Democrats who helped their party win back the House majority with victories in key swing districts last fall are sounding the alarm that the liberal push for ‘Medicare for all’ could haunt them as they try to defend their seats and keep control of the House.” This helps explain why, as The Washington Post reports, even as hearings are expected in the House Rules and Budget Committees, which do not traditionally have jurisdiction over health care legislation, “the major [House] health committees are staying away from the legislation and leadership hasn’t said they will hold a vote on it.” 5. With 90 Percent Of Americans Now Covered And Most Satisfied With Their Care, We Have More Affordable, Less Disruptive Ways To Expand Access The Partnership for America’s Health Care Future believes that every American deserves access to affordable, quality health care. And while there has been significant made progress towards this goal, there is still more that can and should be done to expand access and control costs. It is important to note that our leaders already have powerful tools available to help them achieve this. For instance: One important step would be to expand Medicaid in the remaining states that have not yet expanded the program, which would increase access to millions of Americans. Another would be to expand available federal subsidies so that Americans of all income levels can choose market-based coverage that fits their needs. Additionally, we can make important progress stabilizing premiums to control health-care costs by using proven tools such as reinsurance. These are just some of the steps our elected leaders can take to improve and build upon what is working today, rather than scrapping our entire health-care system to start over with a one-size-fits-allgovernment-run program that would make families pay more through higher taxes, eliminate patients’ choices and control, and push Americans, a majority of whom are satisfied with their coverage, off their current plans. Together, we can bring down costs and extend coverage to millions more Americans. But one-size-fits-all Medicare for all is the wrong way forward. https://americashealthcarefuture.org/five-facts-about-medicare-for-all/
bornagain77_{November 22, 2019
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Bornagain77@ 74
Funny how reality always contradicts what atheists believe or want to believe
Really? In the US ...
A new study from academic researchers found that 66.5 percent of all bankruptcies were tied to medical issues —either because of high costs for care or time out of work. An estimated 530,000 families turn to bankruptcy each year because of medical issues and bills, the research found.
In the UK, nobody - but nobody - is forced into bankruptcy due to unforeseen medical expenses. The shortage of resources in the UK's National Health Service is due to chronic underfunding by governments from both left and right.
Though funding for the Department of Health and Social Care continues to grow, the rate of growth slowed during the period of austerity that followed the 2008 economic crash. Budgets rose by 1.5 per cent each year on average in the 10 years between 2009/10 to 2018/19, compared to the 3.7 per cent average rises since the NHS was established.[My emphasis]
Yes, the quality of healthcare in the US is excellent for those that can afford it. Unfortunately, one of the reasons for the excellence of that care is that upwards of 40 million people in the richest country in the world are priced right out of the system. And even for patients who can afford it, patients still get screwed over by an utterly outrageous lack of transparency over pricing:
"In orthopedic surgery, we're never told how much things cost. We never see the cost displayed anywhere, and even if you were interested, there's no great way to find it," says Dr. Kanu Okike, lead author of the Health Affairs study and an orthopedic surgeon at Kaiser Permanente Moanalua Medical Center in Honolulu (Kaiser Health News is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente). Unlike pretty much every other consumer industry, health care costs aren't transparent, even for the surgeons performing the operations. The study didn't look at what patients know about costs. Hospital systems and purchasing groups negotiate deals with device makers and agree not to divulge the details. "Medical device manufacturers strive to keep their prices confidential so that they can sell the same implant at a different price to different health care institutions," the study authors write.
Finally, as a Christian, do you think Jesus would approve of a private healthcare system such as that in the US which excludes the poorest and most vulnerable? Did Jesus charge anything for the treatments He provided?Seversky_{November 21, 2019
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BA77: Your article complains that Canadians wait too long to get some medical procedures. Here's what AARP says about that: “In 1966, Canada implemented a single-payer health care system, which is also known as Medicare. Since then, as a country, Canadians have made a conscious decision to hold down costs. One of the ways they do that is by limiting supply, mostly for elective things, which can create wait times. Their outcomes are otherwise comparable to ours. Please understand, the wait times could be overcome. Canadians could spend more. They don’t want to. We can choose to dislike wait times in principle, but they are a byproduct of Canada’s choice to be fiscally conservative.” https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-03-2012/myths-canada-health-care.html You want shorter wait times? Then spend the money. Here's some interesting charts on how much the top nations spend on health care at https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#item-average-wealthy-countries-spend-half-much-per-person-health-u-s-spends In 2017, the United States's non-system spent $10,244 per person on health care. Canada spent $4826. England was at the bottom, spending only $4276. Your article describes the result: “Today, British hospitals are so overcrowded that doctors regularly treat patients in hallways. The agency recently canceled tens of thousands of surgeries, including urgent cancer procedures, because of severe resource shortages. And this winter, nearly 17,000 patients waited in the backs of their ambulances — many for an hour or more — before hospital staff could clear space for them in the emergency room. “ It's not that the US isn't paying for good health care, we're just not getting it. P.S. I'm concentrating on dollars and cents here because I realize asking, “What Would Jesus Do?”, might be a little embarrassing under these circumstances.MatSpirit_{November 21, 2019
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RP@75, I am Canadian and our health care system isn’t as ideal as you imply. Our emergency treatments and quality of the doctors and nurses is second to none. But wait times for non-emergency procedures and tests can be extensive. For example, you can wait up to a year for hip replacement surgery. This being said, the amount of misinformation about our system spewed in the US is huge. We are not told what doctors we can see. We can get second opinions. People are not dying in the emergency rooms. In short, you would be hard pressed to find a Canadian who would exchange the Canadian system for the US one.Ed George_{November 21, 2019
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