General Music Chat

I have sen numerous documented cases in which TCM has cured even Pancreatic Cancer with herbal remedies and a full raw fruit / vegetable diet.

My father is in his 80's, he has survived cancer twice and is very active & happy.
My mother, after I "saved" her from the hacks in Longview whom already had her scheduled for bilateral radical mastectomies. Underwent minimal surgical and chemical / radiation therapies over ten years ago after I got her in to see a "real" doctor. Also well into her 80's now spends much time with children, grandchildren, and even great grandchildren.
My former band mate and long time Kung Fu brother Tony . . . his wife . . . also a survivor, lives happy active lives ( went to field day with her daughter just today )

Some forms of CA are of course much more horrific. But to give up without a fight in my estimation is worse than having the disease or the treatments.

That said I have been the professional at the bedside when it was "time" to give up.
I submit, God forbid the time comes. You will know. You will know.

Well , That's encouraging... I can only hope I don't have to face any hacks.

My father is in his 80's, he has survived cancer twice and is very active & happy.
My mother, after I "saved" her from the hacks in Longview whom already had her scheduled for bilateral radical mastectomies. Underwent minimal surgical and chemical / radiation therapies over ten years ago after I got her in to see a "real" doctor. Also well into her 80's now spends much time with children, grandchildren, and even great grandchildren.
My former band mate and long time Kung Fu brother Tony . . . his wife . . . also a survivor, lives happy active lives ( went to field day with her daughter just today )

Some forms of CA are of course much more horrific. But to give up without a fight in my estimation is worse than having the disease or the treatments.

That said I have been the professional at the bedside when it was "time" to give up.
I submit, God forbid the time comes. You will know. You will know.

Well , That's encouraging... I can only hope I don't have to face any hacks.

We all do. That is why I encourage second and third opinions.
It also helps if you have someone on your side whom is less affected by the emotion and trauma of it all to assist in decision making.

My mother was scheduled for the BRM before I was even aware she had been diagnosed with the breast cancer.
They scared her into being scheduled for a surgical procedure she did not need.
It happens all the time . . .

My point is (no pun intended) that science has all kinds of options these days. Angelina Jolie has the best doctors and options available. It is common sense that her tata's are VERY natural! I know MY beautiful wife's are!

Sorry Jeff I'm sure your manboobs are very nice.

I'm just going on my limited experience with fake boobs, not my idea of a good time. Women are being duped by society to spend thousands of dollars on stuff that guys don't really care that much about anyway.

I agree!

The odds of every man over the age of 50 getting prostate cancer is very high. We should all be getting examined for it, but I don't think it would be reasonable for us to worry so much about it that we cut our manhood off.

My dad died of prostate cancer a couple years ago but I'm not going to be castrated until I get it. I'm not going to get chemo, not going to take Pregnazon. I could die in a car wreck first so why worry about it until it's a confirmed fact?

I think Mike is right when he says that this is driven by a fear that is overwhelming for her. He's also right about a good response to the news.



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Well when you lose the closest person in your life to something that was preventable, you might think otherwise. Prostate cancer is nothing like breast cancer either.

This isn't worth debating, what's done is done. You guys can rake her all you want, that's what freedom of speech is. Had she tried to keep it to herself, it would have leaked to the press regardless, and then everyone would rake her for that. I feel sorry for her. She's in a no-win situation. I'm sure shes comforted that people need to project their own personal morals onto her.

Morals don't come from people.

Morals don't come from people.

No, but projected ones sure do.

Actually morals DO come from people. Even societies that have no concept of God have morals. Morals are at the base of laws, and ethics sit on top.

Ethics are the foundation of law. (Not Morals) Morals can define the spirit of law. Individuals abide by morals, which in turn, can collectively uphold or reject societal ethics/ and thus cause change in laws.

IF enough people value Weed long enough, eventually the law will be adapted to support legalized weed. There will be many with morals who will not indulge in that freedom. Others wont hold the same morals and will indulge.

The trick is to convince a society that weed either is or is not 'unethical'. Anecdotal evidence to support or oppose the ethics of weed legalization is a daily battle between moralists, ethicists, and neutrals

Supreme court look at all it and will eventually come to a decision...for the law of the land.

I value WEED and have at least some morals. I hope nobody shoots me or my cat!

If only I could get that cat to stop smoking WEED!

Talbot

All men have a concept of God.

Most simply repress or deny. That's why they have stress over it.
Our soul has intimate knowledge of the Creator.

Morality is God's law in mans heart.

All men have a concept of God.

Most simply repress or deny. That's why they have stress over it.
Our soul has intimate knowledge of the Creator.

Morality is God's law in mans heart.

That was a very amazing, strong, set of truths...

Thanks for writing that George!

All men have a concept of God.

Most simply repress or deny. That's why they have stress over it.
Our soul has intimate knowledge of the Creator.

Morality is God's law in mans heart.

This is why atheist and agnostics so detest organized religion!

All men have a concept of God.

Most simply repress or deny. That's why they have stress over it.
Our soul has intimate knowledge of the Creator.

Morality is God's law in mans heart.

Sigh...
Here's a distinct and honest look into the mind of the non-believer / athiest. Take it at face value, you will never again find a more open and honest elaboration on it.

"Why are you atheists so angry?"

The short answer: Not all atheists are angry about religion -- and those of us who are angry aren't in a constant state of rage. But yes, many atheists are angry about religion -- and we're angry because we see terrible harm being done by religion. We're angry about harm being done to atheists... and we're angry about harm done to other believers. We don't just think religion is mistaken -- we think it does significantly more harm than good. And it pisses us off.

Why you shouldn't ask it: This question assumes that atheists are angry because there's something wrong with us. It assumes that atheists are angry because we're bitter, selfish, whiny, unhappy, because we lack joy and meaning in our lives, because we have a God-shaped hole in our hearts. The people asking it seem to have never even considered the possibility that atheists are angry because we have legitimate things to be angry about.

This reflexive dismissal of our anger's legitimacy does two things. It treats atheists as flawed, broken, incomplete. And it defangs the power of our anger. (Or it tries to, anyway.) Anger is a hugely powerful motivating force -- it has been a major motivating force for every social change movement in history -- and when people try to dismiss or trivialize atheists' anger, they are, essentially, trying to take that power away.

And finally: The people asking this question never seem to notice just how much atheist anger is directed, not at harm done to atheists, but at harm done to believers. A huge amount of our anger about religion is aimed at the oppression and brutality and misery created by religion, not in the lives of atheists, but in the lives of believers. Our anger about religion comes from compassion, from a sense of justice, from a vivid awareness of terrible damage being done in the world and a driving motivation to do something about it. Atheists aren't angry because there's something wrong with us. Atheists are angry because there's something right with us. And it is messed-up beyond recognition to treat one of our greatest strengths, one of our most powerful motivating forces and one of the clearest signs of our decency, as a sign that we're flawed or broken.

"How can you be moral without believing in God?"

The answer: Atheists are moral for the same reasons believers are moral: because we have compassion, and a sense of justice. Humans are social animals, and like other social animals, we evolved with some core moral values wired into our brains: caring about fairness, caring about loyalty, caring when others are harmed.

If you're a religious believer, and you don't believe these are the same reasons that believers are moral, ask yourself this: If I could persuade you today, with 100% certainty, that there were no gods and no afterlife... would you suddenly start stealing and murdering and setting fire to buildings? And if not -- why not? If you wouldn't... whatever it is that would keep you from doing those things, that's the same thing keeping atheists from doing them.

"How do you have any meaning in your life?" Sometimes asked as, "Don't you feel sad or hopeless?" Or even, "If you don't believe in God or heaven, why don't you just kill yourself?"

The answer: Atheists find meaning and joy in the same things everyone does. We find it in the big things: family, friendship, work, nature, art, learning, love. We find it in the small things: cookies, World of Warcraft, playing with kittens. The only difference is that (a) believers add "making my god or gods happy and getting a good deal in the afterlife" to those lists (often putting them at the top), and (b) believers think meaning is given to them by their god or gods, while atheists create our own meaning, and are willing and indeed happy to accept that responsibility.

In fact, for many atheists, the fact that life is finite invests it with more meaning -- not less. When we drop "pleasing a god we have no good reason to think exists" from our "meaning" list, we have that much more attention to give the rest of it. When we accept that life will really end, we become that much more motivated to make every moment of it matter.

Why you shouldn't ask it: What was it that we were just saying about "dehumanization"? Experiencing meaning and value in life is deeply ingrained in being human. When you treat atheists as if we were dead inside simply because we don't believe in a supernatural creator or our own immortality... you're treating us as if we weren't fully human. Please don't.

"Doesn't it take just as much/even more faith to be an atheist as it does to be a believer?"

The answer: No.

The somewhat longer answer: This question assumes that "atheism" means "100% certainty that God does not exist, with no willingness to question and no room for doubt." For the overwhelming majority of people who call ourselves atheists, this is not what "atheism" means. For most atheists, "atheism" means something along the lines of "being reasonably certain that there are no gods," or, "having reached the provisional conclusion, based on the evidence we've seen and the arguments we've considered, that there are no gods." No, we can't be 100% certain that there are no gods. We can't be 100% certain that there are no unicorns, either. But we're certain enough. Not believing in unicorns doesn't take "faith." And neither does not believing in God.

Why you shouldn't ask it: The assumption behind this question is that atheists haven't actually bothered to think about our atheism. And this assumption is both ignorant and insulting. Most atheists have considered the question of God's existence or non-existence very carefully. Most of us were brought up religious, and letting go of that religion took a great deal of searching of our hearts and our minds. Even those of us brought up as non-believers were (mostly) brought up in a society that's steeped in religion. It takes a fair amount of questioning and thought to reject an idea that almost everyone else around you believes.

And when you ask this question, you're also revealing the narrowness of your own mind. You're showing that you can't conceive of the possibility that someone might come to a conclusion about religion based on evidence, reason, and which ideas seem most likely to be true, instead of on "faith."

"But have you read the Bible (or some other holy book); heard about some supposed miracle; heard my story about my personal religious experience]?"

The answer: Probably. Or else we've read/heard about something pretty darned similar. Atheists are actually better-informed about religion than most religious believers. In fact, we're better-informed about the tenets of most specific religions than the believers in those religions. For many atheists, sitting down and reading the Bible (or the holy text of whatever religion they were brought up in) is exactly what set them on the path to atheism -- or what put the final nail in the coffin.

Why you shouldn't ask it: As my friend and colleague Heina put it: "'Have you heard of Jesus?' No, actually, I was born under a f**k rock."

Are you really not aware of how dominating a force religion is in society? In most of the world, and certainly in the United States, religion is impossible to ignore. It permeates the social life, the economic life, the cultural life, the political life. We're soaking in it. The idea that atheists might somehow have come to adulthood without being aware of the Bible, of stories about supposed miracles, of stories about personal religious experiences... it's laughable. Or it would be laughable if it weren't so annoying. Religious privilege is all over this question like a cheap suit.

"What if you're wrong?" Sometimes asked as, "Doesn't it make logical sense to believe in God? If you believe and you're wrong, nothing terrible happens, but if you don't believe and you're wrong, you could go to Hell!"

The answer: What if you're wrong about Allah? Or Vishnu? Or Zeus? What if you're wrong about whether God is the wrathful jerk who hates gay people, or the loving god who hates homophobes? What if you're wrong about whether God wants you to celebrate the Sabbath on Saturday or Sunday? What if you're wrong about whether God really does care about whether you eat bacon? As Homer Simpson put it, "What if we picked the wrong religion? Every week we're just making God madder and madder!"

Why you shouldn't ask it: There are so very many things wrong with this question. It even has a name -- Pascal's Wager --I'll stick with two for today, the ones that aren't just logically absurd but that insult the intelligence and integrity of both atheists and believers:

a) Are you really that ignorant of the existence of religions other than your own? Has it really never occurred to you that when you "bet" on the existence of your god, there are thousands upon thousands of other gods whose existence you're "betting" against? Are you really that steeped, not only in the generic privilege of all religion, but in the particular privilege of your own?

b) Do you really think atheists have so little integrity? Do you really think we're going to fake belief in God... not just to our families or communities in order to not be ostracized, but in our own hearts and minds? Do you really think we're going to deliberately con ourselves into believing -- or pretending to believe -- something that we don't actually think is true? Not just something trivial, but something this important? Do you really think we would pick what to think is true and not true about the world, based solely on which idea would be most convenient? How does that even constitute "belief"? (And anyway, do you really think that God would be taken in by this con game? Do you really think that what God wants from his followers is an insincere, self-serving, "wink wink, I'm covering my bases" version of "belief"?)

That's pretty good Kramer, but my main beef with organized religion is that it takes advantage of people who are least in a position to be taken advantage of. The overwhelming majority of religious people in the world are also its poorest citizens, and religion robs them of time and money that could be used better to improve their lives. Religion sells the idea that things will be better after death, for which there is absolutely no proof and is most likely completely false. I personally don't care what anyone believes, as long as their beliefs don't impede on my rights. We're only here for a short time, don't waste what little you have left. Live your life and don't worry about what happens afterwards. The universe got along fine for 13.7 billion years before you were born, and will get along fine after you're gone.