school in Connecticut

[mike777]

I hope in the global warming thread I made clear that I view global warming as concave, bad, I just dont know how urgent.

I dont think we understand the risks or at least I dont, but agree the tails are fat.

 

 

"Where is the skepticism based on science not on what you believe?

 

I would just like to see the same skepticism that is directed toward Bishops or guns directed towards medical errors which frankly affects more of us in our daily lives in terms of relevence and consequences.

 

I am not suggesting you should not be skeptical of Bishops, religion, or guns just medical errors more so at it affects your daily life to a much greater degree."

 

 

I would add I would like to see all the global warming skeptics look at medical errors, medicine with the same degree of doubt.

 

I hope I made clear I am for gun control laws, effective ones.

We can discuss if we should take away guns, guns that were legal, to be more effective.

 

fwiw I live on a tiny block with 11 homes in the South, I am sure there are more guns on my block than people or homes. I have hunters and naval academy grads next door.

 

Living in SD area ditto with Navy and Marines

 

 

I would guess that my old southside Chicago, where i grew up ...Pullman, Roseland have more guns and more murders, etc and they have very strict laws.

I know kids brought guns to school inthe 1960/s.

[Cthulhu D]

Do whatever you damn well please.

Let me guess: You're about to wax rapturous about medical imaging and Kurzweil...

 

Here's the rub. This has absolutely nothing to do with the topic being discussed.

Recall a couple pages back when I said that Wayne Lapierre was involved in a transparent attempt to derail a conversation a completely inane comment?

Guess what you're doing...

 

The truly dumb part is saying that OH NOES 187,000 people were killed by medical errors is completely ignoring that we saved a much larger number of lives via medicine. The cost of occassional medical errors it the price to be paid for medicine. We seek to constantly reduce medical errors, but we acknowledge that some people are gonna die. It's the same thing with cars. 32,367 die in motor vehicle accidents in the US. This is bad, but that's the cost of doing business with cars.

[mike777]

The truly dumb part is saying that OH NOES 187,000 people were killed by medical errors is completely ignoring that we saved a much larger number of lives via medicine. The cost of occassional medical errors it the price to be paid for medicine. We seek to constantly reduce medical errors, but we acknowledge that some people are gonna die. It's the same thing with cars. 32,367 die in motor vehicle accidents in the US. This is bad, but that's the cost of doing business with cars.

 

 

Actually your logic is not correct.

 

 

"The cost of occassional medical errors it the price to be paid for medicine"

 

We need to have 187,000 medical error deaths to save others.

6.1 million injured from medical error

 

 

Please provide science.

 

I understand you belief that.

 

Please note aggressive medicine in aggressive cases is not a medical error.

 

 

Again all I ask is for more,much more skepticism but people dont want to do that.

 

 

----------

 

 

 

A study reported in the November 25, 2010 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, also confirmed that medical errors in U.S. hospitals are a serious problem. The study, conducted by lead author Christopher Landrigan, M.D., M.P.H. of the Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, and a group of doctors from Harvard Medical School, Standford University School of Medicine, and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, reported that even in places where local governments have made efforts to improve safety of inpatient care, such as in hospitals in North Carolina, the high rate of detected medical errors did not change over a 5-year period between 2002 and 2007

[Trinidad]

These numbers surprised me:

 

11,000 homicides by gun

187,000 deaths in hospitals from medical errors.

Apples - oranges and/or generally very poor interpretation of statistics.

 

Perhaps you also have the numbers ready on the amounts of lives saved by the use of guns and the amounts of lives saved by medicine each year?

 

I would guess that the saved:killed ratio is just slightly higher for medicine.

 

Your statistical interpretation reminds me of the old joke:

 

23% of car accidents are caused by people drinking and driving.

Outrageous! Let's give these sober morons a couple of drinks and make sure that they don't cause 77% of the car accidents!

 

Rik

[mgoetze]

Recall a couple pages back when I said that Wayne Lapierre was involved in a transparent attempt to derail a conversation a completely inane comment?

Guess what you're doing...

How could mike777 possibly derail a conversation? Are there really people who still don't have him on their ignore list?

 

Oh, wait, I guess there are...

[Cthulhu D]

"The cost of occassional medical errors it the price to be paid for medicine"

 

We need to have 187,000 medical error deaths to save others.

6.1 million injured from medical error

 

When did I say need? Please specify how we could eliminate medical errors other than by eliminating medicine at this point in time?

 

How could mike777 possibly derail a conversation? Are there really people who still don't have him on their ignore list?

 

Oh, wait, I guess there are...

 

Yeah, good idea.

[blackshoe]

I know kids brought guns to school inthe 1960/s.

I had a friend who grew up in a small farming community in upstate NY. He used to tell me that in high school in the early 60s he and his friends would bring their hunting rifles to school during the season, and just leave them in the closet until school was over. Nobody thought anything bad about it, and there were never any problems. Something has changed in the last sixty years, and it has nothing to do with guns per se. We need to figure out what the problem is, and treat the disease, not the symptom.

 

Some years ago I read Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson. The one lesson is pretty simple: consider the consequences of your proposed action not just for the immediate group you can see it will affect, but for all groups, and consider the consequences in not just the short term, but also the long term. The knee-jerk "ban guns" reaction to these deplorable incidents does neither.

[nige1]

Amusingly, historical studies show that when doctors strike, the death-rate falls dramatically :) Of course it isn't as simple as that :) For example, surgeons still operate in emergency but elective operations tend to be postponed :) Have any studies been conducted in the last five years? Are relevant figures available for the 2011 doctor-strike in Israel?

[gwnn]

I have tried very hard not to post this video but eventually failed.

 

Warning: do not watch if you are offended by the f-word and similar words.

Disclaimer: I am not saying that any of the theists in this thread are similar to the people he's talking about.

 

[kenberg]

The video is rather brisk, if that's the right word, but perhaps amazingly I recognize the portrayed religious way of thinking from everyday life. Two episodes, both of which I have mentioned before.

 

1. After my father had his stroke my parent's church attendance fell off markedly. I had recently been confirmed in the church so the pastor took me aside and explained it was now my responsibility yo get my parents to come to services so that they did not burn in hell. After all these years I am still not sure if he really believed this or whether he was just one of the most sadistic mfs I have ever met.

 

2. Some years later when my father died I had his body shipped back to Minnesota to be buried beside my mother. I had recently been to another funeral where the minister went on at some length about how lucky the corpse was to now be in the hands of God. It would have been my father's wish to have a religious service, and it certainly was the family wish, so we had one. But I interviewed the minister at some length and made it clear that if he felt the need to discuss how lucky my father was to now be dead, he had better not take on the job because there was going to be trouble.

 

 

I long ago chucked religion and I have no need to convert others to my way of thinking. I get along just fine with most theists. But there is a serious streak of either meaness or idiocy, or both, in more than a few of them.

[Fluffy]

Warning: do not watch if you are offended by the f-word and similar words.

What does the video have to do with Flannery?

[Scarabin]

The video is rather brisk, if that's the right word, but perhaps amazingly I recognize the portrayed religious way of thinking from everyday life. Two episodes, both of which I have mentioned before.

 

1. After my father had his stroke my parent's church attendance fell off markedly. I had recently been confirmed in the church so the pastor took me aside and explained it was now my responsibility yo get my parents to come to services so that they did not burn in hell. After all these years I am still not sure if he really believed this or whether he was just one of the most sadistic mfs I have ever met.

 

2. Some years later when my father died I had his body shipped back to Minnesota to be buried beside my mother. I had recently been to another funeral where the minister went on at some length about how lucky the corpse was to now be in the hands of God. It would have been my father's wish to have a religious service, and it certainly was the family wish, so we had one. But I interviewed the minister at some length and made it clear that if he felt the need to discuss how lucky my father was to now be dead, he had better not take on the job because there was going to be trouble.

 

 

I long ago chucked religion and I have no need to convert others to my way of thinking. I get along just fine with most theists. But there is a serious streak of either meaness or idiocy, or both, in more than a few of them.

 

I am apalled by your experience, that minister was one s.o.b., but I think all people who are strongly committed, whether to belief or unbelief, tend towards blinkered thinking and ministers are particularly visible and may of course be too conscious of their "authority".

 

Many years ago my sister and her husband used to attend a church which featured regularly on the BBC. I asked her husband if he enjoyed being a member of such a famous church. He answered "Well when the cameras are not there the minister devotes his sermons to complaining that most of the congregation only attend the televised services. I have never understood why he wants to drive away the people who do attend by upbraiding them about the others".

[mike777]

excellent thread

 

the up votes show where I was wrong and should not comment.

[kenberg]

I am apalled by your experience, that minister was one s.o.b., but I think all people who are strongly committed, whether to belief or unbelief, tend towards blinkered thinking and ministers are particularly visible and may of course be too conscious of their "authority".

 

Many years ago my sister and her husband used to attend a church which featured regularly on the BBC. I asked her husband if he enjoyed being a member of such a famous church. He answered "Well when the cameras are not there the minister devotes his sermons to complaining that most of the congregation only attend the televised services. I have never understood why he wants to drive away the people who do attend by upbraiding them about the others".

 

As a college prof, I faced the same issue. I didn't grade on attendance eother directly or indirectly, as some do, by giving unannounced quizzes. But then not everyone attends class. In fact, as a student, I often did not attend class. Now no one burns in hell for not attending class, but they do sometimes get an F. So here I was, speaking on something I regarded as important, with some students there and some not. I would have to remind myself that it was pointless to tell the students who were there that it is important to be there.

 

Letting my mind drift along these lines, I failed two classes as an undergraduate. One was swimming. The final required that I swim a quarter mile in less than a certain time. I could beat that time by almost two minutes but I got a severe case of poison ivy and could barely get around at all so I took an incomplete. I had a full time job over the summer that had lots of overtime and by the fall I could no longer swim all that well. I figured I would not be kept out of grad school for failing swimming and just let the W turn to an F. The other class that I failed was required. The instructor came to class the first day, faced the class, and yawned. As he lectured I understood the yawn, and as I read the text, written by him, I really understood the yawn. So I showed up only for exams, on which I did well. But he gave a ten point quiz every day, open notes and open book, taken straight from homework. He could have turned in my F well before the fnal was given. But I didn't know this, so after I took the final I figured I was done. I had always wanted to tear up a book so after writing obscenities on it I invited my roomate to participate in a ceremonial book ripping. When I found out that I had failed I was pleased that I had not yet emptied the trash so I signed up to retake the course and attended every lecture, bringing my shredded obscenity laden text with me. I have maintained a lifelong revulsion for attendance quizzes.

 

No doubt I have strayed far off topic or have I? We all have stresses in our lives and we have to cope. My youthful approach probably wouldn't be copied by everyone, and it was sometimes a bit, or more than a bit, self-defeating, but I didn't pick up a gun and shoot anyone. Although I did not vote for George Bush (either of them), I always liked W's observation "When I was young and stupid I was young and stupid". Well, there is stupid and there is grizzly and awful. Stupid we can grow out of.

[Vampyr]

I am apalled by your experience, that minister was one s.o.b., but I think all people who are strongly committed, whether to belief or unbelief, tend towards blinkered thinking

 

I think that this is less true about unbelievers, since they have, in general, given a lot more thought to the matter and have come to a personal decision -- ie not one handed to them by a book or person.

[Scarabin]

I think that this is less true about unbelievers, since they have, in general, given a lot more thought to the matter and have come to a personal decision -- ie not one handed to them by a book or person.

 

True for unbelievers who were believers and decided to change. Not necessarily true for children of unbelievers, and for fans of writers like Dawkins and Hitchens.

[Vampyr]

True for unbelievers who were believers and decided to change. Not necessarily true for children of unbelievers, and for fans of writers like Dawkins and Hitchens.

 

Whatever.

[VMars]

The other class that I failed was required. The instructor came to class the first day, faced the class, and yawned. As he lectured I understood the yawn, and as I read the text, written by him, I really understood the yawn. So I showed up only for exams, on which I did well. But he gave a ten point quiz every day, open notes and open book, taken straight from homework. He could have turned in my F well before the final was given. But I didn't know this, so after I took the final I figured I was done. I had always wanted to tear up a book so after writing obscenities on it I invited my roommate to participate in a ceremonial book ripping. When I found out that I had failed I was pleased that I had not yet emptied the trash so I signed up to retake the course and attended every lecture, bringing my shredded obscenity laden text with me. I have maintained a lifelong revulsion for attendance quizzes.

 

That's pretty awful. In all my classes, profs were required to have a syllabus with the grading policy and weights listed, so at least we had warning about attendance quizzes.

 

To bring this back to more related (albeit perhaps still tangential) topic: I really get frustrated when people display blatant hypocrisy, and don't recognize it as such. I had a person in my cohort who spent most of his time in class on facebook or playing games. Recently, he posted a complaint about his students posting on facebook, and how they were so disrespectful.

 

One of the things that turned me off of organized religion was this "do as I say but don't examine what I do" theme.

[blackshoe]

True for unbelievers who were believers and decided to change. Not necessarily true for children of unbelievers, and for fans of writers like Dawkins and Hitchens.

 

 

Whatever.

I always wonder which of the fifty two idiomatic meanings (some of which admittedly are redundant) of this word is intended by its user.

[mikeh]

True for unbelievers who were believers and decided to change. Not necessarily true for children of unbelievers, and for fans of writers like Dawkins and Hitchens.

Why do you think that believers who decided to change can't be fans of Dawkins, Hitchens, et al?

 

Btw, I don't think it is possible to 'decide to change', Once you see how utterly stupid virtually all religious teachings are, once you realize that the emperor has no clothes, it just isn't possible to believe. I don't think that I set out to be an atheist anymore than it would be possible for me to now decide to be a believer.

 

Btw, I don't mean that the ostensibly decent philiosophical 'teachings' are stupid. There is some good advice in the New Testament, as an example. But despite all of the sophistry of the Xian theologians, they worship the same genocidal, psychotic thug of the Old Testament as do the Jews and the Muslims. And the creation myths, and the very notion of a god to whom we are special is so absurd as to bring to mind the saying of P.T. Barnum.

[billw55]

But despite all of the sophistry of the Xian theologians, they worship the same genocidal, psychotic thug of the Old Testament as do the Jews and the Muslims.

I wasn't aware that Muslims worship anyone from the Old Testament. Can you elaborate?

 

 

 

[Fluffy]

I wasn't aware that Muslims worship anyone from the Old Testament. Can you elaborate?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam

including through Abraham, Moses and Jesus, whom they consider prophets

[mikeh]

I wasn't aware that Muslims worship anyone from the Old Testament. Can you elaborate?

Goes to show...altho a sample size of two proves little, the atheist knows more about religion than does the typical Xian believer. This is consistent with studies in the US that show that atheists generally have more understanding of the bible than do Xians.

 

Personally, I feel that these sorts of data do suggest that maybe believers are often believers for cultural reasons (i.e. being indoctrinated before the age of critical thinking) than because they understand what it is they profess to believe.

 

See the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. www.pewforum.org.

 

Thanks to Gonzalo for his link.

[Scarabin]

Why do you think that believers who decided to change can't be fans of Dawkins, Hitchens, et al?

 

I do not think I said anything remotely like this. I merely pointed out to Vampyr the glaringly obvious fact that since Dawkins has written books on atheism it is possible to be influenced, persuaded,converted by these.

 

Btw, I don't think it is possible to 'decide to change', Once you see how utterly stupid virtually all religious teachings are, once you realize that the emperor has no clothes, it just isn't possible to believe. I don't think that I set out to be an atheist anymore than it would be possible for me to now decide to be a believer.

 

I think your experience may not be universally shared. For me, and I think this may apply generally in the older generations, my progress to disbelief involved silently disagreeing with interminable sermons which I was forced to attend as a child. And usually some climactic event which triggered a decision.

 

Btw, I don't mean that the ostensibly decent philiosophical 'teachings' are stupid. There is some good advice in the New Testament, as an example. But despite all of the sophistry of the Xian theologians, they worship the same genocidal, psychotic thug of the Old Testament as do the Jews and the Muslims. And the creation myths, and the very notion of a god to whom we are special is so absurd as to bring to mind the saying of P.T. Barnum.

 

Perhaps because I am not an extremist thinking in terms of simple absolutes, and because I value good manners, I find this part of your post offensive. Why do you do this? Surely you must be intelligent enough to realise that you do not influence people by offending them?

[Vampyr]

I do not think I said anything remotely like this. I merely pointed out to Vampyr the glaringly obvious fact that since Dawkins has written books on atheism it is possible to be influenced, persuaded,converted by these.

 

What is more obvious is how unlikely this is. The readers of Dawkins, Hitchins etc are, of course, self-selecting; so writers about atheism are mainly preaching to the converted. In any case, real faith stemming from serious thought and conviction will not be shaken by discussions of the low probability of the existence of gods. A few could perhaps be persuaded to turn their backs on organised religion, but these would not include people who are already members of a church they like.

 

Anyway who knows, maybe they have produced converts, but I do not understand what you are trying to say about them.