Baumblog EST 1968 - A blog for the Baumbachs who originated in Syracuse, NY

According to this story we have a nun who apparently was cured of her Parkinson's Disease overnight, and that she and others are attributing this miracle to John Paul II. Of course, for those who don't know, you must have at least one miracle attributed to you in order to be declared a saint.

I'll confess--this whole saint business was always a little weird to me, even back when I wasn't doing the non-belief thing. I mean, God is the all-powerful being here, so any miracles have to be attributed to he / she / it, right? (I'm going to use he from here one out, forgive me for being lazy). So what does the saintly person do to get the miracle attributed to them?

Oh, wait, I think I see. You pray to the dead person (say, John Paul II) and if you get what you prayed for, it's a miracle from God that can be attributed to this dead person. Ergo, this dead person interceded with God on your (or your prayer's target's) behalf, so the miracle is attributed to the dead person. Once we've convinced ourselves of this, we then basically say "they were such a good person when they were alive" and declare them a saint. Well, technically, the average Joe doesn't, the bigwigs in the church do. They know better that we do. Or something like that.

Here's a problem: afflictions, including disease and cancers, go away on their own all the time...sometimes without any medical treatment. Our bodies have significant resources to fight off these problems...and even against the nastier ones, sometimes we win without any help.

Scientists study these cases when they can, in order to glean information that might lead to a cure for that affliction. What is different about this person that made them recover, or made them immune? Can it be replicated in other victims to help them? That's what science is all about.

Religion, being built on myth rather than science, says, no, it was obviously a miracle! In this nun's case, people were actively praying for her in the name of John Paul II, and she was cured! It's a miracle, cut-and-dry.

The scientists look at the cured person, and often find one of two things: (1) they were misdiagnosed to begin with, and what they had was something else entirely. That item did respond to a treatment, and the symptoms vanished. No mystery there, except the how and why of the misdiagnose. (2) The person has some gene that grants resistivity, or ingested / was exposed to something that provided some benefit, or was sick with some other condition that competed with the obvious one and destroyed it.

In any of those cases, they work on proof--because they want something they can take to cure others with, so it had better be repeatable and consistent. So, off it goes to the labs for testing. Sometimes a cure is found--more often, just more knowledge is gained that brings us closer to a cure.

On the other side, the religious folk don't have proof. They have hearsay, poor logical induction, and their belief, and nothing else. You say, of course, why is this a bad thing?

1. They are declaring a person's recovery the work of God. Therefore, science doesn't need to explain it (and they'd prefer that they didn't, lest it shatter the illusion they've constructed). Active denial of science is one bad effect--the other being lack of additional knowledge gained about a possible cure. They both suck.

2. They then elevate this person to saint--and then, anything this person did during their life can be held as a good example to others. Let's face it, nobody lives a perfect life. People with sinister aims can pick out the examples in this saint's life that fit their agenda, and push it on the faithful: "See--God favored this person for what he or she did, so we should emulate them!" Of course, God didn't favor the person, we did. And the one with the agenda is obvious looking to only highlight what works for him, be it good or bad. This is the hideous logic that can lead to blind faith in stupid commands--it's the genesis of religious terrorism, be it homegrown (abortion bombers) or overseas (like you need an example).

This is just one example of silliness in religion. It doesn't afflict just Christianity--all of them are silly on some level, because at the end of the day, they are human-created edifices. Humans are silly. God is supposed to be perfect..

Oh, back to the concept of miracles. Now, this gal and her pals were praying to JP II to intercede for her. How many millions of others did the same, and got nothing from God? That's not the actions of a benevolent God--that either due to a totally arbitrary God, or an evil one. I'll give you a hint--a total arbitrary God is what we science-based folks call chance.

Chance simple states that her affliction was cured by her own body. She then framed that by her religious background, and tada, it was a miracle!

So...what do you think? Saints / miracles? Fantasy or reality? Harmless or harmful?

Geoff said about 1 hour later

It isn't a miracle, just because someone says it is. It is an anomaly for which science has yet to unravel. There is no proof. It all comes down to faith, which I have come to learn should be deemed "blissful ignorance." A 2000 year old book tells me miracles are real. Well, I'm sure there are a few other old books out there that tell you the world is flat, and that the Sun orbits the Earth, and obviously we have proven this false. However, until we can prove that miracles don't exist, they can exist.

WRONG, thanks for playing.

I remember watching 20/20 and they were talking about Heaven and if it exists. Near the end, they interviewed an Atheist and their point of view. One thing she said I really liked and I'll crudely paraphrase it for you.

"It is not our job to prove that God/Heaven do not exist. It would be like me asking you to believe that I saw a green man standing outside my door. Of course you wouldn't believe me, but until you can prove to me that he doesn't exist, then he could."

I like the simplicity of the analogy. Unless we have evidence that Johnny boy swooped down from heaven, snatched up that disease, and removed it from a nun (go figure), then why in the heck should we believe it? I think GJ has described the harmful consequences of this thinking quite well and I agree totally.

Let me be the first to say that science is not all perfect and knowing. It isn't always exact, and it does not have answers to every question. However it's essence is to seek the truth by observation and experimentation while being falsifiable. I can't say the same about Religion or some of the garbage that it reaps. If people could get that through their head, THAT would be the real miracle.
GJ said about 3 hours later

That's the point of science. It's not perfect, and cannot ever hope to be. It relies on self-correction, and change in our understanding of the world is built in. Change is a scary thing--it sometimes throws what we took as a given right out the window. That being said...it only does that with proof, not technobabble nor faith nor intimidation.

A good example of the self-correction of science. Back in the late 80s, Fleishmann and Pons announced to the world (note, to the world, not the scientific community--a sign of things to come, to be sure) that they had discovered cold fusion. People were estatic--fusion is a far safer and efficient form of nuclear energy, but it's damn near impossible to contain without super-high temperature fusion. What they were claiming was the ability to create a fusion reaction at near-room-temperature.

However, over the next several months, no one else was able to replicate their experiment. Inside of a year, cold fusion as a scientific concept was dead, but it lives on in the hopes of its proponents and the fringe elements of society who think Big Government killed it to preserve Big Oil. Did Fleischman and Pons really mean to fake this? Nope...but they strayed from the tried and true scientific method (you know, the one that says hypotheses need repeatable experiments validating their claims before they get theory status) in a rush to beat their rivals to the punch. Only trouble was, their experiment was flawed, but they wanted it so bad they began to believe in it. Once done, they were able to continue to do experiments that appeared (to them) to prove cold fusion. Unfortunately, it made them blind to the mistakes they were making...and thus the science community as a whole rejected their claim. They became outcasts when they continued making the claim and devising new ways to falsely prove it.

This belief shown by Fleischman and Pons is no different than the belief in anything else. When you convince yourself of a belief, you begin to filter how you see the world. Anything that supports your belief, no matter how wacky, you cling to. Anything that challenges your belief you rationalize and discard, no matter how convincing. Get deep enough into that belief, and it may well take a life-altering event to shake you out of it.

So where does this leave it? Do I think religion has a place in this world? I'll have another post in the coming days that outlines what I think in that regard. You just might be surprised at my conclusions. That is, if I don't decide to break up all this philosophy with a game review or some other less cerebral topic.
Steve said about 11 hours later

Boy oh boy, you guys need to take a step back and reconsider some of what religion does for us.

Let's leave the people involved in religion out of the picture for a second, and I'll talk about what religion means to me.

While I might not be a fully practicing Catholic, I do appreciate the years I spent in Catholic School, as well as everything I learned at church. Religion has taught me how to be a good person, and has helped guide me to what is right and wrong. Of course I'm generalizing here. I still have a free mind, and don't take every little thing the Catholic church preaches to be true, or right. I think it's stupid that they don't let women do the same things as men. I think it's stupid that they are against condoms and such.

I seriously beleive that the degredation in people's behaviors today over just 50 years ago is greatly related to the downfall of religion in this country. I'm flabbergasted by how poorly some people act around others. A lot of people. Take one example - how many times have you dealt with inconsiderate drivers? People sitting in the left lane. People driving inconsistent speeds. These people are only concerned with themselves on the road, and have no consideration for others. Ok, now think about how often you see people holding the door open for others. I've noticed that it seems to happen less and less often these days. How about the jerks that are not handicapped, but think it's ok to park in a handicapped parking spot because they are only going to be shopping for 10 minutes? I'm not saying these things didn't happen 50 years ago, but I bet they happened a lot less often. How about your neighbors? How many of them do you know? Do you do block parties? Do you see other areas doing block parties? Heck, growing up, we always used to have a couple partys in the middle of the circle, usually for 4th of July and Memorial Day. I used to love those days. Happen much anymore? Nope.

There's one great flaw about all religions - they are run by humans, and humans, no matter how good, make mistakes. So no religion is going to be perfect. Take what you can learn from religion, and be happy.

Sorry, I'm in a bit of a bad mood, as I just got home from work at 9:00 PM tonight, on a freaking Friday of all days, and I have to go to the assembly plant tomorrow (two hours away) to do a 20 minute evaluation. Grr.....
GJ said about 13 hours later

First off, you've made a totally unprovable assumption...that people today are far worse behaved than they were 50 years ago. Let me state first that one's behavior is dictated by culture, and different cultures have very different opinions on what good behavior is. Over the past 50 years, we've seen a huge shift in our culture to a much more varied melting pot--mostly because those of the lesser known cultures from the 50s and 60s now have far more buying power, and are thus far more visible to those of use in the middle class. Add to that the fact we live much closer together and run our lives at much faster speeds. Yep, the old customs will die hard. That doesn't make the new ones all bad--what's happening is we're feeling our way into the next mode of existence for humanity.

Next, you bring up the change in socialization that has taken place in society over the past 100 years. As we continue to get more populated (gee, another thing you can blame on religion) and more mobile, people have become more isolated. They don't all stay in the same hometowns they grew up in as kids, and they find that most people that live near them are in the same boat--they've relocated from somewhere. Still, the social parties do exist in some neighborhoods (like ours, not that we're socialites. hehe).

I am not saying that religion never did any good. However, it is ignorant to believe that religion does no harm. I'm of the belief that religion by and large today is more harmful than good--and has been for centuries.

A common argument theologists make about good deeds: that, without God, there would be no good deeds. Everybody would be all for themselves, and the world would be a terrible place. Guess what? The world IS a terrible place at any given time in any given location. But we, as a community of humans, try to improve our lot together, because we do far more as a unit than we can ever do alone. This alone gives us reason to offer comfort to others...it both helps the group, and builds reinforcement for that group-positive behavior. One of the reasons religions developed was to teach this concept...but it was a human construction, not a divine one.

However, over time, religion became an entity in and of itself. It declares itself the ultimate authority in all things, whether or not those things fly in the face of common sense or outright proof. It is this that makes religion so dangerous. It teaches our young to be sheep--to not think for themselves--to follow the crowd. Sheep are easily manipulated into doing evil things...and it happens again and again in history. Religion isn't the only example--Hitler used this same methodology to carry out his evil campaign.

So, what does religion do for me now? Nothing. My kids are good kids--and they're being taught to be good by their parents. I don't tell them they have God to answer for their sins--instead, they have their parents, their teachers, and eventually all of society to do that. I tell them--they can play by the rules of society, and work to change those rules they disagree with, but if they decide to abandon those rules, there will be consequences and they must be prepared to deal with them. Being a bad person isn't a rewarding choice in life--being a good one is. You don't need the promise of an afterlife to figure that out.

In the end--Mom and Dad taught us how to be good--the church didn't.
Geoff said about 23 hours later

Amen to that. I agree with what Steve has said about society, but I don't think it is a result of Religion, heck I'd blame the computer more so, not to mention women in the work place. These days, both parents are usually working to be able to survive, and most barely have enough time to take care of the kids, let alone throw a block party. I would hedge a bet that many of these parties were organized by women. With more women in the workplace, they have less time to do this stuff. Perhaps this also impacts our "ownership" of the road. We're all in a hurry now a days.
Steve said 1 day later

Sorry if I mislead about something - I don't think that religion does not harm either. Just one look at the extremists shows that. As I said, religion is not perfect. Take what you like from it, and discard the rest. I agree Mom and Dad taught us good morals, but they used religion to help them do so.

Geoff, I'd be careful about blaming women for the degredation in society. Who says women have to be the homemakers? Can't men? Does anyone have to stay at home with the kids once they are in school? The problem I see is when Moms and Dads both work lots of hours, either because they want more money, or they are forced to because of their job. Well, it's up to the parents to choose. Find a new job, accept less money, or choose work over their children.

That said, I hope that if and when I do get married and have kids, that my wife would want to stay home with the children, at least until they are in school. If she is not willing, then I would want to. I don't know much about raising kids, but I think that a lot of their development happens at an early age, and I want either myself or my wife to guide them, not a nanny. Once they are in school, it's much easier, assuming you don't work a lot of hours.

So um, perhaps we have two topics we should ban from discussion now - abortion and religion. I'm going to stay out of future ones, becuase there's no sense in going back and forth about the same stuff over and over again. We all live our lives the way we want to, and arguing on this blog isn't going to change that.
GJ said 1 day later

Aw, but it's so much fun! :)
Marc said 1 day later

I think it's interesting we're discussing the changes religion and computers have had on our society in these comments, because I think one of the reasons religion is getting a bad rep. is in help due to computers.

First off, it's nice that computers, or more broadly mass communication, are giving us the ability to see the faults in everything, including religion. The whole priest scandal in the Catholic church has helped to cause some changes, or at least is on its way to.

On the other hand, it's also inaccurately pigeonholing it. Yes, there's a lot of sick priests out there, but there's way more decent ones. I think if any of you have taken psychology, you'll remember that humans tend to remember drastically bad things rather then drastically good things. Just think about the news you see at night, what types of stories take up most of the time? Murders, wars, corruption. Oh, then the small story on local charity group tossed in there, but I'm sure that won't be talked about tomorrow.

I think we're seeing good and bad changes, obviously. It's good that we're able to realize faults in all parts of society, so we can hopefully fix them, but at the same time, like Steve said, I think we're beginning to forget the good things. As much as you may not want to hear it, I think religion, or reflection for the agnostic, helps to remember the good or be thankful for it.

As for John Paul being a saint, I could care less...so could he. He did some good, I'm sure he's done bad. Sainthood is basically like knighthood in my mind, it's simply a recognition.
Geoff said 1 day later

uh oh Marc, get ready for GJ's wrath!

You do bring up a good point that "sex sells." We don't hear about the nice things that religion provides, the charity to the poor, confirmation students visiting the local elderly center, etc... These are all very good things that religious groups provide to society. I'm not quite as anti-religion as GJ projects himself to be (whether he is or isn't is not my call), so I think Religion can be a very good thing for some people. Coming back to Miracles for a moment, I think what tickles many athiests are the outrageous statements they would have you believe. This miracle story is one example. So is the Cold Fusion example GJ provided for science.

The difference is how we are able to question these statements in science. Religion, um not so much. Sure Catholics these days don't strictly adhere to the rules as much as they used to (not by the pope's choice), but look at the middle east. This is where religious beliefs have gone bad....way bad. I think calling these followers sheep would be a compliment. Instances like these make me personally werey of some religions (and governments). Personally, if someone believes in one god or many, I don't care. Believe what you want to, but you should be able to think for yourself without persecution. This goes for Religion, Government, Science, and Families too (except children under 18, they must obey thy father and mother :) Heck, I believe in aliens, and I have no proof of their existence! (bring it GJ hahaha)

I think what it comes down to, for me anyway, is "carpe diem" baby! If you want to spend your Sundays worshiping, go for it, me, I'd rather hang some drywall or wash my car. I spent my early childhood days looking for miracles, but now, I make miracles happen everyday (just look at the new blog design, its a beauty! LOL).
GJ said 2 days later

GJ's wrath, that's funny.

OK, let's stop assuming that I cannot see the good that religious organizations do, or that I am not recognizing the fact that on the whole, secular organizations are nowhere near as involved as religious ones in helping the poor and sick. I'm well aware of that, and that is a very important role to fill. You will notice that I do not attack those activities of the churches.

What I do attack is the belief in falsehoods, because of the pain, suffering, ignorance and tragedy it leads to. We don't even need to look overseas at Muslim religious terrorists to see the effects--try looking right here in the US. Sometimes it's violence: anti-gay and anti-abortion violence is solely fueled by religious fervor. Sometimes it's mind control: think Scientology and other cult-like followings. More often, it's suppression of facts to ensure no challenges to a religion's view of the world: think evolution, reproduction and population science.

These falsehoods, and the work that goes into maintaining them, is what turns the majority of Americans into easily malleable sheep. I'm not accusing any of you of this, but how many people do you know, on both the conservative and liberal ends of the spectrum, who vote and act the way they do because of what they're told by the talking heads of their political parties, churches, and other sources of influence? I don't know about you--but I see tons of them. They scare me to death.
Marc said 2 days later

I agree GJ, I hope I didn't seem like I was attacking anyone for not seeing the good that can come of religion, I actually was going for more the society as a whole disregarding its benefits. I wholeheartedly agree there's plenty of bad that comes of it as well.

Here comes my typical you should really check out Rush comment. Apparently, the next album (due out May 1st!) is focused very heavily on this very subject. Heck, even one of the album artworks shows a baby in a baby carriage, being struck by lightning, with good weather on one side and stormy on the other. Neil, the lyricist, even says that his influences came from the spoon feeding people are receiving of their believes and how both good and bad come from it. Obviously I can't tell you how well thought out the lyrics will be, but if you can get past Geddy's voice, you may actually appreciate their lyrics for once GJ. :)
GJ said 2 days later

I think this is just a sneaky way to get me to listen to Rush!!!
Marc said 2 days later

Will it work?
Geoff said 2 days later

When it comes to Rush, we are religious fanatics and will do anything to convert you.....baaaaahhh!
GJ said 2 days later

Nope. My CD players are Rush-proof.
Geoff said 2 days later

Ah, but what about your mp3 player? There's our exhaust port, Marc, let's get him!
Marc said 2 days later

Maybe I'll throw a midi in the background on the blog so he can't get away from it. :)
Geoff said 2 days later

Excellent, perhaps a few songs can cycle, with the final song being "One Little Victory"

;)
GJ said 3 days later

a midi...on the blog? die, infidels!
Eric said 4 days later

This post sure transformed. I bet I can change that - RELIGION IS GREAT. Blue Cross/Blue Shield should be a saint!
Geoff said 4 days later

lol!
GJ said 4 days later

You'll find discussions always get lively here...and often go all over the place. Kind of like home. And Rush still sucks.
Geoff said 4 days later

That's it...Marc, time to launch the Midi's...in fact, do an if statement on GJ's login so it only plays for him, and make sure he is unable to disable the music :)
GJ said 5 days later

Where'd I put my hit man directory?