Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
"God trumps doctors" for 57% of Americans.
CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- When it comes to saving lives, God trumps doctors for many Americans.
An eye-opening survey reveals widespread belief that divine intervention can revive dying patients. And, researchers said, doctors "need to be prepared to deal with families who are waiting for a miracle."
More than half of randomly surveyed adults -- 57 percent -- said God's intervention could save a family member even if physicians declared that treatment would be futile. And nearly three-quarters said patients have a right to demand that treatment continue.
OK, grim. But not as bad as it could be. Only 20% of medical professionals thought that the Sky-Daddy would work a miracle to save a loved one. And the news item also contained this:
"Sensitivity to this belief will promote development of a trusting relationship" with patients and their families, according to researchers. That trust, they said, is needed to help doctors explain objective, overwhelming scientific evidence showing that continued treatment would be worthless.
Translation: "We have to be ready to explain reality to the deluded - that miracles don't happen."
When families are confronted with the imminent death of a loved one, their natural tendency is to want that person to live, and the precise mechanism how that is to happen doesn't really matter. Can medicine do it? Great. God perform a miracle? Whatever it takes, man - I'll get the incense.
Thinking about it, I'm kinda glad we have the typical belief systems we do. I could easily see how a more primitive belief requiring some kind of sacrifice to the Sky Daddy might prevail - wherein all the relatives had to chop off a finger or something, in order to appease the finger-noshing desires of the Sky Daddy. You'd see a hell of a lot of people walking around missing a digit or two. How many fingers you were missing would be a status symbol in some circles, showing how much you loved your family members.
But the current reality is not really less absurd, just a tad less bloody. Seriously, think about it.
Me? I'll take science, and medical personnel who are well trained and have the tools they need for the job. Even as limited as it is, I'll place my trust in human intelligence and experience over a myth, any day.
Jim Downey
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Who can blame them?
I know this is about American's irrational beliefs, but who can blame the average layman for believing in "miracles" when you have idiots like Moshe Daniel, and Israeli Deputy Director at the hospital where a premature baby was thought dead, place in a refrigerator unit, then later discovered alive.
Now most rational people would understand that the gynecologist who declared the baby dead were simply wrong. And that premature babies would have a slower heartbeat and respiration, and there could be 5 or minutes before any signs of life if you don't know how to deal with a premmie. But not Moshe Daniel; he assures us that this is a miracle, just like everything else that medicine can't explain.
Okay, the truth is I wouldn't have known it either if not for this article, where at least one person, Professor Arthur Eidelman, has a little common sense. I'm okay with someone like me not knowing that about premature babies. I'm not so cool with Deputy Directors of hospitals not knowing that, and being willing to throw "miracles" around.
Oh, and the baby did later die. At only 26 weeks, it's chances were slim even if it hadn't been falsely labeled as dead.
Rob Miles
--
There are only 10 types of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.
I had considered . . .
. . . including a bit about the much-touted "even doctors agree that some recoveries are miracles" line that we hear so often. I really wonder whether there are statistics to back that up, or it is only manifestation such as you cite. People tend to want to find a super-natural explanation for thing that they simply do not understand yet.
Jim Downey
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Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
"Miracle" is an over-used word.
I suspect that doctors use the word "miracle" not to describe a supernatural event, but just to describe a fortuitous event. You know, the way most of us use it. Then some nut-jobs hear that doctors described a perfectly explainable cure or remission as "miraculous" and they get all atwitter with "See? Science proves my god exists!"
For someone like Moshe Daniels, I'm just glad he is a Deputy Director of a hospital and not an active, practicing physician.
Rob Miles
--
There are only 10 types of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.
i always liked cectic's take...
http://cectic.com/014.html
This makes a good point
As though we didn't already know it, the believers aren't thinking rationally when demanding treatment continues while they wait for a miracle. If God wants to perform a miraculous healing, there isn't any need for the treatment! Sky Daddy can raise the dead if he wants to!
Heh.
Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe!
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.