Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Congress is over-represented by members who identify as religious. Are atheists welcome in Kansas anymore?

The anti-abortion movement finally went to far for SCOTUS but was their decision based on a fear of political losses rather than the law? It’s almost like a minority of citizens want their imaginary god to run the government. Democracy can be so annoying when you are a Christian fundamentalist. (see also first long read below).

LA’s Atheist Street Pirates go national in efforts to remove illegal religious signs.

Why do believers cling to religion even after escaping it?

20 most Atheist countries in the world.

World of Woo: The World Health Organization has a pseudoscience problem.

Environment: An ominous heating event is unfolding in the oceans.

We ‘Nones’ make every day Earth Day.

Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland teaches ChatGPT about atheism.

Interesting………a Journal of Controversial Ideas.

Scientists dramatically extend cell lifespan in anti-aging breakthrough. We probably have big brains because we got lucky and that allows us to use math to unlock the molecular interactions that open a window to how life evolved.

Our best models of the Universe have a troubled past.

Long Reads:  The religious right has never been smaller or more powerful.  The first “Wrongful Death” case for helping a friend to get an abortion.  A military program for Atheists in Foxholes.  So much for a secular coronation as King Charles will be bestowed with mystical powers by an archbishop.  Perplexed? Embrace it! Confusion is a sign of learning.

Sunday Book Club: Sorry, nothing this week.

Some photographs taken last week.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Coffee Break Video: The Redwood forests that watched humans evolve. Hitchens: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment (98 minutes).

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Have a great week everyone!

[StregaModerator]

Thanks, Reg!!!

[AutumnParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Interesting………a Journal of Controversial Ideas.

I wonder how long it will last. I read a few of the published articles and skimmed the abstracts on a number of others. It seems they are struggling to get quality content that supports their stated mission. It’s not that they are all low quality submissions in terms of content, but a number are just tepid opinion pieces rather than ‘careful, rigorous, unpolemical discussion of issues that are widely considered controversial’.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

LA’s Atheist Street Pirates go national in efforts to remove illegal religious signs.

This is well and good from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, but this should be part of an even wider effort to clean LA and other cities of infected needles, garbage, and human excrement that fill the streets, especially on Hollywood’s Skid Row. Maybe even a campaign to allow developers to build tiny houses to help get the homeless off the streets.

The theme of the effort could be that there is only one Earth and one life, so make it and keep it better than when you found it.

World of Woo: The World Health Organization has a pseudoscience problem.

I’ve read about this before, where the World Health Organization embraced Witch Doctory and folk medicine from Indigenous and Aboriginal peoples on a par with evidence-based medicine. No surprise from a United Nations that regards Totalitarian powers and The Vatican as moral equals with freer Secular societies. It wouldn’t surprise me if WHO also embraced lobotomies with lobbying from the Soviets and Phrenology and Eugenics under Secretary General Kurt Waldheim.

Yet another reason to oppose single-payer, single-provider health care. When the State likes Woo, everybody gets Woo.

Scientists dramatically extend cell lifespan in anti-aging breakthrough.

This is a hopeful story. As overwhelming as the problems of the world can be, maybe the best, peaceful solution is to live long enough to solve them, or at least outlive it all.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Yet another reason to oppose single-payer, single-provider health care. When the State likes Woo, everybody gets Woo.

Perhaps a valid example, but not hugely relevant in the overall health care picture you’re extending it to. Such persistent insistence on the divine-like perfection of pure libertarianism to solve all problems sounds itself like a form of woo. Why are so many countries with publicly provided health care so much happier and healthier with their system than ours?

This reminds me that I meant to post this article a while back:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/25/1164819944/live-free-and-die-the-sad-state-of-u-s-life-expectancy

(Actually, Reg posted it last week, but it got no comments here in SS.)

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

PopeBeanie,

Are you sure about that happier, healthier part? Not only is that not the case with the UK, but according to this article below, even less so in Ireland, Slovenia, and Romania.

There is also a UK Doctor shortage, with a shortfalls of Medical School graduates, fewer imported Doctors from abroad, existing Doctors taking early retirements, and new graduates suffering from burnout after 2 years in Foundations studies, and greater numbers of new Doctors wanting to practice abroad instead of in the UK:

Why is there a shortage of doctors in the UK?
Author: Taylor M
https://publishing.rcseng.ac.uk/doi/full/10.1308/rcsbull.2020.78

On top of that, the Government is limiting the number of entrants into Medical School:

Amid NHS staff shortages, the UK reintroduces cap on medical students
The number of medicine and dentistry students will go down to pre-pandemic levels this year.
By Katharine Swindells

Amid NHS staff shortages, the UK reintroduces cap on medical students

Now where in Hell would you find a situation like this in a truly free market in any commodity or service?

• This reply was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Spelling

[PopeBeanieModerator]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Now where in Hell would you find a situation like this in a truly free market in any commodity or service?

Yeah, UK health care has been sliding backwards for a while now, as they try to privatize it.

[DavisModerator]

Enco, you are selectively picking countries which are underfunding their public health care system as examples of how it is bad and ignoring the many that are fully funded and work well. This is called cherry picking in case you aren’t familiar with this fallacy. Don’t cherry pick. Fully funded and healthy public systems work.

We only have one country to compare it with, and that is America where insurance is expensive, so full of deductibles and abuse one can fight tooth and nail to get part of their cost refunded if they aren’t lucky to have a phenomenal policy. And then those who don’t get a policy and just go fuck themselves into bankruptcy and die. I’ve lived in Five countries with a public system experiencing very serious health issues and have never ever had cause to complain, have had phenomenal service, never saw a bill and didn’t pay high taxes unless I earned a high income.

A system that let’s people pointlessly die due to medical system neglect, is an extremely immoral one. I see nothing remotely virtuous about an ideology that allows pointless death for the uninsured in fear of bankruptcy. That is fucking bezerk. American health is fucking bezerk. No other civilized country copies it, because it is extremely immoral and bezerk.

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by  Davis.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

PopeBeanie,

Yeah, UK health care has been sliding backwards for a while now, as they try to privatize it.

Uh, read the article again. Private, competitive Free-Market enterprises are not restricting the number of openings and students in medical schools. That is the Government.

Nor are private, competitive Free-Market enterprises in charge of immigration and restricting foreign Doctors, Nurses, and other medical personnel. Again, that is the Government.

And above all, a private, competitive Free-Market enterprise medical concern would not support anything that restricts their access to capital and labor that would help them provide competent health care at a profit. Only non-profit Governments would do something so stupid, such as when the U.S Postal Service responds to reduced revenue by eliminating services and cutting hours that the Post Offices remain open.

Sounds like your statement is weak tea.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Davis,

Enco, you are selectively picking countries which are underfunding their public health care system as examples of how it is bad and ignoring the many that are fully funded and work well. This is called cherry picking in case you aren’t familiar with this fallacy. Don’t cherry pick. Fully funded and healthy public systems work.

The original topic was the United Nations and it’s World Health Organization funding pseudoscientific Woo like “homeopathy,” “allopathy,” and “holistic medicine”. Fully Government-funded Woo is still Woo.

Also noteworthy, according to the story, the one responsible for spreading Woo to the U.N. and The West was none other than Red China’s Chairman Mao Zedong, the ultimate single-payer Government health care provider.

Evidently, Mao wasn’t happy murdering up to 61 million of his own people with The Long March, The Great Leap Forward, Education Through Labor, and The Cultural Revolution. Nope, Mao had to spread Woo abroad and kill more people. Emperor Xi has followed in his footsteps very thoroughly these past three years.

Uh, fuck this Government “bedside manner.”

The health care system I’m looking for and support would provide patients with stem-cell-grown body-shops of replacement organs (until we can make steel-plated synthetic ones) and an apothecary of drugs from plants grown legally and cheaply, unadulterated by Drug War-created black markets, genetically- and chemically modified to kill disease and pain, but not people.

And it would all be so plentiful and inexpensive, no one would need third-party insurers, private or public, to finance it. It could be done with a credit or debit card or a prepaid account. Insurance companies would only be needed for accidental death and dismemberment (very cheap) or athletes and actors getting specialty coverage for their money-making parts; insurance companies would not be the primary source of revenue for health care.

All of this can be the product of Free-Market Capitalism if it were just left alone.

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Correction. "Funded" not "Issued."
• This reply was modified 1 month ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Addendum

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