The Healing Power of Prayer

One of the things I have often wondered about was the Healing Power of Prayer.

I've "done some research" on the web and I've read articles where actual scientific studies ere performed and no evidence was found that prayer helped much at all. However, there is no denying that sometimes, when people KNOW other people are praying for them, sometimes miracles happen, and this does have actual statistical proof.

So what does this tell us? That there is no God? Or that God is just very fickle, and if you're lucky he'll roll a 6 when he comes up to your prayer?

My notions on the issue are that the Healing Power of Prayer may just be: when you feel like enough people actually, for real, CARE.... that you SHOULD get better, because there are people out there that NEED you still. This would be a very useful evolutionary adaptation, speeding up the departure of the wicked and preserving the good.

Given the miraculous medical recoveries I have seen, and been. Given the actual numerical facts about how prayer affects recovery no better than no prayer. I know there are no host of angels waiting our commands. It's our natural behavior pattern to forget the failures and be awed by the massive "miracle" of the success when the odds are high enough. Even if we have to believe in Magic to make it seem "plausible". This is a basic survival mechanism built into all creatures with a brain. It's a foundational principle of Natural Selection.

Even the lowest of the lowly low animals, the flatworm knows to GO TO THE LIGHT!!! because when something is swimming over you, it might eat you, best to avoid moving shadows! Because, rather "miraculously" those flatworms that swam to the darkness found a mouth waiting to eat them, and they didn't have many offspring.

In all likely-hood, sometimes people's own healing systems are able to be activated if you secrete just the right balance of hormones and other bio-chemical stuff. Science is already discovering that there are ways to cause this to happen though stem cell research and the Human Genome Project.

There is a way to cause the genetic mechanisms that changed us from children to adults in our prime, run again! That means that when they unlock this Pandora's Box, death will become something very different than how we see it now. The science for this is happening now, in labs around the world. We need more money to more scientists. Not more church buildings or warships.

Or we could keep invoking spirits and appealing to Higher Powers, I suppose.

Crucified...

I have an Anarchist friend on FB. He's a Free Thinking Patriot who posts more than his share of those thought provoking, educational links, and more importantly, he often OPINES in the descriptions. He's been trying to explain to me now No Government would work. I always come back to, well who'll run the Jails? or How will they take care of the Elderly without Medicare... etc.

For the most part, I have led a blameless life. The number of people who could lie down in an fMRI and have their complaints about me proven genuine is a number around 5. But none of these things would carry a fine or jail time if they were adjudicated on in a court of law. I've allowed some bad things to happen that I could have acted differently to have caused a better outlook, and collateral damaged here and there but it wasn't criminal in any way.

But how can this be, as I don't Believe in a Higher power. I just Believe in the Golden Rule. I don't know how else to explain it.

Imagine if we all lived our lives AS IF we there as an All Powerful Being who lived among us, and spoke to us, and could help us. Imagine if he SAW Him Her It (HHI) with our own eyes every day! Imagine if we behaved as if HHI would was going to throw us into a flaming/frozen pit for all eternity if we disobeyed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If we would just live like that, and have our rule be something WACKY like. "Love thy neighbor as thyself" or "Do unto others that which you would not like them to do unto you".

It could be just like Heaven....

man, where have I heard this theory before? I can almost remember, I know I read it somewhere....

Those of us who "get it" live this way already. Laws and Religion are just there for those people who have not stepped up to the next level and Live Right, just Because. I don't need Law or Religion to make me behave. And you know, in Jerusalem, in 33AD..... notions like this would get you Crucified....

Conspiracy Theories

This, like most of my posts here, started out as a FB discussion, turned into an editorial, and wound up here ... :)

Conspiracy theories serve a useful purpose, they draw in those suspicious of their "rulers", yet gullible enough to religiously swallow enough fabrications with the truth, to appear as crackpots, and dismissed in the eyes of the greater Public.

They let out enough truth to satiate those intelligent enough to filter out the BS from the probable, because they get to look down on the "idiots" who fall for the BS. They get to despise those whom they view to be the "evil" ones. They get enough of an ego boost and anger "fix" to keep them effectively neutralized.

They provide the Public with people to suspect and mistrust, when they should suspect and mistrust their "rulers".

They divide the People so that the Few can rule. I'm not a conspiracy buff, though I was raised neck deep in them. However, any clear thinking person knows that when you combine individual wealth surpassing that of most nations with a human being who has no compassion for those who are economically disadvantaged, one has a defacto conspiracy of sorts. These mega wealthy will manipulate government in subtle ways, campaign donations, world conferences, hobnobbery, bribes.... murder.

It's not an "Illuminati" or the "Bilderbergers" but just plain human nature combined with unlimited wealth and greed. Make no mistake, it's happening, and denying it won' t make it go away.

The four "Wars" we are involved in now are a clear example.

There were no WMD, yet we still find ourselves embroiled in an occupation and empire building endeavor in Iraq, for the primary goal of securing an oil field. There are side effects both good and bad that will come from it, hundreds of thousands of casualties, civilian, military and insurgents. A democracy may spring up where there once was dictatorship. Afghanistan is turning out to be about natural resources in my opinion. They've "discovered" massive mineral deposits of gold, gemstones and perhaps most important of all, Lithium, in Afghanistan. We went there looking for Osama Bin Laden, an ex? CIA operative during the Jihad against Russian occupation, almost ten years ago. He should have been found by now if America were really looking for him with earnest.

The War on Terrorism, which claims fewer Americans annually than botched domestic police actions is being carried out simply to maintain a high level of domestic stress. Stressed out people vote, spend and behave more predictably than happy, secure feeling people. If the TSA were to attempt what it's doing now in the 50's, virtually every woman in the line would have slapped the agents patting them down, and every man would punch them in the face.

The War on Drugs and the War on Terror are our modern day witch hunts. Every dark age has one. Potheads pose no danger to society, yet they are subject to unconstitutional search and seizure, wrongful imprisonment, and occasionally summary execution when the "bust" goes bad. The War on Drugs is the longest running war in American History, and it's being waged on Americans at their own expense. Even staying away from drugs is no guarantee of protection, bad cops will frame you if they like your car, or want to get into your safe. SWAT teams sometimes kick down the wrong door and shoot little old ladies in their beds, or 7yr old girls watching TV on the couch, and later find no drugs. Bad police work is more dangerous than terrorism. Annual deaths of Americans, averaged since the first cases in the 70's account for less than 20 deaths per year. Bad police work accounts for 350 deaths annually. (appx numbers of course)

All these things make the very rich richer, keep Democrats and Republicans in office, and keep the Public divided and living in fear.

It's not a "conspiracy". It's just the many, peace loving people being ruled by the few, selfish, immoral bastards. Business as usual for "civilized man".

The only way to change it short of a revolution is for the peace loving people to give up Consumerism, and vote with their dollars as well as in the voting booth. We have to stop voting for plastic junk made in China, with our dollars; and we have to stop voting party line tickets, and vote for individuals on individual merits rather than party affiliations. These two things are the great evils of our age, they have caused all our current political and economic troubles.

In my somewhat humble, nearly redneck, hillbilly opinion. I could be wrong on every count.

Another Danger of a 6,000 year old Earth...

People think I'm crazy because I say there are dangers in believing that God made us by special creation 6,000 years ago; but here is a prime example of how belief in special creation costs OTHER people their lives.

If God created the races separately, then the people in this picture are not my kinfolk. I'm Caucasian, they're black. And she's not even Christian enough to be ashamed of her nakedness!

If we believed these people were family, they would not die this way.

I've often lamented on the dangers of a 6000 year old earth. I am usually referring to how our brain has evolved through the ages. According to neuroscience, we have a reptilian core in our brain. It's just like a crocodile brain almost, it's where get flight or fight, hatred, intense anger, lust and such "basic survival emotions". Basically, behavior one would find in a reptile.

Above and around that area of the brain, we have our mammal structures. The ones which make us care bout our offspring, long for a close bond with a mate, acceptance within our group and for family.

Added to, and on top of that, we have that 10% that we "use", that makes us human.... and I sometimes feel that it spends most of its time rationalizing the actions and thoughts of the other 90%. If we are not careful, the other 90% uses us.

I hadn't really thought about this danger of the 6,000 year old earth though. I'm grateful for the whole line of discussion on Facebook that followed the posting of this photo. These pictures and the discussion have made me realized an even greater danger in "Intelligent Design" musings. I can see nothing intelligent about designing people in such a way as to allow them to let their distant cousins starve to death. While we sit over here corn-fed an lazy.

Without accepting evolution, we can hate someone because they're not the same color, or religion. These poor people cease to be MY cousins, because they are not Christian, or white. With evolution, this woman becomes my KIN and her child my own extended family. These are MY PEOPLE TOO! Dammit.

And that makes it painful to my heart to let them perish. Once they are accepted within that mental wall that surrounds family, my own "heart goes out to them", as describe that biological reaction to harm to kin and self that causes our chest to tighten and our tears to flow.

If your belief system allows you to look at this picture, and not see your family dying for lack of food... question it; because it is murderous. That poor child is a distant niece or nephew of EVERYONE, (it's so emaciated one cannot tell) . And collectively, his uncles and aunts have let him starve because they are too weak minded to make their governments behave properly and cast off antiquated beliefs and demand humanitarian reform from their religions.

Dalai Lama

The compassionate mind is very important. Fear, anger, jealousy are based on a self-centered attitude. By developing a sense of caring for others' well-being your heart automatically opens and that brings transparency, straightforwardness and honesty, which leads to friendship. We are social animals, and one individual's survival relies entirely on the rest of the community.

The Danger of a 6000 year old Earth

I think that our 6000 year old earth is to blame for much of this mess. The world was once Officially Flat, the church eventually had to cede that point as science proved otherwise. Science has unequivocally demonstrated Evolution to be truth and that the Universe is 13.7 billion years old, or so.

The religious minded will have to cede this point just like they had to abandon the Flat Earth, and Earth is the Center of the Universe theories.

Anyone who will take up their Bible and read it, starting at the beginning will find not a book of love and wisdom from a Good God, but a horrid, bloody history of a murderous bronze age tribe of people. It's a book filled with hundreds of cases of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Incest, murder, child-molestation.


God and Jesus both had nothing bad to say about Slavery, something you and I KNOW to be wrong.

The early church was a widely varied thing. Congregations and denominations ranged from the purely aesthetic to the orgiastic, both in the name of Christ.

The Holy Roman Catholic Church rose to power because Rome's military might had waned, and they needed a new way to control the people.

They stole Christianity, warped it's books to meet their ends, and exterminated those who wouldn't go along with them.

So effective were their techniques that few had the bravery to stand against them for over 1500 years. Martin Luther led the first great Evolution of Christianity.

I believe another one is happening now. People are beginning to read their bibles and see them for what they are. Repositories of ancient truths, wisdoms and atrocities, that have been edited for the purpose of controlling the masses.

With a 6000 year old Earth and Biblical understanding of human nature... the Devil makes you lust and do various selfish acts.

With a 13.7 billion year old Universe and a 4.3 billion year old Earth, we are descended of a long chain of animals. Our brain is the result of eons of evolution and posesses structures very similar to the brains of crocodiles, with structures on top of it not terribly dissimilar to those of rodents, birds and "lower" mammals. We have a slice on top that makes us aware, conscious and gives us free will, if we can realize that we only "use 10%" of it.

The trick is, that other 90% isn't just sitting there, it's the Devil. In it lies those base, reptilian desires of lust, hunger, rage and fear. In the mammal structures we have compassion, love, devotion and altruism. And in that 10%, we have reason, logic and morality.

I like to think of it as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Fear and Cowardice

Recently there has been great turmoil in our Nation over the unprecedented invasion of privacy going on in our nation's airports. Honest, law abiding citizens are being treated like criminals. Veterans being treated like drug dealers. Women with prosthetic breasts being forced to remove them, and prove they do not have explosives. Women in traditional garb being asked to violate their religious convictions. Children, screaming "don't touch me" while being touched in places I was told to tell the police if I were touched there when I was small.

And why are we enduring this?

Terrorists.

I ask myself, what is a terrorist? What do they do?

According to the Wikipedia: "Terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.^[1] No universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition of terrorism currently exists.^[2][3] Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for a religious, political or ideological goal, deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (civilians), and are committed by non-government agencies."

By this definition, they have won. America is gripped in an irrational fear.

Many people are offended when I call this an irrational fear. Fear of nonpoisonous spiders, is irrational. Fear of non poisonous snakes is irrational. Fear of bridges, is, while a very unlikely way to die, does claim a life now and then. Every year, on average, 57 people are killed by lightening, yet our nation is not gripped in fear every time thunder claps. While some may suffer exaggerated levels of fear, most of us calmly seek an indoor location and proceed at a calm pace.

Worrying about whether or not the person next to you have a bomb in his underwear is a highly exaggerated fear. So far, no one has died this way. One man has suffered severe genital burns trying to set off an improvised munition, but no deaths. Ironically, he had no balls in the first place. A real man doesn't kill innocent people to make his statement. If he has a qualm with another man, he walks up to him, calls him out and they settle affairs like men. Cowards use terrorism. Cowards fear terrorism.

It was with considerable difficulty I managed to find a most disturbing mortality statistic. Innocent civilians killed by police officers due to mistaken identity, or negligence. I have only been able to find the number for this for the calendar year 1993. Apparently, no agency is tasked with compiling this statistic; or they simply do not publish them.

In 1993, 330 innocent, law abiding citizens were wrongfully slain by policemen. In that same year, 30 innocent, law abiding citizens were wrongfully slain by fellow, otherwise law abiding private gun owners. In 1993, there were four incidents of international terrorism that claimed 9 American lives. 9 per year is the statistical average over the last fifty years since the USA began meddling in middle-eastern political affairs via the CIA and the multinational oil corporations.

There were 770,000 policemen in 1993 and 80 million registered gun owners. If you do the math, that means you're 1200 times more likely to slain wrongfully by a cop than a lawful gun owner. Cops kill 11x more innocent Americans every year than civilians.

Cops kill 36.6 times as many Americans as Muslim terrorists.

Yet how many of us have irrational fear of policemen? How many of us think it would be preposterous to disarm our police forces; when in fact, we might be safer with individual citizens being armed than our policemen.

So I must ask you, should we really be invading the privacy rights of veterans, cancer survivors, children and law abiding Americans; because Muslim terrorists kill 9 people a year while our own police kill 330?

We must not let the terrorists win. Their goal is to force us to live in fear, until we give into their demands. We must address the real problems. Why are they here, what do they want?

They live in countries where religious fanatics run the government. They've only read one book, or books written about that one book. They can kill their wives if her ankle is seen by another man in public. A father can kill his daughter if she "dishonors" the family, and I cannot think of anything more dishonorable than that.

Poor, ignorant people grow up to be terrorists.

For what we've spent on full body scanners, and a decade of the war machine we could have changed those people's lives for the better. Just a couple of solar panels and some LED lights, a 24 volt well pump, and a way to move their sewage away from their houses and dispose of it in a sanitary way. The ability to grow their own food.

Instead, we are molesting them. Economic molestation. We're taking the oil from beneath their ancestral lands, giving their radical religious wingnut leaders a pittance of the money, and the rest of the profits are raked in by the CEO's and stockholders of the Oil companies.

So we can drive SUV's and musclecars that get less than 15mpg in some cases.

You'd be angry and hateful too, living in your dirt floored hut, scrabbling out a living in lands where your ancestors used to be able to survive, until the climate started to change because of pollution... oh wait, most Americans don't believe in Climate Change... but we do believe in 15mpg muscle cars, so we can feel sexy.

I'm not condoning terrorism, but just think about it.

What would Jesus do? Would he rip up and down the road in his hot car trying to impress young girls, or would he want us to make this right? And I have a funny feeling, if a TSA agent tried to check His scrotum for explosives, they might have to detain Him.

We are at a crossroads in history, and this BS that we as a People are having to endure over terrorism should not be driving us to be fearful cowards supporting the Backscatte Scanner industry and Big Oil industries.

Once upon a time we were the world's greatest economic power. We could have brought that power to bear on these nations, and helped them solve their poverty, and change their policy of religious ignorance. Now, thanks to our extreme level of corporate welfare and irresponsibility and warmongering political parties, we are very nearly reduced to a 3rd world nation and we are looking to China to bail us out.

And we're afraid of brown guys who may have explosives shoved up their wazoo, or wrapped around their testicles.

How rational is that?

Don't touch my junk....

I'm genuinely ashamed of my Nation at times. While we still remain, from my biased point of view, the "best place to live" on earth, I no longer recognize the country I live in. It has changed from the "home of the free and the land of the brave" into "the home of the FEE and the land of the SLAVE".

Recently a genuine American Patriot stood up to being groped by airport security, and I have listened to news, and social network posts from people saying "Get used to it." "Ride a bus if you don't like it." "It's to make the airplanes safe" What will these people say when some terrorist decides to shove some plastic explosives up his wazoo? Anal probes for all? If some TSA person feels me up a little too much, I'll do my best to break his jaw. I was molested as a child, and I'll not stand for it again. When someone touches you down there, against your will, it's molestation.

They already lock the cockpit doors, and there have only been TWO incidences of people trying to blow up planes from the passenger compartment. We have one man who tried to use a shoe bomb, and another that burned is "junk" off with a groin bomb. Neither were successful, and were interfered with in one case by a CITIZEN. Not a policeman, not a law.. just an average Joe. A brave man, a Patriot, surrounded by cowards

Why in the hell are Free Americans being groped in order to fly?

On 9-11 we lost less than 4,000 people, 9 years ago.... We've since lost more than that in soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. We've taken 100's of thousands of lives Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan in retribution, most of them innocent, family people who's worst crime has been inheriting their parent's religion.

4,000 people in 9 years... let's put that into perspective with other causes of death in the USA.

Every year in America, appx 7,000 people die from complications with non steroidal pain relievers.... 9x7,000 is 56,000 people that have been killed by over the counter pain relievers....

Where is our War on Aspirn?

Each year 20,000 Americans are hurried on to their untimely ends by being too kinky for their own good.... listed as "sexual behaviors" on JAMA's statistics...That's 20Kx9yrs, that's 180,000 Americans who've fallen prey to being kinky...

Where's our War on Perverts? Why aren't they busting down people's doors saving them from their own depravity... they don't hesitate if you have some marijuana...

Adverse reactions to prescription drugs, that's the ones that our government approves of.... cause 32,000 deaths annually... 32Kx9yrs=288,000 Americans who've fallen prey to the greed of the Pharmaceutical Industry...

Where is our War on Big Pharmacy? Do we hold the FDA accountable, the pharmaceutical companies?

Alcohol claims 85,000 Americans annually... 85Kx9yrs=765,000 in the nine years since 9/11.

Where is our War on Alcohol... oh wait, we tried that, it failed miserably, caused rampant crime and increases in alcohol abuse... just like our War on Drugs is now... hmmmm guess Washington didn't learn it's lesson then either.

Obesity claims 365,000 Americans annually... 365,000x9- 3.2 million since 911.... and before they die, they live compromised lives often filled with anxiety, depression and handicap...

Where is our War on Fat?

Tobacco tops the list claiming 485,000 Americans EVERY year... 485,000x9= 4.35 million Americans suffered lingering deaths not terribly unlike the obese casualties, often with horrid lung complications, heart disease and the anxiety and stress that goes with it.....

Where is our War on Tobacco.....

It all just goes to prove that our various "wars" are nothing more than political gambits to gain political influence and to protect the profits of special interests.... safety of Americans is not on their agenda.

So why are we all being full body scanned or groped by federal employees? Will you stand idly by while your daughter or son is felt up by some potential pervert? Personally, I couldn't give a damn. I'm single and it'd be the most action I've seen in months... If it was a guy I might pop him one upside the head, or if it were a woman, I'd ask for her phone number and offer to take her out for dinner.... the reason we're having to be subjected to these unwarranted measures is plain and simple... Money. Thousands of multimillion dollar whole body scanners are being deployed, and we don't even know how safe they are. Stock prices for the companies that make them are through the roof..... and who has the money to invest in those things now.... the people who have private planes, who don't get x-rayed or groped....