Killing your sacred cows

[sarahmichigan]

If you subscribe to some religious or spiritual belief, I'm generally not going to try to argue you out of them. I might post about my own non-spiritual beliefs and why I hold them, or why certain kinds of religious people bug me. But unless I think you're getting caught up in a destructive religious or self-help cult (Landmark Forum comes to mind), I'm not going to say anything to you about it.

But when it comes to certain kinds of "alternative therapies" and "natural medicine" (not all, I do believe some work for some conditions), if I think the person's life is in danger or if I think they're throwing money away, I have trouble keeping my mouth shut, as with two previous posts about chiropractic.

How do you feel about that? If you believe in and/or use some kind of alternative medical therapy, how would you feel about someone debating you about it, pointing out sources that contradict what you believe about it, etc.? Am I just being a pain in the ass? Would you be grateful for new information or a different point of view? Does it depend on how I approach it, and if so, how would you like to be approached? What do you think?

Comments

[aiela.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have a problem with someone approaching me about it, but if I asked them to back off, I would expect them to do so.

[flyinglemurs.livejournal.com]

Well mostly what aiela said.
I think alternative therapies isn't really such a touchy topic as religion to most people. Still though.

Like I said in the chiro post, I am somewhat open minded about the whole topic. I have a lot of belief in modern (ie standard doctor hospital) medicine, but OTOH, I've been screwed over enough and know enough others that have been, that I'm a bit skeptical too and open to other things. Especially things that might not help, but probably won't hurt either if they aren't too expensive.

As to alternative medicines, well, the way I figure it, people all over the world have been using (for example) herbs and plants to treat various aliments for years and there is probably some wisdom in that. We don't know everything, and often even the modern stuff we use all the time, has a HUGE list of scarey side effects. IE, birth control pills for example. May cause STROKES? EEEP.

Also it seems like a lot of the medicines we take now are made, or have ingredients that come from, some of these things. They've done medical studies that have come up with things like green tea being full of anti-oxidents, cranberrys for urinary tract infections maybe, yogurt and apples for whatever..so there has to be something to it I think. So why not goldenseal root being good for gunky throats..or whatever. (Which my friend is a big fan of but I'm still more inclined to take commerical stuff).

So I'm willing to try things especially things that are already in my diet anyway are pretty well established not to cause harm..garlic, ginger, cranberrys or whatever. If its something obscure or that I don't know about..say kava kava, I'm likely to look it up on web md or wait a while before trying it because I know you can mess yourself up with that too.

So...if I had something minor, or some little thing I wanted to be better, I'd probably try to influence it through things like that, herbs and diet, to some extent. If I had something serious, say the big C god forbid..well first thing I'd be doing would be going to my medical doctor. But perhaps on the side, I'd be reading up, trying macrobiotic diets and things like that, or going nuts with broccoli and blueberries.

Anyway..so I think there is some wisdom in alternative medicine to some degree and its been used for years ..but OTOH, people used to put white lead on their faces too...so I'm also a bit cautious.

Hope that was coherent, as I am very foggy with needing to sleep now.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I agree with the point that you should be skeptical of traditional medicine, too. Second opinions are always a good thing.

I DO believe a lot of herbal remedies work, I believe in treating your body in a holistic way, improving diet, massages for stress-reduction, etc. But some of the alternative therapies out there try to use pseudo-scientific explanations for how they work, and that really bothers me. And if someone doesn't pursue a useful traditional therapy in favor of pursuing something that's been pretty well invalidated by thorough scientific peer-reviewed studies, then I find that really frustrating.

[jenx.livejournal.com]

I'm usually the one saying, "Geez, that sounds not only weird, but dangerous as well . . ." to both traditional and nontraditional medicine.

I know enough about physiology to know that the liver is a self-cleansing organ. It doesn't need to be 'detoxified', and neither does your colon (unless you're impacted.) A chiropractic 'adjustment' won't cure my cold or my allergies. Magnets on my wrists? If my body had metal in it, that would mean something.

Traditional medicine sometimes tries to swat a fly with a steamroller. The side effects of some of these medications make my hair curl - especially when I read things like, "The mechanism of this drug is unknown." What? They don't know how it does what it does? Then how do they know if it's safe?

Me? I ask questions. A lot of questions.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I like your thoughts on this. It's good to ask questions about any kind of therapy, traditional or non-traditional, and to be skeptical and ask for a second opinion. I definitely don't subscribe to the "medical doctors are gods and must not be questioned" attitude.

[jenx.livejournal.com]

My image of 'doctor as God' was shattered when I was 17, and my family doctor offered to prescribe fiber tablets so I could just eat every other day - so I could keep my weight down. Yeah. Right.

[flyinglemurs.livejournal.com]

Wow that's horrible. Grrrrr. We don't care if you are malnourished and sick and spend your day on the toliet as long as you get thin? I hope that doctor is no longer in practice..geez.

[jenx.livejournal.com]

I think she lost her license a few years ago.

[stormgren.livejournal.com]

It honestly would depend on how I was approached in conversation by it.
If it was a "I'm concerned with what you're doing, and here's why" kind of thing, I'd listen.

But I'm a defensive kind of guy. If I perceive you're trying to pick a fight with no context, I'm gonna react.

Luckily, I'm the designated skeptic around many people I know (nevermind I turned it into a professional advantage), so I don't have to justify my belief in something all that often.

My rule of thumb is, you're allowed to do anything to yourself, as dumb as it may be (homeopathy comes to mind). If you apply your wierdness to another, especially in situations that will cause harm, especially things like Christian Science faith healing or outher mental bullshit, I get angry. Especially if you involve children. I can and do make my opinion felt.

My $0.02.

[matt-arnold.livejournal.com]

If someone came along and said, "well look, here's a treatment that you perhaps haven't looked at before," I would look at it. I've learned what questions to ask. For instance, is it only efficacious under highly suspicious circumstances, such as not working unless the patient believes in it? Is it a panacea? Are the ingredients secret? Is its credibility based only on undocumented anecdotes? (A common joke among medical researchers is "how many anecdotes does it take to get data?") Are failures explained away with ad-hoc hypotheses? Do the practitioners progress in their understanding, or do they continue to mechanically go through the motions for centuries? Do they think that simply because one thing happens after another, the first event was a cause of the second event? Would the malady have gone away by itself?

I don't want to take the lackadaisical attitude in the name of respect when it comes to the topic of the potential victimization of desperate people who are losing a lot of money. Especially if they are not complementing their treatment with conventional medicine. Anyone can think whatever they want without comment from me; until and unless it crosses the line of harm.

It's long past overdue that people stopped respecting credulity as a sacred cow. When asked to respect it, I decline to do so-- after all, I make no demands that anyone has to respect me for my choice of a stance on this. I just look for those that do respect it, and get my affirmation from them. I expect them to do the same: find those who respect credulity and get their affirmation from them, not demand it from me.

I've had such discussions so many times, and argued it so thoroughly and so well, only to have to go through it again and again, that no cries for respect can make me pretend to still be unsure on the topic of the supernatural, or on belief through a firm inner conviction, or on belief in the authority of tradition and heritage, (which is what the majority of alternative medicines eventually boil down to). In fact it gets downright tiresome. I am not going to start over from scratch every time some new peddler comes along, and ignore the lessons I've learned. There are certain advantages to having suffered from stupidity, ineptness and complicity in fraud, which is that I fixed my baloney detector. I've put a lot of work into it and I like the results.

That's not being closed-minded. Open-mindedness means allowing one's claims to be robustly challenged by the best competing claims. The appearance of closed-mindedness can occur when someone has already done that and the standard claim has had a long undefeated winning streak. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome was once on a bumper-sticker as the definition of insanity. That's not what open-mindedness is.

[flyinglemurs.livejournal.com]

I am pretty open minded I think, and think its a good way to be.....but only up to a point. Someone once said to me something that cracks me and is so right... "If you leave your mind open wide enough, any old thing can just wander right in" yeah

[flyinglemurs.livejournal.com]

I am pretty open minded I think, and think its a good way to be.....but only up to a point. Someone once said to me something that cracks me and is so right... "If you leave your mind open wide enough, any old thing can just wander right in" yeah

[dare2grok.livejournal.com]

People who are questioning or seeking their beliefs should be happy for your input.

And people who are secure in their belief systems shouldn't fear or be pissed off by your input.

Keep it up, sister!