BALTIMORE ? After denying Javon Thompson food and water for two days because he wouldn’t say “amen” after meals, the 1-year-old’s caretakers waited for a divine sign that their message had been heard: a resurrection.For more than a week, police say in charging documents describing the scene, the child’s lifeless body lay in the backroom of an apartment. Queen Antoinette, the 40-year-old leader of a group that called itself 1 Mind Ministries, brought in her followers and told them to pray. God, she said, would raise Javon from the dead.Instead, Javon’s body began to decompose.The boy’s mother, Ria Ramkissoon, 21, and four other people, including Trevia Williams, 21, who authorities say are members of the group face first-degree murder charges. But Ramkissoon’s mother and attorney say that she was brainwashed by a cult and acted only at the group leader’s will.Court documents describe a group that operated secretly, dressed all in white and eschewed medical care. Antoinette, also known as Toni Sloan or Toni Ellsberry, called her followers “princes” and “princesses.” And she and her followers were possessive of the children under their care.Children have been killed in similar groups for failing to follow cult teachings, said Rick A. Ross, who has studied cults for 26 years. That appears to have been the case with Javon, who was viewed as a “demon,” according to police statements.
Dawkins wasn’t the first one to point this out, but he did poignantly express that the problem with moderate religions is that it makes way for extremists. This poor child died, because the mother was conditioned by society to obey religious figures, and she picked the wrong one to obey.Of course, the mother had to be mentally unstable in the first place, but there are a LOT of mentally unstable people out there who are trained by religions to follow orders without question. This leads to some believing their children are demons.I hate death. But more than that, I hate needless death. More than that, I hate needless death of innocent children. And this, my dear friends, is why I support the Death Penalty. Fry some cult leaders, and this will stop happening, IMO.
JONATHAN SMITH:
You and everyone else in Fay?s path are in my prayers.
Yes. My children, who are minors, each possess ?full brain function,? but in the eyes of the law, they are not able to make their own choices in matters that directly affect their safety?yet even atheists must regard them as being fully human, so, yes, it is a valid comparison.
Easy?by acknowledging the fact that humans beings have a spiritual nature. And I?d go so far as to assert that our spiritual nature is our primary nature.
Again, that?s your opinion. No scientist worth his salt can plausibly fail to acknowledge or discount the enormous power the immaterial concept we call love (which is, by its very nature, a spiritual phenomenon) has on each and every one of our lives. Also the fact that disorders like OCD and many types of anxieties and phobias can be treated?not medicinally?but by the conscious altering of the will, lends tremendous credence to the separate existence of the mind from the brain. And the fact that the placebo effect can actually affect mortality rates is astonishing?and yet it has no plausible materialist explanation. But besides all that, I know by virtue of my own experiential being, by my own perception, that my consciousness does not and cannot be merely the manifestation of firing neurons in my brain. It is my will that is directing those that fire as a result of my cognition, not the other way around. The essence of my being is not the result of what I?ve experienced or what external stimuli I react to?I am far more than that. How sad (and pitiable) that anyone can actually believe that their consciousness is somehow only comprised of physical electrical circuitry?
So, sorry, until you can prove the negative?that the soul doesn?t exist, then it?s your position on abortion that can?t ?hold water.?
Apparently you missed my exchange here with alatham on that a couple of months ago.
JCC
You have to be one of the most ignorant people I have ever communicated with. It is going to take sometime to respond to each of your ridiculous assertions. Maybe later this evening. For the moment I will just tackle the most astonishingly stupid things I have ever seen written.
You do realize why a placebo treatment is labeled as a placebo? BECAUSE IT HAS NO EFFECT. If a treatment does have an effect then IT IS NOT A PLACEBO.
Your mind is chaotic place. You must be dead tired by noon.
jcc
I missed this reply to me by you.
Since What doesn?t seem able to comprehend what I write, perhaps someone else could explain to him in simpler terms what physiological manifestations can occur psychosomatically in the body when the mind believes the medicine being ingested can be beneficial, but is in reality, a placebo?in other words, the placebo effect.
JCC
There is nothing immaterial about love. Each of us may have different definitions of what love is but mine says it is the giving of ones resources (time, capital, wisdom) for the betterment of another. It is motivated by emotion and instinct but without the giving their is no love.
JCC
Thanks for educate this ignorant physician about the placebo effect. Would you like to set me straight on some physics topic, of your choice, as well?
You still don’t get it do you. A placebo treatment by definition has no significant effect upon the patient. If the treatment has an effect it is no longer a placebo. Get it? Or are you going to insist upon making up your on definition of words to suit you obsessive compulsive defense of religious fantasy?
Perhaps someone else can try to explain to What (in simple terms) the difference between a treatment and an effect.
Also, now that he claims to be a doctor, does anyone know what type of medicine he ?practices? and where he practices??I?d like to warn friends and family about him?
I wonder? if he?s this arrogant and hostile to anyone he disagrees with on a blog, God knows what his bed-side-manner must be like?or better yet, how he manages to retain a sufficient number of patients to earn a living.
jcc,
You had better define “spiritual nature” since nobody other than you has any idea what you’re talking about. This seems to be a common thread in your posts.
Why is love a spiritual phenomenon? What does that even mean?
Non sequitur. Why does that count as evidence that the mind is separated from the brain?
The materialist explanation is simple: Change the state of the RAM, and you can potentially change the program.
How do you know this?
Again, how do you know this?
You pity us, we pity you. Well, I pity you, I can’t speak for others.
Hahahaha. Until you can prove that I’m not supernaturally experiencing your headaches every time you take an aspirin, you have to stop taking aspirin.
If Jonathan Smith hadn’t missed it, he wouldn’t have to ask you for it. He would know you have no scientific case for ID. If I can remember the name of the thread I’ll post a link later.
As I recall, one of your arguments was that ID isn’t an argument from ignorance because we don’t know of any other way to generate information than through design. Conveniently for me, that’s a textbook example of an argument from ignorance but you continually refused to acknowledge this.
Jcc
You should also direct him to the threads where DNAunion, Escher and a number of others debate your case for I.D.
JCC
Thanks for your prayers on Fay’s storms (we had 24inches of rain in 48hours) but helping hands are better than praying lips.
We will just have to disagree on Mario Beauregard book,I will add that the reviews from within the science community reflect my position.
You said, regarding proof of ID, “Apparently you missed my exchange here with alatham on that a couple of months ago.
No one, including you, has any plausable evidence for ID that can meet the criteria of a valid scientific theory.I read your exchanged and it was typical ID verbage.If you think you can do better than the likes of Dembski or Behe,then go write a paper,get it peer reviwed and published by a real science journal,and pick up your Nobel Prize-easy uh?
You said “So, sorry, until you can prove the negative?that the soul doesn?t exist, then it?s your position on abortion that can?t ?hold water.?
Wrong,I can most certainly prove a negative.I can easily construct a valid deductive argument with all true premises that yields the conclusion that there are no such thing as souls,using the valid inference procedure of modus tollens (Latin for ?mode that affirms by denying?):
1 If the soul exists,then there must be evidence in the natural world for it.
2 There is no evidence of souls in the natural world.
3 Therefore,souls do not exist.
For one thing, a real, actual law of logic IS a negative, namely the law of non-contradiction. This law states that that a proposition cannot be both true and not true. Nothing is both true and false. Furthermore, you can prove this law. It can be formally derived from the empty set using provably valid rules of inference.One of the laws of logic is a provable negative,any claim can be expressed as a negative, thanks to the rule of double negation. I realize that people such as yourself insist that you can?t prove a negative,is the result of two things: (1) Disappointment that induction is not bulletproof, airtight, and infallible, and (2) A desperate desire to keep believing whatever one believes, even if all the evidence is against it.
Got to run and fill some sand bags!!!
JCC
Well as I have said before, I don’t practice presently. I make my living in physics instead. But hey, you could try to scare off my colleagues by outing me as an atheist. Too funny.
Your envy is appreciated. Isn’t it one of the seven deadly sins?
Alatham
Thanks for relieving me/us of the duty to respond to JCC’s assumption filled and unfactual post above.
Jonathon
The problem is that JCC while either rejects premise 1 outright or he will dicker for ever about what “evidence” is.
The way out of the retarded way JCC argues is to demand the definitions of words out right so that you can both agree upon them and hold each to those agreements. Otherwise he will, as with most theists, for ever modify definitions to simply keep the argument going. He sees that as a win.
These threads are like games of “Gossip”. We started out talking about something and end up debating something almost entirely disconnected.
Bottom line, LOVE IS A LIE!!!! It’s a thing your hormones tells your brain that makes you act on irrational decisions. That girl or that guy is my soulmate, NOT!! That girl or guy is the result of an equation reached in their own egos that decides he or she is at the top of most genetically feasable mutually attracted couples. After he gets his nut, and she realizes that all that romance was to get in her pants, they divorce, and our modern family structure spawns yet another generation.
We love our infants and gives us tingles when we call their names and they turn to look at us and giggle with joy. We are proud of our children when they do well in school, and we are worried when they don’t. We are horrified when they are injured, and desimated when they die.
But, these are all just mechanics that nature has thrust upon us, like every other species, alive or exinct, to survive as a species.
Advice to men, if “romance” is really important to your girlfriend, tell her snatchworship is against your religion.
NeoWolfe
So, JCC’s using the placebo effect to prove his gawd’s existence?
I’m breathtakingly dumbfounded. I’m unclear as to whether that’s a direct metaphor, a dead metaphor, a paradox, or pure irony. I’m truly tasered by this.
Like many of your ilk, you place far too much stock in a folk tale. Placebos are used in double blind studies.
A little aside on placebos:
AND:
Really, JCC, do bring some factual reality along w/your visits.
I’m assuming your dad was given a placebo recently, & it seems to have ‘helped’ him?
What,
Unfortunately I won’t be able to stick around, I’m going whitewater rafting this weekend. But I did have to say something once my name got dropped. So, you’re welcome.
I second that. It’s good advice.
What…I knew you were a coward…
Phreeky thinks calling me a coward will get me to respond to his last post. Is it possible after oh so many many months that he still doesn’t understand that the only interaction between he and I will be one that involves ridicule? Yes it’s possible. He is that … challenged … .
KA
Do you think JCC is “for real”? When I see such stereotypical ignorance displayed over and over again I have to wonder.
I think we have to address the placenta effect and ignorant design theory here. The anti abortion mind set in America is a relatively recent phenomenon created by Christians to make it appear as though they have a cause other than perpetuating fragile sanity.
Google Mike Earl for straightforward logic on this. There are more stillbirths than there are abortions so GOD is the biggest abortion artist in the universe. We also can’t forget GOD killed an awful lot of babies and pregnant women in the great flood story and Soddom and Gomorrah and he sure bashed an awful lot of beautiful babies heads on the rocks back when the Israelites were occupying Palestine. The Israelites had to slice a whole bunch of lovely babies throats because they were lesser people. After all, the Israelites are the Chosen ones. Right phreedm?
Oh come on! “Snatchworship” literally defines the hetero human male! Didn’t you ever read Easyriders?
What’s wrong with blockquotes today? Is it me? Duh!
cry4turtles – fixed your blockquotes.
What – I’ve been debating JCC for years now. He pretty much epitomizes the intellectual religious mindset, & proves that just because someone’s smart, doesn’t mean they’re not stupid.
Like most relusionists, he cherry picks the little ‘unexplained’ oddities (like placebos, hemispherectomies, etc.) & thinks he’s built a wall outta a single brick. & then argues it’s a whole wall, despite evidence to the contrary.
Considering how many things that Phreedm “knows” are demonstrably wrong, I’d say this is another comment that falls as flat as the slope on Phreedm’s forehead.
… and a slippery slope it is!
Mark Farris,
I don’t know you well, having only read one of your responses, to my memory. But you and me are very much alike. We are the “knights templar” of free thinker movement in the christian nations, because we understand the bible, and it uncountable holes of logic.
The history of “Jehovah of Armies” in the old testiment makes Hitler look like a wannabe.
But after China capped it’s population by allowing couples to only reproduce themselves, still Western civilization refuses to confront the issue of overpopulation as a moral third rail. Not enough food or clean water to support our present population, and no plan to prevent the inevitable from becoming worse. This while Mormons and Catholics discourage birth control, forbid abortion, but encourage large families brought up in the strict brainwash of the church.
I may be wrong, but, most of time I find myself wondering most of these members understand the issues at stake in our own country, and if they even have a clue about the global questions.
NeoWolfe
NeoWolfe
What does that even mean?
karen:
No, but to the best of my recollection, I?ve yet to run across a pro-life atheist here.
Because it?s inconsistent with how you?ve rationalized abortion in the first place. It reminds me of the lunacy I once saw on the back of a car in Seattle. The bumper sticker on the left side read, ?I VOTE PRO-CHOICE,? and the one on the right side read, ?CUT OUT SCHOOL DISECTION?? an exquisite example of the cognitive dissonance liberal relativism produces in the minds of the unthinking.
Well, my brother and sister in-law adopted two ?non-white? siblings from Romania; a couple in my Sunday school class adopted a mentally handicapped boy from China; a friend in Seattle adopted an Hispanic boy from Nicaragua; my wife has several good friends from college who?ve adopted little girls from China?did I mention that all those couples are Christians??Come to think of it, I only know one couple who?ve adopted a ?white? child? have you heard of what Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife are doing for orphans in China?
http://tinyurl.com/6r2ua3
I?m at a loss to understand how can you say there?s a ?LOT? of lip service from the Christian, pro-life movement. But two can play your little game; what about you and your atheist friends??What kind of holier-than-thou adoption track record does your side have?
Wow. That?s extremely presumptuous of you. What have I ever said to you to for you to assume such things about me?
Considering your previous statement, you?ve clearly hardened your heart toward me to the extent that it wouldn?t matter how I answered that?whatever I would say would obviously never be enough for you.
Really? Again, how much more would be enough for you? Are you doing more than me??how would you know? How can you assume such things about me when we?ve never even seen each other?
But did He also say ?and walk away from your responsibilities I?ve given you to your wife and children???of course not because my circumstances are outside of the context of that quote?and you know better; shame on you.
Wow, you really got your drawers in a wad this time. How sad that you?ve swallowed the whole Obama/liberal class-envy ball of wax and mindlessly puke it back up on someone you know precious little about just because you can?t help but project your warped, and erroneous perception of Christianity on him. Go ahead, keep thinking that in the end it?ll all be about what we?ve done and not what principals we held and what we put our faith in. I really pity you karen because if that?s really what you think, then that?s a standard that no one?including you will never be able to meet because others will always say, ?if only she?d done more.?
alatham:
I thought we?ve been over this before. Spiritual: of, relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit : incorporeal i.e. how we acknowledge and comport ourselves in the very real, yet immaterial, concepts of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
By saying that, am I to assume that you regard it as something that I can?t intellectually defend?
Because it is, by definition, immaterial; incorporeal; not a physical entity that can be held, seen or quantified?yet it is objectively identifiable and universally known.
Just what I said.
That response is equally non sequitur. If the will is also a manifestation of brain function then wouldn?t it also be susceptible to those same brain dysfunctions? If the will isn?t a separate entity then how can it be immune from the affliction?much less be able to overcome it?
And what changes the state of the RAM??the RAM itself??non sequitur, nay, circular argument.
Because (apparently unlike you) I don?t live in a deterministic universe?I have the freedom to choose my thoughts. I can choose to context switch my stream of consciousness at any time I wish. I have the freedom to choose to overcome reflexive emotional responses to immaterial entities such as verbal or written insults and temper my responses to them instead. I have the freedom to choose to not indulge in destructive behaviors. I am aware of the limitations of my physical brain?I wish I could think more quickly and retain facts more clearly (if my will were a product of my brain, how could my brain be aware of its own shortcomings?). I have a desire to be better than I am. And most importantly, I am aware of when I?m being intentionally deceitful.
Why? If you believe that your consciousness is composed of the material firing of neurons, then you?ve limited your being to only that what they can produce; you?ll never be more than what you?ve experienced and your behavior will reflect it. You will be what you do. You will have condemned yourself to never being more than a product of your environment because all your thoughts were contingent on the preceding thoughts; you?re admitting to being a biological automaton, limiting your thoughts to only what your brain can react to.
What a cold, dark and calloused heart we possess when we allow materialism to rule it.
Here we go again. An argument from ignorance requires one not knowing anything that could support one?s premise. But we do know of something capable of generating information: intelligence?and that flatly contradicts your claim.
JONATHAN SMITH:
Really? So, even though I couldn?t shirk my prior responsibilities and make the trip there to physically help you, are you suggesting that I not hope for the best?and yes, ask God to keep you and all the others affected by the storm, safe?
Again, that?s rather subjective. Rejecting out of hand the possibility of design despite the similarities with things that were designed is, in my opinion, not only bad science, but deliberately self-benighting.
Obviously it wasn?t that hard for the most sagacious and thoroughly researched ?scientist? Al Gore to get a Nobel Prize? and you guys have the huevos to knock the Discovery Institute for not being staffed by ?real? scientists.
Shhhhhhhh! Don?t you know the unspoken rule to never admit to that? To assert such a thing is atheistic sacrilege around here?you can?t just trot that out like it was common knowledge and expect every atheist who?s ever staked his entire intellectual reputation on it by using it as a last resort to calmly acquiesce to it, do you?
As eloquent as that is, surly even you can see it?s fatal flaw: assertion 2.
We all have our own personal threshold of what we consider to be ?acceptable? evidence. Just because you?ve personally rejected (on the grounds that you?ve already made up your mind that souls do not exist) what evidences I?ve given does not automatically and objectively disqualify their validity?because they have yet to be disproved. You may regard my acceptance of such evidences as flimsy, but I would say they?re no more flimsy than what you prop your argument on for the materialist explanation of consciousness.
Simple answer: it can’t. The will’s not a separate entity.
I don’t think that alatham implied that.
& yours seems to be firmly entrenched in anywhere but reality.
You…really believe that, don’t you? It explains so much. So in some disturbed way, you fancy yourself a more well-rounded, more complete human being than the rest of us, due to your delusion.
What is that phrase you people use? Ah, yes: “Pride goeth before a fall.”