Religious answers

[_Maksutov]

[_Fence Sitter]

I actually think this one is kind of easy if one includes faith healing as an improvement over nothing done at all.

Science has throughout history proposed a variety of curative healing methods that have turned out to be worse for the patient than nothing at all, such as bloodletting, the use of calomel to help the sick, how malaria patients were treated (this one actually didn't hurt the patient so much as encouraged the spread of the disease by keeping their bed legs in pot of standing water to keep insects off the bed, allowing the mosquitoes to bite the infected patient and then breed more infected mosquitoes in the water below), we could also look at the use of certain medicines like thalidomide that turned out to be much worse than what they were treating and so on.

So in general I think science gets it right but not always, sometimes the cure has been worse than the disease.

[_Maksutov]

I actually think this one is kind of easy if one includes faith healing as an improvement over nothing done at all.

Science has throughout history proposed a variety of curative healing methods that have turned out to be worse for the patient than nothing at all, such as bloodletting, the use of calomel to help the sick, how malaria patients were treated (this one actually didn't hurt the patient so much as encouraged the spread of the disease by keeping their bed legs in pot of standing water to keep insects off the bed, allowing the mosquitoes to bite the infected patient and then breed more infected mosquitoes in the water below), we could also look at the use of certain medicines like thalidomide that turned out to be much worse than what they were treating and so on.

So in general I think science gets it right but not always, sometimes the cure has been worse than the disease.

That's a fact. And some researchers belonged in institutions themselves. I'm thinking of William Sargant and Harry Harlow. And then there's the "research" conducted by Josef Mengele and Shiro Ishii. Fetchface could invoke Robert Jay Lifton on that subject.

[_Gadianton]

FS's answer I'd sweep under cultural relativism. How do we question a tribe that has has existed in the mountains of South America for 10 thousand years? How much longer does western civilization have left, in contrast?

It would be interesting to examine the beliefs of insects, and how their misguided, brutal impulses play into the survival of the colony.

But once you swallow the pill, there's no turning back. If by best, we mean materially better off, then its a dice roll for progress. If by best, we mean closer to the way the world actually is, it's nearly impossible for religion to win. The assumptions required to even have the argument are loaded in the direction of science.

[_huckelberry]

Ayn Rand's messiah Galt or Christianities messiah.

I believe the religious one is correct, Except for the version of some fanantics.

[_Nightlion]

They just haven't got around to this one yet:

D&C 88:40-43
40 For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; ctruth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light; mercy hath compassion on mercy and claimeth her own; justice continueth its course and claimeth its own; judgment goeth before the face of him who sitteth upon the throne and governeth and executeth all things.
41 He comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things; and all things are by him, and of him, even God, forever and ever.
42 And again, verily I say unto you, he hath given a law unto all things, by which they move in their times and their seasons;
43 And their courses are fixed, even the courses of the heavens and the earth, which comprehend the earth and all the planets.

[_moksha]

D&C 88:40
40 ... judgment goeth before the face of him who sitteth upon the throne and governeth and executeth all things.

There beeth a certaineth poetry to the D&C. Can scienceth sayth the same withouth a lisp?

[_Nightlion]

D&C 88:40
40 ... judgment goeth before the face of him who sitteth upon the throne and governeth and executeth all things.

There beeth a certaineth poetry to the D&C. Can scienceth sayth the same withouth a lisp?

THUFFERIN THUCKATASH
HEVENTHS TA MURGATROYED
AMEN

[_sunstoned]

I actually think this one is kind of easy if one includes faith healing as an improvement over nothing done at all.

Science has throughout history proposed a variety of curative healing methods that have turned out to be worse for the patient than nothing at all, such as bloodletting, the use of calomel to help the sick, how malaria patients were treated (this one actually didn't hurt the patient so much as encouraged the spread of the disease by keeping their bed legs in pot of standing water to keep insects off the bed, allowing the mosquitoes to bite the infected patient and then breed more infected mosquitoes in the water below), we could also look at the use of certain medicines like thalidomide that turned out to be much worse than what they were treating and so on.

So in general I think science gets it right but not always, sometimes the cure has been worse than the disease.

That's a fact. And some researchers belonged in institutions themselves. I'm thinking of William Sargant and Harry Harlow. And then there's the "research" conducted by Josef Mengele and Shiro Ishii. Fetchface could invoke Robert Jay Lifton on that subject.

True. Science doesn't always get it right, but is self corrects. That is built into the framework. Religion never self corrects. It doubles down and won't budge until forced to.

[_candygal]

As still a believer in God...I can see prayer as the only meaning of hope...and in my own mind, God might have everything to do with those who work with science and the knowledge of it. I do know that God does not cure...medicine science changes can do that..and not afraid to change. My reasoning is that God has nothing to do with the LDS church...but more to do with science than we think. Shoot me!!!!