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IamJoseph said:
Why be so confidently condescending: no one has admitted being wrong in all points thus far with my debates - more or less they have displayed only religious mode defences by jumping to other defenses when pivotal factors are offered as counters, with no acknowledgement they can be incorrect or that my provisions are plausable.
There are certain things, sir, that I don't like to say directly. But, for your sake—since ... I don't know; you don't get the hint? you're not aware?—I'll go ahead and say it.
My sense of obligation arises from the fact that I am the moderator of this subforum. Thus, I feel some obligation to afford you the opportunity to start making sense before I pull out my green hat and close this thread as a superstitious, nonsensical waste of the Science & Society subforum.
Please say why you are unaware of this - yet casting dismissive assertions?
I am asking you to explain what you mean, and demonstrate the validity of the assertions in a reasonably academic context:
Medicine's first seperation of the occult, listing the introduction of incurable deseases, their ID, treatment, quarantine of infectious deseases [note the burning criteria] and contagious deseases [note the isolation criteria].
I would suggest that defiling God's sanctity is hardly scientific. Even your citation from Leviticus 13 is concerned with cleanliness in the eyes of God. To wit: Whence comes the diagnosis of leprosy that Leviticus acknowledges?
The term
tsara`ath (צרעת) in the old testament refers to "leprosy" in people, and "a mildew or mold" in buildings. That is, Lv. 13 considers
leprosy—a bacterial disease—a mold; that is, it considers leprosy an entirely separate taxonomical kingdom from what it really is. This is reflective of a very basic observation:
It looks kind of moldy; it must be a mold. (A mold is of kingdom
fungi; leprosy is of kingdom
bacteria.)
A brief story to illusrate my point: I once knew a family that, despite being
Lutheran believed in witchcraft. Why? Because they saw it work. I can't tell you where Nanny Heider learned to use a banana peel; it's not a part of the Germanic witchcraft tradition. But one day Ginny burned her arm trying to catch the fucking iron. And Nanny Heider wrapped the burn, including a banana peel. In something like three days, there was no evidence of the burn. To the one, that suggests to me the burn wasn't as bad as initially assessed. To the other, I have
no idea under the sun why the banana peel worked. That is, there should have been
some evidence of the burn, but there was not.
It's not medicine in any sense that we presently recognize. It certainly isn't science. But it
is a remembrance of coinciding factors and outcomes.
Religion—and especially the Abramic tradition—includes what I call "pre-science". I have, somewhere in my library, a photostat reproduction of a nineteenth-century compendium of folk remedies. It's actually pretty good. For instance, it has a remedy for sinus congestion that includes a heavy dose of cayenne. Now, it doesn't
cure a cold, but I know damn well from experience that a strong shot of Scofield heat will do wonders for the sinuses.
Tradition recognizes the correlation.
Science seeks the mechanism by which a certain cause brings about a certain, predictable effect.
(I adore such remedies because, in most cases in my life, that is sufficient. Antihistamines, for instance, suppress the body's natural response to a pathogen, and thus have some negative effects. If I can treat my symptoms while allowing my body its natural responses, I will. That's why I use Celestial Seasonings Lemon Zinger tea with honey for a sore throat instead of Robotussin—my childhood medication, which works like the goddamn Devil—and straight peppermint-leaf tea for sinus issues. And, to be certain, peppermint tea beats the hell out of smearing Vaporub all over my chest.)
What you're referring to in Leviticus is the equivalent of witchcraft and shamanism. It's
not science, and it's
not proper medicine.
When exactly did a universe maker become a myth concerning a universe?
When it is believed without testable validation—and despite an inability to pursue such confirmation—it falls into the realm of the subjective. It is theological, spiritual, and explanatory; it falls squarely within the realm of myth.
And this particular myth contradicts itself, to boot.
So coming back to the beginning, I would urge you to
please support your assertions with something scientific and useful. At the very least, I can recognize your motive for posting this in S&S instead of AE&C, but its presence here does not excuse you from the obligations of scientific consideration.
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Notes:
Heartlight's Search God's Word. "Tsara`ath". (n.d.) SearchGodsWord.org. September 2, 2010. http://www.searchgodsword.org/lex/heb/view.cgi?number=06883
Wikipedia. "Leprosy". September 3, 2010. Wikipedia.org. September 2, 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprosy
