Faith the ultimate Placebo

The human brain is a great mystery and phenomenon, right now if everything is working as it should, my brain is regulating my heart beat, my sugar levels in my pancreas, my digestive system, the amount of oxygen in my blood, and I am not even conscious of what else my brain is controlling, even the processes I briefly mention is not consciously controlled by me, these are all unconscious processes. I have read an interesting article in the skeptic dictionary called the placebo effect. The placebo effect is the measurable, observable, or felt improvement in health not attributable to treatment. (1) From the article there have been various theories as to why the placebo is sometimes just as effective as actual treatment. They all come down to what we perceive or think, if a person feel that the treatment is making them feel better, the brain will make it happen. This is what faith is, faith is the major placebo effect, because what a person believe not only affect their mental state it also affects their action. Religious faith is a big placebo pill. Go to your typical church especially evangelical churches, the music sets the atmosphere, it's soothing, people are literal hypnotized by the atmosphere, and so a person believe that they are going to get healed or feel better compared to the way they felt before they arrived, and so endorphins kick in and they feel better. Look at televangelists who are faith healers, they have soothing organ music playing in the background, the televangelist give people attention i.e. one on one attention, they offer suggestions of healing or health, they perceive that this is a place for getting better and they see others allegedly being healed, just like a person who visits a physician. In fact, there was a report on WUNC on health issues in eastern North Carolina in which diabetes patients who get more one on one time with a health professional will do better than those who don't, in fact in the report that aired this morning the hospitals and health clinic who are partnering together that is offering health counseling to their diabetes patients has shown a decrease in diabetes related hospitalizations compare other area health facilities that do not offer the extended health counseling. Faith is the heart of all Placebo effects this brought up another thought about a recent had a discussion with devout Christian about skepticism and about using common sense. We were discussing a church we both use to attend and how they were hung up on raising money and the pressure tactics they used on the laypeople like having lines when raising "special offering" and lines for tithes and offering, in which if you didn't pay any money, you were left sitting all by yourself, thus making the non-giver feel isolated. This person thinking was skeptical about the church leadership's motivation and I ask them why don't they use the same skepticism or critical thinking with the bible and I gave an example of how, I was listening to a speech in which I had a transcript and how even the transcription did not have word for word what the speaker said, and I asked how it is that scripture which was passed down orally is going to be perfectly transcribed? I brought up that I am like Thomas, I not going to believe unless I have some solid evidence and this person brought up the old "it's a faith thing". What is faith? Is it as Mark Twain said that “faith is believing in something you know aint true”? The bible says that faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen, but the contradiction is there is no evidence for something not seen; how can something that is not seen have evidence? Because if there is evidence for something, then their must be a way of experiencing it, because if there is no evidence there is no way I prove that the thing not seen exist. In fact evidence comes from the Latin evidentia which means “that which is obvious”. What is meant by obvious? Obvious comes from the Latin obvius “That which is in the way, presenting itself readily, commonplace, plain to see”. It seems that maybe faith is more about psychology and not reality, although psychology is a field of science about the mind and it 's function and what I mean that faith is about psychology is there is such a thing as placebos, in which people in a test show signs of wellness even though it nothing being administered and so the thinking that something is being made better releases endorphins in the brain and gives the illusion of wellness and I see faith as a placebo, which I don't have nothing against, but we should see that it is nothing more than psychology. I don’t have faith the earth will revolve around the sun there is evidence that is doing it as I write this. I know there are things that my senses cannot sense, like an atom but with the right equipment and knowledge of how to use that equipment I can see an atom even though it is invisible to the naked eye. This is how science works. Think about it...

African-American Intellectuals?

J.A. Rogers, an autodidact who was an African-American freethinker that wrote many self-published books on African-American history, wrote in From "Superman" to Man: "The slogan of the Negro devotee is: Take the world but give me Jesus, and the white man strikes an eager bargain with him." Is this true? Maybe...
The reason I say maybe is because, I recently watched Cornell West on CNN in an interview with Don Lemon and he said he is a Christian and his allegiance is with the cross first and the flag second (I have heard him say this before). I look at him and see an African-American with a PhD and whom is often called an African-American intellectual. Barack Obama went to Columbia and then Harvard, at first he went to Occidental College in California, he is on the crest of being our first African-American president. Michael Dyson is another African-American Intellectual, he is even a Baptist minister (which he has to propagate this doctrine). Therefore, they believe that a virgin became artificial inseminated by a god and had what is the founder of Christianity. They believe that he died and was rose from the dead and went back to heaven in a physical body that could survive leaving our atmosphere into a cold outer space without an astronaut suit, he could breathe and so forth and that he is coming back to get his followers and set up his kingdom. In addition, in order for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to be necessary, there had to be a fall, therefore all of these intellectuals would have to believe that two naked people listened to a talking snake without running away, and was convinced by his argument, ate the fruit and then Jesus saves that day 4000 years later! They all say they're Christians and would have to believe what I wrote. Is this the best of our African-American intellectuals? Why am I the only one who see the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as intellectually irrational, if accepted as literally true, if they don't accept story of the fall and redemption/reconciliation as literally true, then what is a metaphorical Christianity?
I want to read more historical information about W.E.B. Du bios, the great African-American intellectual of the 20th century, before I consider him my hero, but tentatively he is my hero for what he wrote 60 years ago, which is closest to the way I feel. In 1948, a priest wrote to W.E.B. Du Bois asking him whether or not he believed in God. Du Bois replied: "Answering your letter of October 3, may I say: If by `a believer in God,' you mean a belief in a person of vast power who consciously rules the universe for the good of mankind, I answer No; I cannot disprove this assumption, but I certainly see no proof to sustain such a belief, neither in History nor in my personal experience. If on the other hand you mean by 'God' a vague Force which, in some incomprehensible way, dominates all life and change, then I answer, Yes; I recognize such Force, and if you wish to call it God, I do not object." Think about it...