Since starting to post on alternative medicines, someone has asked me to comment on acupuncture. Of course, I have thoughts about acupuncture but I believe it is better to work at building a foundation for thinking about “alternative medicines.” I hope with a foundation of thought that people can ask good questions and seek out true answers and will be better able to make good decisions when faced with involvement with the variety of therapies (traditional western and alternative) they will likely be faced with in life..… Read the rest
Alternative Medicine – Testimonials, Natural History and Secondary Gain
In my blog posting, entitled, Alternative Medicine – Important Questions, I commented on the fact that many therapies, alternative to those of traditional Western medicine, are becoming common place and that many of these therapies are based on belief systems quite different from that of Christianity. I raised the question, when seeking out advice about these therapies, “Is the advice good?” and “How do we decide?”
One way to consider various alternative therapies is to consider whether the therapy really does what it claims to do.… Read the rest
Alternative Medicine – Important Questions
Over the past 15 to 20 years alternative forms of health care have gone from being on the fringe to being main stream. Years ago when we had sickness, we relied on family remedies that had been passed on from generation to generation and, if these failed, we had conventional Western medicine. Today, in many ways, we are less likely to be satisfied with our age old family remedies, and we are increasingly suspicious of conventional Western medicine. (Our suspicion of traditional Western medicine play a smaller role when we are faced with very severe problems, such as a major car accident) Instead of trusting in traditional Western medicine, we are increasingly looking to alternatives such as:
acupuncture, tai chai, homeopathy, chiropractic, reflexology, cranial sacral therapy, bioenergetics, yoga, therapeutic touch, message therapy, etc., … Read the rest
Personhood – Location of the Mind (and Understanding Dementia)
In the posting titled Personhood – Which Comes First Death of the Body or Departure of the Soul[1] I grappled with the question of the mind. Science can show that activities of the mind and physical activities in the brain are connected but science does not prove that the mind is simply a function of physical brain activity. Clearly, for others to know that thoughts are occurring in a person’s mind the person must have a functioning brain to express the thoughts through.… Read the rest