What Religion Are You?

Yes, my understanding is the Amish are very skilled with products in high demand. Since their community takes care of them when they are ill, there is probably little need for hospitals. Often, our hospitals are filled with people who make poor lifestyle choices (alcohol abuse, poor dietary habits, lack of exercise, etc.). Not so sure people who live modestly need these services.

 

Unfortunately my update is that I have no change in my T. I had my hearing tested earlier this week, my hearing loss has remained the same: mild mid frequency hearing loss. I can hear very well at high frequencies, so my audiologist does not think my hearing loss is due to age, as it is the high frequencies that are affected with age induced hearing loss. She thinks my hearing loss is either genetic or something sudden that happened in my body (injury or growth?) She cannot understand why I have Tinnitus.
On the bright side I have become accustomed to the sound of an airplane cabin in my head.....meds and white noise are very helpful, not with decreasing the Tinnitus but with helping me cope with it. I work full time and do most things I have always done, just more cautiously...protecting my ears when needed as I do have some hyperacussis as well. I have found the forum helpful....some of the advice is great and sometimes just to talk about other things and get my mind off of this T stuff.
Thanks for asking, Greg.

 

When the laws exist and are being enforced, the only way to improve your own well being is to make others better off. We are enjoying having a personal computer as a result of Bill Gates' contributions. The money he has is not money that he took away from someone else. He created value for others (and part of the value he created went to him). Selfish people are the ones who are are most motivated to help others/create new value. And this is not going to be some kind of a phony motivation that will dissipate as soon as the going will get tough. It will be motivation that can be consistently relied upon. [You would probably not want to fly on an airplane that was built by some volunteers who wanted to help others to go places; you would (and should) feel safer in an airplane built by people who want your money, and who don't want to pay any compensation to your family should their plane crash.] Selfish people will predictably work hard (for their own benefit), but others will be able to take advantage of their results of their efforts.

One can refuse to go on life support.

Hopefully eventually laws will change to allow patients to choose to be euthanized. I think that when someone forces another person to live against that person's will, it is as bad as forcing another person to die against their will (i.e., murdering another person). I don't see any difference.

 

A recent example of what happens when something is done about selfish people @Oli
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/17/world/americas/venezuela-children-starving.html

 

@Sonic17 There's an expanded Sutter neuroscience institute near me. They assign a large team to each patient. I can't see them because I don't have the right insurance and I need to wait until 2019 before I can enroll. They believe that cord compression as either being singular or combined by pressure to a nerve/muscle is the major cause of somatic T.

I don't know who is financially backing them, but this institute with several locations had to cost big dollars. They also have research going.

 

Thank you for the info, I looked them up online. I will look further into this on the weekend when I am not working and have more time. From what I can see this institute looks very helpful.

 

@Sonic17 The person that I spoke with, a therapist, said that they know a lot about somatic tinnitus in relationship to spine/neck and treatments.

http://www.checksutterfirst.org/neuro/spine/cervical.html

http://www.checksutterfirst.org/neuro/spine/bone.html

There's add on links as well.
Neck problems are coming more commonplace and some hospitals are establishing research and treatments centers. Maybe there's one not far from you.

 

Thank you Greg, this is very helpful. I have some information on a spine clinic in Minnesota as well, a little closer to my home. Although visiting California would be sweet!

 

Starting to see your point, feeling like I can be a little naïve .
The article about Venezuela that you posted is sad...I did not know things were so bad there. These mothers need better nourishment so they are able to breastfeed their babies. In Canada we encourage breastfeeding until age 2 years and beyond.; wet nurses could be another option for the mothers that cannot breastfeed due to medical reasons (which is usually only temporary).
I find it hard to believe that our country is fighting obesity yet people in other countries are starving to death. There is something not right with this.

 

Unfortunately once someone gets to this stage they are not usually capable of a making this decision...hence the reason for life support.

 

I asked a lawyer who helped me buy a home to create a Power of Attorney document for me. I asked him to include a "Please do not resuscitate" statement there (or to create a separate document about it). The lawyer agreed to help. When, a couple of days later, I came to his office to pick up all of the documents, I decided to read the documents (the lawyer did not invite me to do that). The legal language was difficult to follow, but soon I realized that one of the documents was saying something along the lines of: "Should I become incapacitated, under No Circumstances should care be discontinued. Even if I appear to be sane, and I beg for the care to stop, I hereby ask you to not listen to me, and to continue caring for me."

Can you Imagine!? When I confronted the lawyer, he did not tell me that he mixed me up with someone else. He began talking passionately about all lives being important, etc. I think the document that I asked him to create was contradicting his religious beliefs - I can't be sure why he did what he did.

In any case, the next time you have to deal with a lawyer, make sure to read all of the documents you are presented with.

 

Yes for sure, good advice. I know your post was probably not meant to be funny, but I found it funny.
Health care in Canada is trying to push these "living wills" on people. They want you to make decisions (such as being on life support, type of life saving measures you would want if you become seriously ill, etc) while you are healthy. Life is so complicated, I am not sure if it is fair to ask someone these questions while they are healthy. We are capable of adapting to so many situations. I never thought I could live with all these noises in my head/ears......but here I am, 8 1/2 months later adapting to the noise.....as we all seem to be on this forum.

 

Now it is in fact an amusing memory. Back then, I couldn't believe my eyes. You don't expect to pay a significant amount of money and then get the complete opposite of what you wanted to get. This happened years before euthanasia for some terminally ill patients was made legal in Canada.

 

No Afterlife

Good news @threefirefour !

 

Existentialism.jpg

 

I have a theory that nobody is really 100% atheist or has 100% belief in any one faith system. Aren't we all somewhere on the 'not sure' spectrum?

Doesn't history show that it's those who think they are 100% cock sure who cause a lot of trouble in this life?... ;-)

 

My faith is something I have really struggled with lately.

I had a very religious christian upbringing and went to basically a Christian cult school. Most of my friends are from church too. A few years ago I started to really question the existence of God when I got out of my little sheltered bubble and traveled. There is so much unimaginable suffering in the world, how could an all loving God allow this to happen? Christians will tell you God has given us free will on this earth, therefore he won't intervene. They will then go on to tell you if you tithe, read your bible and pray everynight he's got your back. It's all such contradictory rubbish.

Sometimes I wonder if the only reason I ever believed in God is because it was drilled into me at such a young age. I was so scared of going to hell I never questioned it.

Letting go of ones religion is painful, you lose something that was a huge part of your life for a long time. As weird as this sounds I miss God, even though I know in my heart I no longer believe. It's such a comfort to think there is someone out there watching over you. Perhaps my struggle with tinnitus was the final straw.

The truth is I would like to believe again but I know I would be lying to myself. I think I stopped believing a long time ago...

 

It really is but I feel like it's part of the growing up process. Like how when were younger we believe in stuff like Santa and the Tooth Fairy. Realizing there is no god(s) and that we're all alone (at least in a metaphysical sense) is an important mental milestone.

 

Religion? No thank you.

 

Hi Threefirefour, I don't claim any man made religion. I do believe in one almighty creator who made all there is. Some call him God, some say Yahovah, or Yahwey.

 

I was raised Catholic, but my parents weren't especially religious so being Catholic pretty much just meant going to church on Sundays and attending Catholic school. But from an early age, I found it difficult to believe in God.

No joke ~ My doubt started with the Easter Bunny. As a child, I couldn't help but wonder how a rabbit could make and deliver Easter baskets. I puzzled over it and came to the conclusion that the Easter Bunny must be a man, rather than a rabbit. (I was quite young so this was a satisfying explanation.)

Later, the doubt returned when I reasoned that Santa Claus and a human Easter Bunny couldn't possibly deliver their goodies all around the world in a single night. My mind kept looking for a rational explanation, not a magical one.

God lasted a little longer than Santa and the Easter Bunny, but the final nail in that coffin was the death of my beloved grandmother when I was eleven. I must have still believed in God because I was furious with him for letting her die. Now I realize that I was grappling with the age-old question of theodicy (the problem of evil: how can a just God permit evil).

All of this was long before I went to college and was exposed to atheism, evolution, etc.

I often envy people who believe in God because they have a comfort which is unavailable to me. They can believe their suffering is meaningful and that they'll be rewarded in the afterlife for all that they endured here. Because of my inability to believe, I'm left with neither meaning nor reward for my suffering.

 

Santa, Easter Bunny, Fairies and all that fantasy perpetrated on little children by their trusted parents, of all people...who teach you not to tell a lie...............it's almost too bizzare to wrap my mind around. It's what's otherwise known as "tradition". We just do it because everybody else does. The world is full of deceit, but the truth is out there. Not a truth for me that is different from my neighbor but absolute truth which is true whether one believes it or not. I'm on a search for truth every day, it's far more facinating than make believe.

Really, it seems to me usually the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. (cliche as that is) I've believed from a young age, and it's due to the family I was born into. My belief has changed over the years. It was neccessary for me to prove to myself why I believe what I do, my research has been extensive and has served to deepen my faith while dispelling myths and legends I learned from early education in the Baptist theology, which is a daughter of RCC.

 

This certainly isn't attacking you, I'm genuinely very interested to hear your views, how can you believe there is an all loving God when there is so much suffering in the world? Don't you ever wonder how he can allow some things to happen?

 

Hi, you seem very kind, so no I don't think you're attacking me at all. I am interested in your views as well, and love discussing view points even if different from mine. How boring the world would be if we all had the exact same thoughts. I don't have all the answers, not even close. Frankly I would have a hard time being in awe of a creator I could easily figure out.

As for suffering, isn't that questioning the creators morals? Why he does what he does or allows what he allows? We allow a Dr., or surgeon to do things to us sometimes causing enormous suffering before relief is achieved, and we are grateful for their help, if in fact they do help us. I guess we do not question the good Dr's morals, so we accept their medicine, even if it hurts. Perhaps it's a question of morals, do we believe, or I should say "if" we believe an almighty creator exists, is he moral?

 

Or giving a monkey a shower!

 

Why does his "help" look mysteriously like random chance?

 

How much information is stored in the human genome? The answer to that question alone, does not allow me to think life is an accident.

 

Considering genetic information can grow by polyploidization, duplication, or insertion over billions of years, it's not really too surprising. And if it's hard to believe a complex being could have come to be by itself, then it's logically harder to believe a more complex being could have come to be by itself and made less complex beings.

 

In my youth I was taught many things, such as this first sentence, portrayed as a fact. Only much later when examined fully, as if in a court of law, I see no "proof". How can it be submitted into evidence....thus and such over billions of years.....when we have no eye witnesses? It cannot be tested, it is merely theory passed off as fact. I looked, for instance, into what the definition of science is, among other things, it is observable.

 

1) Just because there was no eye witnesses doesn't mean we can't make a conviction. There's other things like DNA evidence and forensics that tell the story. This applies to science.
2) A theory holds more water than a single fact. It's a working model of related facts. This is why gravity and accretion theories are both theories. The sense you're using theory in is actually a hypothesis meaning educated guess, which no it's not.