Real life?
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If religion is a placebo...
- Thread starter PearlSeeker
- Start date
Real life?
The power of the placebo effect seems relevant.
Religion can have a curative effect in much the same way as therapy can have a curative effect.
PearlSeeker
Well-Known Member
There are no short cuts and instant solutions. After repeated use of drugs come more and more problems... After high comes deep low.
PureX
Veteran Member
You won't get the religion haters to ever acknowledge this, however. Even if you could, they would then immediately return to blaming religion for all of humanity's evil deeds and suffering.
PearlSeeker
Well-Known Member
Real life by itself doesn't make life more positive and meaningful.
Depends how you live it. I am content that my real life is as positive and meaningful as it can be, certainly far more so than if i had a god dictating my every move
Not all, just the ones they are guilty of.
There are many, many atheists and agnostics who I would not categorize as "religion haters."
PearlSeeker
Well-Known Member
Thank you for this interesting information.
"Even if they know it's not medicine, the action itself can stimulate the brain into thinking the body is being healed."
Maybe this explains why I still participate (although to lesser degree) in some religious rituals.
Another example in my culture: many hard atheists bring food for Easter blessing.
PearlSeeker
Well-Known Member
OK. What has helped you to experience life this way and overcome crises? Are there any resources, teachings, tools, practices, beliefs... ? This is what I call medicine.
Cheese?
First, I'd have to know what religion cures.
Anxiety and fear instilled by religion.
The placebo effect is real, but it's not really about measurably better outcomes for patients because of the placebo. The placebo effect is about things like:
- correlated factors outside the study. If, say, a practitioner gives healthy lifestyle advice while they're administering medication, then the control group will still get the benefit of the advice.
- the effects of just being in a study. If you're in the control group for, say, blood pressure medication and you're getting your blood pressure measured weekly (or whatever), seeing high results in all those tests might prompt you to take steps to reduce it yourself. Even if you don't get to see the results, just being asked about your health all the time can make you more health-conscious.
- humans like to help. In self-reported data, we have a subconscious desire to skew self-reported data in whichever direction we think "helps" the researchers.
I think all of these are relevant to religion, especially the last one: teach someone from infancy that religion is supposed to be wonderful and it isn't surprising that they will try to find ways to portray it as wonderful even if it isn't.
While those who persistently denigrate religion manage a remarkable objectivity.
I think the main tool, that which helped me most was being kicked out of my church when i was 14. I have of course forgiven the bigoted congregation and vicar, in fact i have thanked the vicar for his attitude about disability.
Next is actually reading the Bible as written, not as cherry picked and taught.
Finally i think that not having a god to lean on (and blame) allowing me to solve problems in my own way without having directed religious advice as a guide has been wonderful and freeing.
If someone's health improves, that is measurable. In this case, the end would justify the means.
The placebo, let's call that a symbol of healthiness, is taken with the mindset of doing something to get better. The intention to get better, is what drives all these other factors such as listening to advice, taking better care of yourself, thinking positively about your health, and a whole range of other subtle influences that affect the whole. In other words, their faith made them whole, through these subtle means, through the act of symbolizing better health into a object of their intention.
Yes, but it was the belief of getting well itself, that instigated all of these contributing the factors. Faith, led the way.
I don't think the placebo effect should or could be undertood as simply just the idea alone, without any other subtle or related actions. It's not "magic", like popping a pill and the pill does it for you. But we should not at all underestimate the power of belief, symbolized in some action, such as taking the pill, getting baptized, putting on a crown, or any other object which represents some goal in mind, to set the ball in motion. "Your faith has made you whole", is actually quite accurate.
But it's not think it and poof it happens. But rather believe it, and hold it in mind, and things will happen as a result of subtle and true modifications that occur holistically, different parts of the system re-aligning themselves.
Want to see some interesting personal history proof of this? Look at this graph below. In it you will see a tracking of my weight drop of 70 lbs over the course of about one year. How did I do it? By simply making juice for lunch every day and having that instead of my typical lunch. That and I weighed myself every morning and charted it out in this spreadsheet.
What caused it? The juice for lunch? Checking my weight every day? Being conscious of paying attention to my eating habits? Subtly modifying my behaviors? Being aware of my health? A host of other subtle changes in my system enacted because of focusing my intention into a simple action of making juice for lunch everyday and weighing myself every morning?
Yes to all of the above. The juice was the placebo. The placebo is a symbolic focal point for intention. The juice didn't do it. But juicing for just one meal a day, with the intent of losing weight engaged a whole host of other subtle modifications that in fact gave an extremely clear, totally measurable, objective fact of having lost 70 lbs over the course of one year. I have not re-gained any of that weight for the past 7 years now.
There is no skewing the data in that chart above. The scale wasn't lying.
I'm sure there is some claiming to be better when you're really not because of social factors, but there is also actual tangible, and clearly measurable improvements. It's not all one thing or the other.
But regards to religion, this is absolutely relevant to it, because it is all about symbolizing one's intention into a focal point. "Believe in God, and and you're life with improve". It's is the faith, that engages all the necessarily complex and subtle parts of the whole system to bring about desired changes.
Think about it like this. Do we mentally engage in making our autonomic systems work and function? Do we think, beat the heart? Unless you were specifically trained and practiced how to control your heart rate, it just beats along as it will without your conscious interventions. However, take anyone without any trained skill, and tell them to really imagine someone behind them right now about to plunge a knife into the back of their neck.
Chances are very high that there will be a whole host of bodily responses, including increased heart rate, tensed muscles, and other chemical releases, that follow that single thought. This is to me really key in understanding the symbolic nature of religion, and the placebo effect. The body follows the mind, and then vice versa.
I really don't think Buddhism seeks to instill anxiety or fear.
I really don't think Buddhism seeks to instill anxiety or fear.
Really? To me, the first part of the Four Noble Truths comes off as an argument about what to be anxious about, while the last part is a sales pitch for how Buddhism can help solve the problem they just convinced you is a problem at all.
Sure, I can see where you're coming from with the sales pitch on the last one.
The rest just seems like common sense. Of course life contains suffering(contains joy, too). You can be anxious about it if you want, I guess, but I'm not seeing where stating the obvious instills fear and anxiety.
Perhaps some of it boils down to temperament, as to what one derives out of a teaching(religious or otherwise).
lukethethird
unknown member
I'm not complaining.
What sort of medicine?
Real medicine is an awareness that we don't really exist as individuals