Doug Wilson and the American Family Association: HIV/AIDS Conspiracy Theorists

“Conspiracy theory is the ultimate refuge of the powerless. If you cannot change your own life, it must be that some greater force controls the world.” Roger Cohen link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV#mediaviewer/File:HIV-budding-Color.jpgHIV Budding-CDC

This is a very, very long post. How does one cover the issue of HIV, AIDS, conspiracy theories and Christians who are HIV/AIDS deniers? If you want to get a shorter overview, I would recommend that you read The Evidence That HIV Causes AIDS. Then, the Wikipedia article on Peter Duesberg and the one on AIDS Denialism are pretty good and correspond, in the big picture, to the 40 or so articles that I read in preparation for this post.

The first time my daughter was operated on for her brain tumor, she bled so badly that they could not continue the operation after 10 hours. Normally, there isn't much bleeding in the brain but the tumor had developed its own blood supply which made it dangerous. She was given many units of blood which had been unexpected. This was in 1991. 

Besides being told that my daughter's prognosis was very poor, I was also told that she might not be able to speak and that she might have great difficulty learning. They had to remove a good chunk of brain which is seen quite clearly, even by untrained eyes, on her MRI. As if this wasn't devastating enough, the Issue of HIV and AIDS came up. By 1991, the blood supply was being carefully checked, especially blood that was being used in children, but there was still some questions about the ability of HIV to slip through the testing. So, my dear daughter was also regularly tested for HIV which she never developed. For those of you who don't know, she is now a nurse in a Surgical/Trauma ICU at a well known university. I am grateful every day for her life.

So, this story is personal as well as interesting to me.

We are so grateful to our readers who often give us interesting information. So, this past week, a reader told us that Doug Wilson, beloved of The Gospel Coalition and good friends with John Piper, believes that HIV does not cause AIDS.  I keep saying that you cannot surprise me anymore but I am wrong. I did some reading and have come to understand that there is more to this issue than just a simple denial of the seriousness of HIV. It touches on the very human trait of following "conspiracy theories." These theories transcend educational backgrounds. By this I mean that Nobel Laureates and middle school children all can get sucked into a juicy theory, myself included. For example, I followed the disappearance of the Malaysian jetliner, postulating theories like "The terrorists got it and are outfitting it with a bomb." 

I remember Ronald Reagan quipping, on his way out of the White House, "I forgot to ask about Area 51." (I am desperately looking for a link but I heard him say it so I am going with it). 

 Think about this question as I review the issue of HIV and AIDS. Why do you think some people would want to deny that HIV causes AIDS?

Dr Peter Duesberg published his book, Inventing the AIDS Virus, and causes an uproar.

For convenience, I am going to use the biography in Wikipedia since I have checked it out in over 2 dozen sources. It is important to note that Duesberg did some cutting edge research research in the area of cancer and oncogenes which got him elected to the National Academy of Science, no small feat. He is to be admired for that work.

…(Born 1936) ….a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is known for his cancer research and for his central role in AIDS denialism as an early and vocal proponent of the belief that HIV does not cause AIDS.

Duesberg received acclaim early in his career for research on oncogenes and cancer. With Peter Vogt, he reported in 1970 that a cancer-causing virus of birds had extra genetic material compared with non-cancer-causing viruses, hypothesizing that this material contributed to cancer.[1][2] At the age of 36, Duesberg was awarded tenure at the University of California, Berkeley, and at 49, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He received an Outstanding Investigator Grant (OIG) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1986, and from 1986 to 1987 was a Fogarty Scholar-in-Residence at the NIH laboratories in Bethesda, Maryland.

What exactly is HIV and Aids?

Here is a good description from the Department of Health and Human Services. I provide this because it will help in understanding the controversy.

“HIV” stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. To understand what that means, let’s break it down:

H – Human – This particular virus can only infect human beings.
I – Immunodeficiency – HIV weakens your immune system by destroying important cells that fight disease and infection. A "deficient" immune system can't protect you.
V – Virus – A virus can only reproduce itself by taking over a cell in the body of its host.

HIV is a lot like other viruses, including those that cause the "flu" or the common cold. But there is an important difference – over time, your immune system can clear most viruses out of your body. That isn't the case with HIV – the human immune system can't seem to get rid of it. That means that once you have HIV, you have it for life.

We know that HIV can hide for long periods of time in the cells of your body and that it attacks a key part of your immune system – your T-cells or CD4 cells. Your body has to have these cells to fight infections and disease, but HIV invades them, uses them to make more copies of itself, and then destroys them.

Over time, HIV can destroy so many of your CD4 cells that your body can't fight infections and diseases anymore. When that happens, HIV infection can lead to AIDS, the final stage of HIV infection.

However, not everyone who has HIV progresses to AIDS. With proper treatment, called “antiretroviral therapy” (ART), you can keep the level of HIV virus in your body low. ART is the use of HIV medicines to fight HIV infection. It involves taking a combination of HIV medicines every day. These HIV medicines can control the virus so that you can live a longer, healthier life and reduce the risk of transmitting HIV to others. Before the introduction of ART in the mid-1990s, people with HIV could progress to AIDS in just a few years. Today, a person who is diagnosed with HIV and treated before the disease is far advanced can have a nearly normal life expectancy.

No safe and effective cure for HIV currently exists, but scientists are working hard to find one, and remain hopeful.

*************

AIDS” stands for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. To understand what that means, let’s break it down:

A – Acquired – AIDS is not something you inherit from your parents. You acquire AIDS after birth.
I – Immuno – Your body's immune system includes all the organs and cells that work to fight off infection or disease.
D – Deficiency – You get AIDS when your immune system is "deficient," or isn't working the way it should.
S – Syndrome – A syndrome is a collection of symptoms and signs of disease. AIDS is a syndrome, rather than a single disease, because it is a complex illness with a wide range of complications and symptoms.

As noted above, AIDS is the final stage of HIV infection, and not everyone who has HIV advances to this stage. People at this stage of HIV disease have badly damaged immune systems, which put them at risk for opportunistic infections (OIs).

You are considered to have progressed to AIDS if you have one or more specific OIs, certain cancers, or a very low number of CD4 cells. If you have AIDS, you will need medical intervention and treatment to prevent death.

Dr Peter Duesberg claimed that HIV is not dangerous and does not lead to AIDS.

It is important to understand that very few support him on this matter within the scientific community. And before you quote the Nobel Laureate, Kary Mulls, you should note that the support is only that he believes Duesberg has a "right" to dissent.

Again from Wikipedia:

Duesberg began to gain public notoriety with a March 1987 article in Cancer Researchentitled "Retroviruses as Carcinogens and Pathogens: Expectations and Reality".[4] In this and subsequent writings, Duesberg proposed his hypothesis that AIDS is caused by long-term consumption of recreational drugs and/or antiretroviral drugs, and that HIV is a harmless passenger virus. 

By passenger virus, Duesberg means that the virus is found in tumors, etc. but it does not cause the disease. Basically, he believes that recreational drug usage and even the antiretroviral agents used to treat HIV causes AIDS. In other words, the drugs, that are given to fight HIV, cause it.

Some conservatives jumped on the bandwagon.

Duesberg also believed that lifestyle choices in the gay community, along with concomitant drug usage, led to AIDS which seems to resonate with certain conservatives.

 he began espousing the theory that AIDS was the result of lifestyle choices—in particular, illicit drug use—implying that people with AIDS 

were in some sense responsible for their disease. But although this message didn’t play well in the  Castro, says UCSD’s Epstein, it did among some political conservatives, including Bryan Ellison, a Berkeley graduate student who became Duesberg’s main collaborator; conservative journalist Tom Bethell; and Charles Thomas Jr., a former Harvard University bio-chemistry professor who has argued that AIDS is a “behavioral” rather than an “infectious” disease.

Epstein cautions that “political onfigurations in the Duesberg controversy are more complex than simple labels can suggest.” Yet he also concludes that “the particular appeal of Duesberg’s views to conservatives—certainly including those with little sympathy for the gay movement—cannot be denied.”  

A willingness to attribute AIDS to specific lifestyle choices wasn’t the only reason Duesberg’s message found receptive audiences outside the scientific community. Another is that his attacks on AIDS researchers as greedy self-interested mythmakers clicked into a growing disenchantment with the medical establishment.  

The evidence that HIV causes AIDS

If you read one article on this issue, this is the one to read. It was put out by the NIH. Here is an overview of the evidence. Please read the article to get links to the studies which back up these claims.

  • AIDS and HIV infection are invariably linked in time, place and population group.
  • Many studies agree that only a single factor, HIV, predicts whether a person will develop AIDS.
  • In cohort studies, severe immunosuppression and AIDS-defining illnesses occur almost exclusively in individuals who are HIV-infected.
  • Before the appearance of HIV, AIDS-related diseases such as PCP, KS and MAC (diseases associated with AIDS) were rare in developed countries; today, they are common in HIV-infected individuals. 
  • In developing countries, patterns of both rare and endemic diseases have changed dramatically as HIV has spread, with a far greater toll now being exacted among the young and middle-aged, including well-educated members of the middle class.
  • In studies conducted in both developing and developed countries, death rates are markedly higher among HIV-seropositive individuals than among HIV-seronegative individuals.
  • HIV can be detected in virtually everyone with AIDS.
  • The availability of potent combinations of drugs that specifically block HIV replication has dramatically improved the prognosis for HIV-infected individuals. Such an effect would not be seen if HIV did not have a central role in causing AIDS.
  • Nearly everyone with AIDS has antibodies to HIV.
  • The specific immunologic profile that typifies AIDS – a persistently low CD4+ T-cell count – is extraordinarily rare in the absence of HIV infection or other known cause of immunosuppression.
  • Newborn infants have no behavioral risk factors for AIDS, yet many children born to HIV-infected mothers have developed AIDS and died.
  • The HIV-infected twin develops AIDS while the uninfected twin does not.

This article goes on to answer a host of objections that HIV is related to AIDS. Here is one as an example.

MYTH: HIV is not the cause of AIDS because many individuals with HIV have not developed AIDS.

FACT: HIV disease has a prolonged and variable course. The median period of time between infection with HIV and the onset of clinically apparent disease is approximately 10 years in industrialized countries, according to prospective studies of homosexual men in which dates of seroconversion are known. Similar estimates of asymptomatic periods have been made for HIV-infected blood-transfusion recipients, injection-drug users and adult hemophiliacs (Alcabes et al. Epidemiol Rev 1993;15:303).

As with many diseases, a number of factors can influence the course of HIV disease. Factors such as age or genetic differences between individuals, the level of virulence of the individual strain of virus, as well as exogenous influences such as co-infection with other microbes may determine the rate and severity of HIV disease expression. Similarly, some people infected with hepatitis B, for example, show no symptoms or only jaundice and clear their infection, while others suffer disease ranging from chronic liver inflammation to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Co-factors probably also determine why some smokers develop lung cancer while others do not (Evans. Yale J Biol Med 1982;55:193; Levy. Microbiol Rev 1993;57:183; Fauci. Nature 1996;384:529).

Duesberg's theories led to some pretty serious consequences. People died without treatment.

1. Thousands of deaths in South Africa along with thousands of children being born with HIV.

President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa bought into Duesberg's theories and had him consult on how to handle the AIDS epidemic in South Africa. Here is what happened as documented in a paper from Harvard titled Researchers estimate lives lost due to delay in antiretroviral drug use for HIV/AIDS in South Africa

 More than 330,000 lives were lost to HIV/AIDS in South Africa from 2000 and 2005 because a feasible and timely antiretroviral (ARV) treatment program was not implemented, assert researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) in a study published online by the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes (JAIDS). In addition, an estimated 35,000 babies were born with HIV during that same period in the country because a feasible mother-to-child transmission prophylaxis program using nevirapine (an anti-AIDS drug) was not implemented,

2. Christine Maggiore influential HIV positive activist and denialist dies of AIDS here and here

From Wikipedia.

…was an HIV-positive activist and promoter of AIDS denialism (the belief that HIV is not the cause of AIDS).[1][2] She was the founder of Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives, an organization which disputes the link between HIV and AIDS and urges HIV-positive pregnant women to avoid anti-HIV medication.[3] Maggiore authored and self-published the book What If Everything You Thought You Knew about AIDS Was Wrong?

Maggiore's promotion of AIDS denialism had long been controversial, particularly since her 3-year-old daughter, Eliza Jane Scovill, died of Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia, considered to be an AIDS-defining illness. Consistent with her belief that HIV was harmless, Maggiore had not taken medication to reduce the risk of transmission of HIV to her daughter during pregnancy, and she did not have Eliza Jane tested for HIV during her daughter's lifetime.[3][4] Maggiore herself died on December 27, 2008 after suffering from AIDS-related conditions.[

To make matters worse, Maggiore breast fed her baby. Here is a good description of how HIV is transmitted.

HOW DO YOU GET HIV?
Certain body fluids from an HIV-infected person can transmit HIV. These body fluids are:

  • Blood
  • Semen (cum)
  • Pre-seminal fluid (pre-cum)
  • Rectal fluids
  • Vaginal fluids
  • Breast milk

Maggiore sued the coroners office for releasing the cause of her daughter's death. When Maggiore herself died of pneumonia, her family refused an autopsy and said that she died from a "holistic cleanse."The death certificate has been removed from the Internet. From Wikipedia:

(cause of death) disseminated herpes virus infection and bilateral pneumonia, with oral candidiasis as a contributing cause, all of which can be related to HIV infection. 

An entire editorial board of deniers died of AIDS.

Jody Wells, Huw Christie and Michael Baumgartner published London’s Continuum Magazine which served as an outlet for AIDS denialism, including pseudoscientific “studies”. Continuum ended after the editors all died following long bouts with AIDS.

Doug Wilson still stands by his positive review of Peter Duesberg's book Inventing the AIDS Virus

Wilson reviewed this book here. The book was published in 1996 and I assume since other books in that same issue were published in the 1990s, this review took place sometime close to the publication date. Since that time frame is approximately 17 years ago, I wrote Doug Wilson and asked him if he still stands by his positive review of Duesberg's book. He replied:

Dee, I haven’t studied that issue for many years, but I haven’t changed my mind on the basic issues. So yes, you can cite anything I have written as representative of my views. I would simply ask you to note the date of the piece, with the understanding that this would affect how some things might be phrased if I were writing today.

 In light of current evidence, his analysis of this book is concerning.

This book demonstrates that AIDS is not infectious in any way, shape, or form, and that the AIDS research establishment has been poleaxed by all the federal billions being, ahem, invested in AIDS research. Furthermore, the media has behaved herself like a kept woman, allowing the story of the century to walk right on by. If reporters were to seriously research the unbelievable scientific holes in the current AIDS "orthodoxy," they would lose their access to all the important bunglers. And they don't want that.

He claims that Duesberg proved that Koch's postulates were not met.

As Duesberg demonstrates in meticulous detail, in order for either a bacterial or viral disease (or "syndrome") to be considered infectious, it must first meet three criteria known as Koch's postulates.

In fact, the NIH proves that these postulates have been met. Please read the entire section of the report. Here is one excerpt.

Postulate #3 has been fulfilled in tragic incidents involving three laboratory workers with no other risk factors who have developed AIDS or severe immunosuppression after accidental exposure to concentrated, cloned HIV in the laboratory. In all three cases, HIV was isolated from the infected individual, sequenced and shown to be the infecting strain of virus. In another tragic incident, transmission of HIV from a Florida dentist to six patients has been documented by genetic analyses of virus isolated from both the dentist and the patients. The dentist and three of the patients developed AIDS and died, and at least one of the other patients has developed AIDS. Five of the patients had no HIV risk factors other than multiple visits to the dentist for invasive procedures (O'Brien, Goedert. Curr Opin Immunol 1996;8:613; O'Brien, 1997; Ciesielski et al. Ann Intern Med 1994;121:886).

Wilson claims AZT is toxic.

This was discussed earlier. AZT saves lives. Not giving patients AZT has resulted in untold deaths in the United States, South Africa, and around the world.

About a million Americans are "infected" with the HIV virus. One of the worst things that can happen to such a person is for someone with the authority to write prescriptions to find out about it, and to start giving that person AZT–an FDA-approved, rush-job treatment of AIDS. The drug is highly toxic, and can worsen or bring on AIDS. 

Guess who Wilson calls suckers? Those conservative Christians who believe anything other than what Peter Duesberg says.

Conservative Christians were involved in all this Henny Penny running around because conservative Christians are suckers for the doomsday stuff. It gives them goosebumps and makes them think the Second Coming is just around the corner. And that is why conservative Christians got taken for a ride–along with everyone else.

Wilson ends with this quote. In light of the above, it is dangerous advice.

Having said this, a few things should be said about AIDS. If by AIDS you mean that the HIV virus is present in your body, then I would refer you to the book Inventing the AIDS Virus by Peter Duesberg. It is quite possible that your situation does not warrant abstention from sex at all – but only because the HIV virus is harmless.

In 2012, American Family Association endorsed Peter Duesberg's theories.

From the Daily Kos link

…Earlier this month, AFA policy chief Bryan Fischer's guest on Focal Point was prominent cell biologist and AIDS denier Peter Duesberg.  For those who don't know, Duesberg believes HIV doesn't cause AIDS, and that HIV is an elaborate hoax cooked up by researchers who want to keep their grants–claims Fischer strongly endorsed. 

…Apparently somebody forgot to tell Fischer and Tim Wildmon about how dangerous this is, because Fischer doubled down on it in his blog post.  He actually claimed that it isn't possible for a virus to stay dormant for several years before roaring back to life.  Apparently Fischer doesn't know that the chicken pox virus can stay dormant for several years before returning as shingles.  It can also go to your brain as viral encephalitis.

…What makes the AFA's endorsement of this claptrap even more dangerous is that so many people who live in a Christian cocoon (filtered Internet service, homeschooling their kids, SkyAngel, no secular radio) actually rely upon it for news and information.  Wildmon and Fischer better hope nobody dies from following their advice–it could, no, WILL, get them sued out of business.  And that wouldn't be a bad thing.

Dr Warren Throckmorton wrote a post here in which Rick Warren condemned the stand of the AFA.

By partnering with Duesberg, Fischer brought AIDS denialism closer to the mainstream of evangelicalism. In response, Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren and his wife Kay recently issued a statement to me about Fischer’s and Duesberg’s denial of the HIV-AIDS link. Among evangelicals, the Warrens have been pioneers in outreach to AIDS victims.

Warren said:

Duesberg’s denial of the entire body of research, and his rejection of thousands of scientific trials and papers, would be laughable if millions of lives weren’t at stake. But his view is deadly.  Unfortunately, Duesberg convinced some people in Africa that HIV was not the cause of AIDS and as a result many people there needlessly became infected with the virus, and some have subsequently suffered and died.

It is frustrating – and frightening – for those of us in AIDS ministry to see someone like Dr. Duesberg play to people’s bias and prejudices. For the past eight years we have worked with thousands of churches around the world and in America who have ministries to those infected and affected by AIDS. No one deserves this illness, and we must not ignore those among us who are infected or affected by HIV and AIDS. There are numerous ways to acquire the virus – sexual activity, blood transfusions, being born to an HIV positive mother, dirty needles – but what matters isn’t  how a person became infected as much as how we will respond. People with living with the virus are people that Jesus created, loves, and died for. Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan teaches us that when you find someone bleeding on the side of the road, you don’t say “Was it your fault?” You just help them in love!

So, this leaves us in the land of conspiracy theories.

There is a well known paper produced by the NIH titled Conspiracy Theories in Science.

I think it is vital to understand that anyone, no matter how intelligent, can fall prey to conspiracy theories. These sorts of theories are difficult to disprove because one argues in the negative.  Let's say I tell you that I believe the Malaysian jetliner is sitting on a landing strip in Afghanistan, getting ready to be retrofitted to carry a nuclear bomb. Can you prove that I am wrong? I could think of all sorts of ways to rebut the arguments that the jet went down. Has it been found? Can you trust the Malaysian government?

Here are some quotes from the article.

Conspiracy theories appeal to people who are discontented with the established institutions of their society and especially with elites in that society. They are likely to believe that conditions are worsening for people like themselves and that the authorities do not care about them. A conspiracy theory gives believers someone tangible to blame for their perceived predicament, instead of blaming it on impersonal or abstract social forces. The meme becomes a habit of thought: the more people believe in one conspiracy, the more likely they are to believe in other

…conspiracy theories include claims that a major drug company hid reports that its leading anti-inflammatory drug caused heart attacks and strokes (Specter, 2009); environmental scientists have conspired to keep refereed journals from publishing papers by researchers sceptical that global warming is a crisis (Hayward, 2009; Revkin, 2009); physicians or drug companies have conspired to suppress non-mainstream medical treatments, vitamins and health foods; and that big business and the medical establishment have conspired to obstruct the search for a cure for AIDS so they can continue to sell their ineffective drugs and treatments (Nussbaum, 1990).

Conspiracy theories are dangerous when the meme is used to discredit scientific evidence in a public forum or in a legal proceeding. The conspiracy meme is part of the standard repertoire of memes used by lawyers to discredit evidence offered by ‘experts' of all kinds. Lawyers focus on the motivations of the experts, on who hired them, what they are being paid for their testimony and so on. They also seek out an ‘expert' who will testify on their side, implying that expertise is for sale to the highest bidder and that opinion is divided on the issue in question.

This article then highlights the issues surrounding Peter Duesberg. Duesberg used his position as a member of the National Academy Sciences to rebut each and every submission on HIV. His rebuttal did not involve scientific "proof." It was mostly rhetoric. This privilege had been, until Duesberg, offered to these elite scientists. Look what happened.

The conflict between the debating meme and the scientific expertise meme was pronounced in the dispute between Nature editor John Maddox and biologist Peter Duesberg, who opposes the theory that HIV causes AIDS. Relying on the norms of fairness in debate, Duesberg (1995) sought the right to reply to scientific papers defending mainstream views. At a certain point in the debate Maddox refused to continue to give him the right of reply, arguing that Duesberg had “forfeited the right to expect answers by his rhetorical technique. Questions left unanswered for more than about ten minutes he takes as further proof that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. Evidence that contradicts his alternative drug hypothesis is on the other hand brushed aside.” Maddox argued that Duesberg was not asking legitimate scientific questions, but making demands and implying or saying: “Unless you can answer this, and right now, your belief that HIV causes AIDS is wrong” (Maddox, 1993).

Conspiracy theorists typically overlook lapses by their supporters but are quick to pounce on any flaw on the part of their opponents

Maddox observed that “Duesberg will not be alone in protesting that this is merely a recipe for suppressing challenges to received wisdom. So it can be. But Nature will not so use it. Instead, what Duesberg continues to say about the causation of

AIDS will be reported in the general interest. When he offers a text for publication that can be authenticated, it will if possible be published.” As an editor of a scientific journal, Maddox was justified in saying that he would publish papers that offered new findings, not ones that just picked at unanswered questions in other people's work. But he was realistic in realizing that his refusal to publish additional comments by Duesberg would be portrayed as censorship by believers in the AIDS conspiracy theory.

Duesberg appears to demonstrate a certain meme which is that of the "courageous, independent scientist rejecting orthodoxy." In other words, "they did it to Galileo and now they are doing it to me." (Problem: Galileo was attacked by the church.)

But being a dissenter from orthodoxy is not difficult; the hard part is actually having a better theory. Publishing dissenting theories is important when they are backed by plausible evidence, but this does not mean giving critics ‘equal time' to dissent from every finding by a mainstream scientist.

So, why do you think a Christian might want to debunk the fact that HIV is a precursor to AIDS? 

I think I will end with a quote from my husband. He is a cardiologist and I am a nurse. Both of us have had AIDS patients and patients with HIV.  When I asked him what he thought about HIV/AIDS denialism, he was flabbergasted that people believe this. He said to me,

This is simple. Do you remember how many people got HIV, then AIDS and then died? Well, today, most people with HIV and AIDS are living long lives. Thank God for the antiretroviral medications."

And he went to bed, shaking his head.

Lydia's Corner:Daniel 9:1-11:1 1 John 2:18-3:6 Psalm 121:1-8 Proverbs 28:27-28
 

Comments

Doug Wilson and the American Family Association: HIV/AIDS Conspiracy Theorists — 240 Comments

  1. I think I need to go back to school and pick up an advanced degree in Biology and then read the post again. Plus I wonder if John Piper plays the lottery. He sure knows how to pick winners…..

  2. Here’s a question that makes me simmer….why is Doug Wilson making medical advice? When did he go to medical school? When did Doug Wilson become licensed to practice medicine? What is the name of the medical office that Wilson works for? “Wilson, Piper & Dever?” Sounds more like a law firm…maybe CJ Mahaney can run and hide there! 😛

    I wonder if Mark Driscoll will allow him to publish his claims on The Resurgance. Its only fitting…no?

    BTW…Deebs here is the Eagle’s perscription for the night. Take one onion roll it up in panty hose and wrap in around your knee and continue to with life. if you can’t see me follow up with John Catanzaro in the morning! 😛

  3. As long as we’re talking conspiracy theories I would looooooooooooooooooooove to ask Doug Wilson the following questions? 😯

    1. Who killed JFK Doug?
    2. What did the United States Air Force find at Roswell, NM?
    3. Did Franklin Roosevelt want the Japanese to bomb Pealr Harbor so he could go to war?
    4. Doug…my man! Was the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11 a CIA plot?
    5. Doug…BROTHER!!!! What happened to Saddam Hussein’s weapon’s of mass destruction? Where did they go? There is an internet rumor that they can be found in the New Saint Andrews Library 😯 Doug care to comment? 😛

  4. Speaking of conspiracy theories… I think its a conspiracy that New Saint Andrews choose the same acronym as the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland. 😯

  5. Well, Penetrate/Colonize/Conquer/Plant Douggie isn’t the first to turn AIDS into a Conspiracy Theory. He can take a number and stand in line behind all the others, from “God’s Punishment on Sodomites” to “a Bioweapon engineered by the Republicans and the Pentagon to exterminate non-whites.”

    Problem with a Conspiracy Theory is it keeps growing; “If your Conspiracy Theory doesn’t fit the facts, Invent a Bigger Conspiracy.” Until the only way to keep the theory viable is the end of Bob Dylan’s “Talking John Birch Conspiracy Blues”, where EVERYBODY in the world EXCEPT the Conspiracy Theorist has to be part of The Conspiracy. And eventually it takes you over.

    And a Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory is literally impossible to shake. Any evidence against The Cosnpiracy is disinformation planted by The Conspiracy. Any who doubt the existence of The Conspiracy have proven themselves part of The Conspiracy. Lack of evidence for The Conspiracy is PROOF that The Conspiracy can silence anyone. Until the Conspiracy Theorist is sitting alone in a filthy stable reciting “THE DWARFS ARE FOR THE DWARFS! WE WON’T BE TAKEN IN!”

    P.S. The two bloodiest regimes of the 20th Century — the Nazis and the Communists — were both based around Conspiracy Theories. Until like the Santa Barbara Shooter, you fight The Conspiracy by striking first, doing to Them before They can do to you.

  6. Interesting timing of this post! Today, June 27th, is the CDC’s 20th annual National HIV Testing Day.

    “CDC recommends that everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 get tested for HIV at least once as part of routine health care and that some people with risk factors get tested more often. Gay and bisexual men, people with more than one sex partner, people with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and people who inject drugs are at high risk and should get tested at least once a year.

    You should also be tested if you have been sexually assaulted or if you are a woman who is pregnant or planning to become pregnant.”

    http://www.cdc.gov/features/hivtesting/

  7. @ Eagle:

    Eagle! God is sovereign in all things and his prophets are therefore able to tell you things that they didn’t have to study! Like medicine.

    *serious side eyes from the child of a physician*

  8. I’m probably going to catch flak for this, but AIDS denialism isn’t the only thing you find with these guys. They’re also champion global climate change deniers.

    That said, conspiracy theories are running rampant in our society. Every time you hear of something bad happening, it’s a matter of days (now even hours) before there are people crawling out of the woodwork to go on about how (for example, and this just makes me sick) the murders at Sandy Hill Elementary School didn’t really happen and the distraught parents and other seen at the scene were actually “crisis actors.” So this goes way beyond thinking the moon landings were a hoax or Elvis is still alive. No, every.single.time one of these tragic incidents happens, whether it’s the 9/11 terrorist attack or a disappeared jetliner, at least one or more conspiracy theories pops up. It’s getting to where having to correct the record is crowding out serious news.

    My two favorite (if anyone can have a favorite lunacy) conspiracy theories are: 1) President Obama is not a natural born citizen (birtherism) and 2) “Sovereign citizen” claptrap (see: Cliven Bundy, for example). Just watching these people at work is both amusing and humorous, pathetic and demoralizing at the same time.

  9. @ Eagle:

    Serious time, my mom was doing her rotations around the time that cases first became common but before they knew what it was, so there were these people coming into the ER while she was on duty who were just dying in front of them and they had no idea what was going on. She said it was the scariest thing she has ever seen as a doctor.

  10. Eagle wrote:

    I’d love to hear Dee or her husband’s thoughts if they will find a vaccine for HIV?

    It’ll be like the HPV vaccine. “OMG our children can’t have that, it might encourage them to be promiscuous!11!111!!!11!”

    At least AIDS isn’t the death sentence it was in the 1980s. I had two friends die of AIDS-related illnesses, one in early 1987, the other in 1990. Such talent lost to the world, and it keeps going on and allegedly reputable religious organizations (I’m talking about some high-ranking prelates in the Catholic church, not Doug Wilson, who is profoundly disreputable) are STILL spreading untruths about protecting oneself.

    Oh, and Dee, this is such a wonderfully comprehensive article. Thank you for taking the time to research and write it. As I was reading, I hoped you’d get into the deaths of Christine Maggiore and Eliza Jane Scovill, because they demonstrate that people will go to their deaths proclaiming sheer lunacy and take their loved ones with them.

  11. I am sure I am not the only one hoping that the comment section will turn into a discussion of our favorite conspiracy theories. (My dad didn’t really believe in the moon landing.)

    Kudos to Rick Warren for his outspoken denunciation of these claims. And kudos to dee for emailing Doug Wilson. I think I would feel too icky to do so.

  12. Pretty ballsy of Wilson to admit outright to a hostile source that he stands by this stuff. Well, at least no one can accuse you of making it up now.

  13. Eagle wrote:

    As long as we’re talking conspiracy theories I would looooooooooooooooooooove to ask Doug Wilson the following questions? 😯

    COMMUNIST GANGSTER COMPUTER GOD ON THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON PARROTING PUPPET GANGSTER ASSASSINS WITH FRANKENSTEIN EARPHONE RADIO CONTROLS?

  14. dee wrote:

    One comment not approved-serious weirdness.

    Considering the comments that ARE up, that’s gotta be some SERIOUS weirdness.

  15. mirele fka Southwestern Discomfort wrote:

    Every time you hear of something bad happening, it’s a matter of days (now even hours) before there are people crawling out of the woodwork to go on about how (for example, and this just makes me sick) the murders at Sandy Hill Elementary School didn’t really happen and the distraught parents and other seen at the scene were actually “crisis actors.” So this goes way beyond thinking the moon landings were a hoax or Elvis is still alive. No, every.single.time one of these tragic incidents happens, whether it’s the 9/11 terrorist attack or a disappeared jetliner, at least one or more conspiracy theories pops up.

    “If your Conspiracy Theory doesn’t fit the facts, Invent a Bigger Conspiracy.”
    — Kooks Magazine

  16. My favorite weird conspiracy has to be Morgellons disease. That’s some crazy, uh, stuff. 😮

  17. Ok, I’m wondering if this denialism has its roots in the twisted “presuppositionalism,” that I just blogged about. Dee/Deb, do you mind a shameless plug that’s actually related to the topic at hand? (Shocking, I know!) http://taylorjoyrecovers.wordpress.com/2014/06/24/loose-screw-2-presuppositionalism/

    On another note, I’m one of the 1% of all people that have false-positive HIV tests. I had 4 pregnancies where the Elisa came back negative, then on #5, it came back positive. I had to have a “western blot” test, which verified that I do not, in fact, have HIV–but can you imagine how terrifying that was?? They have no idea why my blood suddenly started reacting to it–but it stayed that way. “multiple pregnancies” are one of the risk factors for false-positives.

  18. @ Dee,
    Correct me if I’m wrong here, but wasn’t there a time when the medical establishment claimed that Joseph Lister’s antiseptic surgical procedures for halting bacterial infection was balderdash? It seems that Duesberg’s claim about HIV NOT causing AIDS is in some bizarre way contrary to sound medical science, whereas Lister’s fight was against no science at all back in his day.
    What I don’t get at all is this:
    1) What’s in it for Duesberg?
    2) What’s in it for Doug Wilson?
    So here goes Potter’s own conspiracy theory:

    Duesberg has a Galileo delusion and thinks he’s in the same league, poor devil might as well try and advocate for geocentrism.

    Doug Wilson on the other hand is probably heavily vested in the belief that AIDS is the Almighty’s new scourge against recalcitrant ‘gay sodomites’ and if you’re in line with what he teaches in his ‘kirk’ about sex, you have nothing to worry about. We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if the HIV vectoring scheme had no connection to human sexuality.

  19. Eagle, have you ever considered going to Doug Wilson’s blog and questioning him with those questions? (I like your questions BTW!). If you do, fair warning…get ready for his fanboys and token 2-3 fangirls to come out to his defense!

  20. Muff Potter wrote:

    We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if the HIV vectoring scheme had no connection to human sexuality.

    Exactly what I think, too.

  21. Hester wrote:

    Pretty ballsy of Wilson to admit outright to a hostile source that he stands by this stuff.

    Dee is hostile? Are you kidding me? hahahahaha

    DW is confused on the role of men/women in marriage.
    DW is confused about the recovery rate of pedophiles.
    He’s got some whacked beliefs about the South.
    Nothing should surprise us about DW.

  22. There is an easy way to prove this to the deniers:

    Offer them a shot of HIV. If they think it is harmless, they should not be worried about taking the injection. If they are worried, well….

    Oh, is this the same guy who thought slavery in the US wasn’t all that bad?

  23. Wilson seems to be about 2000 lbs short of a ton in his knowledge about HIV and AIDS, slavery, etc., etc. Either he is willfully (sinfully) ignorant about what he is teaching, or he is too gullible to be in the pulpit.

  24. @ srs:

    There is an easy way to prove this to the deniers: Offer them a shot of HIV. If they think it is harmless, they should not be worried about taking the injection. If they are worried, well….

    I like that plan!

  25. What strikes me most is how very sad this willful ignorance is. It is unbearably awful & has tragic consequences. People (like the little daughter) are not cattle to be slaughtered on the altar of our own stupidity. Genuine ignorance is one thing, this? Quite another.

  26. I am not surprised by anything about Wilson but consider the source. This man is not exactly interested in anyone else’s opinion and I think he likes being controversial….he probably thinks it’s Christian persecution to disagree with him, and that inflates his little ego…..probably likes having a blog article written about him…….

  27. @ Beakerj:

    People love a good martyr. And if the martyr still has his or her baby teeth? All the better.

    What I don’t understand is how a person could claim to believe in the sovereignty of God and who prays “Oh Earth as it is in Heaven” and who would be very quick to blame-I-mean-credit God with natural disasters but refuse to believe that the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice or that progress in the scientific realms is actually a good thing. God controls tornadoes and bridge-collapses, but He’s got nothing to do with the Human Genome Project or heart transplants or successful anti-retroviral treatments. Nope. Those are beyond his scope. /sarcasm

  28. I will not be posting comments from anyone saying they know a doctor who has a cure for AIDS. Two more comments disallowed.

  29. I do not know when to call something a conspiracy and/or conspiracy theory and when to call it something else. I do, however, think that there are a lot of people out there who hold ideas and ideologies which I find highly disturbing at best. Locally there is a shop (eyeglass repair) where the proprietor is a virtual encyclopedia of conspiracy thinking. He claims that other people tell him their conspiracy “information” also. Some of them have come into the shop to talk to him while I was there, so I believe he may be a sort of gathering place for some folks. Listening to him is informative if surreal. I listened to him a long time once trying to see if he was mentally ill or just repeating what he has heard. I did not hear any of the classic signs of mental illness FWIW. In my family we all four wear glasses, and I try to be the one to take them in for repair just in order to listen to this guy. So, maybe half a dozen trips in all over the past few years.

    First of all, I think Dee’s husband is absolutely correct. In case anybody did not catch the meaning of what he said, read it again. If I am misreading him, Dee, correct me.

    Second, there are enough actual “conspiracies” which do come to light that people can believe that such things can go on. Reference the current information about some of the stuff going on in the VA medical system, and don’t forget to look at the recent reports about some IRS hoo doo. And don’t forget that nobody told the public what was going on under the bleachers in Chicago when they were developing the first atomic bombs. People know this, and know that not all information is made public, and there you go for the conspiracy theorists. The thinking goes like this: it can happen, it has happened in the past, who can say it is not happening now, and did I tell you what I just saw in the sky? Then when it turns out that what they saw was a drone before the public knew that much about drone development, the person can become a conspiracy theory enthusiast on the spot.

    And do not forget the bible says : “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it.?” ( Jeremiah 17:9) It is terribly easy to convince oneself of the truth of something that one wants to believe is true. And easy to not see that the “truth” so perceived may have arisen from desperate wickedness.

    But here is the scary part, and I am not going to get into it. There are also ideologies afloat right here in the US which resemble some really bad/drastic stuff that has happened politically elsewhere, and which are openly but casually mentioned by some of the people who hold these ideas. And some of the ideas could be applicable to certain population groups of medical interest. Such has been discussed. I will not discuss this further. I have no sources to quote or files to search; and I do not want to spread this mess about. But it is there, and that is this that I am most concerned about.

  30. A few years ago my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer, too far along for anything except palliative treatment and hospice care (so thankful for hospice!). She died three weeks after the diagnosis. What I couldn’t believe were some of the things that people said to me about “cures” (which I later looked up-I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or cry), and the “condemnation” given to people with lung cancer (she had never smoked). As a society, Christian or otherwise, we are too quick to make assumptions regarding health issues-either coming up with quickie cures, denying the evidence, or blaming the victim. Christians can be some of the worst in this area, and I find it very distressing.

  31. “…the 40 or so articles that I read in preparation for this post.”
    +++++++++++

    I stopped there, to say “YOU’RE THE TOP, YOU’RE THE COLLISEUM, YOU’RE THE TOP, YOU’RE THE LOUVRE MUSEUM” — I appreciate this SO DANG MUCH, the integrity and effort you put into what you do.

    (i’ll continue reading now)

  32. Taylor Joy wrote:

    I had 4 pregnancies where the Elisa came back negative, then on #5, it came back positive. I had to have a “western blot” test, which verified that I do not, in fact, have HIV–but can you imagine how terrifying that was??

    I can imagine. I went through a prostate cancer scare last year due to elevated PSA (6 to 8 instead of the previous 3) and low Free PSA (10-12%). Six months of diagnostic limbo before the negative biopsy.

  33. Muff Potter wrote:

    Doug Wilson on the other hand is probably heavily vested in the belief that AIDS is the Almighty’s new scourge against recalcitrant ‘gay sodomites’ and if you’re in line with what he teaches in his ‘kirk’ about sex, you have nothing to worry about.

    Given the sex lives that cult leaders tend to have, it could also be a “whistling in the dark” defense. Years ago in Furry Fandom, one of the most promiscuous gays in the fandom would claim he was in no danger of AIDS because “ALL my lovers are faithful!” (To which my response was “Why should they be? You trained them!”)

  34. zooey111 wrote:

    Muff Potter wrote:

    We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if the HIV vectoring scheme had no connection to human sexuality.

    Exactly what I think, too.

    There’s something about those three letters — S-E-X — that disables the higher brain functions and kicks in Teh Crazy on what’s left. Whether that Crazy goes “YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!” or “THOU SHALT NOT!”

  35. srs wrote:

    Oh, is this the same guy who thought slavery in the US wasn’t all that bad?

    You mean about the Godly Confederate States and their Peculiar Institution regarding Animate Property? And how it is Christian to enslave the Heathen so that you may Save Their Souls? (They remain YOUR Animate Property, of course. Where have we heard that one before? Not even touching on what makes a Heathen — like everyone outside the four walls of your own “kirk” compound.)

    Gives a whole new slant to the Reconstructionists’ “200-year-plans for your Christian family” including planning for “your descendants’ ESTATES and HOUSESERVANTS”, doesn’t it?

  36. srs wrote:

    There is an easy way to prove this to the deniers:

    Offer them a shot of HIV. If they think it is harmless, they should not be worried about taking the injection. If they are worried, well….

    “You have a saying: ‘Knowledge is a three-edged sword.’
    We also have a saying: ‘PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS!'”
    — Commander Sheridan, Babylon-5

  37. Patricia Hanlon wrote:

    For those interested in a bit of background on Doug Wilson by a young woman who apparently knows him pretty well: http://kbotkin.com/2012/07/24/doug-wilson-as-he-was/

    That eight-point “line of argument” is classic for a grandstanding bully.

    Including the unbulleted ninth point; the “It Was ‘Satirical’ — CAN’T YOU TAKE A JOKE, STUPID?” blame-shift reversal. Gaslighting, anyone?

  38. @ LInn:

    Thank you for the reference to hospice. I was part of a team that included a Christian congressman. In the spring of 1978, we put together a plan based on research into the medicare and medicaid law, to get the Secretary of DHEW to cause a funding test of hospice (palliative) care (at a facility, home or otherwise) as an alternative treatment to the then practice of hospitalization, surgeries, etc., for terminally ill patients. The Secretary did that, and shortly after the funding test began, it was shown that hospice care was more humane (and less expensive) and it was administratively authorized for those with a prognosis of less that six months to live. The team members, inc. the congressman, did not seek any credit or acclaim for that success. It was at a time with Senators Kennedy and Dole and others were fighting over how to legislate and who should be the lead person on hospice — we did it entirely behind the scenes. It was one of the most fulfilling events in my life.

  39. Really!? This doesn’t even make any sense for him to think that. You would think Doug Wilson would be one of the first to believe in the existence of HIV/AIDS, as some sort of judgment against the promiscuous.

  40. Arce wrote:

    Thank you for the reference to hospice. I was part of a team that included a Christian congressman. In the spring of 1978, we put together a plan based on research into the medicare and medicaid law, to get the Secretary of DHEW to cause a funding test of hospice (palliative) care (at a facility, home or otherwise) as an alternative treatment to the then practice of hospitalization, surgeries, etc., for terminally ill patients. The Secretary did that, and shortly after the funding test began, it was shown that hospice care was more humane (and less expensive) and it was administratively authorized for those with a prognosis of less that six months to live. The team members, inc. the congressman, did not seek any credit or acclaim for that success. It was at a time with Senators Kennedy and Dole and others were fighting over how to legislate and who should be the lead person on hospice — we did it entirely behind the scenes. It was one of the most fulfilling events in my life.

    I just want to tell you how grateful I am for hospice. It allowed my father to live his last days with dignity and go out the way he wanted to go as he wanted in his final instructions. Thank you for your work on this and for your reminiscence.

  41. An Attorney wrote:

    Wilson seems to be about 2000 lbs short of a ton in his knowledge about HIV and AIDS, slavery, etc., etc.

    Hee, hee, hee… I loved this line. 😀

    I feel exactly the same way. Given his demonstrably nutty views on slavery, history, and now medicine, why should I take seriously anything that he has to say, on any subject?

  42. @ mirele:

    I’m glad to hear that the end of your father’s life was peaceful. I was praying for him, and for you and your family. I hope that you’re holding up OK, Mirele.

  43. @ elastigirl:
    I wish I could say it was totally out of the goodness of my heart. I was preparing myself for an expected backlash. I am not prepared. Bring it on! 🙂

  44. JB wrote:

    You would think Doug Wilson would be one of the first to believe in the existence of HIV/AIDS, as some sort of judgment against the promiscuous.

    Actually, this explanation works for those people. If HIV does not cause AIDS, then AIDS must have a separate mechanism. Duesberg blames AIDS on drug users who are found within what he terms the homosexual community.

    So, in order to maintain this, he must go one step further. For children born with HIV and those without the risk factors as he defines them who are also HIV positive but then develop AIDS, he has a solution. AZT(antiretroviral agent) causes the AIDS. So he is able to blame AIDs on stupid doctors and promiscuous drug users.

    There is a little truth in everything. When AZT was first used, they did not know how to dose it appropriately and they lost some people due to toxicity. They learned how to better dose AZT and combine with with other agents-a cocktail if you will.

  45. @ dee:

    “I wish I could say it was totally out of the goodness of my heart. I was preparing myself for an expected backlash. I am not prepared. Bring it on!’
    ++++++++++++++++

    goodness schmoodness motives schmotives

    it’s integrity via scrutiny and due diligence.

  46. @ dee:

    “I was preparing myself for an expected backlash. I am not prepared. Bring it on!”
    ++++++++++++

    I reckon the backlash itself is what will yield the best gold nuggets of understanding, as you (& all willing participants) are forced to mine for it.

  47.   __

    “When Christian Love Fails: Human Effort And Hope, Perhaps?”

    hmmm…

      As hope deferred makes the human heart grow quite sad, thanks for this timely ‘word’ Wartburg, and for your herculean effort to dispel this present darkness…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEC_97p3C0k

    Temperance, Education, Prevention, Testing, and Early Treatment…

    …mine eyes have seen the efficiency of Wartburg Watch and their work…

    huh?

    ♩ ♪ ♫  ♬ hum, hum, hum…the truth keeps marching on…

    ATB

    Sopy

  48. I have often thought that those who could fall into such nuttiness, especially when there are mountains of evidence, have a deep need to feel “special”. You know, they have special insight when compared to the great unwashed, and the rest of us are just too uninformed to too dumb to get their greater understanding.

    I have noticed a lot of alternate theories about our world among homeschoolers. Please know, I completely understand that homeschoolers are an eclectic, nonhomogenous group. I admire homeschoolers and understand many reasons why they choose to do so. However. It seems that a number of them fall victim to some interesting theories, and I’m not just talking about the patriarchy, theological bizarreness.

    For example, one of my homeschool friends is ardently anti-vaccine. She goes beyond just being suspicious about safety. She will tell you that vaccines aren’t at all helpful and it was really hygeine, better sanitation, and quality of life issues that made diseases like mumps, diphtheria, and polio disappear. You can show her a graph of how within two years of a vaccine being introduced it went from hundreds of thousands to single digits, and it doesn’t matter. She is so wrapped up in her ideology no evidence can be recognized.

  49. dee wrote:

    I will not be posting comments from anyone saying they know a doctor who has a cure for AIDS. Two more comments disallowed.

    Heh. Yeah, I’ll bet they have a cure for AIDS. Let me guess, the evil jack-booted pharmacy companies sent Jack Ryan in on a black ‘copter to destroy the one remaining sample? 😎

  50. Bunsen Honeydew wrote:

    I have often thought that those who could fall into such nuttiness, especially when there are mountains of evidence, have a deep need to feel “special”.

    I think I’ve posted on this site before regarding conspiracy theory rhetoric. There is quite a body of work on the topic, and most sociologists agree that conspiracy has replaced democracy as the dominant political lens/narrative in the west. And yes, the psychological component of conspiracy theory is disturbing. The “special knowledge” or gnostic aspect is one of the more disturbing.

    However, when it comes to HIV/AIDS, the intellectual suicide necessary to reject the scientific consensus is so egregious, that I just don’t even take the position seriously. No, I am not going to listen to you. I am not going to engage your position. I am not going to have a discussion. There is no point, since there is no overlap in our epistemological foundations.

  51. Doug Wilson is quite simply a fool to think he knows better than hundreds of medical experts, and anyone who takes his word is just as foolish.

  52. @ Bunsen Honeydew:

    There are and/or have been so many conspiracy theories that this conversation could go on and on. Not too many years ago I read that some countries in Africa would not permit somebody (UN?) to have vaccination clinics because they thought the west was putting HIV in the vaccine in order to exterminate Africans. Sorry I don’t remember the exact details.

    And crazy ideas that persist occasionally even today. Like the idea that you can’t get pregnant from rape. Not if it really was rape, that is. They backed that up with what they thought was good reasoning based on female physiology.

    And religious ideas like the old theological argument against medication for pain control during labor and delivery. Not to forget superstitious ideas like if you put a knife under the bed that will cut the pain.

    There are so many bad ideas out there. Think: odd diet plans, and the people who swear by the virtues of malnutrition.

    And it is not just everyday people who do this. It is some people who do this for a living. I will make this brief. When I retired from clinical practice I went to work for VA as “medical officer, nonclinical.” What I did was review compensation decisions in light of the available medical evidence and sign off on them. VA used to use retired physicians to do this. At the local level there was no problem. The people doing that work were well trained and sensible and capable. The problem came with the Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA). This was a bunch of lawyers in Washington who had apparently failed sixth grade reading comprehension, because they misunderstood everything that could be misunderstood in the medical records, no matter how I/we tried to explain it to them. It got so bad and so impossible of solution that Congress established an actual Court of Veterans Appeals. The Court then had to fight a hard fought battle to force the BVA to go by what the medical records showed and what the regs required. You cannot tell me this was ignorance or religion or superstition bothering the BVA people. We were all reading the same medical reports. But time and again they would not accept what the doctors had written down, and even sometimes flatly said so. One report they rejected was a comprehensive overview of a patient’s case from the assistant dean of the department of endocrinology at Duke. Their response was, basically, why should we listen to him, he is not a government employee. Meaning, his testimony is therefore suspect. It blew my mind. I have a lot of good things to say about the Court, though, so do not misunderstand.

    Whatever is going on with such messes as these, and why ever people do this or believe certain things, at whatever level and for whatever reasons it happens, it is endemic in our culture in lots of ways.

  53. @ Muff Potter:
    I read some interesting articles which claim there is a tie between some Duesberg supporters and some vitamin company that purports to treat HIV/AIDS with “healthy” alternative.

    By the time I started reading about this, my eyes were crossing. I had read so much on just the basics that i knew I didn’t have time to do justice to this side line.

    However, since the John Catanzaro dust up, it does not surprise me that there are groups out there claiming to have a cure for AIDS.

    Perhaps I can do some further reading on the subject and up date everyone on the monetary ties in this game.

    As to your second point-i am impressed by the number of people who believe that God is still in the business of punishing people by sending plagues, etc on them. John Piper and a number of the Calvinistas (of which Wilson is one) are still sold on the God who punishes in response to people doing bad things. Bad things as defined by this particular group.

    As you know, homosexuality is the current sin du jour. So, beneath some of the rhetoric, I bet you will find the “God gave AIDS” to punish gays.

    I have one thing to say to that. God’s aim must be pretty darn bad since HIV/AIDS has caused sickness and death in innocent children. And my daughter could have been one of the those.

  54. May wrote:

    Doug Wilson is quite simply a fool to think he knows better than hundreds of medical experts,

    See how he does it. He picks a guy like Duesberg who, in the past, was a respected researcher in the area of oncogenes. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences which is a lifetime appointment. In light of this situation, I wonder if the Academy will reconsider lifetime appointments.

    Ken Ham does the same thing. You can always find some sort of expert who will agree with just about anything. Have you ever seen court trials with “expert” witnesses? It is a bit of a game, involving money, ego, and a sense of “O know better than you” which is appealing to some individuals.

  55. @ Nancy:
    Nancy
    I am having a busy weekend but I wanted to tell you that I really, really appreciate your comments. They are always fascinating to read. Thank you.

  56. LInn wrote:

    She died three weeks after the diagnosis. What I couldn’t believe were some of the things that people said to me about “cures”

    You should have heard the stuff people suggested to me when my daughter was sick. The conspiracy theorists are alive and well, trying to pawn off unproven cures like massive beta carotene intake or special vitamins, etc that are guaranteed.to.cure. cancer. The information is out there because doctors.deliberately.hide.the.inofrmation.because.they.will.lose.money.

    I would always point out to them that we are a medical family and that I told umbrage at their contention. I asked for proof which always seemed to involve a friend of a friend who used to work in a doctor’s office. Arghh!

  57. @ dee:

    I don’t know how you all made it through all that. What an awful thing for all of you to have to endure.
    And to have to defend your decisions in the process. I would not have been as nice as you were.

  58. dee wrote:

    You should have heard the stuff people suggested to me when my daughter was sick. The conspiracy theorists are alive and well, trying to pawn off unproven cures like massive beta carotene intake or special vitamins, etc that are guaranteed.to.cure. cancer. The information is out there because doctors.deliberately.hide.the.inofrmation.because.they.will.lose.money.

    Dee, do you remember Prevention Magazine, circa 1970s? All Conspiracy Theory, All The Time about The Medical Establishment/Big Pharma “bankrupting cancer patients so they take a few more weeks of agony to die while Doctors buy new Cadillacs” while suppressing the REAL “Veganism and Vitamins” Sure Cures and all that? (Including invitations to the Health Food Nutrition Gnostics who Know What’s REALLY Going On.) My Grandmother subscribed, which was how I know about the zine.

    Plus during my prostate scare last year, I got an earful from the Veganism and Vitamins faction at the local Prostate Cancer Support Group — “You Gave Yourself Cancer Because YOU EAT MEAT!!!!!!”

  59. dee wrote:

    I read some interesting articles which claim there is a tie between some Duesberg supporters and some vitamin company that purports to treat HIV/AIDS with “healthy” alternative.

    Just as there were ties between the guy who started the whole “Vaccines Cause Autism” scare and an Alternative Medicine moneymaking scheme.

    As I said about MD’s favorite cancer-vaccine naturopath (before he became doubleplusunperson), “If it Ducks like a Quack…”

  60. dee wrote:

    As to your second point-i am impressed by the number of people who believe that God is still in the business of punishing people by sending plagues, etc on them. John Piper and a number of the Calvinistas (of which Wilson is one) are still sold on the God who punishes in response to people doing bad things. Bad things as defined by this particular group.

    “O GREAT CHEMOSH! O GREAT BAAL! SEND DEATH AND DESTRUCTION UPON THESE MY ENEMIES!!!”
    — some Cecil B De Mille Bible epic movie

  61. Bunsen Honeydew wrote:

    For example, one of my homeschool friends is ardently anti-vaccine. She goes beyond just being suspicious about safety. She will tell you that vaccines aren’t at all helpful and it was really hygeine, better sanitation, and quality of life issues that made diseases like mumps, diphtheria, and polio disappear. You can show her a graph of how within two years of a vaccine being introduced it went from hundreds of thousands to single digits, and it doesn’t matter. She is so wrapped up in her ideology no evidence can be recognized.

    When her kid dies of diptheria or whooping cough or polio, tell her “Hey, he didn’t get Autism, did he?”

  62. Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

    Heh. Yeah, I’ll bet they have a cure for AIDS. Let me guess, the evil jack-booted pharmacy companies sent Jack Ryan in on a black ‘copter to destroy the one remaining sample? 😎

    Right along with the one remaining sample of THE Cure for ALL Cancers.

  63. Doctors, hospitals, even big Pharm cannot win in this mess. If we charge the patient, then we are only in it for the money. If somehow we did it for free, people would think “it must not be worth much.”

  64. @ Headless Unicorn Guy: Oy, the anti vaxxers. Do you think it will ever get to the point where kids HAVE to have all their shots or they don’t get to go to school? Or the parents get fined or something?

  65. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    When her kid dies of diptheria or whooping cough or polio, tell her “Hey, he didn’t get Autism, did he?”

    No sir. I know you did not say that. Must be the guy behind the curtain. Vaccines are all dangerous, just not nearly as dangerous as the disease and not dangerous in the ways that some people think they are. We still do not know what causes autism, but we know there is a lot more of it than before. Of course parents are afraid, regardless of what the evidence so far seems to show. Some people make really bad and even disastrous choices because of fear. We all need some compassion here.

  66. Anna wrote:

    Oy, the anti vaxxers. Do you think it will ever get to the point where kids HAVE to have all their shots or they don’t get to go to school? Or the parents get fined or something?

    Unless things have changed, they have been mandatory where I live for a long time. When I was ready to enter high school in the late ’70s, my mother and my doctor and the school district (sheesh!) all lost my vaccination records. I knew I was vaccinated because all through grade school I remember getting the boosters at school…but, no proof, no school.

    So, before I was allowed to enroll in high school I had to get the whole battery of vaccinations again. Believe it or not, when I was in college about 10 years later, there was a measles scare and guess what? My mother and my doctor had again lost my vaccination records. I talked to the campus doctor and explained the history and she said that she understood, but if the outbreak reached the campus, unless I got vaccinated again, I would be banned…..so, it is mandatory, at least in these woods…

  67. @ Nancy:

    You seem to have a very interesting science/medical background. That must be why I enjoy your insight so much and why I find your “language” similar.

    I studied biology/biotechnology and had medically related professions.

    Sometimes I also wonder if some of this silliness among certain Christians is also due to a suspicion of those “heathen” scientists who believe the world is billions of years old, instead of a few thousand.

    It’s also interesting to me how the same people who will deny things that have been well established and researched will also opt for that which hasn’t been studied, and could be unsafe. Here, buy this chicken gizzard suspension soaked in turpentine to treat your ear infection. Those antibiotics put out by Big Pharma are unsafe!!!

  68. @ Nancy: per your mention of Africa, i can understand why people would be afraid. the European nations that colonized much of Africa did some horrible things to many different groups of people… and i can honestly see people being afraid that they’d be used as part of an “experiment.” it’s been done right here in the US -Google “Tuskeegee experiment” and see what you find. that was egregious, and recent.

  69. @ Bunsen Honeydew:

    HUG and Nancy,
    There’s an excellent book called The Panic Virus you might enjoy. It gives a great medical history on vaccination going back decades and ties into key incidents and events along the way that lead to suspicion by the public. For example, there was a terrible calamity when the polio vaccine was being developed. Many people were struck ill with the virus, as there was a batch not fully killed or weakened in it’s manufacturing. Then, there’s the whole autism issue and how a fraudulent paper by Andrew Wakefield brought down vaccine rates in the UK and US, despite the fact is was retracted and he lost his medical license over what was discovered. It’s a good read for those interested on the topic.

  70. Bunsen Honeydew wrote:

    I studied biology/biotechnology and had medically related professions.

    I thought there was something familiar with some things you say. Well, there your go. I think you are right about the old earth issue. That seems to be a really big issue. I do hate being called a heathen though.

  71. @ Patricia Hanlon:

    When I hear that “plant, conquer” quote from Doug Wilson I get confused. Is Doug telling us what men should do yo women in the bedroom? Or is he telling us what can be done on 100 acres of land on a plantation in Mississippi growing cotton! 😯

  72. @ Nancy: Theories suggest that the “increase” of autism is not really an increase at all, it’s just that we have more understanding and awareness of it. In the old days autism wasn’t a thing, it was just “that kid is weird/crazy”. But now that it has a definition and symptoms that professionals can identify, it seems to be more prevalent than it was before when in reality it’s two things 1) more awareness of what it is, as previously stated 2) a greater acceptance and tolerance of disabilities in general. In the 50s for example, it wasn’t uncommon for disabled or autistic kids to basically be “that other child” in a family, hidden or sent away to preserve the family image. Now that people are more open, it’s another reason why autism seems to abound more than before.

  73. @ Anna: Yes!

    Ditto for supposed increases in instances of sexual abuse: it’s the *reporting* that has greatly increased, not the abuse. It was untalked-about until the 1980s. (In public and likely in private.) When growing up, I didn’t even know it existed until HS, and then only because a couple of people talked in private (plus it was obvious that certain staff/faculty were preying on students).

  74. @ numo: Ditto for crime in general. My mother lived in London in the 60s and she says it’s more dangerous now than it was then. It’s probably no more dangerous than it was in Charles Dickens’ day. You just have to live in the right places to avoid trouble.

  75. @ Nancy: i wonder what all *else* we don’t know about.

    What astounds me about the Tuskeegee “study” is not just the lying, not just the refusal to treat a treatable illness, not just the absolute lack of humanity and decent medical practice involved – but the *partners* and *children* of those poor men. How could *anyone* even begin to think of inflicting such suffering on so many? And how in God’s name (not meant as an oath) could anyone just watch people progress from initial infection to the inevitable consequences of that infection and NOT treat the afflicted people???!!!

    It boggles my mind.

  76. @ Nancy: I agree on compassion, but I also believe that vaccines should be mandated by law.

    You can remember polio; so can I (though only vaguely, as I was very young when the oral vaccine was administered for the 1st time). And a few nights ago I watched a documentary about Tanaquil Leclerq, a brilliant young ballet dancer who decided to skip the vaccine line prior to a European tour in 1956. She said “I’ll get it later.” While on tour, she contracted polio and lost the use of her legs plus one of her hands. (It was on PBS’s “American Masters” – can probably be watched online.)

    Such a tragedy, played out over and over and over prior to the development of vaccines; multiplied in the millions, true of smallpox, whooping cough, diptheria, etc. etc. etc.

    My mom is 90 and I can remember her telling me (when I was very young and objecting to getting shots because they hurt some) that she had known kids who died of some of these diseases. She didn’t tell me horror stories; only said that if I had seen what she had, I would choose to get the shots.

    She was right. She still *is* right. There is no vaccine – no medicine – that is inherently without risk. But when benefits FAR outweigh any possible negatives, I cannot see how or why people would want to run from them. Or *not* want their children and everyone elses’ children to be protected.

  77. Ok, medical question – given that viruses replicate by taking over a cell and force the cell to make copies, eventually destroying the cell – is there a such thing as a harmless virus?

  78. @ Anna: I have no doubt she’s right, if only because of the fact that there are more people in the greater London area now than there were then.

  79. @ Anna:

    I hope you are right. And, of course, every time they change the diagnostic criteria (think hypertension) that changes the statistical picture. Trouble is the problem with trying to get any accurate figures from back in the day.

  80. numo wrote:

    It was untalked-about until the 1980s. (In public and likely in private.)

    I don’t recall the current idea of child sexual abuse, but I do know that it was talked about that in certain families there was incest. That topic was common for discussion, who was doing it now, what family had a history of it, and the idea that such and such congenital condition was due to incest in prior generations. Generational poverty and the conditions in the coal mining areas in eastern Ky were all said to be partially due to the prevalence of incest. I graduated high school in 1952, so this would have been prior to that.

  81. @ numo: And to add to my post above, I know there wasn’t such a big issue of gangland violence back in her day like there is now. It surged in the 90s and authorities are struggling to deal with it quickly.

  82. @ Nancy: yes, that was talked about, but not really understood in the way that we now think of the definition of sexual abuse.

  83. Nancy wrote:

    Generational poverty and the conditions in the coal mining areas in eastern Ky were all said to be partially due to the prevalence of incest.

    A convenient way to blame poor people for their poverty, no? I can recall hearing that myself, when I was a kid, and not just about the southern Appalachians.

  84. @ Nancy:

    Oops, I left out the pertinent part. The incest in question as to who is doing it now referred to teenage siblings still living at home and sexually active with each other. The prior generations thing had to do with marriage of close kin.

  85. @ Anna:

    I think that is correct. The drug culture with it attendant problems, certainly with drug gangs, has exploded.

  86. Eagle wrote:

    When I hear that “plant, conquer” quote from Doug Wilson I get confused. Is Doug telling us what men should do yo women in the bedroom? Or is he telling us what can be done on 100 acres of land on a plantation in Mississippi growing cotton! 😯

    Considering one of the side benefits of (female) Animate Property on a plantation, maybe a bit of both.

  87. @ Nancy: I was thinking more along the lines of teens and children robbing, assaulting and raping each other due to gang “us versus them” culture. Thats what exploded in the 90s. But yeah, the drugs and crime play a big part too.

  88. @ numo:

    Oh, and I forgot. We all lived in constant fear of kidnapping and rape from early childhood on. That would be violent rape, not like the child abuse issue exactly.

  89. @ Anna:

    Anna, et al.,

    I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss the increase in autism statistics as simply better diagnosis and broader definitions, though no doubt there is a component of that.

    I don’t want to get into dueling “studies suggest”, but as an ecologist with some background in human development, I would not ignore studies that suggest the following:

    In the last several decades, the nutritional value of foods (for those kids even brought up on actual food, and not food-like substances) has gone down, and the pesticide load has gone way, way up. For those of you who might not understand how pesticides work, they are neurotoxins. The pesticide industry was born after WWII as a way to leverage (monetize) all that good research into chemical weapons. We simply turned them on ourselves. Think about it.

    Combine that with kids being raised by TV/various media, soaked in ubiquitous electromagnetic radiation, the overstimulation, the noise, etc., etc., and it’s really hard for me to imagine that there aren’t going to be developmental issues of a neurological kind. You might even expect these issues to manifest as something like autism.

    Insofar as I grew up, it was in the 50’s and 60’s, and I often wonder what would have become of me if I were growing up now. I don’t really like to think about it. I have no chirren of my own, but lots of nieces and nephews. They are almost all very high IQ, but something troubling is going on there…

    Maybe it’s just culture change, and ol’ roebuck is getting, well, old… but still it unsettles me.

  90. @ srs:

    There are many viruses in our environment that are harmless in the sense they are not infectious to humans, and can only infect other species. There are viruses also specific to non-mammal species, that only infect certain plants or bacteria. So, those are not a problem for us . With respect to “harmless” viruses that are human infectious agents, there obviously are those with more minimal or nuisance type symptoms, such as cold viruses, and then those that can be devastating or downright scary, such as ebola. I’m not sure if that answer is what you had in mind. It is an interesting question..are there any viruses that are harmless? I could imagine that perhaps there are but we might not know about them becasue if they exist, but cannot infect anything, they might hard to isolate and know about.

  91. @ Nancy:

    I staffed a hearing on a program to compensate those who had adverse reactions to vaccines, in 1978, in lieu of the alternative tort lawsuit compensation system. And have kept current (one of my academic fields is in how people use risk information in making decisions). There are some small risks associated with vaccines, but autism is not one of them. There is some indication that more children are being diagnosed with autism, rather than that there is more autism, as more understanding of signs and symptoms is extant. There are also different viruses in the environment, changes in feeding, etc. A recent theory is that more mothers are on or have used drugs prior to or in early stages of pregnancy or while breast feeding, including prescribed medications as well as the illegals. And we know that alcohol can have remarkable effects on the fetus.

  92. To those with medical experience and know a thing or two about vaccines: do vaccinated children still rely on herd immunity even though they have had the shots themselves? I know they’re not 100% effective. Or is it just the kids who can’t take vaccinations for medical reasons that rely on herd immunity?

  93. @ An Attorney:

    BTW, I have a Ph.D., and took a post-doc in the area of the use of risk information in the making of decisions (outside the financial market area). And the answer is, nobody really understands risk!!!

  94. @ An Attorney:

    Herd immunity contributes to the protection of the vaccinated as well as the unvaccinated. The protection provided by some vaccinations decreases over time for at least some of the population, and some vaccinations do not “take” producing immunity. Thus the herd immunity provides protection for those unvaccinated, those whose immunity has faded a bit, and for those for whom the vaccine did not produce the desired protection.

  95. I think the autism issue could be a bit of both…changes in reporting and also something different societally (such as a trend in people having children later in life as one study suggested) and environmental. For me personally, I think the vaccine question has been put to rest. It was worth investigating and an intriguing hypothesis but the data never panned out.

    I tend to think autism may follow other disease models, such as that of schizophrenia where there is not just one factor but a few occurring in concert. Schizophrenia has a large genetic component, as suggested in twin studies. However, it is also thought that it takes a genetic tendency combined with environmental triggers. In other words, just not one thing alone. When you consider autism as a spectrum, with such a wide range of manifeststions, it seems to me that it would be unlikely to identify just one factor.

  96. @ roebuck:

    I don’t know about the specifics of it, or about any possible relation to autism, but the environmental things you are talking about are certainly a concern. What we have done in this area cannot be good. And the processed pseudo food product industry. And the electronic recreational excess. And the meds. Good grief amighty. Article after article about how we are medicated up to our eyebrows, and how low levels of some meds are in the water supply, hopefully at innocuous levels (for now.) And the labeling information battles showing that we really do not know what all is in that can of whatever from the grocery.

    For something similar let me say, I once read that the first warnings of the possible extinction of mountain gorillas (a certain kind of mountain gorilla?) was when they started defecating in their night nests. What have we done if not something similar to ourselves?

    It is OK. You can say “amen” now.

  97. Nancy wrote:

    And the meds. Good grief amighty. Article after article about how we are medicated up to our eyebrows, and how low levels of some meds are in the water supply, hopefully at innocuous levels (for now.)

    And the meds at such young ages! Speaking of low-levels of meds/etc. in the water supply… some of these chemicals (meds, plastics, cosmetic ingredients) act as pseudo-hormones at unbelievably low levels. We have surely fouled our nests, day and night…

  98. @ An Attorney:
    That herd immunity also protects those of us who have compromised immune systems. Thank you for your dedicated work.

    To answer Anna’s question, yes those who are not vaccinated make it more difficult to control the spread of illness. There are many people in our communities who are just not as able to fight off infections, including the very young, the very old and those whose immune systems just don’t work very well in the first place. As much as I hate to say this, I am dependent on the ability of others to keep themselves healthy first.

  99. roebuck wrote:

    in the water supply… some of these chemicals (meds, plastics, cosmetic ingredients) act as pseudo-hormones at unbelievably low levels.

    I should add, some of these hormonal effects are of a gender-modulating influence…

    I should also add, Lord have mercy, amen.

  100. @ roebuck:

    What was your particular area of interest in your field? I have just bunches of things I would like to ask. Well, not about the canopy of the Brazilian rain forest maybe, but lots of stuff none the less.

  101. @ roebuck:

    Something is affecting fertility, low sperm count compared to back in the day, and such. Like your said, Lord have mercy.

  102. Mandy wrote:

    As much as I hate to say this, I am dependent on the ability of others to keep themselves healthy first.

    Oh, Mandy, ouch. Sounds a tad risky.

  103. @ Nancy:

    My interests were (are) primarily the effects of some of the less obvious and dramatic of human activities on the systems that we actually rely upon for our lives, whether we know it or not. (In the interest of full disclosure I will have to admit that, yes, I did a stint at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, and have some acquaintance and up-close knowledge of the dynamics in the canopies of tropical rainforests 🙂

    In addition to things like the subtle and not-so-subtle chemical inundation of all our ecosystems, I also have studied effects of acid rain on forest ecosystems (that dates me, I suppose), light pollution disruption effects on ecosystems, ditto noise pollution, ground water pollution, ecosystem fragmentation, and so forth. In the last decade I have been a teacher.

    There is so much that flies under the pop-culture radar, gets no publicity, but is chronic, growing, and very serious. I do sometimes come close to the sin of despair…

  104. @ An Attorney

    One of my daughters had a bad reaction–weird non-stop extra-high pitched crying– to the first of her DPT shots as a baby, so we were advised not to leave the pertussis part out of the next two in the series. I am grateful to herd immunity for keeping her safe from whooping cough through childhood.

    When she was in nursing school they had her take a booster before starting clinicals and said she probably had “outgrown” her problem with it. Not–she had an anaphalactic reaction. Luckily she was in a room full of nurses and Epipens. So I get that there is a risk with vaccines, but the idea that measles and diptheria epidemics would be preferable is hard for me to fathom.

  105. @ Bunsen Honeydew:

    Used to be agreed upon wisdom that women had to have their last baby by the time they were thirty, to avoid increased risk of congenital abnormalities, including but not limited to certain neurological conditions. Nothing was said about the age of the father back then. I have no accurate information as to why older parental age has become so acceptable now. Except that with fertility drugs it has become possible.

  106. @ roebuck: neurotoxins: hmm. The Romans knew about lead poisoning, yet all acqueducts were sheathed in lead, thereby further contaminating the water supply. Cooking pots were routinely lined w/lead, etc.

    Why? Because it was *cheap* and abundant.

    As alos w/leaded gasoline, lead paint, and so on.

  107. @ Mandy:

    Mandy, I think you raise an interesting point of the ethics of non-vaccination. There are those where vaccination is not an option or will not work for them. Herd immunity is especially important for them.

    As much as I like the concept of individual freedom and choice, this is an issue that, for this reason, gets under my skin. When people choose not to vaccinate, it is wrong to present it as “why do you care..it doesn’t affect you”. It would be one thing if it were just their own children at risk. It’s not. It’s many people at risk. I had a baby during a whopping cough epidemic in my state. I stayed away from certain places for a few months until she could be vaccinated. The deaths occuring were in infants. I was happy to go through the inconvenience for piece of mind, but other people’s choices affected what I was able to do during that time.

  108. Arce wrote:

    those with a prognosis of less that six months to live.

    One of the reasons costs in the US keep going up is that so many people don’t want to admit they are about to die. Or a close relative doesn’t want to give up. So they ask for “everything” and run up huge medical bills and live in misery then die anyway.

    And sadly it doesn’t seem to matter if you call yourself a Christian or not. Which seems to contradict our beliefs about death and what comes next.

    My mom is one of these. My father went along with her when he was near death and she basically kept the rest of the family out of the picture so his grand kids would not infect him with a cold or something that might kill him. The 12 or so malignant tumors in his main body cavity of course had nothing to do with his terminal situation.

  109. @ roebuck:

    Back in the day, if I remember, there was some damage at the higher elevations in the Appalachians due to acid rain. It was a big concern if I remember. Don’t know much about it since then. And, about the rain forest, when I was in school the great lament was that the rain forests were being destroyed at such a rate that a source of plant-based information which could lead to new meds was going to get gone before we could research it. I believe they were calling it ethnobotany.

    I did an undergrad major in biology and took extra courses in botany because it was plan B. If I did not get in med school I wanted to get a PhD in botany and probably teach. About that time folks had the idea that the tomato was going to be the salvation of vitamin C deficiency in some areas if they could just genetically breed a tomato with more Vit C than there was available in the tomato at the time. I had daydreams of being the tomato lady and saving mankind. Years later at a Christmas open house I met a researcher at NC State where, I gather, they had done it or almost done it, but sadly the world was not saved. For decades every time I got so disillusioned in the practice of medicine I thought I made the wrong choice back at the bifurcation of the roads. Then when my son was in college he had a friend whose mother was a college botany teacher, who regretted that she had not gone to med school instead. There must be a moral to this story somewhere.

  110. Bunsen Honeydew wrote:

    She is so wrapped up in her ideology no evidence can be recognized.

    Strength of believe trumps facts in most people. I could give some examples but it would derail the current topic. 🙂

  111. dee wrote:

    As to your second point-i am impressed by the number of people who believe that God is still in the business of punishing people by sending plagues, etc on them. John Piper and a number of the Calvinistas (of which Wilson is one) are still sold on the God who punishes in response to people doing bad things. Bad things as defined by this particular group.

    I’d like to know what people did to bring on the Plague of Justinian (541-542) or the Black Death (1347-1351, with regular appearances thereafter for a few centuries). Seriously, John Piper, what did the poor benighted serfs and peasants of the time do to deserve that kind of disaster? *shakes head*

  112. Eagle wrote:

    When I hear that “plant, conquer” quote from Doug Wilson I get confused. Is Doug telling us what men should do yo women in the bedroom? Or is he telling us what can be done on 100 acres of land on a plantation in Mississippi growing cotton!

    Sounds like a patriarchal Christian version of a fertility rite to me.

  113. Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

    And yes, the psychological component of conspiracy theory is disturbing.

    Some interesting reports on how people in the US believe in conspiracy theories.

    http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/03/19/291405689/half-of-americans-believe-in-medical-conspiracy-theories

    http://www.npr.org/2014/06/04/318733298/more-americans-than-you-might-think-believe-in-conspiracy-theories

    Want to spend some time with my mom? She’ll really want you to watch a DVD about Chemtrails. Or tell you all about it and give you a DVD about it. Or at least this was what she was hot about last year. Not sure this year. We don’t talk much. Either you agree with her and engage in the discussion in a positive manner or an argument will ensue. Passive listening is not allowed.

    Chemtrails
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory

  114. Nancy wrote:

    Then when my son was in college he had a friend whose mother was a college botany teacher, who regretted that she had not gone to med school instead. There must be a moral to this story somewhere.

    To add a nice twist to the story… I was actually in a pre-med program, but got totally swept away by ecology. It was the early 70’s and all 🙂

    Most people don’t see how we’re unravelling our support systems, because until they fail, the degradation is gradual, generational. So the bar gets lowered every generation on what is ‘normal’. What commercial fisherman consider big fish nowadays would have been laughed at a generation ago, and not too many generations ago, if you caught A SINGLE cod, you were done, because that was all that would fit in your dory!

    And so it goes. In my own lifetime, in my own time of living at this very location (over 20 years now), I’ve seen the Spring birdsong get quieter and sparser and so on. And I keep records 🙂

    But this is not the place for my eco-laments, though I could go on and on (and on). I will just say this, it is a prayer: God help us come to our senses about what we are doing to Your Creation.

    It’s His, people, and we’re trashing it without thinking. It’s vandalism.

  115. numo wrote:

    What astounds me about the Tuskeegee “study” is not just the lying, not just the refusal to treat a treatable illness, not just the absolute lack of humanity and decent medical practice involved – but the *partners* and *children* of those poor men. How could *anyone* even begin to think of inflicting such suffering on so many? And how in God’s name (not meant as an oath) could anyone just watch people progress from initial infection to the inevitable consequences of that infection and NOT treat the afflicted people???!!!

    I’ve always suspected, based on where this took place, that the officials involved didn’t really think those people were, well, fully people.

  116. Nancy wrote:

    I have no accurate information as to why older parental age has become so acceptable now.

    The conversations I have with people in their twenties come down to two main reasons.

    “I want to enjoy my youth and can always have kids later.” Those of us who’ve had kids tell them they are nuts to assume pulling an alnighter with a sick kid is no big deal at 40 but they don’t believe us.

    And many young women are in careers now. And having kids in their 20s is thought to derail those careers. And to be honest they are likely correct.

  117. numo wrote:

    The Romans knew about lead poisoning, yet all acqueducts were sheathed in lead, thereby further contaminating the water supply. Cooking pots were routinely lined w/lead, etc.

    Close:

    Despite the Romans’ common use of lead pipes, their aqueducts rarely poisoned people. Unlike other parts of the world where lead pipes cause poisoning, the Roman water had so much calcium in it, that a layer of plaque prevented the water contacting the lead itself. What often causes confusion is the large amount of evidence of widespread lead poisoning, particularly amongst those who would have had easy access to piped water. This was an unfortunate result of lead being used in cookware and as an additive to processed food and drink, such as a preservative in wine.

    From:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_pipe

  118. @ Anna:

    Yes. The concept of herd immunity is that, if enough of the vulnerable population are vaccinated, the disease will not be as readily spread to others. So every unvaccinated person is less likely to get the disease the more others have been vaccinated, and each unvaccinated person makes the risk higher for others, including those vaccinated people where the vaccine may not have “taken” or its protection weakened over time.

  119. srs wrote:

    Ok, medical question – given that viruses replicate by taking over a cell and force the cell to make copies, eventually destroying the cell – is there a such thing as a harmless virus?

    Interestingly, viruses can be altered to remove the harmful part of their DNA while keeping the part that sends them into cells. Short interfering RNA strands can be inserted into the now-safe virus so that the virus becomes a vector for fighting genetic disease. The purpose of the siRNA is to make the cell muster its defenses against the siRNA (which matches the coding on the disease gene), thereby silencing both the siRNA and the disease gene. We are the brink of some major treatments for some awful diseases.

  120. NC Now wrote:

    numo wrote:

    What astounds me about the Tuskeegee “study” is not just the lying, not just the refusal to treat a treatable illness, not just the absolute lack of humanity and decent medical practice involved – but the *partners* and *children* of those poor men. How could *anyone* even begin to think of inflicting such suffering on so many? And how in God’s name (not meant as an oath) could anyone just watch people progress from initial infection to the inevitable consequences of that infection and NOT treat the afflicted people???!!!

    I’ve always suspected, based on where this took place, that the officials involved didn’t really think those people were, well, fully people.

    Yes, I agree because dangerous experiments were being carried out on mentally retarded children, prisoners, mental patients, and residents in old age homes at the same time. They were not seen as having full rights.

  121. mirele wrote:

    I’d like to know what people did to bring on the Plague of Justinian (541-542) or the Black Death (1347-1351, with regular appearances thereafter for a few centuries).

    Many powerful churchmen in the Middle Ages blamed the Jews for the Black Death. I’m surprised that for all his sundry pronouncements, Doug Wilson hasn’t warned us of the dangers of the ‘International Jew’ yet. Maybe he does privately in his ‘kirk’?

  122. @ Marsha:

    “Yes, I agree because dangerous experiments were being carried out on mentally retarded children, prisoners, mental patients, and residents in old age homes at the same time. They were not seen as having full rights.”

    You left out the ‘African American’ part. These were experiments done on rural black people, under the guise of “free health care”. Sickening, disgusting, shameful.

  123. roebuck wrote:

    @ Marsha:

    “Yes, I agree because dangerous experiments were being carried out on mentally retarded children, prisoners, mental patients, and residents in old age homes at the same time. They were not seen as having full rights.”

    You left out the ‘African American’ part. These were experiments done on rural black people, under the guise of “free health care”. Sickening, disgusting, shameful.

    I meant in addition to poor African Americans such as those in the Tuskegee experiment we were discussing.

    Come to think of it, we could add women to the list. i am thinking of experiments on pregnant women who were given diethylstilbestrol without their knowledge to see if it reduced the rate of miscarriages. It was only brought to light when case after case of previously rare vaginal cancer turned up in young girls; it was found to be associated with their mothers being given DES without their knowledge.

    I haven’t found a case of upper middle class or upper class white men being experimented on without their knowledge and consent.

  124. Marsha wrote:

    I haven’t found a case of upper middle class or upper class white men being experimented on without their knowledge and consent.

    Yes, it’s Wikipedia, but the sources seem to be legitimate. I haven’t dug deep enough to know if there’s any information about the demographics of people upon whom the unethical experiments were performed.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_radiation_experiments

    Another favorite conspiracy theory of mine (that, of course, I don’t actually believe in) is electrosensitivity, the belief that low levels of non-ionizing radiation (WiFi, cellular transmissions, etc.) and electromagnetic fields from electrical wires, such as are found in ordinary modern living conditions, cause headaches, irritation, cancer, or other health problems.

  125. @ LLM:
    Oops. That should have said we were advised to leave the pertussis out. (No doubt any readers already figured that out.)

  126. I saw Transformer 4 tonight and am re-reading everything. Ask me tomorrow how it was…I am still processing it.

    The SGM appeal was thrown out it appears on a timing issue. They have the appeal over on Survivors.

    Personally I am disappointed. I still want to see CJ Mahaney working the drive through at mcDonalds, asking, “Do you want fries with that?” That could be followed by a book called, “Don’t Waste that Big Mac!”

  127. @ NC Now: As a career focused woman in her twenties I agree, and am probably a perfect example of what you’re talking about. Personally, I choose not to have kids at present because 1) yes I’d like to reach a high rung on the ladder first 2) I just don’t have the patience for kids right now. I have zero maternal instinct at present, though I’m sure it will change once 3) I find a husband! 😛 And 4) I feel very drawn to adopting or fostering, although this may also change once number 3 comes into play.

    Generally speaking, you are right that having a kid in your twenties does kill the career. Employers are not favourable towards pregnant women or women who are planning to have kids soon (they’re not allowed to ask about family plans on a job interview but some still do) and it’s not exactly rare for women to go on maternity leave and lose their job altogether. Plus, the balance between domestic chores and childbearing still hasn’t been equalised in society, with most women in polls stating they do the most work.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-206381/Working-women-housework.html

  128. Kari wrote:

    I am sure I am not the only one hoping that the comment section will turn into a discussion of our favorite conspiracy theories.

    Well, comment sections here have a way of turning into a discussion of whatever people want to discuss…

    I love the moon-landing ones. Have you come across http://www.clavius.org? It’s a marvellously detailed rebuttal of all the many and various attempts of all the many and various (and often contradictory) lunar conspiracy theories.

    The most interesting question they pose, and this is one that applies in one way or another to all conspiracy theories, is: just how big was the conspiracy? I.e., who was in on it? In the context of the Apollo program, the hardware was all built by external contractors who not only had to build stuff but look as though they were testing and proving it as well. How exactly does one draw the bright line around the conspiracy, where the conspirators end and the dupes and suckers begin? Where are the multiple thousands of points at which you have a conspirator deliberately lying to a competent engineer, who never cottons on over many years of this charade being played out?

  129. @ Marsha:

    I did not know they did that in experiments. I do know it was used liberally in the case of first trimester bleeding, probably even just spotting. But human experiments without informed signed consent in this? I had no idea. Chilling!

  130. @ dee:

    So, beneath some of the rhetoric, I bet you will find the “God gave AIDS” to punish gays.

    I’m pretty sure I’ve already heard that before somewhere.

  131. How are people responding in South Africa and other countries where Mr. Duesberg and ilk were or are used as consultants? If I were them, I would think this is one more sign of the worst of American evangelical imperialism. Mr. Duesberg is no martyr. He is a Mengele who is using his formerly stellar credentials to influence policy and prey on the ignorant with his conspiracies. And because he who is inerrant, it doesn’t matter how many die. What a monster! Hope he gets subpoenaed to one of these countries where he was or is being used as a consultant. Justice is also part of the nature of God.

  132. Bunsen Honeydew wrote:

    Sometimes I also wonder if some of this silliness among certain Christians is also due to a suspicion of those “heathen” scientists who believe the world is billions of years old, instead of a few thousand.

    Point 0 of 2

    There may well be something in that: a blanket assumption that “science” somehow opposes “the authority of God’s word” and that there must therefore be a “christian” counterpart to every mainstream scientific theory. (I call this “point 0”, not because it is trivial, but because I cannot call it one of my points as it belongs to Bunsen!)

    Point 1 of 2

    Another possibility is what I call the “Biblian delusion of competence”. The Biblescribshers are God’s ultimate revelation of himself, and are sufficient for everyone, everywhere, in every important matter. I’ve read the bible, so I know everything important there is to know about anything. Add to that the tendency of christians to gather together in mono-cultural subgroups (“churches”, seminaries, denominations, even – being honest here – blogs) that reinforce one particular ideology. So a chap like Doug Wilson will never have his medical or other scientific theories tested against reproducible empirical data by a group of his peers, and he is free to peddle whatever he wants.

    Point 2 of 2

    Here’s an important concept: peers. Peer-review is fundamental to the scientific process, and here’s the thing: A scientist’s peer-group comprises every other scientist in the world working in the same field, not just his/her pals in the same lab whose work is all part of the same funding bid. Scientists cannot choose their peers.

  133. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    A scientist’s peer-group comprises every other scientist in the world working in the same field, not just his/her pals in the same lab whose work is all part of the same funding bid.

    Actually, it includes other scientists in other fields that have some relationship to the issues in that field. Many times, a scientific treatise becomes fodder across a broad area of science, resulting in evaluation and application more broadly than the field of the initial scientist who publish.

  134.   __

    Although current CDC recommendations include universal HIV testing (for everyone, not just gay men), apparently very few doctors and clinics in the United States have actually implemented such measures that could , can , and do assist greatly in early treatment of the virus infection.

  135. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Scientists cannot choose their peers.

    I think that is your point, and that is quite true, including of course what an attorney said. It occurs to me that when people comment on blogs they cannot choose their readers, either, and this is seriously advantageous in a lot of ways.

    I would add, that if the literal and factual and historical and scientific truth of the genesis origins stories (as understood by their methods of understanding of scripture) is not authenticated then some of their conclusions in other areas of preaching/teaching will be on shaky grounds. How could christianity and they themselves survive if scientists convinced people of that? At the same time, and for similar reasons, if people actually thought that the Holy Spirit did not partially fold his tents and move on at the end of the apostolic era, there would have to be even more rethinking of faith and practice. To be assaulted by both these ideas at the same time just might lead to people meeting in Chicago and declaring inerrancy as they see it as the hill on which to die. And it might result in people having conferences like J McA did about the person and work of the Holy Spirit, just to keep everything neatly wrapped up, apparently.

    As many have said, it is not about truth. It is about control. They can’t control either the scientists or the charismatics, both of which groups think they have tapped into areas of truth. And it is truth which sets one free, I think I heard some place. In this case, free from a lot of religious manipulations and efforts to control. (Let’s not get into whether the mere perception that one has tapped into some truth may do the same thing, even if the perception is later proved false. That is another issue.)

    Whoever thought that the scientists and the charismatics might end up being co-enemies or even “friends of my enemy” to the the neo-puritans. It’s a small, small world. (Heard that at Disney about 35 years ago and still can’t get it out of my head.)

  136. @ Sopwith:

    Here might be some thinking behind that. The last I hear the medical privacy laws prevent a physician from informing a spouse of the HIV status of their spouse. So if the HIV positive spouse keeps that a secret the other spouse is helpless to protect themselves. Universal HIV testing would get around that.

    And, how would the physician know if somebody was gay in the first place? He is married, he has produced a child or two or four, who knows what he does in his spare time? Universal testing would solve that also.

  137. @ Sopwith:

    Oh, and somebody may have more recent information on this, the last I heard the patient had to consent to HIV testing. It was not just “I am going to get some blood work.” I did read an article that somewhere they had passed a law of mandatory testing during pregnancy but there was no requirement to take the meds for the sake of the fetus. I recall much discussion about that.

  138. I wanted to respond to the comments on autism, having worked with many children with autism from toddler age to around age seven. In my many years of teaching, I have seen two children who subjectively seemed to have a reaction to vaccines. One is now functioning normally after intensive behavioral treatment, and I’m not sure of the other one. (He was one of a set of twins, and his sister did not have a reaction.) Other than that, I have seen no evidence, either subjective or objective, that points to problems with vaccines. However, I noticed a few commonalities that have been mentioned here. Many of the students had fathers who were older, and some had older mothers as well. A lot of the fathers were not very verbal and tended to be in highly skilled fields (e.g. engineers, scientists). The parents tended to be highly intelligent in general. And sometimes the child had been born as a result of fertility treatments. These are just my subjective observations over many years.

  139. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Point 0 of 2

    There may well be something in that: a blanket assumption that “science” somehow opposes “the authority of God’s word” and that there must therefore be a “christian” counterpart to every mainstream scientific theory

    “Just like Science, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”

  140. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    The most interesting question they pose, and this is one that applies in one way or another to all conspiracy theories, is: just how big was the conspiracy? I.e., who was in on it? In the context of the Apollo program, the hardware was all built by external contractors who not only had to build stuff but look as though they were testing and proving it as well. How exactly does one draw the bright line around the conspiracy, where the conspirators end and the dupes and suckers begin?

    Simple. EVERYBODY in the world EXCEPT the Conspiracy Theorist is part of The Conspiracy. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

    “If your Conspiracy Theory doesn’t fit the facts, Invent a Bigger Conspiracy.”

    “THE DWARFS ARE FOR THE DWARFS! WE WON’T BE TAKEN IN!”

  141. Muff Potter wrote:

    Many powerful churchmen in the Middle Ages blamed the Jews for the Black Death. I’m surprised that for all his sundry pronouncements, Doug Wilson hasn’t warned us of the dangers of the ‘International Jew’ yet. Maybe he does privately in his ‘kirk’?

    The code phrases have changed, that’s all.
    “International Bankers(TM)…”
    “Coming One World fill-in-the-blank(TM)…”

  142. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Point 1 of 2

    Another possibility is what I call the “Biblian delusion of competence”. The Biblescribshers are God’s ultimate revelation of himself, and are sufficient for everyone, everywhere, in every important matter. I’ve read the bible, so I know everything important there is to know about everything.

    Something happened a few years ago that still astonishes me. My husband was visiting his devout Christian mother. At the time he had a problem subordinate and was reading a book about how to deal with difficult employees. When his mother was watching a favorite TV show, he pulled out his book to read it and she exploded. She said he didn’t need to read that book, the answers to how to deal with others were in the Bible. He said, “Uh mom, the Bible says nothing about U.S. employment law,” but she was adamant. She loves to read fiction but advice books have to be avoided, even those written by Christians which in fact my husband’s book was.

  143. Nancy wrote:

    Whoever thought that the scientists and the charismatics might end up being co-enemies or even “friends of my enemy” to the the neo-puritans. It’s a small, small world. (Heard that at Disney about 35 years ago and still can’t get it out of my head.)

    From one raised in a Pentecostal/Charismatic environment (with a liberal helping of Word of Faith), this made me smile (and I’m still smiling – will get some mileage out of this…). The irony is, too me, very amusing. Thanks for this. 🙂

  144. @ Mark: I did not know this – the implications are horrific, given the numbers of people in S. Africa and other southern/central/east African countries who are infected and/or have died.

    The thought of the devastation – and the many, many orphans – makes my heart break.

    This guy should be tried in an international court for crimes against humanity.

  145. roebuck wrote:

    But this is not the place for my eco-laments, though I could go on and on (and on). I will just say this, it is a prayer: God help us come to our senses about what we are doing to Your Creation.

    It’s His, people, and we’re trashing it without thinking. It’s vandalism.

    To which the Christianese/Biblical/Gospel-Gospelly response is:
    “IT’S ALL GONNA BURN.”
    (Bible verse zip codes optional. Can you guess I’m a veteran of The Gospel According to Hal Lindsay?)

  146. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Point 1 of 2

    Another possibility is what I call the “Biblian delusion of competence”. The Biblescribshers are God’s ultimate revelation of himself, and are sufficient for everyone, everywhere, in every important matter. I’ve read the bible, so I know everything important there is to know about anything.

    Just like the Koran for the Taliban.
    “IT IS WRITTEN! IT IS WRITTEN! IT IS WRITTEN!”

  147. @ NC Now:
    I wonder about the veracity of that particular Wiki entry – even though I use it frequently, I’m very skeptical about what I read there.

    Besides, Rome had a BIG empire, and I seriously doubt that the water in England, southern France, Germany etc. was exactly the same as that of the primary water sources in the city of Rome itself. Lead is lead, and using it to line cooking pots and other household utensils is… [fill in the blanks].

  148. @ NC Now: I think that’s a foregone conclusion, as w/the mentally challenged, prisoners (etc.) who were also made the subjects of various experiments, forced sterilization and the like.

    That almost all were poor and black is also a given.

  149. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    Just like the Koran for the Taliban.
    “IT IS WRITTEN! IT IS WRITTEN! IT IS WRITTEN!”

    Lawrence of Arabia, when he got irritated by hearing this over and over from his posse, allegedly shouted “NOTHING IS WRITTEN!!!”

  150. While AIDS and Christian conspiracies are important to discuss. I have to hijack the thread for a second. SBTS in Louisville is ending its relationship with Sovereign Grace. Here’s the letter posted on Survivors.
    —-

    from Jeff Purswell
    Dear Brothers,
    I’m writing with some disappointing news. Southern Seminary has informed me that it is discontinuing the formal relationship between Southern and Sovereign Grace. This is a rather complex situation, and I’m unable to share all of the internal factors influencing their decision. Suspicions cast upon Sovereign Grace by the ongoing civil suit, and again by the recent Morales case, have unfortunately produced pressures upon various friends and partners of Sovereign Grace. Such factors appear to have played a role in this suspension.
    My conversations with Southern representatives were nonetheless encouraging—they are grateful for Sovereign Grace’s influence and for the pastors who are studying at SBTS, and they hope this continues. This change involves only the formal degree-completion agreement between our organizations.

    Here are the main implications of this development:
    •The key point is this: Future students from Sovereign Grace no longer qualify for automatic credit transfer or for an SBTS scholarship under the degree-completion program.
    •Fortunately, students who have already had their Pastors College credits transferred to SBTS retain those hours.
    •Students from Sovereign Grace continue to be welcome to apply to SBTS and may submit transcripts and request to have credits transferred from the Pastors College (or any other institution). These will be treated on a case-by-case basis, just like any other student. The status of the Pastors College as an academic institution from which SBTS will consider transfer credit has not changed.
    •Students from Sovereign Grace may apply for financial aid from SBTS. These will also be treated on a case-by-case basis, like any other student.
    •In sum, there is no longer a special agreement between SBTS and Sovereign Grace. Pastors College graduates may pursue degrees, credit-transfers, and financial aid like any other student, just not under the auspices of any agreement with SBTS.
    Officials at SBTS communicated that they want to do all they can to keep from penalizing current students who transferred credits from the Pastors College. They also desire to give students as much information as possible so that they can anticipate tuition costs. Moreover, they hope that Sovereign Grace students will continue to consider SBTS as they plan their academic futures.
    This is obviously a disappointing development. However, we as pastors should not be deterred from continuing to grow in our biblical and doctrinal understanding, whether that be informally or formally, through SBTS or another institution. We continue to appreciate SBTS and are grateful for the relationship we have enjoyed over the past couple of years, and it is possible that that relationship could be reestablished in the future. Even moreso, I am grateful for the blessing of the Pastors College and its unique mission to equip men for pastoral ministry within our family of churches. In God’s mercy, the college was built without reliance upon any single institution, and it will continue to be so.

    If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or anyone on the Pastors College staff.

    Yours in Christ,
    Jeff
    _________________________
    JEFF PURSWELL
    SOVEREIGN GRACE PASTORS COLLEGE | SovGraceMin.org
    (502) 855-7704

  151. Eagle wrote:

    While AIDS and Christian conspiracies are important to discuss. I have to hijack the thread for a second.

    The phrase you were looking for was In other news…

    Acceptable variations are
     And now, sport.
     This just in…

    And, especially for non-frivolous contributions such as the one you just made:
     STOP PRESS

    Right… now, I think I’ll actually READ your comment.

  152. @ Eagle:

    Well, well. First Patterson deals with the muslim student issue and then Mohler deals with the Sovereign Grace issue. Different issues, two seminary presidents, two public actions. Somebody must be looking at what the seminaries are doing. Somebody with power in SBC maybe?

  153. @ Eagle:

    Why the “special” treatment for SGM pastoral students to begin with?

    Suspicions cast upon Sovereign Grace by the ongoing civil suit, and again by the recent Morales case, have unfortunately produced pressures upon various friends and partners of Sovereign Grace. Such factors appear to have played a role in this suspension.

    “Suspicions” is not the correct word. I believe facts were established with the Morales case. Facts that were made clear while men were under oath 🙄

    This rewriting of reality has been a continuous problem with SGM and many other leaders in Christendom. It is part of why I have become a none.

  154. @ Eagle:
    This actually sounds more like conspiratorial rhetoric on the part of SGPC. From the seminary side, this move doesn’t do anything to separate them from Sovereign Grace (nor does it reduce any risk), and in fact, may be necessary to maintain accreditation. I would be interested to hear what SBTS has to say. Certainly this move is entirely meaningless to anyone who is concerned about the SBC’s cozy relationship with SGM.

  155. mirele fka Southwestern Discomfort wrote:

    I’m probably going to catch flak for this, but AIDS denialism isn’t the only thing you find with these guys. They’re also champion global climate change deniers.
    That said, conspiracy theories are running rampant in our society. Every time you hear of something bad happening, it’s a matter of days (now even hours) before there are people crawling out of the woodwork to go on about how (for example, and this just makes me sick) the murders at Sandy Hill Elementary School didn’t really happen and the distraught parents and other seen at the scene were actually “crisis actors.” So this goes way beyond thinking the moon landings were a hoax or Elvis is still alive. No, every.single.time one of these tragic incidents happens, whether it’s the 9/11 terrorist attack or a disappeared jetliner, at least one or more conspiracy theories pops up. It’s getting to where having to correct the record is crowding out serious news.
    My two favorite (if anyone can have a favorite lunacy) conspiracy theories are: 1) President Obama is not a natural born citizen (birtherism) and 2) “Sovereign citizen” claptrap (see: Cliven Bundy, for example). Just watching these people at work is both amusing and humorous, pathetic and demoralizing at the same time.

    Oh, do NOT get me started . . . I am a conservative, and some of my fellow conservatives make me ashamed to BE a conservative. I have heard the denials of what happened at Sandy Hook and that one makes me sick, also. And while I didn’t vote for Obama and have problems with his policies, I DO believe that the birth certificate is real and that Obama is Constitutionally eligible to be President. (I also don’t believe he’s a practicing Muslim, either.)

  156. Former CLC’er wrote:

    I wanted to respond to the comments on autism, having worked with many children with autism from toddler age to around age seven. In my many years of teaching, I have seen two children who subjectively seemed to have a reaction to vaccines. One is now functioning normally after intensive behavioral treatment, and I’m not sure of the other one. (He was one of a set of twins, and his sister did not have a reaction.) Other than that, I have seen no evidence, either subjective or objective, that points to problems with vaccines. However, I noticed a few commonalities that have been mentioned here. Many of the students had fathers who were older, and some had older mothers as well. A lot of the fathers were not very verbal and tended to be in highly skilled fields (e.g. engineers, scientists). The parents tended to be highly intelligent in general. And sometimes the child had been born as a result of fertility treatments. These are just my subjective observations over many years.

    I’m the mother of a child with autism. He did get his shots, and I didn’t see him have a reaction to them. (There IS such a thing as reactions to vaccines, which are rare.)

    My husband was 41 and I was 34 when our son was conceived. I did have a bout with infertility and used Clomid to help get pregnant. It worked on the first round. Also, both of us could be considered highly intelligent; my husband has a degree in accounting and works as a tax examiner for the IRS. He’s also an amateur military historian. My degree is in library science. My dad was a math/typing/bookkeeping teacher and I have an uncle who’s an engineer.

    Thomas Sowell (the economist) wrote a book on late-talking children because he has a son who was a late talker. He did a survey of several parents of late-talking children and found that they had several things in common, including some of the things I mentioned above.

    My son is 15 and has come a long way since his diagnosis at three. I admit to worrying about his future, and sometimes I wonder if I did do something in getting pregnant that caused his autism, or if I didn’t do enough to help his speech. On the other hand, I really think that my son’s autism is a combination of genes and environment, and no one has a full answer on how they all work together to cause autism.

    What IS good is that the church we attend is very accepting of him. I’m afraid not all churches are accepting of those with autism.

  157. @ Marsha:

    “siRNA…We are the brink of some major treatments for some awful diseases”
    +++++++++++++++

    is Parkinsons included amongst these diseases? (sorry to divert the topic)

  158. Tina

    As the mother of a daughter who was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor at 3, I want to reassure you of something. All mothers whose children develop problems, be they cancer, autism, genetic difficulties, whatever, always wonder if they did something during pregnancy that led to that illness/difficulty.It is our natural tendency to want an explanation for what happened and moms can be very hard on themselves.

    The answer for you is that you did nothing knowingly. I went  through years of thinking; should i have used the microwave over, should I have taken those vitamins, was it the cold that I caught…Here is hte bottom line. You would never have knowingly done anything to harm your child during pregnancy.  That is the bottom line. You were not a drug addict or alcoholic. You probably read books on how to be healthy. These things just happen. 

    One of the worst questions I used to get from some peopel is “Do you know how she got the tumor? ” Someone actually theorized that it wasd the two years that I spent on the Navajo reservtion since there are a few uranium mines there!  

    You are a wonderful mother. Remeber that!

     

  159. @Tina – when I wrote my comments, I unfortunately wasn’t thinking about how they might appear to parents of children with autism. I concur with Dee that you did nothing wrong. I think when we finally become aware of all the causes of autism, that it will be a combination of environmental factors, genes, and who knows what else. As far as parental age, most folks I know have children at later ages, and that’s just a fact of life. I truly meant to just share what I had observed in my little corner of the world.

    I’m so glad to hear how accepting your church is of your child. Ironically, I was at lunch today with some folks from a church I don’t attend. Some of the guys there have served as an aide to a child with autism (who may be a teenager by now) during the Sunday service. Apparently the Dad shared today how his son started waiting by the van at 7 a.m. because he was so anxious to come to church and see his aide. Very heartwarming.

  160. elastigirl wrote:

    @ Marsha:

    “siRNA…We are the brink of some major treatments for some awful diseases”
    +++++++++++++++

    is Parkinsons included amongst these diseases? (sorry to divert the topic)

    RNA interference (or the related antisense therapy) is in clinical trials for some cancers and rare liver diseases. It is aimed at diseases caused by a dominant gene so I don’t think that would include Parkinson’s unfortunately. About seven percent of ALS cases are caused by a dominant mutated gene; there is a clinical trial in progress fir that type of ALS with no safety issues as yet. Huntington’s Disease is caused by a dominant mutated gene. A clinical trial using antisense is planned for next year and at least one RNAi trial is planned sometime in the future.

  161.  __

    EXAM-I-NATION “Do No Harm : Prevention & Da Possible Postpartum Paradigm, Perhaps?

    hmmm…

    @ Nancy,

    hey,

      Current CDC statistics seem to initially imply from a preliminary approach, that HIV/AIDS susceptibility is 81% behaviorally voluntary; therefore, it would appear that without universal testing  or a change in this type of corresponding statistical identified voluntary behavior, early diagnosis and possible treatment of this virus/ disease becomes logically, in all likelihood, sadly, a corresponding 81% untreated rate in HIV/AIDS, in its early stage of development; i.e. unfortunately, folks are carrying this virus well beyond the early stages of development prior to proper detection, and possible corresponding treatment. 

    Krunch!

      This situation would lead one to suspect that an acceptable and favorable fall-back position would be corresponding HIV/AIDS educational awareness campaign(s) in community outreach program(s) and possibly increased awareness efforts in the U.S. public and private school system as well; an ounce of prevention is worth 2000 pounds of cure? Not to mention the approximately 2.7 million pounds (20k@135lb. avr.wt.) of cadavers apparently piling up in our nation’s morgues every year.

    (sadface)

      Wisdom, she is a tree of life to those who take firm hold of her; to those who hold her fast in their grasp, their way will be blessed…

    Sopy

     —

  162. I am not a conspiracy believer as such. I’ve never seen a UFO. I don’t listen to national late night radio shows on a regular basis…….
    That said, in my 30+ years of teaching, there was a growth of kids who had autism. A huge growth. I nor anyone else knew what caused it.
    We’re not talking about bad kids, we are not talking about kids who would be classified as special education, we are talking autism.
    I don’t know what causes it, and trust me in the teacher study it has been discussed…..vaccines, environment, even allergies. But in the end, we have not a clue what caused it…..

  163. Very interesting post. My thoughts, in no order of importance, are as follows:

    1. Duesberg, from the summary posted here, appears to be an very qualified scientist. That does not mean that he is right about the relationship between HIV and AIDS. It doesn’t mean he is wrong, though the present evidence certainly appears against this theory.

    2. Scientists need to debate theories among themselves. Let that process continue.

    3. Christians who are not experts in the field should avoid trying to pick the “correct” side in a debate of an issue as complex as this one. I remember when lots of Christians were urging my pastor to preach on Y2K. My pastor steadfastly refused. He further noted that all of the prominent Christian authors and pastors who were preaching on the topic did not apparently have much real computer training. They were just repeating what they heard others say. He said to me, “I wouldn’t let most of these guys turn on my lap top. Why would I listen to them on this issue?”

    4. I did note that the CDC list uses terms like “almost” and “virtually.” As long as terms like that are being used, it’s not wonder a debate (even if lopsided) occurs in the scientific community.

    5. It is probably healthy to have some skepticism of some big grant funding, especially on issues that take on political significance. In recent years I have learned, and have become a bit concerned, about how political scientists are. I suppose they have to be, as most of them are funded by the NIH and other government agencies. It is naive to think that public funding and group think mentality can’t combine to create something less than objective and accurate science. That is why the global warming debate is so interesting, and why so many people wonder weather they are getting the straight dope.

    6. While number 5 is true, it is also true that hucksters will play on people’s healthy skepticism, and end up taking them down a long, dead end road.

    7. Warren is right. Christians should respond to caring for those who have a disease, regardless of how the disease was contracted.

    8. Learning how to respond to issues like this is important. We all play different roles in life, and we should respond differently, depending on our role. A pastor or Christian ministry should probably not comment on technical debates such as this, and start picking sides, as Wilson and that organization did. If one wants to be a pundit – have at it. But a pastor, and Christian organizations, have a different role and calling. If one is a scientist, you have to go where you believe the science leads and hold your conclusions loosely because scientific knowledge is ever expanding. If you are a parent or someone whose job it is to look out for the welfare of others (e.g. public health official) you can acknowledge the existence of a debate on this issue, but in the meantime, act to protect those under your care.

    Thanks for a good post.

  164. Former CLC’er wrote:

    However, I noticed a few commonalities that have been mentioned here. Many of the students had fathers who were older, and some had older mothers as well. A lot of the fathers were not very verbal and tended to be in highly skilled fields (e.g. engineers, scientists). The parents tended to be highly intelligent in general.

    Those factors suggest SOME hereditary content. “Not very verbal” and “tended to be in highly skilled fields” and “very intelligent in general” suggest predisposition to Aspergers, the functional low-end of the autism spectrum. I’ve been in various fandoms since 1975, and you find a LOT of Aspies and borderline Aspies there, especially in the more offbeat fandoms.

  165. This just in… kinda.

    http://www.crossway.org/women

    I’m all for promoting Biblical literacy, especially among women, who tend to be stereotyped and pigeonholed into craft days and studies low on content and high on “feels,” but something about this makes my brows furrow. It seems like a marketing ploy to promote the Devotional Bible (what’s with the design?), and the WotW book. In my curiosity, I did sign up for the e-mail, to at least judge the content. We’ll see.

    In a couple of hours, France plays Nigeria. My poor heart is not ready to see the only surviving West African team go home.

  166. androidninja wrote:

    In a couple of hours, France plays Nigeria. My poor heart is not ready to see the only surviving West African team go home.

    I’m watching the World Cup as well! I’ll cheer for Nigeria today and for the US tomorrow! 🙂

    It’s been a very exciting competition.

  167. mirele fka Southwestern Discomfort wrote:

    “Sovereign citizen”

    Occasionally someone will come into my courtroom with a position similar to this. Sometimes they will point out that my flag has gold fringe on it, which means I must – according to them – be presiding over a court of admiralty and not state law. There are a whole lot of made up things in the arguments that follow this type of opening statement: “I am a free white male, residing in but not a citizen of this state. My name is copyrighted and may not be used by you or any other government entity without my permission; any unauthorized use will result in a fine against you, in your individual and official capacities, in the amount of … .”

    Makes for an interesting court day.

  168. @ androidninja:

    I hear you. I am thinking there are two variables at play here. The people doing this do want women to have some degree of biblical literacy but want to control the viewpoint from which such literacy is acquired. And there must be money in it.

    It is the latter variable that bothers me right now. Are there really that many women who can only read a book which has a pastel cover and an innovative design? Is this to pretend that they are really not serious about anything, not like those other women who read “serious” stuff? Who is this designed to convince, the women or their husbands who may be opposed to any level of biblical literacy beyond what they themselves know, which may be limited to a few bible verses? I am thinking that the redesign of so much in “women’s” stuff into all pink and sparkeldy and superficial (including how they talk) has to have more reason than just thinking that women are somehow congenitally limited in that way.

  169. I believe it is a sin to treat women as incapable of thinking deeply about their faith, being analytic and able to parse scripture and teaching etc. I believe that denies the clear evidence in the Bible, particularly the NT, about the women who supported Christ and were able servants of the NT churches. And of course the clear statement that, in Christ, there is neither male nor female, thus no distinction is appropriate in the church or our service to it.

    If churches continue to downgrade women, with the cultural changes going on that most college graduates these days are women, they will lose even more rapidly than they have to date, the population of Christians from affiliated to “none”.

  170. An Attorney wrote:

    I believe it is a sin to treat women as incapable of thinking deeply about their faith, being analytic and able to parse scripture and teaching etc. I believe that denies the clear evidence in the Bible, particularly the NT, about the women who supported Christ and were able servants of the NT churches. And of course the clear statement that, in Christ, there is neither male nor female, thus no distinction is appropriate in the church or our service to it.
    If churches continue to downgrade women, with the cultural changes going on that most college graduates these days are women, they will lose even more rapidly than they have to date, the population of Christians from affiliated to “none”.

    It is also massively contradicted by the large number of women working in academia at high levels, such as my friend Alison. They don’t come much smarter & capable than this one : http://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/directory/alison-gray. I would LOVE to see one of these half-witted guys go up against her in Hebrew, without being told her gender first. She loves the Lord & does her job to serve him.

  171. Sopwith wrote:

    This situation would lead one to suspect that an acceptable and favorable fall-back position would be corresponding HIV/AIDS educational awareness campaign(s) in community outreach program(s) and possibly increased awareness efforts in the U.S. public and private school system as well

    The rising sixth grader at my house, a public school student, had fifth grade sex ed recently. I just asked her if they taught about HIV and if so what did they say. There was no lack of adequate information in what she told me. The idea that if people really knew about yeah and such then they would change their behavior is not universally applicable. Think drugs. Think obesity. Think unplanned pregnancies. Think the comprehensive stats on STDs. Think alcohol abuse, impaired driving even. Lack of information did not cause all that.

  172. @ androidninja:

    The only surviving English team went home after two matches…!

    Another World Cup, another inquest… at least this time the tabloids aren’t asking “why didn’t England win it?”. However, I think it’ll take at least another 4 wilderness years before anybody in English fitba’ starts asking the right questions.

  173. So let me pursue my calling to say things a little over the line. You all know my background in life sciences including the undergrad major in biology. I make no apologies for this or for how it influences my thinking.

    Consider that survival of the fit is still one variable in survival. Individual fitness and also species fitness (adaptation.) I used to think it was more important than it is until I took a grad course in evolution and we did the math on the effect of certain natural disasters on certain populations of one species or another. Being among the fit does not keep you alive in the forest fire or the hurricane or even the epidemic. Nevertheless, it is a factor in evolution and in species survival.

    So, if certain religious groups selectively choose to attract and encourage people who have somewhat less survival skills for living in our current culture, and the more skilled at adaptation to the current conditions congregate elsewhere, do we really care if said “certain religious groups” dwindle and perhaps eventually close shop? The more fit, biologically and culturally, have a certain advantage, and mostly that seems to be a good thing in the long run.

  174. Nancy wrote:

    Consider that survival of the fit is still one variable in survival. Individual fitness and also species fitness (adaptation.)

    Also remember that Darwin defined “fittest” in terms of reproductive success, i.e. “most likely to have descendants and pass their genes to future generations.”

    In a cultural or religious context, substitute “memes” for “genes”.

  175. Nancy wrote:

    It is the latter variable that bothers me right now. Are there really that many women who can only read a book which has a pastel cover and an innovative design?

    Don’t forget the pseudo-cursive title fonts with LOTS of curlicued flourishes.

    Years ago, I followed a link to examples of Christian Women’s book covers — pastels, soft-out-of-focus, curlicued-and-flourished title fonts. I felt my testicles start to shrivel up from the estrogen overload. (Who needs Finasteride?)

  176. Nancy wrote:

    I am thinking that the redesign of so much in “women’s” stuff into all pink and sparkeldy and superficial (including how they talk) has to have more reason than just thinking that women are somehow congenitally limited in that way.

    There is Pony precedent. Compare and contrast the writing/storytelling of My Little Pony’s “Generation 3” low point of pink and sparkledy and superficial Princess Promenades and tea parties with the current “Generation 4” high point.

  177. Tim wrote:

    “I am a free white male, residing in but not a citizen of this state. My name is copyrighted and may not be used by you or any other government entity without my permission; any unauthorized use will result in a fine against you, in your individual and official capacities, in the amount of … .”

    Guy really has a high opinion of himself, doesn’t he?

    And why does he specifically mention “free WHITE male”? What does color have to do with his argument?

  178. @ Nancy:
    You say all vaccines are dangerous. I would say, in many cases: The reaction to the vaccine is just a small pantomime of the true reaction your immune system would have to the actual virus.

    They only use mercury in the annual flu shots now, so there is nothing left to blame except the dummy virus (unless one is allergic to preservatives, in which case, they will have a long, tough life not eating any fast food, frozen food, etc.).

  179. An Attorney wrote:

    I believe it is a sin to treat women as incapable of thinking deeply about their faith, being analytic and able to parse scripture and teaching etc. I believe that denies the clear evidence in the Bible, particularly the NT, about the women who supported Christ and were able servants of the NT churches.

    A good hearty Amen from Potter. You might enjoy reading Ruth Hoppin’s book
    Priscilla’s Letter. In it she lays out a compelling case that the author of the book of Hebrews was a woman, namely Priscilla, faith friend and traveling companion of the Apostle Paul.

  180. NC Now wrote:

    Or a close relative doesn’t want to give up. So they ask for “everything” and run up huge medical bills and live in misery then die anyway.
    And sadly it doesn’t seem to matter if you call yourself a Christian or not. Which seems to contradict our beliefs about death and what comes next.

    No contradiction if you’re from a Hellfire-and-Damnation-and-How-Do-You-REALLY-KNOW-You’re-Saved background. When you’ve been indoctrinated that God exists only to PUNISH YOU, you want to hold the Punishment off as long as possible.

  181. Hester wrote:

    @ dee:
    So, beneath some of the rhetoric, I bet you will find the “God gave AIDS” to punish gays.
    I’m pretty sure I’ve already heard that before somewhere.

    Oh, Paige Patterson has said this numerous times. STDs were God’s judgment on promiscuity. AIDS is God’s punishment on gays. Yes, this is quite common in some circles.

  182. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    In a cultural or religious context, substitute “memes” for “genes”.

    That is a good point. Here is a Wiki quote. “Proponents theorize that memes may evolve by natural selection in a manner analogous to that of biological evolution.” I am thinking that certain religious ideas and the mini-cultures they promote are in a position of competitive disadvantage and may dwindle and even close shop.

  183. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    And why does he specifically mention “free WHITE male”? What does color have to do with his argument?

    They get male and skin color from Art I, sec 2, of the US Constitution. Apparently the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments of the Constitution don’t count for these people.

  184. Nancy wrote:

    The people doing this do want women to have some degree of biblical literacy but want to control the viewpoint from which such literacy is acquired. And there must be money in it.

    Yes, except I am not convinced that these folks are concerned with women having Biblical literacy. I think they want women to *think* they have Biblical literacy while at the same time indoctrinating those same women with the Crossway Complementarian viewpoint.

    I do admire their ability to convince a large number of women that their subordination and status as the more easily deceived sex is a *good* thing that God designed. That is a pretty impressive feat accomplished in the face of the actual text. Now, if a woman with Biblical literacy does try to question this doctrine in a “complementarian” church, she only demonstrates how deceived she is, even if she presents textual, linguistic, and contextual evidence that no one bothers to substantively refute. It is quite an elegant system, actually, if you separate the system from its horrible effects.

    From a marketing and economic standpoint, I would be very interested to know, if someone has the data, how Crossway’s revenue and/or earnings track with the rise of hierarchicalism. I may look into whether that data is available, because I suspect that there is a lot of explanatory power in that data for a lot of things that don’t make sense otherwise, at least to me.

    Gram3

  185. Gram3 wrote:

    Yes, except I am not convinced that these folks are concerned with women having Biblical literacy. I think they want women to *think* they have Biblical literacy while at the same time indoctrinating those same women with the Crossway Complementarian viewpoint.

    I agree. I made a comment on another blog a few weeks ago about this study Bible and my conclusion was the same as yours.

    I was perusing the Crossway site today and it appears that the only version of the Bible they promote/sell is the ESV. I plugged other version names into the search box and the only versions that came up were ESV. IMO the ESV promotes the complementarian view. It is biased. I will not suggest that version to anyone.

  186. @ Gram3:

    You got to be right about the money angle.

    Thinking about why do the women do this, all the way down to pastels and pansies on the bibles, I have to say: what is in it for the women? Here is a disturbing thought along that line. I have heard it said (radio-car line for school pickup) that “if you want him to be more of a man you have to be more of a woman.” So she has taken a good look at him and she is dissatisfied with what she sees. So she adds some faux feminization to herself and the environment. In search of what? What is she unhappy about? I doubt if her heart’s desire is for some man to micromanage how she does the laundry. Does she want more sex? More money? More community status? What is going on here?

    What they told us in med school, rule of thumb for the GP: When there is a rocky marriage the rocks are usually under the mattress. Maybe. But money and status are also biggies, I am thinking.

    And the corollary thought, do the men know this? Do they have any idea that she is mopping the kitchen floor in heels because she finds him lacking in something? I bet most men would never think of that. But for sure “I heard it on the radio” like the song says.

  187. Nancy wrote:

    Being among the fit does not keep you alive in the forest fire or the hurricane or even the epidemic. Nevertheless, it is a factor in evolution and in species survival.

    Have you ever read Victor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”? He was a psychologist sent to Auschwitz. He decided to use the horror to study the prisoners reactions to the horror. He claims that it was not the most healthy and fit who survived (if not chosen for the gas chambers first) but those who had definite plans and something very important they wanted to accomplish before they died. Interesting book.

  188. @ Lydia:

    Yes, I read it. Great work. Perfect example of what it takes to help survive the catastrophe. Of course, one might say these were the mentally and emotionally most fit. IMO the world of ideas did not stop with either Darwin or Freud.

  189. dee wrote:

    Here is hte bottom line. You would never have knowingly done anything to harm your child during pregnancy. That is the bottom line. You were not a drug addict or alcoholic. You probably read books on how to be healthy. These things just happen.

    Much agreed Dee. Bad poo-poo happens to the good, the bad, & the ugly alike. There is no rhyme and there is no reason. Nothing irks me more than when folks try to helicopter some verse out of Holy Writ, divorce it from its surrounding context, and then use it to say that the Almighty is dealing with ‘sin’ in your life, or orchestrating some evil that will bring ‘glory’ to him. It’s wholly believable if one’s god is made with hands and fashioned after the gods of the Greeks and the Canaanites. But as I’ve opined before, I’ll stand by it again. The God of Abraham isn’t anything like them.

  190. Muff Potter wrote:

    Nothing irks me more than when folks try to helicopter some verse out of Holy Writ, divorce it from its surrounding context, and then use it to say that the Almighty is dealing with ‘sin’ in your life, or orchestrating some evil that will bring ‘glory’ to him. It’s wholly believable if one’s god is made with hands and fashioned after the gods of the Greeks and the Canaanites. But as I’ve opined before, I’ll stand by it again. The God of Abraham isn’t anything like them.

    Well said. One of the still ongoing battles I fight is when something happens – small large – accident with injury or even as small as finding a bug near my take-out – or, like happened a while back, a can rolled off the counter and landed on my bear foot- my knee-jerk, default setting inculcated from birth, is to immediately begin scanning my memory for what infraction, small or large, I did (even inadvertently) that brought this ‘punishment.’ Such a tiring and sad way to live. But as a friend has said, recognizing the problem (superstitious fear of God) is the biggest part of the battle…..

  191. dee wrote:

    May wrote:

    Doug Wilson is quite simply a fool to think he knows better than hundreds of medical experts,

    See how he does it. He picks a guy like Duesberg who, in the past, was a respected researcher in the area of oncogenes. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences which is a lifetime appointment. In light of this situation, I wonder if the Academy will reconsider lifetime appointments.

    Ken Ham does the same thing. You can always find some sort of expert who will agree with just about anything. Have you ever seen court trials with “expert” witnesses? It is a bit of a game, involving money, ego, and a sense of “O know better than you” which is appealing to some individuals.

    I was reading this, & thinking, DW & Kenny-boy need to get together & trade conspiracy theories over their beer & chips.
    You got there ahead of me :-)(no surprise!).

  192. Muff Potter wrote:

    mirele wrote:

    I’d like to know what people did to bring on the Plague of Justinian (541-542) or the Black Death (1347-1351, with regular appearances thereafter for a few centuries).

    Many powerful churchmen in the Middle Ages blamed the Jews for the Black Death. I’m surprised that for all his sundry pronouncements, Doug Wilson hasn’t warned us of the dangers of the ‘International Jew’ yet. Maybe he does privately in his ‘kirk’?

    I wouldn’t be the least surprised.
    Sad, but true, to say about any man who calls himself a pastor…….

  193. roebuck wrote:

    @ Marsha:

    “Yes, I agree because dangerous experiments were being carried out on mentally retarded children, prisoners, mental patients, and residents in old age homes at the same time. They were not seen as having full rights.”

    You left out the ‘African American’ part. These were experiments done on rural black people, under the guise of “free health care”. Sickening, disgusting, shameful.

    And Native Americans.

  194. @ Nancy:
    Haha, I had the Yellow Fever vaccine too, I don’t know if it was the booster, but I remember going home all blah after trying to work for about 2 hours.

    What you need to do is give me a list of the symptoms of all the actual diseases to compare this list too. I don’t consider a red mark where a needle went in with soreness comparable to the effects of these diseases. Moderate effects are likely much less worse than the actual disease also – a fever vs. a fever with organ failure, for example. Again, the immune system is reacting to the vaccine, and that is a good thing, it shows it is working and learning how to fight it. All that fainting – nerves. I fainted from needles when I was a kid due to nerves, now, after a chronic condition and so many needles, nah. Don’t even blink with needles anymore. Don’t like them, but don’t work myself up over them either.

  195. Val wrote:

    Don’t even blink with needles anymore.

    I’ve come across tales of Type 1 diabetics (like me) with needle-phobia (unlike me).

    Probably shouldn’t joke about it (which means I’m about to), but it kind of evokes an old joke along the lines of What’s worse than a giraffe with a sore throat?… An elephant with a runny nose / A hippopotamus with chapped lips / A centipede with athlete’s foot… etc.

  196. Pingback: LINKS! | PhoenixPreacher

  197. @ Nancy:
    The problem with comparing genetic “fitness” to certain denser religious groups is that there is no accounting for the gene pool, just the attitude to society. Take the introduction of alcohol into human history. Once humans began agriculture, switched from a semi-nomadic to settled life style, and began to figure out how to brew, those with genes that could regulate alcohol – not become dependant on it, no pass the ill effects to their unborn, etc. would have had a greater advantage over those who succumbed to the effects.

    Growing up in northern Canada, I learned first hand what alcohol could do to a population that was still exclusively nomadic until two generations ago. Since survival in the northern forests involved incidents of close to starvation (sometime out right starvation), those who had a genetic predisposition to diabetes were more able to survive near starvation – something to do with calorie uptake and periods of no to little food – can’t recall all the details. Anyways, that quick processing of foods turned deadly for the population once they were moved off the land (a civilized country couldn’t have people starving in the wild, so the government forced them to move into settlements, usually old trading fort posts, and given food/housing to save face as a civilized country). They fell quickly to the effects of alcohol too, another reason that psudo-diabetic is so bad for an agriculturally based population. SInce there was no slow process from hunter-gatherer to settled agriculture, as there was in the old world, their genes didn’t have time to adapt by favouring those with less diabetic-like food uptake. The mothers whose children didn’t show strong fetal alcohol effects are the ancestors of Eurasians today, the mothers of children who were FAS likely didn’t survive into adulthood. There was no long transition period for the Dene of the north, the parents were severely hit with alcoholism, both genetic processing and their forced time in residential schools that created the need to drink their sorrows away. It wasn’t intelligence or lack thereof, it was changes to their lifestyle that came to abruptly, too quickly as well as the tearing apart of their culture too quickly that has lead to such a tragedy in their population.

    On the flip side, if you lock girls away young, don’t let them out to the drinking holes many colleges are, marry them young and tell them they must have lots of babies, they will likely have the stronger genetic children for the future. I hate to say that, I am not into breeding people, but the rise in autism, genetic conditions, infertility, etc. all has links to later child bearing and more exposure to drugs, even prescription drugs in a mother’s past (not vaccines), depression meds are a new culprit being looked at. Also, consider that a woman drinking during late pregnancy not only effects her unborn female child, but also the fetus’ eggs (the mother’s grandchildren) that are developed in utero.

    All this to say, genetics is a lot more about surviving adverse lifestyle conditions – food finding, reproduction ability and so on, that is what “genetic fitness” is about, not being weird (isolationist) and treating women badly (if that was a hinderance, the human race wouldn’t be here!).

  198.   __

    Cautionary Sign Posted Ahead: “Watch Out For Falling Rocks?”

    hmmm…

    Nancy,

    hey,

      A step further perhaps in explaining the tragic outcome of certain HIV susceptibility issues…

    Ample warning, unheeded call.

    (sadface)

    Sopy

  199. In reading Duesberg’s book and having a brother who died of AIDs. His immune system got progressively worse over time. He died in ’98. I was interested in reading Duesberg’s book when I heard about it with healthy skepticism. I also have read a lot on how HIV viruses work on cells. In reading and hearing about other testimonies with HIV and leading healthy lives, the deterrent for developing AIDs appears to be how strong the immune system is to begin with in the individual. Better choices once it is contracted can help delaying onset. Drug users do have the highest rates of AIDs when exposed to the HIV virus.

  200. I know this thread is dead now, but I just thought I’d add for posterity that it looks like even Debi Pearl believes AIDS is sexually transmitted, which shows just how out there Wilson is. From one of Libby Anne’s recent reviews of Created to Be His Helpmeet:

    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2014/07/ctbhhm-in-which-shannon-smashes-her-husbands-computer.html

    Quote (emphasis mine):

    “This book would not be complete without addressing the subject of what a woman should do if she knows her husband is breaking the law of God and man, or that his sin may bring imprisonment on her, or that his sinful actions may bring death to her or the children—as in contracting AIDS from him.”

  201.   __

    “Victims Of Prevention Error Statistics, Perhaps?”

    huh?

      An ounce of prevention equates to tons of non-statistical proverbial carnage from the ravages of a body fluid transferrable disease?

    hmmm…

    “…The idea that if people really knew about yeah and such then they would change their behavior is not universally applicable. Think drugs. Think obesity. Think unplanned pregnancies. Think the comprehensive stats on STDs. Think alcohol abuse, impaired driving even…” ~ Nancy

    …yes, think one ta two percent of the U.S. population accounting for fifty percent of the currently  recorded CDC HIV statistics?

    Skreeeeeeeeeeeeech!

    (bump)

    What is wrong with this sad, so sad picture?

    Have all our ‘tears’ been used up?

    (sadface)

    Sopy
    __
    Contemplative conundrum: The Who – “Won’t Get F___’ed Again?”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwS1tC9Mp00

  202. A news report from July 2014:
    HIV Diagnoses Down, Except for Young Gay Males
    http://www.webmd.com/hiv-aids/news/20140719/hiv-diagnoses-down-in-us-except-for-young-gay-males-cdc

    From the page:

    SATURDAY, July 19, 2014 (HealthDay News) — A new report offers good and bad news about the AIDS epidemic in the United States: The annual diagnosis rate of HIV, the virus that causes the disease, has dropped by one-third in the general population but has climbed among young gay and bisexual males.

    Significantly fewer heterosexuals, drug users and women were diagnosed each year with HIV, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the annual diagnosis rate more than doubled for young gay and bisexual males.