Investigating Woo: Qigong

There is probably not a single phrase that is a more accurate  prelude to bullshit than “such-and-such is based on ancient Chinese wisdom.”  The idea that credibility is gained the older and more distant a practice becomes is nonsense.  It is similar to the common arguments one often hears when debating Christians:  “Well, people wouldn’t have believed in this for two-thousand years if it were false.”  For some reason there is an allure for practices surviving to modern times from a distant and tumultuous past.  A difficult notion for some people to accept is that modern man knows more than any primitive culture, and the allure should be reversed, favoring the advice of modern doctors or scientist over the scribblings of some ancient shaman from the Bronze Age.

This fascination with ancient teachings is interesting, and the direct proportionality of the age of an idea to the fervency with which it is believed is even more curious and nonsensical.  This is known as the logical fallacy of antiquity/tradition, or argumentum ad antiquitum: Because something is old, or has been done in the past, it should be valued.

I got to thinking about this while watching a Fox News story about some third-grade kid who espouses to have “healed his friend with Qigong,” an ancient Chinese practice.  See it for yourself.

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Why is religion considered philosophy?

I have always found it strange that people with a doctorate relating to religion get the designation Ph.D.  It’s the “Ph” that really gets me.  Why, I ask, is theology (with the exception of historical fields) considered a form of philosophy?  The way I understand it, philosophy is a way of critically thinking about some aspect of the universe.  Moral philosophy deals with explaining our moral impulses and creating coherent systems for real-world application.  Natural philosophy attempts to describe the natural world and come to logical conclusions about the state of nature.  And metaphysical philosophy attempts to construct and determine first principles that flow from the universal to the particular.  What do all of these philosophical systems have in common?  They all involve heavy discourse founded in an ultimate goal to describe the way things are, or aid in understanding.  They are built upon, changed, and are adjusted based on new facts and insights—their aim is to discover truth.  The same cannot be said of theology.

Theology represents stagnance.  Views and ideas are set down and are never changed (at least that’s the goal).  Theological systems claim that truth in its most pure form is already known through scriptures and supposedly “Holy” books.  Any new thought, any amount of mulling things over or adjustments are forbidden, since that would be seen as a desecration of what is already true and pure.  Truth is assumed a priori; no further investigations are deployed or are even seen to be needed.

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The arrogant atheist

“Atheists are so arrogant!”

This phrase can frequently be heard on the lips of religious people.  What this accusation really boils down to is the fact that atheists, when speaking on various topics, either claim to know something based on evidence, or remain hesitant to make affirmative claims until they have amassed sufficient knowledge or evidence.  In other words, atheists don’t just make things up.  This should leave one asking themselves, “Well, what’s so arrogant about that?”  To which they should immediately realize and answer, “Nothing.”  In fact, what religious people call arrogance is really just intellectual honesty driven by curiosity, and placing importance on what is demonstrably true, or at least what can be inferred.  Religious people, on the other hand, tend not to be as intellectually rigorous in this sense.  They do just make stuff up.  Let’s look at an example regarding both an atheist’s and theist’s answer to the question, “What happens when you die?”

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Creation “Museum” opens in San Diego County

Creation “Museums” are popping up like toadstools all over the country, the latest of which has sprouted in San Diego County, California, and appears to be wasting no time in its effort to lower the nation’s collective IQ through its administering of antiquated blarney, despite the fact that their ideas have been old hat for well over a century.

Religious beliefs tend to not be very concerned with whether or not ideas are true, but rather how tenacious they are.  One comes to this realization while reviewing the current religious explanations for myriad phenomena only to discover that, despite having been completely and utterly refuted for decades or even centuries, they remain completely unchanged or merely redressed in freshly creased slacks, hoping you won’t discover that they’re still wearing the same skidmarked undies beneath a new fashionable pretence.

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