Major blow for homeopathic ‘medicine’

Posted on July 4, 2010 by Michael

Doctors in the UK have called for a ban on homeopathic medicine, the cessation of the NHS paying for it, and they have demanded that over-the-counter homeopathic medicine be labelled as having no proven worth.

Dr Tom Dolphin, from the BMA’s junior doctors committee, said that he had previously described homeopathy as witchcraft but now wanted to apologise to witches for making the link.

“Homeopathy is not witchcraft, it is nonsense on stilts,” he said.

“It is pernicious nonsense that feeds into a rising wave of irrationality which threatens to overwhelm the hard-won gains of the Enlightenment and the scientific method.

“We risk, as a society, slipping back into a state of magical thinking when made-up science passes for rational discourse and wishing for something to be true passes for proof.”

I love the unapologetic tone.

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Christian sex therapist loses appeal

Posted on April 30, 2010 by Michael

It makes no sense. Why would Christians even begin to think they had any qualifications as sex therapists? Certainly one can be Christian and be a competent sex therapist, but that falls apart when the sex therapist identifies his profession with Christianity itself (or really, any religion). That’s what Gary McFarlane of the UK did when he refused to treat same-sex couples – and it’s why he was fired.

Mr McFarlane said after the hearing that the decision not to let him appeal against the ruling left him “disappointed and upset”.

“I have the ability to provide counselling services to same-sex couples,” he said.

“However, because of my Christian beliefs and principles, there should be allowances taken into account whereby individuals like me can actually avoid having to contradict their very strongly-held Christian principles.”

It doesn’t work like that. Most professions have a set of ethics (whether specifically created by those in the profession or adopted from outside sources), and exceptions to those rules just do not tend to occur. If one person is allowed to skirt the tenets of his profession because he really believes something strongly, then there really are no more ethics; there are rules for some and privileges for others.

My favorite part of this whole thing comes from Lord Justice Laws.

Lord Justice Laws said legislation for the protection of views held purely on religious grounds cannot be justified.

He said it was irrational and “also divisive, capricious and arbitrary”.

The thing about religion and theology is that in all the apologetics and excuses and convolutions is the fact that if someone rejects the premise of a religion in the first place, then none of the intellectual masturbation holds any water. There are no attempts at universal appeals within theologies, and so they prove themselves useless in how society and professions ought to consider ethical guidelines and rules. Gary McFarlane’s religious beliefs do not deserve consideration because they have no justifications which can be utilized in how to counsel and treat patients on a human level.

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