I think it's at the heart of why this conversation is so hard to have. Because most of the words we use to discuss things that are not or cannot be proven or demonstrated, and yet are asked to take as fact (or real or something non-judgy, please) do have a negative connotation, in varying degrees. So then we try to shift them over to this discussion and things that are meant neutrally or questioningly come across as far more pointed and direct than they ought, on both ends, I think.

This is a very good point.

Ritual sacrifice with pie.

Oh, and speaking of prayer, the email list from my synagogue is driving me nuts. There are certain prayers that are supposed to be said as a community, not as individuals, and what counts as "community" in an Orthodox synagogue is ten Jewish men. (For various complicated and boring reasons, the synagogue I usually go to is an Orthodox one, even though I don't really consider myself Orthodox.) The past week, someone has sent out an email to the mailing list each morning telling us how many people were at the morning service. No commentary, no explanation for why it's being sent out, just, each morning, something like, "At today's Shacharit service, there were nine men, three women, one boy, and two girls present at 7. A tenth man arrived at 7:15. The service begins at 7." Or, "At today's Shacharit service, there were eight men, two women, and one boy." One of the prayers that needs to be said as a community is a prayer for the dead that people recite every day for a year after a close relative dies. It's generally considered a good thing to go to the morning service whenever you can, even if you don't have a particular reason to go, so that the people in mourning will be able to say their prayer properly. And these emails are clearly meant to remind people of that, and to try to get more people coming so that there will be ten men each day. But they don't say that. They don't say anything. Just a daily report of how many people were at synagogue, and letting us decide what to do with that information.

She honestly believed until she slipped into her coma that she didn't beat her ovarian cancer because she didn't pray hard enough. She died thinking that her cancer was proof that she was a bad Christian.

I'm currently reading Barbara Ehrenreich Bright-Sided, and she talks about something that I really bothered me during my cancer treatment: the idea that if you just believe hard enough or have a good enough attitude or work hard enough, you can beat cancer. It's why phrases like "after a long battle with cancer" make me twitch. That implies the person didn't fight hard enough. I'm so sorry that you and she had to have that additional suffering. One of the only books sometimes found in the "self help" section that I ever recommend is When Bad Things Happen to Good People, which was written by a rabbi who secretly thought people must of done something to deserve the bad things that happen to him, until his son was born with progeria.

I also think that picture of the Christian God is not supported in the text. The Bible says God sees every sparrow who falls. But they still fall.

There was a lovely line in the movie Deep Impact, when Morgan Freeman, as president, says, "I believe that god hears all prayers, but that sometimes the answer is no."

Bookmark post to say I'm fascinated by this conversation and have something I'd like to add about the definition of "myth" and how I approach that sensitive topic when teaching everything from Jason and the Argonauts to Jesus with my ninth grade students.

But right now I have to grade two more essays and run a study session and go to a meeting and hopefully get home before my poor dog has an accident.

I have a friend who has a bit of a stutter. It's usually only around people she doesn't know well, but it ends up being a cycle of her not knowing people well and not talking because of the stutter and not getting to know people because she's not talking, and it's a damn shame 'cause she's awesome. I may mention this to her, if that's ok.

No problem. If it can help someone else, that's great.

I read an article once about a horrible study that was done in the thirties or so. There were already certain behaviors known to be linked to stuttering in kids -- mostly social stuff like not talking in front of strangers or tending to not participate in games and things like that. The researchers wanted to know whether these social behaviors were somehow caused by something that was also causing the stuttering, or whether they were a reaction to the stutter, from kids being scared to talk to other people because they were afraid they'd stutter. (I did that a lot as a kid -- there were some people who could understand me better than others, and if someone asked me to repeat myself a few too many times, I'd just stop talking to that person. And if there was something that I needed to say to a stranger, like a waitress or something, I'd do whatever I could to make it clear by pointing to each thing on the menu as I said it, or I'd just say what I wanted to say to my sister, who could always understand me, and have her repeat it.)

Anyway, in order to test this, they did a study on a bunch of kids in an orphanage. They did a speech evaluation of each kid, and then randomly picked a few with no speech problems and told them, "You're developing a stutter. If you're not careful, it will get really bad, and you'll sound like (some other kid in the orphanage with a really bad stutter.)" And then they watched to see what would happen. And, sure enough, these kids with perfect speech who'd been told they were developing a stutter started being quieter and hanging back from group activities and getting really nervous any time they had to talk. I think the researchers waited several years before telling the kids what was going on.

there were a lot of shitty studies before there was regulation. Tuskegee is always held up as the worst, but a lot of other shit went down.

Actual info on that stuttering research: [link]

Anyway, in order to test this, they did a study on a bunch of kids in an orphanage. They did a speech evaluation of each kid, and then randomly picked a few with no speech problems and told them, "You're developing a stutter. If you're not careful, it will get really bad, and you'll sound like (some other kid in the orphanage with a really bad stutter.)" And then they watched to see what would happen. And, sure enough, these kids with perfect speech who'd been told they were developing a stutter started being quieter and hanging back from group activities and getting really nervous any time they had to talk. I think the researchers waited several years before telling the kids what was going on.

I heard about that, or read about it somewhere in some science gone wrong article or book.

there were a lot of shitty studies before there was regulation. Tuskegee is always held up as the worst, but a lot of other shit went down.

I often tell some of my liberal friends who bash religion (which I hope no one thinks I was trying to do) who want to talk about all the atrocities committed in the name of religion that there were some pretty shitty things done in the name of science as well.