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Beliefs over Data
As a fundamentalist Jew, I am no stranger to the valid criticism that my beliefs cannot be sustained from empirical data.
But what astounds me is how those who criticize religious people are they, themselves, completely down the rabbit hole when it comes to their own beliefs versus the data. Consider, for example, every faddish diet that is asserted to be “healthier” even though there is zero evidence that being Vegan/Vegetarian/Macrobiotic/No Sugar/No Salt/All Fiber/etc., actually leads to a longer and happier life.
But nobody cares.
It is like all the frightened people wearing masks everywhere again, or insisting that, while they had Covid, “it would have been much worse if I was not vaccinated.”
Data? Shmata.
I have precisely the same problem with all those good and nice people who believe that a food is superior because it is “organic” or “natural.” Or that natural supplements are superior to drugs that actually, you know, work. Because, somehow, natural is better.
Natural is not better. We have the data set of the entire human race. Nature kills. It is technology that improves life, that cures disease, that extends the length and quality of our lives.
But why does nobody care?
It reminds me of a friend of mine who died of curable prostate cancer — and he did so proudly, because he believed that the Canadian healthcare system was such an inherent good, that his own deadly outcome from an otherwise-curable illness was a sacrifice well worth making to show his faith.
And they call me illogical?
Published in General
We can even design drugs that work much better than the natural extracts and don’t need large fields to grow the plants. They can be synthesized in a lab much more cheaply.
I had a friend who similarly died of Canadian healthcare. She would have a test scheduled. Then wait for the results. Then get on the schedule for the next test four months away. By the time they had her diagnosed, it was too late. I think two of the tests were an MRI and cat-scan, or some such. (This was decades ago now.) When I broke my back here in the USA, I had the MRI that day, not four or six months later.
A friend of mine who waxed euphoric about Canadian healthcare and how we needed it here slipped on the ice and screwed up her knee. She had an MRI the day this happened in Chicago. I pointed out to her that she would have had a wait if she had been in Canada, because at that time Chicago had more MRIs than Canada did.
Canada does give you the option to end your life, though. So that should keep the suffering to a minimum.
Unless it’s birth control pills, or “gender-affirming” medical care. These people really hate nature sometimes.
It also helps to keep the cost of medical care down.
If the line for critical care is long enough, it shortens at both ends.
Yep.
Putting people on a waiting list for four to six months for a test can do that, too, especially if they have an aggressive brain tumor.
I would only point out that the carnivore diet NOBODY objects to. It really does lead to a happier life.
Not even PETA?
What do you mean, your beliefs cannot be sustained by empirical data? You have 4 thousand years or more of empirical data to support your beliefs.
And most of the data that has led to the wonders (and terrors) of modern science and the modern state, were developed from your beliefs. Your ethos has blessed the world. It is the Modernity ethos that is destroying it. And Modernity is unable to understand how to use the data you have given us to further bless the world. Modernity can ONLY destroy it. Amazingly, that is the goal of Modernity, to unbless, indeed, damn, the blessed world that you have sacrificed to give us.
I for one am deeply grateful for your beliefs.
I have a friend (stop laughing) who emails me asking how I can eat Bambi.
I keep sending her venison recipes but she never says thanks.
They do make great bread.
I am moved by the comment, thank you.
Speaking on behalf of all those who claim the Torah as their ancestry: no argument. And I’ll accept that Jews are particularly dynamic forces for change (albeit not always in the right direction).
But in defense of my opening statement: correlation is not causality. Jews can be a force for good without our beliefs actually being provable.