The Enemies of Reason, Channel 4, Monday 8pm

[Asset]

what? - we're just having a conversation, I'm not detecting any antagonism.

[mockney piers]

Yeah, I thought it was going quite well :)

[MadWorld74]

warm hands, drunks! you pair are naughty.

Mockney, homeopathy isn't giving placeboes. How do you know there's no Belladona in the pills Assets friend gives to her kids?

[mockney piers]

Because that's the whole theory of homeopathy. You get a posion and you dilute it and dilute it again until there is none of the original substance left, just a 'memory' of the substance.

It's supposed to be 1 part poison to 100^30 parts water. That's the equivalent of one belladonna molecule to all the water in all the oceans of two earths.

Some even believe you can take an electromagnetic signature of the finished article (a glass of water) and play it as sound to another glass of water, thus implanting the memory of that substance into the new galss of water.

Anyone, anyone...Bueller?

[SeanMacGabhann]

I thought the "naughty" referred to Belladonna. I mean belladonna * ahem *

[MadWorld74]

you make me want to run for the hills Mockney....

:-$

[mockney piers]

I thought that was the black helicopters ;-P

[MadWorld74]

Dubya Bush does it for me.....

(back on topic)

Sean McG wanted this thread to continue, but where is he? he's got naughty belladona's on the brain. Filth.

[SeanMacGabhann]

I am around (sort of) but can't get enough time to contribute a coherent post - sorry . But you're doing splendidly without me >:D

[monica]

Chamomile is herbal never has been pharmaceutical.I love the retaliation on this thread.The higher the ignorance the nastier the comments.Leave therapies alone,oh ignorant ones,do no make comments on something you clearly have no knowledge of.

[Alan Dale]

Nice one Mystic Meg. If you can use the force then how come you've never won the lottery?

[MadWorld74]

Ignore him Monica...

[Alan Dale]

Who said that?

[Mark]

Hello

As mentioned yesterday, I believed I would win the lottery last night as suggested by someone on this thread ("believe and anything is possible" I think they said), and I really believed, seriously, I even had a look at the Sunseeker website and had my eye on a nice off shore cruiser (the Portfino 53 if you're interested). Anyway I didn't win. But I was in the winning team that won the the CPT pub quiz and I won a bottle of wine in the raffle which almost made up for it.

As a footnote, R Kelly once said* "I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky" and he ended up in jail. On second thoughts it may have been Orville but anyway perhaps some of us just need lessons in how to believe correctly. Anyone got Uri Geller's phone number?

[Asset]

OMG Monica that was a joke didn't you get it? I didn't mean chamomile was a pharmaceutical (I'm assuming your post was aimed at my 'retaliation', if not ignore this). I am all for herbalism as I said later in the post.

[Brendan]

Now Mark you obviously didn?t believe hard enough hence the diminished return of a bottle of wine and a pub quiz win rather than a great big wodge of wonga.

What you should have done was max out your credit cards and moon your boss. Now that sort of belief may have made your numbers come up.

[Huguenot]

Ah dear - where are we getting this peculiar differentiation between 'herbal' and 'pharmaceutical' products? They're all external preparations that are either ingested or applied topically to alter the body's performance. There's some awful guff about natural and non-natural that simply doesn't hold water. Is this just some misinformed scary cr@p about 'big faceless companies'?

It reminds me of the whole e-number thing.... "it's not natural!!!". Pathetic, E290 is carbon dioxide and E948 is oxygen, as natural as breathing, vinegar is an e-number. For the bloody herbalists, Beeswax is an e-number (E901). Just because we don't recognise the name doesn't mean it's evil. Everything natural (and that herbalists prepare) is made of e numbers, it's just how we describe the chemicals.

I often wonder how new-agers feel about television remote controls: because they can't see how it works do they assume that this is 'raw energy channelling' or magic? Do mirrors steal their soul? I rather assume not, but I'm surprised that they can't see how ridiculous it is that they live 99% of their lives perfectly normally, and then leap in to finger-zappy medievalism when they see something that they can't explain. Loopy.

What's epilepsy, the hand of God? If you want to experience a physically incapacitating 'spiritualist' moment, get in a room with heavy rhythmic music and flashing lights at the right frequency. Your brain will short curcuit and 'bong' you're gone. Not magic, not God, not zappy fingers, just sensory overload and a brain reboot.

I'm afraid that herbalists are merely victims of a consumer craze supported by clever marketeers in herbal companies. Nothing more worthy than that.

[mockney piers]

Thanks Huguenot, someone speaks sense at last.

And I'd quite like people to reflect on these..

"Chamomile is herbal never has been pharmaceutical.I love the retaliation on this thread.The higher the ignorance the nastier the comments.Leave therapies alone,oh ignorant ones,do no make comments on something you clearly have no knowledge of.

--------------

Ignore him Monica..."*

as a response to this

"Forgive me for my righteous ways. As it goes, chamomile, it's a pharmaceutical with known properties. How is that different to aspirin in any way shape or form?"

Which doesn't strike me as particularly nasty.

I was merely pointing out that unless you're eating freshly picked chamomile, then you're preparing it for a medicinal purpose**, and that is pharmaceutical. Are you perhaps getting dessicated chamomile, then using it as a solution in hydrogen hydroxide to which you apply heat and perhaps some crystalline disaccharide?

I'm still loving the fact that this thread is entitled enemies of reason. Stand up and be counted ;-P

*Thanks MW, I'll remember that.

** I don't, I just quite like the taste. If it's helping detoxify and settle stomachs, all the better.

[Brendan]

But everything is "natural" innit? We can't magic matter out of nothingness.

[MadWorld74]

Ah shocks Mockney dont get all uppity on me.....I meant 'ignore him' in the best sense of the way, as in don't let this posting that has gone on for way too long, upset you....not an attack on you, dear, super intelligent Mockey. X

[Alan Dale]

And I was being a cock at the time..

[mockney piers]

Sorry MadWorld. As is often said on here, it's difficult to get tone and subtlety across in written conversations.

Lets have a hug and a g&t, little fingers.....

make-up-make-up-never-never-break-up if-you-do-you'll-catch-the-flu-and-that-will-be-a-trip-down-the-holistic-centre-for-aromatherapy ;)

Ooh, and cheers for the compliment, i'll ignore the hidden tongue-in-cheek emoticon ;)

[monica]

Asset in all honesty any kind of negative response to homeopathy,herbs reiki and other therapies are just over my head.This thread is full of old school mentality,and good luck to old school,because at the end of the day,people have opinions and we will get all sorts on here,whether we are criticised for what we believe in to grief over our fave/music,footie/shops.

What i cannot tolerate are individuals who pretend they know what they are chatting about but reading their thread,they come across as ignorant and above all stupid in their divvy assumptions of what homeopathy is.

I had a lot of respect for 1 guy on here until his rants on homeopathy,and as i said we all have grief 1 way or another,however this guy has come across,ignorant and nasty,which really makes me sad for him.

[Huguenot]

Oh tcha Monica. This isn't personal, and nor is it 'old school'.

It takes a progressive open minded modern thinkers to observe that peddling medieval witch doctor cures to tragic ailments is irresponsible. The fact remains that in double blind tests these therapies do not work. We'll be offering garlic, lemons and beetroots as cures for AIDS next: that's not cutsie, it's downright murderous.

For something like aspirin to be 'herbal and good' when it's in willow bark and 'pharmaceutical and bad' when it's in a chemist is frankly silly.

The response of the 'alternative therapy' community on this thread has been to lash out like a cornered cat. "A fat bloke in Hawaii said so" is a playground-quality argument for supporting the cause.

I like herbal treatments and I visit alternative practitioners, but I shall discontinue this if I feel that all I'm doing is feeding the maw of a screechy self-righteous community of smug bullsh*tters. There is no moral high ground in nettle magic.

Now I shall retreat to my misty mountain ashram, because all that hugging makes me happy ;-)

[SeanMacGabhann]

Isn't that kind of the point of this thread? If someone has a negative response to my beliefs, and especially if they are someone whose previous postings on here have built up my respect for them, then I would be very wary of going down a fingers in ear, "la la la" approach

By describing someone as ignorant, I would have thought that a perfect opportunity to educate. Certainly most of the "old school" brigade on here are curious enough to want to fill the gaps in their knowledge, no? Or is the problem that it isn't knowledge that can be imparted?