Homeopathy is bullshit, those who believe in it are idiots

[1066familyman]

i find that quite offensive to be honest, i'm not a believer (in homeopathy or god) but my close family are, to essentially describe them as 'thick' is highly insulting and makes you incredibly ignorant. Which i'm sure you're not really.....

This is exactly my point. He's not displaying ignorance but arrogance, as well as being extremely patronising.

 

[bristolseagull]

This is exactly my point. He's not displaying ignorance but arrogance, as well as being extremely patronising.

I think it's all three to be honest.....

homeopathy did wonders for my girlfriend and for her mum when she was suffering from cancer, and my mum's belief in God has helped her through some exceptionally tough times. I have absolutely no problem with non-believers (of which i am one) but when they wheel out the old "its not been proved by scientists so it must be bollocks" crap it really fucks me off.....

 

[clapham_gull]

I think it's all three to be honest.....

homeopathy did wonders for my girlfriend and for her mum when she was suffering from cancer, and my mum's belief in God has helped her through some exceptionally tough times. I have absolutely no problem with non-believers (of which i am one) but when they wheel out the old "its not been proved by scientists so it must be bollocks" crap it really fucks me off.....

I just tend to think that it's the job of science to discover what science doesn't currently understand, rather than others to simply "make up" the void.

The sometimes arrogance of doctors does get on my nerves though.

I've got something irritatingly wrong with my arm. It's hurting now as it goes.

Never stopped me working, but it hurts. After going from the "we can heal this" to "there is nothing wrong", it was refreshing to finally get to the point where the doctors fully accepted there was something wrong, they knew what it was but (currently) don't know how to treat it.

 

[Varndean VI Form College]

Why hasn't Pevenseagull been banned? Or is homeophobia OK on here?

Ha! Quality!

 

[tedebear]

This is exactly my point. He's not displaying ignorance but arrogance, as well as being extremely patronising.

Its an interesting reaction of his. I wonder if he hadn't been so offensive you probably would have been more inclined to have a good old debate. (sigh I miss the NSC of old)

Anyhow...I don't believe in homeopathy, but my sister in law is a practicioner and obviously believes wholeheartedly in it, so we've had some good chinwags about it. I believe (as others have mentioned) in the power of placebo, which I think is what happens when people get great results from it - never underestimate the power of the human mind. I'm not however in the game of belittling my sister in law for her belief - nor has she ever told me I'm an indiot for not believeing. We tend to go about it in an adult way.

 

[1066familyman]

I think it's all three to be honest.....

homeopathy did wonders for my girlfriend and for her mum when she was suffering from cancer, and my mum's belief in God has helped her through some exceptionally tough times. I have absolutely no problem with non-believers (of which i am one) but when they wheel out the old "its not been proved by scientists so it must be bollocks" crap it really fucks me off.....

It seems to me that the believers in all things scientific pay little heed or respect to the spiritual dimension that is inherent in all human beings. I have no problem with people putting their faith and trust in science and the purely physical realm, that's their prerogative and I'm not saying they're right or wrong. I'm not really that interested in arguing with them either as I have no real desire to 'convert' anyone or justify my own beliefs to anyone but myself. My problem is when they dismiss those who don't share their viewpoint as being idioitic, ignorant, stupid etc etc. I also wonder why, if they're so confident in their viewpoint, why they seek to belittle others for theirs ?

 

[GoldWithFalmer]

I have both read up on it and seen the same methods as homoeopathy used in an experiment in uni. There is no way this thing can work.

Placebo effect is all it's good for.

You can't possibly have....a friend of mine is a Faith healer...she has more books on every single aspect than you could ever imagine,diet,physics,anatomy,astronomy,law,chemical composites.......the list are endless & exhaustive for what she is required to know in order to be what she is.

 

[Husty]

You can't possibly have....a friend of mine is a Faith healer...she has more books on every single aspect than you could ever imagine,diet,physics,anatomy,astronomy,law,chemical composites.......the list are endless & exhaustive for what she is required to know in order to be what she is.

Faith Healer give me a break.

 

[GoldWithFalmer]

Faith Healer give me a break.

She is a friend....we all have them good and bad-some people who don't believe in alternative medicine are happy to smoke take drugs,drink and put all types of crap into their systems,to gain a state of mind....this is mildly amusing and as such a major contradiction!!

 

[One Love]

Just to check, you accept evolution, don't you?

To be fair this was done to death in the "God" thread.

I accept evolution but I personally believe it had intelligent design behind it.

You may find that difficult to stomach but I find it hard to imagine that the billion and one biochemical reactions it has taken to cause life as we know it all occurred haphazardly.

 

[Pevenseagull]

I revise my position. It's bullshit, those who believe in it are misguided and foolish

 

[Glenn-Murray]

The placebo effect is very real. Homeopathy induces a placebo effect and this can help people. The medicine, however, is completely useless.

I wonder if it was actually the homeopathy that helped her cancer - or the chemotherapy/radiotherapy that went with it?

 

[fork me]

I'm certainly not a believer, however my fiancée is and she swears by it.

Its exceptionally arrogant to simply dismiss it as bullshit,

Horses for courses innit.

It's not arrogant at all. The explanations used by homeopathists to explain how it works are pure nonsense and make no sense whatsoever.

It IS bullshit, pure and simple.

Do you actually KNOW how it's supposed to work?

 

[fork me]

this is so funny.

like saying "herbs and healing done for centuries by the maya, inca, and indian tribes did not work"

so mind controlled into western group think it is untrue.

It's not like that at all. A lot of herbal medicine DOES work, not only that it's been proven to work and many of the drugs commonly used are made from plant extracts. In many cases the only difference between a pharmaceutical rememdy and a herbal one is that the pharmaceutical version has a more accurately measured dose of the theraputic agent.

Homeopathy, on the other hand, is just bullshit.

 

[fork me]

Not it's not. Here's a FACT about homepathy:

Homeopathic rememdies are so dilute that for there to be 1 molecule of the apparent active ingredient to remain you'd need a sphere of water whose diameter is roughly the distance from the earth to the sun.

How's that going to work?

According to homeopathic theory, the water retains a "memory" of the substance that was diluted. Pure bullshit.
What homeopathists never try and explain is why the water retains a memory of the substance they want it to but not all the other millions of substances that it has come onto contact with. It's bullshit, pure and simple.

Herbal remedies of the Maya will have worked, as it was those herbs and plants that pharmacutical companies used to make most of the actual medicines we see today.

Vastly different things.

Quite, the problem is that those who knock REAL science don;t actually know anything about it and assume that because real scientists know homeopathy is bullshit, they automatically don't believe in ANY alternative medicine. That clearly isn't the case.

 

[fork me]

Take as you find, I say.

We tried it once, and it seemed to help. Our boy was struggling with bad coughs in the night, really chocking, phlegm and everything. A couple of times it was quite scary, but the "conventional" route found nothing wrong with him, because, in the daytime he would seem fine, for days / weeks on end he'd seem fine, and then have a night of this. Didn't want him pumped full of various drugs and antibiotics to see what worked, so we opted to take a harmless route of homeopathy. Didn't particular expect it to work, but figured what he would be taking as a result would either help or be harmless, so we had nowt to lose other than a few quid.

One visit, one course of something or other, and he never had the problem again. Of course it could be coincidence, but it did seem to work for us.

It was coincidence. I spent two weeks in October with pretty much the same symptoms. I didn't take anything and it suddenly stopped. It's not unusual with symptoms like that.

The real risk you took wasn't taking the homeopathic remedies, there just distilled water anyway, they'll do nothing, bad or good. The real risk is that if it WAS something more serious you were wasting time doing something useless instead of getting to the root cause of it.

Unfortunately a lot of these "alternatives" have a lack of regulations, and therefore there will be numerous chancers out there, as I've found with Chinese medicine. My first experience with a Chinese alternative at a little place by Leicester Sq was literally magical, but having tried a couple of little High St places a few years later, they were just chancers selling me utter rubbish that did nothing.

ALL of the alternatives have a lack of regulations. Chinese medicine is a bit like the ancient Mayan stuff mentioned. They use herbs, some of which will work. A GOOD Chinese practitioner can help you with a lot of medical problems, but, as you say, there's no regulations and therefore no way to tell the conartist from the real deal.

 

[fork me]

for you mother, clearly it didn’t work, fair enough. I know plenty who have reaped the benefits of this and other alternative medicines, i am baffled at the ignorance and arrogance of some of you lot. OPEN YOUR MINDS MAN!

My mind is open, that's why I know homeopathy is bullshit. An open mind observes, discovers, checks up on facts.

A closed mind just accepts what it is told: ie homeopathy works, if you don't go to church on sunday you go to hell, etc etc etc

 

[fork me]

Some holistic remedies can be used to good effect.
Echinacea to help boost the respiratory system and help stave off cold and flu bugs, as well as give supportive relief to asthma or bronchitis sufferers, absolutely works.
It doesn't cure necessarily, but I believe it can give reinforcement to the body's existing resistants and enable avoidance of some sicknesses.
Since there's no cure for the common cold, and asthma is only relieved by inhalers temporarily, I would suggest that echinacea is a good and effective treatment.

Glucosamine with Condroitin, and shark cartilege, have been used to help with joint pain. Also given to animals and administered as a food additive for aging pets, it's been found to show positive results.

There are loads of other herbs which have been found to be effective, but of course they don't cure cancers or other runaway illnesses - and doctors do not study them a lot of the time so they can't offer advice about them.
Tribes with members that survived to old age, have adminstered naturally found medicines, and of course the mental attitude does certainly play a big part in patients recovering from illness just by actively enthusing about getting better. The native Indians of North America use music and the enthusiasm of the 'medicine-man' leaping and hopping about in a fervour for the spiritual benefit of the tribe's members when ailing.
Why do people die when soon after a partner passes away? Because they lose interest in life, want to go, and their spirit wanes. Facts.

Of course I'd personally trust in modern medicine, and prefer to have organs cut out if they are threatening the whole body by their presence - but I won't ignore the possibilities of herbal treatment being efficacious.

What does ANY of this have to do with homeopathy?

 

[fork me]

I finished reading the bible, looked out of the window and there was a rainbow

Hallelujah

Good Book that, bit preachy though.

 

[fork me]

Homeopathy is a load of rubbish.

But of course that doesn't mean to say all alternative medicine is rubbish, even that not used by mainstream medicine. For an 'alternative medicine' to become a 'medicine', it not only has to work, but

a) has to be able to make a substantial profit for the pharmaceutical company, and therefore:

b) has to be patentable

So it's worth keeping an open mind, but equally it's best to trust the people who know what they're talking about rather than a website with lots of long words and dodgy science.

If that was true, it would be a great point, however it isn't.

Let me give you an example. I'm currently recovering from surgery. The only pahrmaceutically controlled medicine I was given was some painkillers (which are out of patent now anyway), I was however told by the surgeon to get plenty of vitamin C as it speeds up the healing, I was also told to get it from fresh fruit rather than tablets.

HTH