Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Was Christ Incompetent?


Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. The seizures happen when a lot of neuronal activity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_oscillation occurs in the brain. Sometimes a state of “religious ecstasy with visual and auditory hallucinations” happens with the seizures occur. Certain people have “religious experiences”, some even think they’re God. http://eugrafal.free.fr/Dewhurst-Beard-2003.pdf

What is really happening is a part of their brain is some how damaged allowing their emotional part of the brain to over power memories. For example looking a desk would give them intense emotion or seeing a piece of driftwood in the ocean they would think God purposely put it there. They follow their own set of Religious Ethics. This leads me to think, how many of the people who have had “religious experiences” suffered from TLE? It would be interesting to find out the statistics. Could Christ have suffered from Temporal Lobe Epilepsy? Could all his followers have just been really gullible and over exaggerated the stories and the Bible? If Christ were born in today’s world, would we deem him incompetent and label him with a disorder or disease and simply give him medication? Is it to far to even say that Western Medicine is crushing the creative thinkers of today? Is Western Medicine crushing the Christ’s of today?

If there hadn’t been any advances on medicine would we be treating the “crazy” people of today the same? Would we all hear a story like a man thinking he was God and think he was incompetent and needed to be “fixed” and put on medication. The way Western Medicine presents itself in today’s society is viewed as good and saves millions of lives… But has it also ruined millions of competent creative thinkers? Is it right for us to see someone different then the average person and automatically put a label on him or her?

How Much is too Much?

When it comes to life or death, how much does it take to make a decision? With all the technology around in the hospitals these days, it has become a belief that death is preventable. But does that mean that death is in some way a failure? In a recent article in Vancouver’s Globe and Mail newspaper, a reporter follows the lives of a 20 bed unit at Sunnybrook Critical Care Center for two-and-a-half months. This center has more intensive care units than any other facility in Canada. These kinds of places are a last chance for some people who have suffered severely traumatic injuries.

The 21st Century way to die is to listen to the beeping of the machine that makes a noise every time your heart pounds. Everyday there is a constant search for new technologies to keep people alive, but why do we do it? If we are dying, isn’t it

just nature taking its course? Everyone dies eventually by why do we try and keep death at bay. We do everything we can to stop death when it is completely natural. Yes, I do understand what places such Sunnybrook do, they give people another chance to live life but the obstacles that these people go through is beyond normal. Patients spend months here just so they can be told whether or not they will live if without the full dose of morphine or whatever other drug is keeping them alive. When will the world full of brilliant minds decide when to stop creating machines that keep people alive with help of drugs and sometimes without ever having the chance to think for themselves again? I understand that some people want this but at some point the consequences of living like this will come to play.

“Innovation when it matters most” these innovations are saving people but killing them too. I’ll let you decide what you would want to do, but I believe that my take on this matter is clear.