Is anyone else an atheist with BC besides me?

Traveltext

Good to catch up on the posts. I've come back to the fold with an interesting article!!

Prayers can't cure breast cancer – Professor of Nursing

"It was realised that the many months of prayer did not cure the breast cancer but rather contributed to spread of the cancer cells," she said."

https://newsghana.com.gh/prayers-cant-cure-breast-...

wrenn

Thanks for this TT. You have great articles. I appreciate all the research you do for those with breast cancer. :-)

I was interested in this line "It was realised that the many months of prayer did not cure the breast cancer but rather contributed to spread of the cancer cells," she said It was because they delayed treatment to go to prayer camp but not because praying makes cancer worse?

Before reading I wondered if she would say that people believing prayer would heal them didn't bother with treatment at all.

AliceBastable

I like Professor Aviato!

Elderberry

I especially hate the "God never sends you anything you can't handle"

Dear God: You are sadly wrong in overstating my ability to handle things.

Don't thank God for healing you. If you believe in God then thank God He gave us brilliant doctors and researchers.

I waiver between agnosticism and atheism. It would be comforting to believe in a Higher Power. I just can't.

kaynotrealname

Hi! Another atheist with breast cancer here. I'm the only atheist I know though so pretty much everyone has been comforting me with "I'm praying for you" and such. Which honestly is comforting in the sense that I get that they're saying that they're thinking of me and wishing me good results. Luckily no one has blamed me for my own illness though at least not to my face. Even if God exists he obviously doesn't care if people get cancer. Those who believe in a God and live what one would consider a spiritually correct life get cancer just as much as us heathens.

Elderberry

katynotrealname: Hi. I had a few Christians offering up prayers, my Muslim dentist saying he'd mention me to Allah (I guess he has a personal connection?) and a witch offering candle magic. All of it is meant well. Just don't try getting me to converting or "getting there sometime" Maybe witchcraft. At least it is natured based, attuned to the seasons and has "and it harm none"

edited to add: Katy, check out Mel's living room. "My Husband, My LIfe...." welcome to all who want to come in, to share, laugh, rant, support.

moth

I'm atheist, my oncologist it's very, very, very religious. And a bunch of friends drop off and send religious frames, artwork, statues...... it's all fine with me.

kaynotrealname

Me too. I may not display the overtly religious crap but I'm always appreciative. Hell I had some neighbors come over and lay hands on me and pray. I was hoping it would make me feel better since I was familiar with the practice from being raised in a very religious environment but nope, got nothing out of it beyond poking at my atheist children and giving them mean eyeballs so they'd be respectful. But my neighbors got something out of it and that made me feel good and they've been so kind in practical ways, too, so it's all good. At this point I figure the more support the better regardless of the beliefs of the people giving it to me.

Elderberry

When I was a little kid I had my best friend freak out when I told her I had never been baptized. She was terrified I would end up in Limbo. I figure now, if such mythical places exist, I will end up in Purgatory and stay there since I have to be undeserving of "punishment" get to Limbo. I have lots of minor sins on my rap sheet

moth: I had a GP once who was religious and sort of weirdly so. I had a persistent ganglion on my wrist. I have heard of hitting those with a heavy book. He had lots on books on the shelf behind him but he whacked mine with a huge Bible. Praise the Lord, it worked. I never had to have surgery

Elderberry

Hi All:

I thought I would share this on this board. Sent to me by my candle magic Pagan/witch friend. It is a nice painting. My Irish relatives, even though Catholic, would still have celebrated August 1st. Anyone ever seen "Dancing At Lughnasadh"

Lammas - if you are Catholic.

Edited to say: I should have said Ancestors. The closest ones have Irish in the gene pool, diluted with Scots, French and German.

AliceBastable

Does anyone here follow Randy Rainbow? He's outdone himself today with his brilliant "Thoughts and Prayers."

https://www.facebook.com/100044148563838/posts/pfb...

Betrayal

Alice, this was wonderful. He is so creative and timely. Love that he chose Cruz as the spokesperson.

GR4C1E

I really needed a laugh today, Alice. That was awesome.

Miriandra

Randy Rainbow is brilliant!

Anonymous

Moth recently stopped treatment. She asked on Twitter about a talk on atheists and dying, but no one has replied with any link . I’ve searched, but came up with nothing. Does anyone know of it?

ThreeTree

I'm sorry I can't help with any links, but I do want to say that I am just so very sad to hear that Moth is in this situation. I really hope that you can locate the link for her and that she finds some peace.

Thanks for doing what you're doing, Serenity.

LI77

I’m not sure if this is it (why you want a physicist to speak at your funeral):

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4675953

kaynotrealname

Oh that was beautiful speech. Much better than any preacher I've ever heard.

Anonymous

li77 - That sounds like it might be. I now remember seeing this before, but I had forgotten it. I’ll reply to moth with it. I don’t know if she’s reading the threads or her PMs. Thank you!

Anonymous

I replied on Twitter and by email. In the email I added a link to the Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. I have the book and saw the video long before cancer found me. Now I want to watch it again with the kids. Mine are adults, but it’s never too late to learn life lessons. I admit I have succumbed to converting to Apple products, but not the Mac!

ThreeTree

I don't consider myself an atheist, but probably somewhere between agnostic and believer. Over the course of my life I've pondered the "enduring question" about whether God exists, etc. over and over. I came to the conclusion for myself that if there is a God, it/he/she probably transcends any general concept that any of us have, and that whatever God is might actually have more to do with the forces of the universe; forces out there for good and bad (good and evil), forces that create, and forces that destroy. I am no scientist by any means, but this idea came to make the most sense to me over time, with my non-scientific brain.

It was fabulous to read the transcription in the link that li77 sent above. I had never before heard of anyone putting this sort of idea "out there" - thought it was just some wacky thing in my brain that I would be careful who I mentioned it to. The content of the transcription completely jives though, with the kind of stuff I've been thinking about when it comes to God, life (and "eternal" life), and death. I think that organized religion can have some comforting ways to frame all of this, and that it can be a true help to many people, and I think that conventional religion actually uses a lot of analogies that would fit with what this physicist has described, but I can't help but think that in the final analysis, our actual living and dying is more specifically/truly explained by this "physicist argument".

Interesting, my brother who has Asperger's or Autism of some kind told me when his cat died, that he was comforted in part by the fact that "her molecules were inside" him and would remain there for the rest of his life. Weird as this will sound to most, he even told me that he waited to take her to the vet for cremation and kept her in his apartment for a day after she died, just so that "more of her molecules would be in me".

Maybe those who are on a little different plane than the rest of us really do have some true and beneficial insights into the world - insights that most of us are just never able to see or understand.

Thank you for your post li77.

DivineMrsM

I’m heartbroken to learn that moth has stopped treatment.
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Serenity, I’ve seen the video talk given by Randy Pausch and also read his book, both prior to mbc. Several years after his death, his wife wrote a memoir which I also read. All were very memorable and meaningful.

Anonymous

Threetree- I've written elsewhere that I was born atheist into a devout Catholic family. I mostly went to parochial schools. Yet the whole time I found it difficult to accept what I was taught. I had lots of religion but no faith.

When a history teacher said that mythology started as a way to explain phenomena before scientists could, I extended that to religion. It's a way to control the masses. It's a way to comfort people about what happens after death or to answer the meaning of life. I like the physicist's explanation of death. Your brother isn't far off.

While we're not Buddhists, my husband and I like their idea of easing suffering. Moth did that in spades. I wrote to her that in doing so she has left an imprint on all the lives she touched in person and virtually. That goes beyond the physics of dying.

Divine - I confess since cancer I haven't read much on how people handle cancer or death except how to manage side effects of treatments. I used to think of death a lot before. 🙃 There's an old movie with Emma Thompson called Wit. She plays someone dying of cancer. I did enjoy watching it before cancer, but I don't think I could now. I prefer getting lost in cancer-free works.

Traveltext

Moth posts updates here:

https://nevertellmetheodds2017.tumblr.com/

On Twitter she is Indefatigable/Margaret.

Have been unable to find the article she’s looking for, too.

Elderberry

traveltext: I find it hard to believe in a God/Goddess, Hairy Thunderer or Cosmic Muffin. But I do believe that in nature everything is comprised of molecules and energy (whatever "energy" actually is) and that the energy gets dispersed, Like the light coming from a long dead star. We aren't gone, but our energy has gone somewhere out into the ether, the cosmos.

serenitystat: I don't think you have to believe in anything, just being a decent human being, cleaning up after yourself, offering a helping hand. Currently, the worst offenders are folks on the Far Right in the USA claiming to be Christians. I don't think Jesus' gospel included gratuitous cruelty.

MinusTwo

Oh yes, the Last Lecture is one of my favorite books.

I am so sorry to hear about Moth. Since BCO turned the site upside down, I no longer read many of the threads I used to follow. Can you give us a link to a thread where Moth is still active? Of course if it's a Stage 4 thread, those of who aren't there won't post. But I'd love to read her thoughts.

Traveltext

You can read Moth's sad BCO posts here:

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/163/topics/856706?page=2793#post_5762360

AliceBastable

I emailed Moth about two weeks ago and got a brief reply. She included all her online contact info.

"Thank you, that means a lot. I've been too confused often mentally too with bco. Hi to see you better elsewhere."

I'm margaret.young@shaw.ca

Mistressofthehounds@gmail.com

IG @itisjustastage

https://nevertellmetheodds2017.tumblr.com/

____________________________________________

For those of you looking for a connection to the universe, have you explored Pantheism? Regular Pantheism is kind of a one-with-nature thing, sometimes a little tree-huggy, but mostly nice. Scientific Pantheism is more an in-touch-with-the-universe, hail Gene Roddenberry vibe. It could just be me, but I sometimes suspected there were so-called Objectivists (Ayn Rand ick pooey 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮), involved, but it could just be my suspicious mind. And sadly, there is a contingent of Trek fans that lean that way (trying hard not to say incels, but I lost that battle 🤷), so there may be overlap between them and Sci-Pan.

AliceBastable

This was posted 8 hours ago on Mel's, so about 9:15 Friday night. Damn, but it's good she's with her family.

ThreeTree

Alice - Thanks so much for sharing all of the latest re Moth/Margaret. She seems like a wonderful person and I have always greatly appreciated her contributions to this forum. I'm so glad she has her daughter to help her now.

(As an aside and on another topic, I wanted to let you know that even though I do not consider myself an atheist, I can totally understand why many are, and I am one who has no problem whatsoever with things like your last supper cartoon, and the similar things posted by Wrenn, Divinemrsm, and others. I think we should all be able to laugh at anything and everything from time to time, granted there are certain times when certain jokes aren't called for.)

I too find the concept of pantheism very interesting. I think most all religions have "basics" that are shared and that they are all really looking to explain and do the same thing, e.g. "do unto others".