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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Why cancer?
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Siegfried
Ship's ferret
# 29
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Posted
We have earthquakes because a geologically living world has plate tectonics. These same forces introduced C02 into the atmosphere which early plants used to create an oxygen atmosphere we can breathe.
We have hurricanes because energy imbalances lead to a transfer mechanism (hurricanes are VERY good at moving heat from the tropics to the temperate zones).
Gamma bursters that could sterilize life on earth because that's where heavier elements like metals come from.
Plenty of examples if you want to try and explain natural disasters in theological context without resorting to a fallen creation.
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Siegfried
Life is just a bowl of cherries!
Posts: 5592 | From: Tallahassee, FL USA | Registered: May 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Siegfried:
We have earthquakes because a geologically living world has plate tectonics. These same forces introduced C02 into the atmosphere which early plants used to create an oxygen atmosphere we can breathe.
We have hurricanes because energy imbalances lead to a transfer mechanism (hurricanes are VERY good at moving heat from the tropics to the temperate zones).
Gamma bursters that could sterilize life on earth because that's where heavier elements like metals come from.
Plenty of examples if you want to try and explain natural disasters in theological context without resorting to a fallen creation.
That's just the flip side of Boyd's thesis. The "brokenness" of the world is "natural"-- that's a given. The question is, why? If we believe in a good God, we have to account for the reality that the what is "natural" causes a great deal of both human and animal suffering and entails a high degree of injustice (the strong survive only by preying on the weak, evolution works by weeding out the weak, etc.) One way to do that is to frame all that natural evil as the "fallenness" or corruption of creation, and to imagine a world that operated differently.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
You can apply the same argument (as with plate tectonics) to pain and death - that they are beneficial. Pain is clearly of benefit to animals, as a warning system; death is beneficial to the ecosystem by removing stuff.
I suppose then you might argue, but there is too much pain, and then you are back with the autonomy of the natural world, which 'makes itself'. Or you are back with non-intervention, which is the same thing.
So there seems to be the idea lurking, that God should intervene but doesn't (to stop the pain). I don't know the solution to that, I suppose one solution is just to accept it all.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
You can apply the same argument (as with plate tectonics) to pain and death - that they are beneficial. Pain is clearly of benefit to animals, as a warning system; death is beneficial to the ecosystem by removing stuff.
I suppose then you might argue, but there is too much pain, and then you are back with the autonomy of the natural world, which 'makes itself'. Or you are back with non-intervention, which is the same thing.
So there seems to be the idea lurking, that God should intervene but doesn't (to stop the pain). I don't know the solution to that, I suppose one solution is just to accept it all.
Yes. The alternative is to accept, as per Boyd, that the world as it naturally now exists is not the world as God intended it to be-- taking seriously the biblical texts about the "groaning" of creation for the coming restoration/ recreation of both heaven & earth.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
You can apply the same argument (as with plate tectonics) to pain and death - that they are beneficial. Pain is clearly of benefit to animals, as a warning system; death is beneficial to the ecosystem by removing stuff.
I suppose then you might argue, but there is too much pain, and then you are back with the autonomy of the natural world, which 'makes itself'. Or you are back with non-intervention, which is the same thing.
So there seems to be the idea lurking, that God should intervene but doesn't (to stop the pain). I don't know the solution to that, I suppose one solution is just to accept it all.
Yes. The alternative is to accept, as per Boyd, that the world as it naturally now exists is not the world as God intended it to be-- taking seriously the biblical texts about the "groaning" of creation for the coming restoration/ recreation of both heaven & earth.
But plate tectonics and therefore earthquakes, disease and suffering all predate humans. If the universe isn't as God intented, then it seems to me that, contra a traditional reading of Genesis 1-3, it weren't us what done it, yeronner.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
You can apply the same argument (as with plate tectonics) to pain and death - that they are beneficial. Pain is clearly of benefit to animals, as a warning system; death is beneficial to the ecosystem by removing stuff.
I suppose then you might argue, but there is too much pain, and then you are back with the autonomy of the natural world, which 'makes itself'. Or you are back with non-intervention, which is the same thing.
So there seems to be the idea lurking, that God should intervene but doesn't (to stop the pain). I don't know the solution to that, I suppose one solution is just to accept it all.
Yes. The alternative is to accept, as per Boyd, that the world as it naturally now exists is not the world as God intended it to be-- taking seriously the biblical texts about the "groaning" of creation for the coming restoration/ recreation of both heaven & earth.
But plate tectonics and therefore earthquakes, disease and suffering all predate humans. If the universe isn't as God intented, then it seems to me that, contra a traditional reading of Genesis 1-3, it weren't us what done it, yeronner.
Yes. If you're following my summary of Boyd's argument, you'd see it certainly is not a "traditional" (by which I assume you mean literal) reading of Gen. 1-3. And since what I'm talking about is natural evil, it is, by definition, that evil which cannot be placed at humanity's door. The evil we're talking about here began some 4 billion (or more) years ago.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
The evolution of pain is itself interesting, since presumably it has to be fairly intense, and also sudden, otherwise it would not work as a warning, in the face of danger or injury. It's just that we sometimes get an overload, when we have got the message, but it still keeps sending it.
I think Dawkins has an interesting discussion of it somewhere; I will have a look. There is also the question as to which animals don't have pain, or have a reduced version, e.g. insects, fish, and so on. I think Descartes argues that animals don't suffer pain, now discredited.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
I tracked this down last evening -
The Rhetoric of Cancer
(It's BBC World Service - I hope it's widely available. If not, I suppose it may be available from some other source.)
I think it's a superb exploration of one person's search for a language that would express his experience of cancer. It's interesting that the only person in the interviews who really pushed the military metaphor was the charity fundraiser. Everyone else was very willing to explore other languages, and, I think, to stay with Graystone's agenda rather than pushing their own. Beautiful.
And I won't spoil the ending (yet), but there was a phrase in the final interview that knocked me for six.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Persephone Hazard
Ship's Wench
# 4648
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
In the public health messages here there is beginning to be a puritanical undertone that people are causing their own health problems by their unhealthy lifestyle choices and questions about withholding treatment from people who are culpable are being asked.
Yes, this. It's getting more and more evident as the country continues to veer dangerously rightward.
Cancer is particularly susceptible to it because, of all illnesses, it's the one that people seem most prone to narrativising: people who have cancer aren't patients with illnesses, they're WARRIORS who are BRAVELY FIGHTING in their BATTLE WITH CANCER. Through it all they must remain positive and upbeat and determined and strong, and at the end they must go peacefully and calmly having reconciled themselves to their end and reassured their loved ones that everything is going to be okay.
Of course, living with and dying of cancer isn't actually like that at all, but it's the illness that people most like to tell these stories about.
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A picture is worth a thousand words, but it's a lot easier to make up a thousand words than one decent picture. - ken.
Posts: 1645 | From: London | Registered: Jun 2003
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
I suspect the secular world is moving towards sin as a cause of cancer as one third of cancers are linked to poor diet and lack of exercise, and then there are the cancers which are linked to sun exposure, smoking, alcohol consumption and sexual activity.
- poor diet - bowel cancer; but many more
- sun exposure - skin and retinal cancers;
- smoking -lung, throat and bladder cancers;
- alcohol consumption - head & neck, oesophageal, breast, liver and colorectal cancers;
- lack of exercise - breast and colon cancers;
- obesity - postmenopausal breast cancer, colorectal cancer, uterine cancer, kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer, gallbladder cancer, thyroid cancer, and esophageal cancer. Other cancers that may be linked to obesity include prostate cancer, liver cancer, ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, multiple myeloma, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
- Sexual activity - cervical, prostrate, penile and throat cancers
Are you suggesting that prostrate cancer is caused by employing the missionary position?
I'm unsure how in the secular Not connected with religious or spiritual matters world sin An immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law can be considered to be a cause of anything - but that aside if you think sun exposure, obesity ( a condition linked to the disproportionate evolutionary success of those genetically programmed to crave sweetness and animal fat) and sexual activity are sinful then a divinity who was responsible for our involuntary performance of such sin would reasonably be where the buck stops - would it not?
You seem to overlook the role of heredity, particularly in such as breast cancer and prostate cancer where, I'm advised by specialists, one man in eight will fall prey, rising to two in eight for those with a paternal or sibling sufferer - and five in eight (odds on - more likely than not!) for those with both parental and sibling victims.
AIUI some Christians think (in effect) that their god selects the inherited genetic mix whilst others think it can't be bothered to interfere - but most (all?) think it could. Be nice if, in respect of Muscular Dystrophy, Cystic fibrosis, Glaucoma etc,, etc, it did - wouldn't it?
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
@ HughWillRidMe I am not personally suggesting anything about sin, I am making an observation after doing some work on this recently.
As I said here
quote:
Eliab - I wasn't actually saying that sin caused cancer but that a lot of secular responses to cancer, including those of the Cancer Research Council which I quoted, are implicitly blaming cancer sufferers for their disease. There seems to be an underlying message that cancers are avoidable if people follow health advice, don't smoke, don't drink, eat 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day, cut down on processed and red meat and stay out of the sun.
Adeodatus and orfeo [are] also reflecting that point in their posts. That there is an undercurrent, for example, that people with lung cancer had obviously smoked and brought it upon themselves - hence the guilt.
My point wasn't that sin causes cancer as in a Christian sense of punishment for evil doing, but that there is a perception that cancer is a punishment for not treating our bodies as temples.
As the rest of the thread continued to point out.
(And I can't remember, but I may well have copied and pasted that "prostrate" instead of "prostate" as I had double checked all that information on various sites and copied and pasted some of the lists.)
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
CK, I followed the Cancer Research link you provided on the risks of smoking. It says:
quote:
Does smoking increase cancer risk?
There is an absolutely undeniable link between smoking and many different types of cancer. Smoking causes over 8 out of 10 cases (80%) of lung cancer in the UK.
Smoking can also increase your risk of cancer of the
[list of other body parts]
Overall, about a quarter (25%) of all cancer deaths are linked to smoking. There is a lot more information about risk of cancer and smoking on the Cancer Research UK News and Resources website.
I struggle to see why you think this is "implicitly blaming cancer sufferers for their disease." Their statement would also be entirely consistent with alternate moral positions - for example, that tobacco companies are to blame. Where exactly do you see the specific implication of blaming cancer sufferers?
I'm assuming that you don't dispute the factual assertion that exposure to concentrated tobacco smoke does, in fact, increase the risk of cancer, and that you agree that it's a proper function of Cancer Research to study and report the causes of cancer. If so, can you suggest how this statement could be re-written to avoid the implication you see?
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Don't kill Curiosity, she's just the messenger.
It's not only the Christian idea of cancer being theconsequence of sin. I know some atheists who, while renouncing all Christianity as silly superstition, firmly believe that cancer is the result of bad karma. In short, only mean spirited people get it. This makes me furious.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Some New Age groups seem to have that view, or something similar. Bad thoughts lead to sickness, so make your thoughts good ones, and you will be well. Nonsense.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
@ DaveW - here I quoted directly from the Cancer Research site, as below - the urls to the links are embedded.
quote:
Smoking causes over 8 out of 10 cases (80%) of lung cancer in the UK.
quote:
Every year, alcohol causes 4% of cancers in the UK, around 12,500 cases.
Well, yes, I know what they say - as I said before, I followed your links. In fact, I even reproduced the lung cancer quote in my own post.
But I am still entirely mystified as to how you see these statements as "implicitly blaming cancer sufferers for their disease". (Again, I think one could say the same thing if one thought tobacco companies were entirely to blame and smokers entirely innocent.) quote:
I also said there that I was surprised that the Cancer Research site so explicitly said that cancers were caused by alcohol and smoking in those links.
Yes, and I still find that entirely incomprehensible. (Not that I think smokers deserve lung cancer as the wages of sin - I simply can't see why you think CR is implying that.)
At the risk of seeming annoyingly repetitive (and recognizing you needn't feel any obligation to enlighten me) I invite your attention to the last part of what I wrote before:
"I'm assuming that you don't dispute the factual assertion that exposure to concentrated tobacco smoke does, in fact, increase the risk of cancer, and that you agree that it's a proper function of Cancer Research to study and report the causes of cancer. If so, can you suggest how this statement could be re-written to avoid the implication you see?"
If you don't mind answering this, I really think it might help me understand your position.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Because the current healthy lifestyles curriculum in the UK is all about avoiding cancer risk (and heart disease) One of the questions to be answered with an essay is about lifestyle choices leading to heart disease and cancer. And the human biology bit of the science curriculum is all about eating healthily and exercising to avoid cancer, heart disease and diabetes. As are all the public health messages.
The overriding message coming across is that we need to eat sensibly, avoid the sun, stop smoking and drinking, avoid risky sex and exercise to avoid getting cancer. And it is drummed into us in the UK. So when someone gets cancer the immediate thought is "what unhealthy life choices did they make?" even if you then override it.
And both orfeo, in Australia, and Adeodatus, a hospital chaplain in the UK, agreed that cancer sufferers have to deal with that implicit accusation or feel guilty for having cancer.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
The overriding message coming across is that we need to eat sensibly, avoid the sun, stop smoking and drinking, avoid risky sex and exercise to avoid getting cancer. And it is drummed into us in the UK. So when someone gets cancer the immediate thought is "what unhealthy life choices did they make?" even if you then override it.
To make it all worse, that long list of things to do and not do to avoid cancer gets more complicated all the time. We should avoid the sun to prevent skin cancer but we need more sun to prevent breast and colorectal cancer. We should eat lots of fruits and vegetables but, unless we can buy organic, we need to avoid many of them because of the toxic level of insecticides. We should eat fat, but only the ones with the right molecular chain. Women should avoid risky sex but try to have a few babies.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
CK - Would you prefer that Cancer Research stop researching the causes of cancer? (That would probably save some money.) Or simply stop publicizing the results of their research?
Is there any way to communicate this fact: quote:
Smoking causes over 8 out of 10 cases (80%) of lung cancer in the UK.
without "blaming cancer sufferers" (as you put it)?
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Dave W. - I am not blaming cancer sufferers. I am just responding to the OP, where Qoheleth asked about a theology of cancer. In his OP he rejected the idea of sin causing sickness, which has been seen in some churches over the years. I pointed out that even if churches refrained from blaming cancer sufferers, there was an implicit message from the secular information on cancer that lifestyle choices caused cancer. And that maybe the message from charities such as Cancer Research was effectively saying that sin (as in unhealthy lifestyle) causes (or has a strong link to) cancer.
I suspect society's mixed messages are more to do with a belief that science can and should fix everything, including death, and that cancer is fixable if you avoid all risk factors. Personally, I would say that we have to die sometime, and having removed a number of diseases by vaccination and bacterial infections through antibiotics, we are now more likely to die of cancer, heart disease or diabetes - the so called lifestyle illnesses. But at a much older age than we would have died of cholera or typhoid.
Maybe it's to do with death being the taboo of the 21st Century (and 20th) when sex was the taboo of the Victorian age.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
And that maybe the message from charities such as Cancer Research was effectively saying that sin (as in unhealthy lifestyle) causes (or has a strong link to) cancer.
But it's true that some behavior has a strong link with cancer. What else could they possibly say? (And if you or other people equate smoking with sin, that's entirely up to you - CR isn't saying that.)
I think it's great that CR is telling people about the link between smoking and lung cancer, and I think it's very odd that you're "surprised" that they're doing this.
I imagine that people who smoke and get lung cancer may well feel somewhat worse knowing that their own behavior probably caused it. But I also think that just getting lung cancer is bad enough that "Don't tell anybody what causes it!" can't be a reasonable policy for an organization called Cancer Research.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
I am not surprised that Cancer Research is linking risk factors to cancer. I am surprised that they are stating that 4% of cancers are caused by alcohol consumption, less surprised that they are stating 80% of lung cancers are caused* by smoking.
The OP says:
quote:
I take it that we've moved away from sinful sickness.
All I was doing was pointing out the fact that secular charities are linking behaviours with cancer risks. Which rather seems to negate a breaking of a link of illness with sin or behaviours.
And that's all I have said, but I feel as if I have had to spend this entire thread defending that comment, to different people with radically different points of view.
* it's the statement of causation rather than increased risks that surprises me.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Stercus Tauri
Shipmate
# 16668
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Posted
I wasn't going to get involved in this, but perhaps one pointed comment wouldn't hurt. Of bloody course many cancers are our own damn fault. Not all, but certainly many. Twenty three years ago, back when I was immortal and loved to get a heavy tan, was it anyone else's fault - God, the devil or my in-laws on whose boat I was sailing shirtless - that my back was burnt to the point that it blistered? Whose fault was it that I ended up with melanoma that has probably cost the health system hundreds of thousands of dollars? I did it all myself. If that was a sin, then I confess it.
[ 19. July 2014, 14:23: Message edited by: Stercus Tauri ]
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Thay haif said. Quhat say thay, Lat thame say (George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal)
Posts: 905 | From: On the traditional lands of the Six Nations. | Registered: Sep 2011
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
I am not surprised that Cancer Research is linking risk factors to cancer. I am surprised that they are stating that 4% of cancers are caused by alcohol consumption, less surprised that they are stating 80% of lung cancers are caused* by smoking.
The OP says:
quote:
I take it that we've moved away from sinful sickness.
All I was doing was pointing out the fact that secular charities are linking behaviours with cancer risks. Which rather seems to negate a breaking of a link of illness with sin or behaviours.
They're certainly not breaking a link of illness with behaviors. Why would they? There is a link.
You seem to think it's impossible to discuss a link between behavior and illness without implying that the behavior is sinful. But there's nothing in the CR statements themselves that implies those behaviors are "sinful" and I think its wrong to use them as examples of "implicitly blaming cancer sufferers for their disease."
quote:
* it's the statement of causation rather than increased risks that surprises me.
But why not causation? They've got statistics from careful observation and an explanatory biological mechanism, so what more do they need before they say "smoking causes 80% of lung cancers"?
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Because I don't think that cancer is linked to lifestyle choices as directly as cause and effect, there are other mechanisms at work.
Because this thread was opened to ask how to support someone who was dealing with the devastation of cancer.
Because I've watched too many people die of cancer and I don't particularly want to start pointing fingers at them and blaming them for their own deaths, particularly when the cancers involved don't have recognised direct links. Emotionally that is too devastating.
And now, I'm out of here. Too raw, too painful and not a discussion I'm continuing.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
Linking cancer to lifestyle choices is not the same as linking cancer to sin. However, I'd be the first to agree that some of the advertising and media coverage of cancer risk factors is unhelpfully guilt-laden, and it's something that often comes up in chaplains' dealings with people with cancer.
The problem goes like this - yes, you smoked; yes, it causes cancer; yes, you've got it. But what are we going to do with that? Bang on and on about it so that "it's all my own fault" becomes just one more of the many things that are suddenly crap in your life? No: we try to help this person see that today is day zero, and from today, with or without cancer, they have a life to live.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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3M Matt
Shipmate
# 1675
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Posted
As said earlier, I can't see anything that particularly marks Cancer out against any other form of biological illness.
Or indeed, against a wider sphere of psychological illness...
Or, come to that, any other kind of suffering at all. It's all the same question phrased different ways surely?
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3M Matt.
Posts: 1227 | From: London | Registered: Nov 2001
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