alternative explanations?

[curiosityandthecat]

Yep, location and unknown environmental factors have a great deal to do with how your body reacts. I have psoriasis. When I'm staying with my mother (using the same soap and shampoo I use at home), my psoriasis almost completely goes away. My diet doesn't change, nor does what I put on my skin. I can only figure it's the water. Supernatural? Not unless you consider municipal water treatment supernatural, no.

[Squid]

hey guys

i've recently started veering towards atheism but am struggling with unexplainable things like...

Hi polka.  I can't say I can provide definitive answers to your questions but I will try my best.

instant healing- of cancer or not being able to walk (i have witnesses some of these so they are hard to shake, dont tell me they dont happen!)

Cancer is notorious for spontaneous remission.  It doesn't mean it's gone just in remission - sometimes for years or even decades.  It depends on what kind of cancer it was, what causative agents there may have been and so forth.  Sometimes just changes in diet, treatment regimines or the like finally take hold and it goes into remission.  Pinning down a specific reason for the remission can be difficult if performed at all, however, this is not to say that the unknown cause should be deferred to supernatural explanations.

near death experiences of heaven/hell etc

NDEs are interesting.  However, much of the scientific research done points to alterations in brain function due primarily to oxygen depravation.  NDEs have also been induced in pilots going through high G training as well as the use of the dissociative anesthetic ketamine and other compounds.  We also must understand that the stories are given to us by those people after the fact and during such situations there is no guarantee that the memories are actually reliable themselves.  G.M. Woerlee wrote an interesting book on the subject which you should check out if you have the time:

http://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Minds-Biology-Death-Experiences/dp/1591022835/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234241065&sr=1-4

And here's and article he wrote a while back:

http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-05/near-death-experience.html

talking to god - hearing stuff out loud

The most pragmatic answer would be auditory hallucinations which are much more common than most people think.  However, they don't necessitate being linked to a disorder of any sort.  Ambiguous sensory stimuli such as sounds can be interpreted differently by many people.  Some just hear white noise and others here voices.  This may be especially prevalent in alteration of consciousness such as during deep prayer which is similar neuorfunctionally to meditation.  Andrew Newberg did some interesting studies with Franscican Nuns and Tibetan Buddhists using SPECT scans and found similar functionality between the two.  An important point was the decrease function in the parietal lobe which governs our spatial filter of what is us and what is other things - breakdown of this function can lead to feelings of being a part of something "greater" hence the often reported feeling of many meditators of "being at one with the universe".

a bloke i know who struggled financially and then said God sent him money..like the exact amounts he needed down to the penny...for his bills before he'd even told his wife what they owed let alone anyone else.

That is wild but then again, why is this person so sure it was divine intervention?  People often downplay coincidences and anomalous happenings.  One time I flipped a quarter and it landed exactly on the side, as strange as it sounds - I had a table full of witnesses who saw it happen.  Really cool but I doubt it was anything supernatural.  At some point someone is bound to flip a coin and it will land that way.  Albeit it bounced a couple of times before resting.  It could have been the right amount of force, a groove in the table many things could have played a part to produce such a result. Some things are just pure luck.  However, if it is more comforting for someone to say it was divine intervention, okay, I have no problem with them thinking that.  It is just when some things happen that seem impossible and a person settles upon that supernatural explanation and even when a perfectly reasonable explanation is given yet they cling to their preconceived idea is there a problem.  Now for this to happen repeatedly, that would be something to really take notice of.

any explanations?

ta =]

These probably aren't the explanations you may have hoped for but I hope I shed a bit of light on some things for you.

[polka]

Have you eaten the foods you had problems with since you got back to the states?  If not, be careful.

yep Ive been fine for about two years now and have been eating kazspillions of the food i couldnt before to make up for lost time =]

Also, have you ever been tested for specific allergens by an Allergist? Generally, a RAST test is done if it is a blood test. Was that the test done on you? But again, more importantly, was it administered and analyzed by an Allergist?

had one just before which confirmed all the allergies.. a lot of things from dairy to onions!

but not after as there was little point as I was better and they cost about £100 over here

thanks guys =]

[Whitney]

but not after as there was little point as I was better and they cost about £100 over here

You moved from the USA to Europe...right?  But your allergies were in the USA.  So, in reality you've never been exposed to the same conditions in which your allergies occured since moving.  This easily could be a factor.

[Squid]

Allergies are interesting things.  They can change as we age - we can lose some, we can gain some.  People often even become allergic to things they've been repeatedly exposed to.  Just as easily as they come they can go, this is not always the case but it does happen.  Our bodies are not static systems, they change constantly especially with age and environment.  Most often people think development ends after puberty and it's just a downward spiral from there into eventual senility and death, however, our development continues - some things improve, some degrade.  For instance, our prefrontal cortex is not even fully mature at the culmination of puberty it ranges around 18-20 for females and around 20-24 for males, with much variation of course.  Some developmental scientists - biologists, anthropologists, psychologists etc. have even proposed extending the label of adolescence into the early 20's.  Many think this is a consequence of our changing culture but it is not a definitive thing.

Our bodies are much more adaptive and plastic than we give them credit for - ask any neuroscientist about neural plasticity and they can ramble on for hours.  Another good example would be the CYP (cytochrome p) enzymes and the genes that control them such as the change in a particular one from our ancestors change in diet to include more meat, specifically charred (cooked) meat.  Also, a population in Africa was found to retain the lactase enzyme at full capacity due to the heavy amount of milk and dairy products in their diet.  And then there's the whole new area of epigenetics with methylation, chromatin remodeling and RNAi and all that fun stuff.  Many factors go into how our bodies change over time in just us let alone how they change from generation to generation.  So when all this is taken into consideration, really losing allergies isn't all that extraordinary.

[SSY]

Polka, even if we ignore the excellent advice of the people her regarding allergens and the like, and we assume that your allergies were gone overnight, that still does not prove god.

I was allergic to cheese ( say )
I am no longer allergic to cheese
God must have cured my allergy
God therefor exists.

There is a non sequitor in your thought process. Just because you cannot explain it after a cursory examination, that does not mean that god must have done it. God of the gaps reasoning is flawed. Do you have any reason to beleive it was god, other than you can't think of anything else that it could be?

[polka]

but not after as there was little point as I was better and they cost about £100 over here

You moved from the USA to Europe...right?  But your allergies were in the USA.  So, in reality you've never been exposed to the same conditions in which your allergies occured since moving.  This easily could be a factor.

no!
I have always lived in england

just went to greece on holiday

never been to the states

[MariaEvri]

but not after as there was little point as I was better and they cost about £100 over here

You moved from the USA to Europe...right?  But your allergies were in the USA.  So, in reality you've never been exposed to the same conditions in which your allergies occured since moving.  This easily could be a factor.

no!
I have always lived in england

just went to greece on holiday

never been to the states

which place in greece exactely? I lived in athens for a few years and since then I have allergies with dust!

[polka]

which place in greece exactely? I lived in athens for a few years and since then I have allergies with dust!

a tiny little place on the coast but i did go to athens for a couple of days =]

thanks very much to you all and your lovely logic and science.
 =] will keep you posted on my confused muddle of a philosophy!
and just for the record, i'm really not as stupid and gullible as i sound, promise!
peace

[reynolds]

I don't personally believe in faith healing or Bible thumping Christians that try to push their religion on anyone.
But I do feel, finally feel in my life, and I have come full circle, that I now have a very personal relationship to God. For me though it is just that, personal.
Going to sound crazy but I can sit when it's real quiet and hear Him in my soul when I start a conversation. He sounds like a whisper, though no differant than my own voice. Like a whisper in my soul.
OK just joined this site and already realizing that may have sounded a litle bananas, was on another atheist sight we're they just kept repeating that it was a delusion. They didn't want to hear anything a christian said in any form , they would insult you then ban you when they realized they couldn't convert you to their way of thinking.(No god exists) Did not like them much, to me they were cruel and closeminded.

[Twiddler]

I don't personally believe in faith healing or Bible thumping Christians that try to push their religion on anyone.

I'm wondering if you could elaborate on the bolded part.  Do you not believe that they are correct in what they do or that they do not exist at all?  Because if its the latter, I would like to have you reconsider what you said.

And about your treatment on the other sites: I'm sorry that you were treated like that and I hope that this site will be more civilized.  But you have to understand one thing:  atheists in general probably get a little impatient with Christians/religious people in general because of how we typically get the "you will burn in hell for all eternity" argument whenever we say anything about atheism.

[curiosityandthecat]

I don't personally believe in faith healing or Bible thumping Christians that try to push their religion on anyone.
But I do feel, finally feel in my life, and I have come full circle, that I now have a very personal relationship to God. For me though it is just that, personal.
Going to sound crazy but I can sit when it's real quiet and hear Him in my soul when I start a conversation. He sounds like a whisper, though no differant than my own voice. Like a whisper in my soul.
OK just joined this site and already realizing that may have sounded a litle bananas, was on another atheist sight we're they just kept repeating that it was a delusion. They didn't want to hear anything a christian said in any form , they would insult you then ban you when they realized they couldn't convert you to their way of thinking.(No god exists) Did not like them much, to me they were cruel and closeminded.

Well, in all fairness, it is a delusion.  roflol

But you have to understand one thing: atheists in general probably get a little impatient with Christians/religious people in general because of how we typically get the "you will burn in hell for all eternity" argument whenever we say anything about atheism.

Amen! Preach it, brudda.

[Hitsumei]

Well, if something is "unexplainable" then it can't be explained by definition. These things would merely be unexplained, which is different. I can easily ad hoc an explanation for all of them, and I will do so momentarily -- but they need not be correct, nor does them being correct imply that there are no gods, nor would my inability to explain them imply that there was a god.

instant healing- of cancer or not being able to walk (i have witnesses some of these so they are hard to shake, dont tell me they dont happen!)

While neither are things that you could actually witness as you describe. Cancer is cellular, you can't watch someone be instantly healed of cancer unless you have some kind of super vision that makes superman's vision look like garbage! Also, you don't know the condition of a person that is said to not be able to walk. Only their doctor knows that.

Though, I bet David Copperfield could pull it off! That guy can do anything -- except have decent hair.

near death experiences of heaven/hell etc

You can apparently simulate these with g-force machines that pilots use to train. When your brain is losing blood or oxygen, you should expect to trip out. Also, I once read that the white light people see is their optic nerves dying.

talking to god - hearing stuff out loud

We have a special medicine that clears that right up.

a bloke i know who struggled financially and then said God sent him money..like the exact amounts he needed down to the penny...for his bills before he'd even told his wife what they owed let alone anyone else.

What do you mean "God sent him money"? Did he write him a check, have it wired to him? How did he actually come upon the money?

ta =][/quote]

[Ihateyoumike]

You can apparently simulate these with g-force machines that pilots use to train. When your brain is losing blood or oxygen, you should expect to trip out. Also, I once read that the white light people see is their optic nerves dying.

[youtube:3fdb1rex]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAywxhVvLU4[/youtube:3fdb1rex]