Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
Childhood illnesses are part of creation, enabling their immune systems to be strengthened naturally. All we are doing is swapping necessary childhood illnesses for far more serious adult illnesses like cancer.
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And on this we actually agree.
But, as I have said at least twice now, the point wasn't to prove anything about autism, but to parallel the certainty of cause claimed by many who have nothing more than suspicion.
As far as things go, how many factors of the physical nature of man have changed over the centuries? Some of the changes are the result of the more widespread availability of good food. Some the result of the more widespread availability of junk food. Some of the eradication of diseases that killed many in past generations. Some of the onset of new diseases that keep the planet in "balance." Not suggesting some self-limiting symbiosis. Just noting that it is always changing.
Even the viruses are limiting. Those that kill too aggressively die-off because we quarantine their hosts. So only those strains that are less severe and non-fatal survive since they do not get the attention that the fatal ones do.
And every so often, someone comes along and sees some correlation somewhere and creates a cottage industry of nonsensical, almost superstitious medicine to combat it. There is one in which you simply hold a vial (glass) of a substance and it is supposed to cure you.
Forget autism. I used it because it is somewhat better known. I had no idea that everyone would get emotional about it and miss the point. The point that the basis of the claim is a guess — a hunch — and not a substantive fact. And the similarity in that to failing to find the word "training" or "school" or "leader training" and conclude that it is not spoken of. It demonstrates our ignorance of what is actually there in scripture. It is full of training. And the training wasn't for everybody who believed. And it wasn't the same for everybody who followed as a disciple.
We read John's epistle and conclude that when he said "you have no need that anyone teach you" it meant concerning anything. Even that verse has a context.
And arguing against the validity of my parallel does not dismiss my point. It just shows that parallels are not perfect. Just like metaphors are not perfect. And when you argue against the parallel rather than the idea that I seek to create an "aha" concerning with that parallel, you turn the discussion from the point to an irrelevancy. And so even if someday they actually discover a link between vaccinations and autism, for someone to be sure of it today is to be sure based on nothing substantial. My point stands even if the conclusion within it does not.
And when we read scripture, we are not really as smart as we think. I start to wonder about things I have been taught since my youth, and yet I stick with them because I was taught it from my youth. Does that make sense? I face it full on and cannot always reconcile it. It is one of those places where the law of non-contradiction is at a stalemate for me. I know what I have thought for years. And I see something that seems contradictory. I want to believe both. But I do not yet see how they are differentiated in such a manner as to coexist, yet cannot declare one as correct and the other false.
I am convinced that there is an answer that does not contradict. Either one is right and the other wrong, or they are not actually at odds. But I do not yet understand it. So I live with the contradiction rather than blindly hold to one because that is what I was taught at that age when I thought I was so smart.
And I seek more input while some think they have found the answer and are finished. I do not dismiss their conclusions. I take them in as possible evidence that will also become a conclusion for me. But on the current topics, I find that it is not so easy. And I have a hard time leaning much on overlays of scripture analysis that are too much like what we learned in the LRC. I am now at a place where those positions need proving rather than being the starting point. I actually believe that the majority positions are generally stronger and better starting points than virtually anything that Lee taught us that was different.
I liked the more free meetings. But, as someone else recently said, popcorn testimonies do not supply substantial nourishment. Just emotions. And leaderless groups are sheep without a shepherd. It may start as enjoyable. No one directing you with a rod. But eventually you all go in your own direction.