media cases/stories where parents prayed instead of taking their kids to the doctor and the kids died

here's a non-comprehensive list of cases where parents tried praying instead of taking their kids to the doctor, then the kids died:

Schaible:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/23/herbert-catherine-schaible_n_3138001.html
Neumann:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,341574,00.html
Bellew:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2205306/Russel-Brandi-Bellew-Faith-healer-parents-avoid-jail-Austin-Sprout-16-dies.html
Hickman:
http://global.christianpost.com/news/faith-healing-scandal-parents-prayed-instead-of-seeking-medical-care-as-child-slowly-died-56743/
Raffield (name of the police officer in the case since the parents were unnamed):
http://www.kltv.com/story/18648752/parents-pray-for-15-hours-over-dead-baby-before-calling-911
Swezey:
http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2012/jun/09/swezey-plea-means-no-appeal-of-faith-healing/

add more if you know of any others :)

stress and insomnia

things that help against stress:
workout
    difficult bc to find the time, but i work out about every other day
masturbation
    helps only a little while, can't do it too often
cannabis
    illegal, can't work while high, danger for developing psychosis
snus
    looks stupid, tastes terrible, possibility for dependency, effect diminishes over time (you need to increase dose more and more)
meditation
    difficult bc to find the time, helps only a little while, i.e. while you're meditating
"fix" what is making you stressed
     takes time
talk to a pyschologist (related to "fix" entry)
    expensive, takes time, long term, difficult to find the time
work/get your mind on something else
    don't always have the opportunity
laughter
    don't always have the opportunity
sleep
    don't always have the opportunity
anti-depressant medication (e.g. cipralex)
    makes me tired


things that help for sleep:
masturbation
    helps only a little bit, doesn't help if i wake up again, can't do it too often
cannabis
    illegal, danger for developing psychosis
melatonin
    2 large pills usually works for me, doesn't help if i wake up again (but then i rarely do bc i seem to sleep harder when using melatonin)
sleep medicine
    if you can get your doctor to prescribe it (mine won't)

1973 lufthansa hijacking - Dieter Uchtdorf, at most, flew a plane back to HQ after the hijackers abandoned it--not newsworthy

"
In an instant, the president of Lufthansa ordered into the air his chief pilot for the 737 fleet. Thirty-three-year-old Dieter F. Uchtdorf was to take a small group of emergency personnel and follow the hijacked plane wherever the guerrillas took it. In every setting possible he was to negotiate for the release of the plane, the pilots, and the hostages. Then, when all of this had been accomplished, he was to fly the hijacked 737 back to headquarters in Frankfurt.

With fortunately no more bloodshed, this mission, like so many others he had been on personally and professionally, was successfully accomplished.
"
http://www.lds.org/liahona/2005/03/elder-dieter-f-uchtdorf-on-to-new-horizons?lang=eng&query=lufthansa

This text doesn't mean Uchtdorf did a damn thing. It is entirely vague. Holland claims that Uchtdorf was scheduled to follow the plane, and if possible, negotiate for the release of the pilots/hostages. Pilots aren't negotiators, they're pilots. Holland doesn't explicitly say Uchtdorf even did any of these things, just that Uchtdorf's mission "was a success".

typical, lds, out-of-context, faith-promoting bullshit story. but i'd love to hear it from the horse's mouth--interesting that Holland tells it and not Uchtdorf, don't you think?

it's also a typical "build the reputation of the person you want your believers to believe in" tactic--establish his credibility. this story by holland was published only a couple of months after uchtdorf was called as an apostle (october 2004 > march 2005).

there's no mention of this event on uchtdorf's wikipedia page either:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_F._Uchtdorf

"The commandeered jet next headed for Kuwait, where Kuwaiti authorities refused to allow it to land. Captain Kroese was ordered by the terrorists to land anyway on a secondary runway. An hour of negotiations between the Palestinian gunmen and the Kuwaiti authorities ended with the release of all twelve remaining hostages in exchange for "free passage" to an unknown destination for the hijackers."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_110#Lufthansa_hijacking

doesn't seem that Uch did any negotiating. what was his success then, flying back the hijacked plane after the terrorists left? good job ;) how faith-promoting.

Green Party and Libertarian Party are against the Republican/Democrat NDAA legislation

"The indefinite detention of amercans without trial"
Is this what the "democracy" of America wants? "Democratic" President Obama is fighting to keep this Republican-born legislation legal:
http://rt.com/usa/news/obama-indefinite-detention-forrest-070/

Republicans and Democrats will fight to keep the NDAA alive. Presidential candidates Jill Stein (Green Party) and Gary Johnson (Libertarian) want to repeal both the NDAA and the Patriot Act.

Jill Stein on the NDAA and the Patriot Act:
http://www.ontheissues.org/2012/Jill_Stein_Homeland_Security.htm

Gary Johnson on the NDAA and the Patriot Act:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITDKR57FEeM

on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/nickleus/posts/365605180181138

hymns: covert indoctrination

emotional music and verbal repetition of a message in a group setting.
what does this sound like?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing

Inquiry into Women's Way's Charlotte Ramya Norell and her professional and academic qualifications

Charlotte Norell writes about herself on her Lifecoaching and Personal Development webpage:

Charlotte is a Certified Physiotherapist and Inner Management Coach. As well as being extensively trained in psychotherapy, spirituality, meditation, sexuality, tantra, relationship counseling, co-dependency therapy, healing chock&trauma, body- and dancetherapy.

(emphasis added by me)

Where did she get her certification? I find it odd that she doesn't mention this, and if she has formal education, that she doesn't mention her degree. It leads one to believe that she doesn't have formal education, and that she has simply worked as an assistant to a real physical therapist, and then taken a certification exam. It implies that she does not have a Bachelor's, Masters or Doctorate degree in physical therapy.

How does being certified in physical therapy, in any way, qualify her to be giving people intimate, personal advice about their life, and charging fees equal to or greater than professionally trained psychologists?

If you google "Inner Management Coach" you'll get only 52 results, where most of them mention Charlotte Norell. Inner Management Coach seems to be something she has invented herself. It is not a formal or recognized education.

What does extensively trained mean? Where and how much training? What kind of psychotherapy has she been extensively trained in? There's a long list of different kinds of psychotherapies.

confronting your own mormon faith

a comment from some guy on stevebloor's blog:

It surely is entirely missing the point to suggest the student, (in this case Steve Bloor), is at fault for not paying attention, when the more concerning issue is that the instructor, (“The Church”), has failed to teach the subject matter thoroughly. I cannot recall having read about JS’s eleven polyandrous marriages in any church sponsored publication over the last 40 years, nor anything about his well attested method of procuring plural wives, some as young as 14, by claiming death threats issued by angels with drawn swords, or by promises of unconditional exaltation for whole families. Cherry picking for publication a few instances of JS’s polygamous marriages of which Emma may actually have been aware, and placing them in what amounts to small print, as far as present-day latter-day saints are concerned, hardly justifies claims of openness and honesty, and, may I say, it seems somewhat disingenuous to pretend that it does. Likewise, I have not seen the church producing any explanation which approaches credibility concerning the catastrophic demise of the Book of Abraham, which has been part of LDS canon since the 1880s. A straw poll of sacrament attendees in the UK would I suspect reveal gross ignorance about that particularly vital subject. Is it that they too have not been paying attention, or is it that once more the instructor has defaulted on his moral responsibility to make available the facts? Surely, when the man who is proclaimed to be the prophet of the restoration, translates a regular Egyptian glyph which we now know means “water” as “It was made after the form of a bedstead, such as was had among the Chaldeans, and it stood before the gods of Elkenah, Libnah, Mahmackrah, Korash, and also a god like unto that of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. That you may have an understanding of these gods, I have given you the fashion of them in the figures at the beginning, which manner of figures is called by the Chaldeans Rahleenos”, we as latter-day saints really have a serious problem to address. And surely when a book which Joseph Smith assured the world in God’s name was written by Abraham himself, turns out to be a standard Egyptian pagan funerary text post-dating Abraham by eighteen centuries, and doesn’t even mention Abraham, its claimed author, it becomes morally incumbent upon the instructor to relay that information fully in class time to the students, so that they may give that information their prayerful consideration. Or do you disagree, Peter Bleakley? Who is it in the end who needs to be bolstered by lies and cover-ups in your view: the Lord, or a church which claims through Joseph Smith to be the Lord’s?

sean worle on mormon apologetics about the book of abraham

from today on the yahoo exmormon maillist:

> Someone please tell me if Mr. Blowhard has a leg to stand on --
> either the text has NOTHING to do with Abraham, or today's

> scholars are wrong about what's on the scrolls.  

This line of argument is nothing new. In fact, this was Hugh Nibley's
favorite tactic, and he engaged it back in the '60s almost immediately after
the papyri were translated and found to not match.
Essentially, the tactic is this: the text of the Book of Abraham does not
match up with the translated text of the Joseph Smith papyri, so they elect
not to talk about that anymore, since it summarily disproves the Book of
Abraham. Instead, they dig through thousands of sources from all over the
Middle East, regardless of time period, and look for parallels between the
stuff they find and things mentioned in the Book of Abraham.

There's an ancient Assyrian place name similar to a place name in the Book
of Abraham. We found a Jewish text from the 2nd century AD that mentions
that Abraham talked about stars. Here's an old Islamic tradition that says
Abraham escaped being sacrificed by an evil priest. There's an Egyptian
myth associating the deified Pharaoh with a crocodile. We've got an early
Christian tradition that god organized the universe from existing matter.
Doesn't that all sound impressive? Maybe if we throw enough of these things
at you, you'll forget that we've actually translated the text, and it
doesn't match up. We won't even bring that up anymore. We also hope that
you don't notice we're pulling references from vastly different traditions,
cultures, and time periods, and smashing them all together as though they
were a single body of evidence. If we do it fast enough, maybe you'll get
dizzy and give up.

Essentially what they are doing here is changing the question. The original
question was "Did Joseph Smith accurately translate the papyri into the Book
of Abraham?" The way you answer that question is to compare Joseph's
translation with the translations of scholars who know how to read Egyptian
hieroglyphics. The answer, of course, ends up being very simple for anyone
to understand: "No, this is not even remotely an accurate translation of the
text." Because that is such an unassailable conclusion, apologists are
forced to change the question (while trying to convince you it's the same
question, of course). The new question they create is "Why can we find all
these parallels between the Book of Abraham and history?" This is the ideal
question for them, because unlike the previous question, the real answer to
this question is much more complicated, because each claimed parallel must
be answered individually. They, on the other hand, can offer a simple
answer: "Joseph Smith must have had special inspiration when writing the
Book of Abraham."

-Sean