On death

Having just returned from attending my aunt’s funeral, my mind is morbidly fixed on death.

I can’t help cursing the public health care system that failed her like it does to countless others. Mercifully she succumbed to cancer within days of being released from hospital. That might sound callous, but I would like to think that death is preferrable to an indeterminate period of suffering and mental anguish for helpless family members.

After enduring hours of sermonizing at the funeral, I’ve got to thinking about my own eventual disposal as it were. I’ll have none of this piousness, hollow platitudes and pity from vultures in dog collars.

It’s time to write down some guidelines for well-meaning family and friends on how to send me off permanently. The details still have to be worked out, but it will involve lots of music, alcohol and laughter.

Until I’ve got it all figured out…

Listen up, you oriental berks, rhino horn does not cure cancer

Just over a year ago I wrote about how poachers were decimating South Africa’s rhino population, driving another species towards extinction.

At that time around 210 had been killed already, but the latest figures indicate that the total for 2010 reached a record 333. However, the figures for this year thus far is an alarming 341 animals killed, which works out at almost one a day.

Image via Wikipedia

And it’s all for feeding the ignorant oriental belief that rhino horn cures cancer among other diseases.

The biggest culprits driving the killing of rhinos for their horns remain Vietnam and China. It appears that their respective governments could not be bothered in the least to implement measures to curb the trade in rhino horn. One wonders if the ageing Commie despots running these countries, are not indulging in rhino shavings themselves, to prolong their tenure in office, dealing more misery to their people.

It’s a scandal that a magnificent beast is giving up its life, not to sustain human life as livestock do, but to sustain a delusional belief system.

So listen up! Stop being yellow monkeys! If you’ve got cancer, go to a fucking doctor for treatment, or die with dignity. Don’t be grasping at horns. Let the beasts be…

What Freedom of Speech Means to Christopher Hitchens

From Vanity Fair article

Whatever your feelings about the robust atheist beliefs of Christopher Hitchens, you will eventually admit that he was a marvellous orator, and an incredibly good writer too.

So it’s rather sad that he is currently fighting cancer, which is now laying claim to his vocal chords as well. However his mind is as strong as ever and it’s unlikely that the dastardly disease will make any inroads there.

It’s therefore a pleasure to be able to continue reading his work, the most recent of which is an article in Vanity Fair where he shares some thoughts on the loss of his voice and what it means to him. It begins so:

Like so many of life’s varieties of experience, the novelty of a diagnosis of malignant cancer has a tendency to wear off. The thing begins to pall, even to become banal. One can become quite used to the specter of the eternal Footman, like some lethal old bore lurking in the hallway at the end of the evening, hoping for the chance to have a word. And I don’t so much object to his holding my coat in that marked manner, as if mutely reminding me that it’s time to be on my way. No, it’s the snickering that gets me down.

Catch the rest of his thoughts here:

Christopher Hitchens: Unspoken Truths Culture: vanityfair.com.

It’s arrogant and reckless to think that prayer will cure cancer…or anything else for that matter

I received another one of those deceptively cute e-mails today from someone who I don’t think is a Christian. The contents are what you’d expect from a fundie.

However, I know this person and she’s definitely no fundie; maybe just another innocent believer who is a tad lazy to employ some reasoning skills. And also becoming an unwitting spammer.

So here’s the contents of the mail:

Friday is world cancer day – I’d appreciate it if you will forward this request 

♥ 93% won’t forward 

A small request.. Just one line. 

Dear God, I pray for a cure for cancer.  Amen

[Image of candle removed]

All you are asked to do is keep this circulating, even if it’s only to one more person. 
In memory of anyone you know who has been struck down by cancer or is still living with it.

A Candle Loses Nothing by Lighting Another Candle.. 

Please Keep This Candle Going

Okay, the first obvious problem with this mail is that World Cancer Day is on the 4th of February 2011, more than two weeks away; not this coming Friday as the impression is being created. I however don’t have any problem with that; it’s actually laudable to create awareness about this important day. What I do have a problem with is the call to prayer and the conceited suggestion that you will be only one of the mere 7% of people who are “good” and “give a shit about cancer.”

My second problem with this mail has to do with reasoning. Let’s assume that there is a god. Cancer has been around since the dawn of man. It’s just that its only been relatively recently diagnosed, not through divine revelation mind you, but through the hard work of scientists. Let’s also assume that god is responsible for creating everything and he [or she] has a divine plan, just like scripture [or the priesthood] tells us. Now wouldn’t it then also be logical to conclude that cancer was created by god and it’s part of his divine plan?

Wouldn’t it also then be arrogant, not to mention futile of man to pray for its eradication, seeing as it is a constituent of a bigger divine plan? Isn’t it reasonable to make these conclusions? And isn’t a divine plan supposed to be incontestable? As the late great George Carlin so eloquently reminded us:

What’s the use of being God if every run-down shmuck with a two-dollar prayerbook can come along and fuck up Your Plan?

Coming back to reality, the plain and honest truth is that prayer is not going to do any good in curing cancer; there is no evidence whatsoever that it does anything apart from making you feel like you can sit on your ass and magically command things to happen. Cancer is treatable when detected early and the chances are good that cancerous cells can be treated into remission. Ongoing research, however may one day lead scientists to discover how to switch cancerous cells off, so that they don’t divide and replicate.

This e-mail is dangerous in that it encourages both fundies and the ignorant to pray rather than seek medical help. Let’s be part of that ♥93% that employs our reasoning faculties.

The fight to eradicate cancer and ignorance

I came across two reports of cancer this weekend and how the separate victims deal with it; one filled with inspiration and hope, the other an indictment on religious ignorance.

I know it’s not nice to criticize cancer victims, because the probability of being stricken myself, by this nasty malady is pretty high, but I believe it’s important to expose the ignorance emanating from religion which surrounds this, and other ailments. It’s also important that sufferers learn to deal with the reality of their situation, and not succumb to false hope, usually imparted by supernatural or superstitious belief systems.

Tammie Cohrs a cancer patient, of South Carolina in the USA believes that prayer helped her through a recent MRI scan, and that she received proof of this when the figure of Jesus showed up on her image results. Tammie is going to be mighty disappointed when she eventually finds out that Jesus’s power is limited to showing up on scanned images, and does not extend to eradicating any ailments the scanned image points to. While Cohrs commented that she does not care about what anybody else thinks, she is clearly trying to influence people to believe in the supernatural, through the very act of announcing her peculiar find.

Christopher Hitchens, author of the bestselling book, God Is Not Great contracted a cancer of the esophagus a little while ago, which by his own accounts is spreading to other parts of his body. While the news generally brought good wishes from friends, and offers of prayers from good-hearted theists, it was not surprising that others in the religious fraternity took this opportunity to gloat, as described by Hitchens himself in this Vanity Fair article:

Who else feels Christopher Hitchens getting terminal throat cancer [sic] was God’s revenge for him using his voice to blaspheme him? Atheists like to ignore FACTS. They like to act like everything is a “coincidence”. Really? It’s just a “coincidence” [that] out of any part of his body, Christopher Hitchens got cancer in the one part of his body he used for blasphemy? Yea, keep believing that Atheists. He’s going to writhe in agony and pain and wither away to nothing and then die a horrible agonizing death, and THEN comes the real fun, when he’s sent to HELLFIRE forever to be tortured and set afire.

However, Hitchens has stood up well to his detractors and continues being inspirational in the face of the spreading disease. In the most recent article about his condition in Vanity Fair, he describes how he has tried various scientific remedies, and goes on to relate his utter disgust at a legal block being enforced by religious supporters of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, who prohibit any federal spending in promising stem cell research.

Once again, religious ignorance rears its ugly head; this time to frustrate scientific endeavours to find cures for the dreaded cancer and possibly other diseases too. Hitchens, in his usually erudite style does not mince his words when commenting about the use of non-sentient human embryos:

But now religious maniacs strive to forbid even their use, which would help what the same maniacs regard as the unformed embryo’s fellow humans! The politicized sponsors of this pseudo-scientific nonsense should be ashamed to live, let alone die. If you want to take part in the “war” against cancer, and other terrible maladies too, then join the battle against their lethal stupidity.

Hitchens acknowledges that he may die before any cure can be found, but he is willing to contribute personally (even financially) in any research that will contribute to “enlarging the knowledge that will help future generations.” And so, encouraged by these words from Horace Mann, Hitchens endeavours to trudge on with the chemo routine, augmented if it proves worthwhile by radiation and perhaps the much-discussed CyberKnife for a surgical intervention…

Until you have done something for humanity, you should be ashamed to die.