Friday, June 09, 2006

Separation of Church and State

Read this link

posted by Ms.PhD @ 9:58 AM   2 comments

2 Comments:

At 9:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here is some real, factual information about the church and state topic:

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

What I don't understand is how anyone can realistically expect seperation of church and state in a democratically elected gov't because lawmakers will never directly mention the influence of religion in the laws they make.

I think there should be seperate rules for the smart people. I recently needed to have an office visit with an MD to get some prescription antibacterial cream. The physican seemed annoyed that I understand basic microbiology and just wanted him to write a prescrition. It seems the logic is not that the cream is dangerous, but that I must visit his holiness so he can make sure that there is nothing more seriously wrong with me. It effectivly means that disgnosing yourself is illegal, and while I agree that it is not good medical practice to diagnose one's self, it does seem that you should have a right to do so if you want to.

 
At 2:42 PM, Blogger Ms.PhD said...

Thanks for the link.

Realistically expect? No, we're idealists here. You make a good point- the influence of religion isn't always overtly stated.

And I don't think our current gov't was democratically elected.

Separate rules for smart people? That's amusing. How would you divide it up? By IQ?

Where I grew up, kids were put into advanced classes in 3rd grade based on their IQ score.

Parents who had money and wanted their kids in better classes would pay to have their kid retested repeatedly until their scores were high enough (there was no rule against this practice). Obviously for some kids it worked out well enough in the long run, but in other cases it backfired and the kids were in way over their heads.

Even if we had a way to distinguish 'smart' from 'really not smart', which category would include 'low IQ but ambitious and surprisingly resourceful' ?

Re: whether people should be allowed to diagnose themselves,

I think that public health is an important issue that shouldn't be overlooked.

I had a long argument with a friend a couple years ago about how choosing not to have her kids vaccinated - because of some pseudoscience crap she had read claiming it wouldn't protect them- was actually endangering all of us.

What if you had some kind of flesh-eating bacteria that seemed harmless until it hit the log phase of growth, and by then you had already spread it all over town? That's an extreme example, but you get my point.

That said, the current healthcare system is enough to make anybody want to avoid having to visit His Holiness Lord High MD for any reason. I've written before about how much I hate stupid doctors and how it seems nearly impossible to find smart ones.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home