Calling obesity a disease will likely lead to more problems

The American Medical Association recently labeled obesity as a disease. I think of obesity as more of an addiction problem, which I guess can be a disease? (e.g. alcoholism), but I think of addiction as more of a mental disorder/issue. I'd like to state that I'm not well informed when it comes to medical terminology, but I think labeling obesity a disease could have negative impacts.

First, the lesser problem I foresee are people using the disease label as an excuse for why they are obese. The major problem I foresee is more complex and it involves shifting the obesity problem to professionals who are not prepared to address it appropriately. There seems that there will be three groups more responsible for the obesity problem now that obesity is considered a disease: medical professionals, pharmaceutical companies, and healthcare companies.

I am very skeptical of pharmaceutical and healthcare companies. I generally trust medical professionals are well-intentioned, but I do not think they are well educated in nutritional and exercise science. I think most people will agree that prevention is the answer to the obesity problem, which involves educating people about nutrition and exercise (especially young adults/teenagers). The worst scenario is the medical industry looking to address obesity too heavily with non-preventative methods such as drugs or surgery. Unfortunately, I believe that this will likely occur to some degree as there is a lot of money to be made with non-preventive methods. With obesity being a disease, healthcare companies will be responsible, which will further increase the cost of healthcare for individuals and the government. Higher taxes will be needed, so it will end up being an added burden to the general public.

The only thing that may happen that I support is an increase in healthcare cost for overweight or obese people (just how smokers pay more). This increase in cost should be a great incentive for people to take responsibility for their weight. I think this probably could be done without labeling obesity a disease. I hope that preventative programs will be further developed. Maybe we could better educate our medical professionals about nutritional and exercise science, or we could encourage obese people to see dietitians or trainers through healthcare programs rather than developing diet drugs or surgically putting in lap bands.

Open Theism revisited

I wrote about this topic about a year and a half ago here. I somewhat sided in opposition to open theism I think (the side of more pre-determinism). It wasn't the side that really felt right, but logically it made more sense (a bit complicated, but logical). After reading a review of God of the Possible (Greg Boyd) by Jeremy Jernigan, I am reconsidering my view.

My rambling thoughts on the topic (which may be repeated thoughts from the review):

There are many examples of God regretting or changing his mind throughout the Bible. I'm sure these passages have been explained in some way to fit into pre-determinist view, but they are not that straightforward. I've probably read about them, but cannot recall the explanations atm. Why think of these complicated explanations when we can just take the passages at their word?

Also, pre-determinism is mentally exhausting for me. It can make sense to me, but I have to sit in a quiet room w/o distractions for a little while before I have the logic in order. If I don't do this, then I often find myself taking a very superficial view of the topic, which is very damaging. I'll have a difficult time thinking that prayer is important and a difficult time really challenging myself to do things outside of my comfort zone. If God had pre-determined me to do those things, then he would have given me more initiative. I know that is wrong, but that is often where my thought process goes. Anyway, I have always thought that if I believed a theology that put more responsibility on my free will, then I would be more transformed in my everyday activity.

It seems that many Christians quickly react negatively to the future being open or undetermined (even from God's view). I think this is a very good explanation of the idea:

"We might imagine God as something like an infinitely intelligent chess player. I am told that the average novice chess player can think ahead three or four possible moves. If I do A, for example, my opponent may do B, C, or D. I could then do E, F, or G, to which he may respond with H, I, or J. By contrast, some world-class chess masters can anticipate up to thirty combinations of moves. Now consider that God’s perfect knowledge would allow him to anticipate every possible move and every possible combination of moves, together with every possible response he might make to each of them, for every possible agent throughout history. And he would be able to do this from eternity past. Isn’t a God who is able to know perfectly these possibilities wiser than a God who simply foreknows or predetermines one story line that the future will follow?"

Hmm, there are so many cool quotes/ideas in that review. I should read the book. Maybe an idea I would restate and/or add to is that God knows many things will happen in the future and there are some other things (possibly only minor things) that he might not really know what will happen. He gave us this freedom and responsibility in a very similar way to how he gave us the option to have faith in Him. In a similar way to how he gave us dominion over the world, but he oversees us and the greater picture. Throwing those comparisons out there, but probably need to reflect on them a bit more.

"Thinking Biblically?"

This post communicates an idea I've had for awhile after having or hearing theological discussions. I also often wonder what we are doing in today's culture that appears 'biblical' to us, but will be all too obvious to future generations that we were way off. Encourages me interpret with an open mind and listen to all perspectives, and realize that I could be terribly wrong about most of my current interpretations.

"So do we give up on “thinking Biblically” altogether? Certainly not. But we must approach our own conversations with the constant awareness that we might be wrong. That we don’t have all the answers. That someday, five hundred or a hundred or thirty years from now our brothers and sisters may look back and wonder how we could have missed the point. We must be open minded, willing to read its pages over and over again and change our minds as our hearts are opened to the truth."

http://redemptionpictures.com/2013/03/05/thinking-biblically/

Racial Political Correctness

"...everyone wants to celebrate diversity as long as you don't point out people are different..." - Colin Quinn

http://espn.go.com/page2/s/questions/quinn.html

Why I'm voting for Gary Johnson

I'm currently a second year graduate student working on my master's degree. At times in my past, I have believed in libertarian ideals. Over the past year or so, I have started to doubt some libertarian theory of deregulation and allowing individuals to fail if they make the wrong choices. I still completely agree with letting businesses fail and in some cases individuals, but we cannot as a society let people suffer that cannot help themselves. At the moment, I do feel we help some people too much and others too little, but that is a tough issue especially when you are trying to manage this problem across the entire country. As for deregulation, I've seen too many businesses take advantage of people and the environment for a slight increase in revenue to believe that deregulation will work. Maybe libertarians would argue that privatization of public sector agencies like the EPA is the solution? Idk. I haven't researched either of these issues, but it is what I've been feeling recently.

Despite these hang-ups, I'm still voting for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. By far, the biggest issue for me is limiting wars and funding abroad as much as possible. We are spending an insane amount on 'defense' (although are actions appear much more offensive in my opinion) that I believe is doing very little to protect our country and other innocent people. We have drones flying over countries that can easily kill innocent people. You may argue that by taking out the bad guys we are preventing suffering they may do to innocent people. I agree that this may be true in Iraq and Afghanistan although it would take a lot of convincing that our intervention does not result in more hostility and deaths (I think it could go either way, but nearly impossible to prove). Even if we are saving innocent lives, why did we choose to help Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan? Why are we not in Syria, North Korea, Bahrain, or even Mexico? Because the question of whether or not we get involved is not based on human suffering it is based on politics. We only care about human suffering if it fits our political agenda. This makes me question whether we get involved in some places to gain political or economic advantages at the expense of human suffering. For these reasons, I feel we need to exit all wars. The only reason for foreign intervention in my opinion is to stop genocide or if the US or US allies are attacked. 

Obama and Romney will only continue these wars. Obama may seem like the better candidate between the two on this issue, but it is important to remember that the Obama administration has expanded the use of unmanned drones and has seemed hypocritical to me in choosing which countries to get involved and which is sit back and watch. Obama has also increased the 'war' on Americans by deploying militarized police on protesters and allowing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to pass. This act essentially removes our 5th and 6th amendment rights to due process and a speedy, public trial if we have "committed a belligerent act" which could be considered government dissent/or protesting. The decision of whether a protest was lawful or not was typically determined in a court of law, but this act allows the government to unilaterally make this decision.

So honestly, this is all I need to vote for Johnson. He is committed to getting us out of the wars while maintaining actual defense. I don't think he is as strong an isolationists as Ron Paul, so I believe he would intervene internationally when it is actually necessary. I really like Johnson's emphasis on health and fitness; I dislike his opinion on a fair tax. I doubt a fair tax would have any chance in Congress, so that doesn't really bother me.

The other huge issue I agree with Johnson on is ending the war on drugs and legalizing at least marijuana (I've heard him say that he doesn't agree with legalizing everything, which I feel is mainly so he doesn't turn off too many people). Portugal has had all drugs legalized for 10 years and have seen tremendous success. Half of Americans now believe that marijuana should be legalized. I don't believe it is dangerous. Compared to alcohol, I believe it is safe. If we are going to be consistent, then why not make alcohol illegal? Because we tried that once and it didn't really work. Why don't we understand that having marijuana illegal is causing similar unintended consequences? I mentioned Mexico earlier. In 2011, there were 34,000 drug-related causalities in Mexico. Far outnumbering deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. A lot of the drug problems are related to the huge demand in America. Imagine cutting this demand and cutting our ties to these drug lords that have such a lack of regard for human lives. Imagine the economic benefits of growing marijuana in America (we could even tax it!). 

Hunter Gatherers and Moral Development

Wow, hunter-gatherers may have really understood how to develop others with strong morals. Makes sense as they were constantly around each other and needed the group to work efficiently.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201105/how-hunter-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways-three-complementary

Precious Puritans Review

Some are saying that Propaganda came across too strong in most of this song before you realize the 'bait and switch' technique towards the end of the song. Here, Propaganda acknowledges that despite being sinful the Puritans can still be used by God to further His plan (crooked sticks to make straight lines). Most serious reviewers acknowledge what Propaganda was trying to do, but state that it doesn't quite work. To me, it sounds like many people were just too emotionally jarred by the first 3/4 of the song to completely let those words go when Propaganda states that he was wrong.

I haven't read all of Propaganda's explanation to this song, but I feel the strong words were necessary because many people probably have that same level of disdain for the Puritans. This song would also be helpful to any Christian that feels animosity towards another group (past or present). By coming across with such hostility, those people that have those same feelings connect with him in a very emotional way. As they are now carefully listening, Propaganda leads them towards the truth and the listener will feel they can trust where he is taking them. They may feel very confronted, but if Propaganda would have started this way, then no emotional trust would have been developed. They likely would have dismissed Propaganda as not really understanding where they are coming from, but building trust allows for confrontation (similar to how Christians typically believe that a friendship or bond should be developed before confronting another Christian).

I feel this was the larger message of the song. We cannot dismiss a group just because we find something sinful in their past (major point), and we cannot consider a group inerrant just because their writings are so spiritually helpful to us (minor point).

On a side note, I have struggled with not really connecting with Christian hip-hop. It tends to be safe in my opinion, which is very different than the secular hip-hop that I grew up with. Hip-hop is mean't to be edgy and controversial. It is emotional and confronting. I think this is lacking in Christian hip-hop. Isn't this great that we have something challenging to talk about?

After reading through some of the debate about Precious Puritans I began to struggle a bit with wondering whether challenging songs like this are profitable. It seems that they can be so easily misinterpreted or misunderstood (The challenging part is I don't think it is really misunderstanding. It is just different personal interpretations), but the optimistic side of me hopes that this type of variation in interpretation will be rare. The optimistic side of me hopes that more Christian hip-hop will challenge and spark debate that helps individuals grow closer to God and closer to each other.