Response to Dav's VERY scholarly blog post....

ok... i'm kinda doing this at 1234 am.. after 2 glasses of wine and reading dav's REALLY inspiring (i quote) 'scholarly post' on his blog... [http://www.drumstix.blogspot.com/] so... y not?! he's always game for some debate anyways....

well, wrt to what he mentioned about journal article (yes dav, i READ the article... well, kinda browsed through), i'd say that dav's kinda making a mountain out of a molehill.... oops... or rather the author of the article...

well, first thing first, the role of 'religion' in dealing with illness (mental or physical) has been recently dealt with affirmative comments in its function of 'self efficacy' in helping patients deal with the particular illness. This is particuarly seen in incurable illnesses such as cancer etc where patient's dealing with the illness has been proven to be dependent on his/her self-assessed ability to deal with the illness. apparently, recent attention has been placed on the role of religion in promoting methods in helping. so when it has shown its effectiveness (as proven even in teh article: pp2) why pose such criticism to it?!

also, seriously, freud and the other freud-ians' theory of religion and mental illness isnt really convincing for me.. well, i always belive that freud doesn really have a place in terms of abnormal psychology and mental illness... someone who theorizes that mental illness arises due to any inability to relieve the sexual urge that you have towards ya common-sex parent?! i mean... yeah... it doesn work for me at least. so i cant agree on his claim that religious involvement LEADS to mental illnesses like depressiona n schizo. also, lets face it, the study of schizo has shown that etiology is mainly attributed to abnormal brain structures. so again, his view doesn quite work for me... Directionality of relationship (schizo & bizzare religious beliefs) is also unclear and purely a claim on its own without evident validity. [pp4]

last but not least, the claim that "Seeking miraculous faith cures instead of timely medical care can delay accurate diagnosis and enable treatable diseases to advance out of control (pp.5-6)"?! Firstly, the study by Lannin and colleagues [30] would SEEM to validate the above claim.. but then again, it was stated the limitations of its results. Study purely shows a correlational relationship without proving a causal relationship. furthermore, i believe that religious beliefs are sort of a mediatory factor in patients approach towards another alternative method of medicine (i.e. supernatural healing etc). Non-conventional /alternative medicine has been in existence since the history of china with the advent of acupuncture, chinese herbs even poisonous ones), tai ji/calligraphy (the connection between the mind & body) where no proven evidence has shown its validity in curing the illness. Yet, it has proven its effectiveness in curing illnesses over the past hundreds of years... so i really see no point in overclaiming the 'negative effects' of religious beliefs on physical health...

btw, i only read till pp6... ahaha. well, i kinda have other assignments to read up on as well... HAha..

Marche Jean-Talon

i love the jean-talon market! HAha... went over to check it out this afternoon... we were sooo excited about the food there! and the vegetables and fruits.... and i attempted to try some of my french with the vendors... HAHA.. like 'bonjour', 'merci', 'je parle un peu de francais', 'je parle anglais', 'une douzaine', 'quest-ce que c'est?', 'cafe au lait et un croissant'... its fun! HAha... at least i know they understood my english-french... well, when they THINK that i speak french, they'd reply in REALLY fast french and i'd juz be lost... HAhaa...

anyway, we had fish and chips for lunch. seriously, that was like the best meal i've had in montreal! HAh... the fish was kinda freshly battered and fried. and it was sooo fleshy! i juz had to take a pic of it;) and the best part, its only 6 bucks (cad)! hahhaa.. we were walking around and juz grabbing the free stuff for sampling: nectarine (bought half a dozen of that), peach, fromage.... typical singaporeans... hehehe...

Hui qin & lewis with their lunch!
my fish and chips! check out how fleshy it is!!! i'm sooo amazed with it! haha...

BIG pumpkins... haha for hallowe'en
free sampling:D

yellow long beans...
purple, yellow and green cauliflower! haha.. we bought a BIG bunch of the NORMAL cauliflower though... for 2 bucks!
lewis and his corn.. with lotsa margarine! haha... i added for him...


for tea time, lewis and hui qin had gelato! well, i'm kinda full from yesterday's nite gelato and skipped that for a croissant and cafe at an outdoor cafe. the croissant was good! its crispy not like the soft and dampy type in singapore... well, we kinda had to start moving from our tea time to get stuff for dinner. we bought sausages (spicy pork: they make their own!), a bottle of white wine (super cheap wine here... 10 bucks for a bottle), some nectarines and cheese to go with the 'vin blanc'. we had a really full meal! HAha....


chocolat noir and machtta for lewis and hui qin respectively


afternoon tea time....
my cafe au lait avec un croissant:D