Monthly Archives: February 2010

Homeopathy

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So-called alternative medicine hasn’t gotten much talk around here, so I thought I’d change that. Let’s talk about homeopathy.

Homeopathy was first proposed in 1796 by German physician Samuel Hahnemann. His idea was to treat patients with diluted solutions of chemicals thought to cause effects similar to the symptoms–for example, a substance thought to cause rashes would be diluted in order to treat hives. “Like with like” is the term homeopathic practitioners use. (See also Sympathetic Magic )

A typical homeopathic treatment is called “30C”. This means that whatever substance has been chosen for the treatment is diluted one drop in 100, 30 times. On the Society of Homeopaths site, in their “What is homeopathy?” section, they say that “30C contains less than 1 part per million of the original substance.” This is a giant understatement. In more precise terms, the ratio is 1 part “stuff” to 100^30 parts water, or 1^60. This is a 1 followed by 60 zeros, so the dilution is 1 part in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

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An Exciting Challenge

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I remember the year right before I stopped going to church. It seemed like every month, the bishop would issue a ‘new challenge’ to the congregation.  Ok, so it wasn’t so much a new challenge, as the same challenge over and over again.

“Ok, ward, this year, we’re going to read the Book of Mormon straight through!”

“But I just barely finished it….”

“Don’t care! Read it again!”

So, in the vein of my old bishop, I am going to issue all of you a challenge. Hopefully this will be a little more enlightening, and exciting, than reading the BoM. (Chloroform in print, as Mark Twain put it.) I challenge all of you to read a book this year that you disagree with. All the way through, no skipping the boring parts. If your ideas and beliefs are solid, then you should have no problems with this. If your ideas need some tweaking, that’s okay. You will have learned something.

Personally, I think I will be reading either Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead. I despise Ayn Rand. *ducks to avoid flung tomato*  I don’t care if you guys like her, I don’t, so feel free to tell me what ideas/authors you disagree with.

What are you guys going to read?

The William Law X-Mormon Awards

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The good folks over at Main Street Plaza recently announced the William Law X-Mormon Awards.

William Law, as you may know, was a member of the First Presidency under Joseph Smith. He became disillusioned with Smith over his involvement in polygamy and what Law perceived to be Smith’s theocratic ambitions.

This is a fun way to recognize your favorite blogs and bloggers. Main Street Plaza is now offering awards (named “Brodies,” after controversial Smith biographer Fawn Brodie) in a variety of different categories. Please consider nominating this site for some of the awards. I think we have a real shot at “Best New Blog.” To view the categories and submit your nominations, go here.