An emergency room in 2030

This is going to happen – it’s probably too late to re-educate half the population of N. America to think twice before spending any more money on quackery.

But look at the bright side! It’s not too late to invent your own PATENT NOSTRUM!!! “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the gullibility of the common man” — PT Barnum (hopefully, and paraphrased)

Well, the good news is even your typical quack doesn’t quite go that far. I used to know a guy who was a Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine, styled himself “Doctor (name)” and was the quack doctor for all the adherents of a particular religion — okay, the International Society for Krisha Consciousness — in a certain region. Even he said, if you’re cut up and bleeding, or hit by a bus, go to the ER, they’re good at stitching people up.

They do have at least a minimal instinct for self-preservation.

The solution to all our problems, low cost for medicare and social security will be solvent again too.

Greg,

It’s actually H.L.Mencken: “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” I’ve seen “intelligence” replaced by “taste,” as well — I’m actually inclined to believe the latter.

Barnum is appropriate, though: “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

Ha! Bill Nye got is start on Almost Live. Every so often there were some good skits poking fun a pseudoscience.

Scoff all you want Orac et al, but you will be grateful for an integrative ER if your Chakras get knocked out of alignment due to bad Feng Shui in a motor vehicle accident. A traumatic Qi blockage is no laughing matter.

Hot Damn! Time for some off-topic pedantry!

Actually, this is an attempt to set the record straight on PT Barnum, in that he did not say “There’s a sucker born every minute”. The story is here .

Barnum did say “Every crowd has a silver lining”, which to me is a more benign and more clever statement.

As if we don’t already have enough pseudoscience in emergency medicine.

Trendelenberg position for hemorrhage, fluids for uncontrolled hemorrhage, spinal immobilization for possible spinal injuries, epinephrine for cardiac arrest, amiodarone for cardiac arrest, supplemental oxygen for everything, et cetera.

Emergency medicine is full of treatments that have either no evidence that they work or evidence that they do not work.

This is only a change in the level of ridiculousness. And we still seem to have plenty of room to go before we get to 11.

.

As if we don’t already have enough pseudoscience in emergency medicine.

Trendelenberg position for hemorrhage, fluids for uncontrolled hemorrhage, spinal immobilization for possible spinal injuries, epinephrine for cardiac arrest, amiodarone for cardiac arrest, supplemental oxygen for everything, et cetera.

Emergency medicine is full of treatments that have either no evidence that they work or evidence that they do not work.

This is only a change in the level of ridiculousness. And we still seem to have plenty of room to go before we get to 11.

.

Sorry about the double post.

T. Bruce…

Crud. Here I am trying to correct a misquote and perpetuating another. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

@Rogue Medic: Are you trying to say that epinephrine has no beneficial action for certain medical emergencies where an increased blood flow and increased adrenaline wouldn’t assist in patient survival? Do you have a cite that you’d like to share with the rest of us?

Thanks for a good laugh. Reminds of the few “high colonic” telephone calls we would get at the health department. Stupid me, I thought they were from CAM believers; I later found out that many have a particular sex fetish.

With Obamacare there will be no emergency rooms by 2030 becuase there will not be enough doctors left to staff them. I recommend people thinking about going to med school to rethink their career. There is no way in hell future medical doctors will ever make money under Obamacare.

I do indeed hope the next election results in 90% of the congress and Senate and the president being a TEA party member so that we can repeal this awful and unconstitutional mess that democraps made.

It may not yet be a marxist event, but Obamacare was designed to bankrupt insurance compnaies over time with the ultimate goal of universal communism, ooops, I mean healthcare.

Why has so many people turned against frredom and toward global socialism? it sucks. There is no individual freedom under this system. Only tyranny and a bunch of whiny nerdy liberal dictators teliing everyone how they should live. Then again, if Van Jones got his way all the conservatives would be executed so that only socialists remain. His words, not mine. Liberals are just evil bastards. Most mass murderers are evil liberals. Che, mao, castro, Pol Pot, etc.

Maybe the pharma meds has fried their brains and they longer think correctly.

Much as I enjoy these, cervantes is right–CAMmeisters always clarify that the “allopaths” are “great at emergency stuff”–just no good at “prevention”. Truth is, they know perfectly well, that their crap does no good at all in an emergency, but cling to the notion that it’s very effective for anything else. They don’t seem to find any contradiction in these views!

Having said that, I can see a scenario where people will want their CAM practitioner alongside the ER doc to insure that “everything possible” is being done for them and for their “spirits”. It’s already difficult to make sure that no one will be coming in to “pray” with you when you go in to have your rotator cuff done–especially if it’s a catholic hospital.

Ahhh … but holistic ERs make up for their inefficiencies and ineffectiveness by making it look like they are doing something, great theater and a great comfort to know ‘they did everything they could’, and being cheap.

Holistic medicine is a lot cheaper. You can train a doctor in it in six weeks, they even get a diploma, suitable for framing don’cha know.

With labor in abundant supply and cheap it doesn’t make sense to spend a lot on individual units. Minor repairs are cost-effective but at some point it makes more sense to provide a theatrical story line to calm the family and to get on with a new set of hands.

Of course you will want to ramp up the investment when talking about the aristocracy. No expense will be spared to save them. The holistic ERs can act as tissue farms for the aristocracy. All the better to maximize the utility of the peasants.

Bankrupting insurance companies and the money becoming secondary to professionalism for doctors sounds like a grand idea. Thanks for the suggestion Doctor Smart.

If I am ever in the ER and a quackster suggests some ridiculous crapCAM I will hopefully be with it enough to calmly tell him or her that I am NOT interested. Or maybe not so calmly. It is very frustrating that CAM is uncritically accepted by docs I thought were smart. I am a veterinarian and it is just as bad in my world. Board certification requires years of special training. OR….You can be certified in acupuncture or reiki or Chinese herbology in a weekend or two. Sadly, most of my clients don’t appreciate the difference. In my small, local way I try to educate my clients..if I can educate one person, it will be a victory.

Why has so many people turned against frredom and toward global socialism?

Because the worldwide billionaire class has decided for us that our alternative is feudalism and penury? Bring on the socialism, man. At least that way I and people like me get to live. If it weren’t for socialised medicine, I wouldn’t be here. They don’t waste expensive interventions on wards of the state when every chiseller’s looking to get his or her 15% profit margin.

Do I want to see all right-wingers dead? No, but it’d be nice if everywhere you went, people pointed and laughed at you.

Anyone that believes that socialism and communism are the same things, or that any country could survive for long while trending too deeply towards a pure form of economic model is nothing more than an common idiot. The US isn’t suddenly going to become a socialist nation because of healthcare reform, nor could it ever privatize and fulfill the wet-dreams of Reagan worshiping teabaggers. Doctor Smart needs to stop listening to AM radio and pick up a few books that encourage compromise and the understanding that a healthy populace will produce more and compete better.

Dr. (not so) Smart is just another far-to-the right crank. He still cannot get past the fact they we elected an intelligent black man to the presidency following eight years of fiscal mayhem. His sole source of news is talk radio and Fox TV news. I bet he is missing Glenn Beck, as well.

Hey Smarty, we live in the least socialized country in the developed world. Most Independents, Democrats and Liberals believe in social engineering….try and look that term up.

We believe that everyone should be given a chance to be educated, to have good health care and to have the right to worship…or not worship their own personal god. We don’t look back fondly at the good ole days…they weren’t that good.

Pry yourself away from the radio and Fox news and maybe read some newspapers other than the tabloids…so that when you post on websites you might garner some respect for your political savvy.

Lilady

Hey Smarty, we live in the least socialized country in the developed world. Most Independents, Democrats and Liberals believe in social engineering….try and look that term up.

Wow. The local county nurse lady even has her own political views. Are those scientific political opinions?

Wow, two trolls for the price of one. I never knew Augie was such a little shit until now, though.

Wow, two trolls for the price of one. I never knew Augie was such a little shit until now, though.

Nice recipes. I like them.

Aggravating people on the internet are simply Nature’s way of telling you to go for a walk or read a book.

My nephew has been suffering of CFS since around when he was 20(10 years now), before that, he was always biking, doing motor-cross at a national level, and overall very sportive and active.

Since then he’s been with actual medical experts all over Europe, with little to no improvement (and the improvement he had was usually not very long lasting).

Then he started visiting dietitians and organic food specialists (which actually still sides with science, since many causes of CFS are suspected to be related to digestion), which helped just as much as the purely MD’s, and after that he started going down the road of visiting whomever promised improvement.

Hes been with spirit healers, homeopaths, acupuncturists, etc, etc, etc. All with the same effect, some temporary improvement, until a reversion to them being utterly no help at all.

This went on until I commented on this when talking to him. “When you go to a new “healer”, I’m guessing your often full of hope and enthusiasm that you might have finally found a solution for your plight. Ever consider that its that positive attitude that gives the temporary improvement instead of the quackery these people provide?”

For CFS there isn’t much help “yet”, there’s many suspected causes and for only a few of these causes is there actual decent research and in some cases, even some medical treatment.

For many types of CFS, there is no detectable cause, no real treatment and no outlook on breakthrough.

And thats the problem people have with science based medicine, there’s tons of things that can be treated and fully healed, but there are things that science doesn’t have an answer for (yet) and people will then revert to taking whatever help they can get.

As for my nephews situation, I also noted that most of the treatments that worked best and longest for him, were dietary, so I suggested he did what ever he could to be part of study’s and research into CFS and meanwhile switched between all the dietary treatments he had undergone before.
Once one starts loosing its effectiveness, go to the next. He’s had at least a dozen radically different dietary treatments before, so over the span of a year, he now has a much more optimal time of feeling well, simply switching between the diets.

I hope for him there will be some concrete break troughs in CFS research (and more so in the type he has ofc), but as long as there isn’t, at least he has someone in the family that gives him a connection with reality when it comes to “alternative medicine”.

I do have to say that he does have his limits when it comes to alternative healers bullshit.

One of the spirit healers spent 15 minutes talking to his elbow and then said to my nephews elbow “And what do you think, he should return next week right?”

Thats when my nephew had the realization that that was just about the only thing the guy wanted, having him believe that bullshit, so he would listen to his elbow speaking trough the “spirit healer” saying he had to come back the next week ….

Look holistic integrative medicine is yielding results ordinary science just can’t deliver – surely you can see that pioneers like Kamau Kokayi are leading the way even in areas like stem cell treatment http://www.benzinga.com/press-releases/11/04/p1014490/stem-cell-therapy-using-the-patients-own-fat-to-treat-chronic-pain-and the fact that the idea for the process came from the film Fight Club should not allow cynics to decry the future of medicine as brought to us by clinics like Patients Medical, they are the future !

The first rule of Patients Medical is you don’t talk about Patients Medical.

@ 12 JayK,

@Rogue Medic: Are you trying to say that epinephrine has no beneficial action for certain medical emergencies where an increased blood flow and increased adrenaline wouldn’t assist in patient survival? Do you have a cite that you’d like to share with the rest of us?

We presume that increased adrenaline would assist in survival in cardiac arrest, yet the most common cause of cardiac arrest is heart attack. One of the worst drugs for cardiac arrest is epinephrine. Right up there with crack cocaine and methamphetamine. However, we routinely and indiscriminately give epinephrine to every cardiac arrest patient who has not responded to earlier treatment in the ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) algorithm.

The AHA (American Heart Association) makes it clear that there remains no evidence of improvement in the only outcome that matters – survival to discharge with a functioning brain.

Vasopressors
To date no placebo-controlled trials have shown that administration of any vasopressor agent at any stage during management of VF, pulseless VT, PEA, or asystole increases the rate of neurologically intact survival to hospital discharge. There is evidence, however, that the use of vasopressor agents is associated with an increased rate of ROSC.*

ROSC is Return Of Spontaneous Circulation.

* Vasopressors
2010 American Heart Association Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care
Part 8: Adult Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support
Part 8.2: Management of Cardiac Arrest
Medications for Arrest Rhythms
http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/122/18_suppl_3/S729#SEC2

While it is nice to get a pulse back when treating a cardiac arrest patient, we also need to consider how much harm may be caused in hasty attempts to accomplish this.

We used to give high-dose epinephrine in cardiac arrest. We had increased ROSC with high-dose epinephrine. If ROSC were the only thing that mattered, we would still be giving high-dose epinephrine to every cardiac arrest patient. Unfortunately, the high-dose epinephrine appears to lead to worse neurological outcomes.

There is no good reason to believe that standard-dose epinephrine is not also causing neurological damage on a dose-adjusted basis.

We have taken the alternative medicine approach to the use of treatments that are based on expert opinion. Expert opinion should come with an expiration date. When the expert opinion is not followed by research assessing the validity of the opinion, the opinion should be considered not valid.

We have been giving epinephrine in cardiac arrest for half a century. Apparently, only expiration of the experts will result in the removal of this expert opinion from guidelines.

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Max Planck.

We need to do more to eliminate the fraudulent idea that a treatment is good – right up until the point when there is inescapable evidence of harm. That is the realm of alternative medicine. That is also the claim of those keeping epinephrine in the ACLS guidelines.

The problem is not the need to provide a citation of the lack of benefit of epinephrine. The problem is the need for the proponents of routine use of epinephrine in cardiac arrest to provide valid evidence supporting the theory that epinephrine is good as a routine treatment in cardiac arrest. This evidence does not exist.

.

@Jan
When I started to read your comment I was thinking “Oh Lord, another testimonial with no science”. I was pleasantly proven wrong. Good on you for being a voice of reason!

@In Vitro Infidelium: Are you serious?

From the article you linked:
–âEven those who are just feeling a little tired lately and could use a boost or those who have nagging knee, hip or back pain can benefit from this stem cell therapy. The cells find their way to the areas of the body that need it most and go to work healing and rejuvenating. Each treatment can keep working for months.â–

How many woo alarms can a single paragraph send out?

@ in vitro: Thanks for the link to Kumau Kokayi MD and his practice in Manhattan. Could you also provide his New York State medical license number?

Amazing how the scientist Dr. Kokayi is on the cutting edge of teasing out stem cells from body fat. Other scientists/researchers should know about this instead of relying on cord blood, ampheresis and bone marrow.

What a gorgeous suite of offices they have…I viewed the pictures on the website. Such comfortable patient lounge chairs they have…for patients undergoing chelation. Sadly, no pictures of the hyperbaric oxygen chamber used for another type of “treatment” they offer.

@JayK
In Vitro Infidelium: Are you serious?

Sorry I though the reference to Fight Club was enough to demonstrate my sardonic intentions:

Tyler Durden: The salt balance has to be just right, so the best fat for making soap comes from humans.
Narrator: Wait. What is this place?
Tyler Durden: A liposuction clinic.

@Dr. Smart

With Obamacare there will be no emergency rooms by 2030 becuase there will not be enough doctors left to staff them. I recommend people thinking about going to med school to rethink their career. There is no way in hell future medical doctors will ever make money under Obamacare.

There is a whole world out there beyond the boundaries of the US of A, you know. The country I live in has had socialised medicine for well over half a century. We still seem to have plenty of doctors.

@ Mojo: You really don’t think that Smarty is a doctor, do you? “Obamacare” is the buzzword used by Tea Baggers when referring to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act…enacted by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President Obama.

I have friends who are Canadian citizens and other friends in Europe who receive excellent complete medical care through “socialized” medicine…and it is not the slippery slope that leads to government control of every aspect of your life.

That’s what happens to people whose only source of information is the crap they read on the internet that feeds their xenophobia.

@ stick mojo

Yes there is whole world outside the boundaries of the US. Socialized medicine should stay outside the boundaries of this constitutional sovereign republic.

Tea baggers? really? No both houses did not pass this unconstitutional peice of crap law. Some people who call themselves republicans did help this through. For that they will be or should be voted out of office for being traitors of the party. Technically the RNC chairman could intentionally not give them funds for re-election.

The flee-baggers forced this down our throat. I would not have so much of a problem with this crappy “law” if it did not madate me to buy insurance. Government forcing citizens to buy products from private companies by threat of imprisonment is found nowhere in the constitution. If it is, please point it out to me.

There is yet hope. If we tea party member can rally 125 million peple to just not follow thuis mandate and refuse to pay the fine, what will the oppressor government do? Put all 125 million of us in jail? We should all just refuse to accept it. Rebellions is the first step in freedom. Where freedom rings, fascism falls. May it ring loud, clear, and soon.

What can i say McCarthy was absolutely right? We should have banished the communists when we had the opportunity. Now they run the country. Maybe aliens will land on conservative turf and we can convince them to kidnap all the socialists and communists and anally probe them for life on a far away planet so that we can return this nation to the great country it was before marxist idiots took over.

There are websites out there that talk aout alien mind control. I am almost convinced that washington is under such influence. It perfectly explains why fascist assholes seek to intentionally turn us into the former Soviet union.

May socialism die a slow agonizing death at the hands of patriot warlords and normal people.

It’s like this. The world is destined to become one big bastion of socialist world government. Our dollar is being intentionally devalued to have a world currency. A one wolrd government is coming. Socialism is satanic. The anti-christ will be the new leader of the world.

The good old days are gone. The days of traditional americanism are gone. Satan has taken over and is preparing his troops for the detruction of capitalism, christianity, traditional moral values, etc. he replaces these God given and God inspired things with socialism, atheism/new ageism/liberalism, etc., moral relativism.

However, there is a silver lining in the clouds of despair Jesus will come back to get His people. The SAVED ones. Once that happens he will return seven years later with an indestructable army and wipe out communism, socialism, moral relativism, lies, murder, homosexuality, abortion, etc. He along with His billions of followers will set up a kingdom on earth to replace what evil man has made our current government. The good old days will return forvermore. Those not saved will not be present in this new government reigned by Christ and his followers. Instead they will be remembering all the evil they proclaimed against conservative christians while they burn in a lake of fire for eternity.

It’s ok. Go ahead and steal money from people in the name of the environemt. Go ahead and be fascists and socialists and communist and God hating earth worhsipping pagans. We all know how it ends and who wins. Read Revelation. You win right now. Then we win forever later. Sounds suitable to me.

There is no room in God’s kindom for satanic socialism. It breaks the THOU SHALT NOT STEAL commandment.

So, “Smart”, where’s your evidence? Oh, and have you even bothered to crack open your Bible:
9′(A)Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest.

10’Nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am the LORD your God.

Leviticus 19:9-10.

Here’s another one:
Luke 16:19-31

The Rich Man and Lazarus

19 âThere was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich manâs table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. 22The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham.* The rich man also died and was buried. 23In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.* 24He called out, âFather Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.â 25But Abraham said, âChild, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. 26Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.â 27He said, âThen, father, I beg you to send him to my fatherâs houseâ 28for I have five brothersâthat he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.â 29Abraham replied, âThey have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.â 30He said, âNo, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.â 31He said to him, âIf they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.â â

And yet another:
Warning against Partiality

2My brothers and sisters,* do you with your acts of favouritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?* 2For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, 3and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, âHave a seat here, pleaseâ, while to the one who is poor you say, âStand thereâ, or, âSit at my feetâ,* 4have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 5Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters.* Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? 6But you have dishonoured the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? 7Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

It seems God’s a socialist.

A tea-bagger, uneducated “pretend” doctor, and a Joe McCarthy fan as well. Dumber than most…cannot figure out the difference between fascism and communism…or the difference between socialism and communism.

God must be on the side of socialism…thanks Gray Falcon for the passages from the bible.

In case you’re wondering, the last passage is from James 2, possibly the most blatantly liberal of the books of the Bible.

gay falcon, where is your evidence?

Why are you people always asking for some stupid evidence. Yes i cracked my Bible. I read it as it literally reads. Since you do not believe that genesis is real, then you are excluded from talking abolut the rest of the Bible. It is what happened in Genesis that caused the rest of the Bible to occur all the way up until right now.

The Old Testament is good and all, but we live under a new testament, not by Jewish law.

I know about the Rich man and lazarus. it was literal happening, not just a story. The rich man went to hell not becuase he had money, but becuase he made money his God. Having money and being rich is not a sin. How we percieve our riches determined wether it is a sin or not. This man loved his money more than he loved God and he paid the ultimate price. Yes I know money can do that to a man. King Solomon was the wealthiest man in existence yet he did not end up in hell. Instead he was blessed even more.

Abraham was a wealthy man. Yet, God blessed him by making decendents into a mighty nation that still exists today -Israel. God cannot be a socialist becuase socialism involves stealing from people.

Socialism is like this. A poor ma asks you for money. You reach into someone else’s pocket and give him their money. That is called stealing and you can go to prison for it.

What Jesus taught was not socialism. he was no tyrannical overlord. What he taught was for one individual to reach into his own indiviual personal blessings (riches) and hep his neighbor on his own free will as a servant to christ.

If Jesus were a socialsit, He would have commanded you to rob someone of their belongings and give it to soemone else whom the government deemed worthy of having. Again, that is stealing. Socialism is satanic. it leads to genocide, fascism, and brutal regimes. Ever hear of the national socialist labor party? Might want to look them up.

Ever hear of the Soviet Union. Socialism worked so well over there. Ever hear of the national socialism going on in china? Sure you are free to own a house and a car. The house and car assigned to you by the government. Yeah, that’s real freedom. I’ll pass please.

I am very much a Joe McCarthy fan. I bet he is in heaven now looking down and repeatedly saying “I TOLD YOU SO!”

technically socialism precedes communism. First we have fascism that leads to socialism that leads to communism that leads to rebellion and war becuase people yearn to be free indivduals, not collective slaves.

I agree that that are some people who are filthy rich who are pretty evil (George Soros and Ted Turner) and there are some that do good things for good causes (Ken Ham, Koch Brothers, etc.)

Being rich in itself is not evil. What makes it evil is how you choose to wield it. Who is more evil – the man who has worked hard and earned riches and is blessed by God or the man who says “let’s take it by force and give it to another”. Let me tell you that you do not have the authority to take somone else’s earning and redisttribute them. Only God has that authority.

You might want to go back and read about king Soloman and Abraham and Noah. All rich men by the way.

I wish we could elect officials that would kill economic justice, social justice, and environazi justice altogether. Stop giving money to the IMF, the World bank, the UN, and about 3000 othr things. Then would could get out of debt.

Gay falcon, you quoted me scriptures, now quote me some scriptures on debt. What does the Bible say about debt and about any country that goes against Israel. Quote me your scriptures on homosexuality. Quote me your scriptures on creationism. Quote me some scriptures on abortion. Quote me some scriptures on what happens to a country that forsakes God as it’s leader.

Let’s see what you really believe.

Smarty, “However, there is a silver lining in the clouds of despair Jesus will come back to get his people…rant…rant…rant…rant…etc…”

In case you’re wondering, that passage is Smarty’s interpretation of the Revelation of St. John the Divine, the last book of the King James Bible. Faux Christian, as well.

“Smart”, it’s so easy to get someone like you to explode. So many words, so little content…

I know about the Rich man and lazarus. it was literal happening, not just a story. The rich man went to hell not becuase he had money, but becuase he made money his God. Having money and being rich is not a sin. How we percieve our riches determined wether it is a sin or not. This man loved his money more than he loved God and he paid the ultimate price. Yes I know money can do that to a man. King Solomon was the wealthiest man in existence yet he did not end up in hell. Instead he was blessed even more.

“Literal”? More than half of what you said was not in the Bible. On the other hand, Luke 6:24 reads: “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.”

What Jesus taught was not socialism. he was no tyrannical overlord. What he taught was for one individual to reach into his own indiviual personal blessings (riches) and hep his neighbor on his own free will as a servant to christ.

And if he doesn’t he faces Hell, which suggests that maybe that’s not just a suggestion, but a requirement. Of course, to someone who only cares about wealth and power (someone like “Smart”), Heaven would be Hell.

Abraham was a wealthy man. Yet, God blessed him by making decendents into a mighty nation that still exists today -Israel. God cannot be a socialist becuase socialism involves stealing from people.

First of all, Israel was and is “mighty” on God’s terms, not human terms. Israel was never an empire or a world power, but the Jewish people have lasted where great nations have fallen. Secondly, socialism isn’t about theft, it’s about distributive justice.

Gay falcon, you quoted me scriptures, now quote me some scriptures on debt.

“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Matthew 6:12. If you want to be literal about things.

Oh, and don’t talk to me about evil. I’ve seen evil, brutality, cruelty, ambition, and public health care is nothing compared to organized crime, hateful dictators, and genocide.

Notice how Smarty is pro-Israel, whose citizens receive top-notch medical care as part of their socialized medicine framework. I wonder if his concern about Israel has anything to do with his interpretation of the bible, especially the Revelation of St. John The Devine…and “The Rapture”?

Hypocrite, as well.