Religion and church have come up a lot this week during my infusions. I seriously doubt that that’s the most common point of reflection when on a ketamine infusion. But it was for me now just because that’s what is on my mind so much these days as I go through this faith journey. So there it is again, pain and religion related in just one more way, at least in my world.
The biggest take away from today was that science is humble and religion is not. My main observation with this is the importance of an effective mechanism for determining if a belief about something is correct or not. If the belief turns out to be off, then formulating a new belief and repeating the process. I used to believe that religious methods such as the whisperings of the spirit, the burning in the bosom, dreams, etc were reliable. But the problem with these is that they can be influenced by bias. For example, that warm feeling or flash of inspiration could just be an emotional response to a subconscious association. Science has recognized this vulnerability for discovering truth and actively seeks to eliminate bias from conclusions. I may blog on this in more depth in a future post, but for now, I’ll just say that religion makes almost no effort to do this. In many cases it even encourages bias. And bias is, well…not humble, it’s arrogant. So, science is humble, church is arrogant.
And yes, this and similar ideas such as what I’ve written about each day are what I philosophized about while on my Special K trips this week.
In conclusion, I have to say that all week I have had to keep reminding myself that this is an actual medical procedure, not some kind of consolation prize for those of us with chronic pain. This reminder came back several times throughout each daily session, as someone would open the door or say something, or something in my thoughts would cause me to crack an eyelid and my consciousness would zoom back into the medical office with the lights turned down low, the beeping of the IV machines, the clock on the wall, the nurse at the computer and the two other patients. Always straddling the fence between reality and alternate reality.
Whether or not it does anything for my pain, I think it has been at least as worthwhile as time I ever spent in any church meetings.