Someone recently told me that their Church is against Seminary trained preachers, and against theologians. I replied that this was incredible. A preacher without theology is like a pilot without map and compass. A casual glance at history reveals these great leaders, Paul, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Finney, and others, all theologians. And, Spurgeon didn't go to Seminary, but he had theology that was rigorous because he was a rigorous self-learner all his life. In order to condemn bad theology, you must need good theology in the first place. Or, else you're worse than an existentialist. A theologian without the Bible, however, is like a plane that has lost contact with the ground -- it can't land!
A placebo is a non-therapeutic substance administered under the camouflage of medication to deceive patients into believing that they are receiving medications; this done solely for psychological and not for physiological effects. Placebo may usually be used to compare its effects with the effects of other drugs in drug research. Let's take the case of an experiment that tries to establish whether a particular drug, say to treat weariness, is genuine or merely has the effects of a placebo. Suppose 20 candidates are chosen for this experiment. 10 are given the drug and the rest are put on a placebo while they are told that the placebo is a genuine medication. They need to make sure that the deception is well carried on for the success of the experiment. If both the groups make similar improvements after taking the treatments, the new drug seems to only function as a placebo in effect. The basic hypothesis of the placebo raises the question of mind over matter. Of course, this pushes...
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