Skip to main content

Jade: My Amazing New Hope For Life


...is the headline of today's Daily Star. Non-Brits may not know that Jade Goody is a celeberity known for her appearances on Big Brother. She became notorious second time round for calling an Asian actress called Shilpa Shetty "Shilpa Popadom" - which resulted in her being branded a racist chav. Jade is certainly pretty poorly educated.

Anyway, Jade, now 27, was then diagnosed with cancer, and then terminal cancer. She has two young boys, and got married this weekend to her partner Jack. Her imminent early death is a tragedy, and it's being covered in pretty much every newspaper (orchestrated by PR guru Max Clifford).

Today, The Daily Star reports:

"Jade Goody is having secret healing sessions in a final bid to beat the cancer that is overwhelming her body - with amazing results, she revealed last night."

"...her condition took an immediate positive turn after the the first session with a mystery New Age 'healing hands' spiritualist. And his actions had such a profound effect medics are talking up the prospects of restarting chemotherapy to stop her cancer spreading."

"Jade also talked about embracing religion, saying 'I'm still reading my Bible. I take a lot of comfort from it, which is why I decided to get the boys Christened. I want them to know I'll be in heaven watching over them."


I wonder how much of this story has been invented (the bit about medics, I'm guessing)? Perhaps Jade is using the healer to reduce pain, but the spin put on the story ("new hope for life", "beat the cnacer", "little miracle", etc.) is - she's hoping for a miracle cure.

News here.

Comments

anticant said…
She is being treated - as I am - at the Royal Marsden, which is undoubtedly one of the finest cancer hospitals in the world.

I very much doubt whether the top-class consultants there welcome all the media hype orchestrated by Max Clifford around this woman.
February 24, 2009 at 10:55 AM
Anonymous said…
Clifford is vile.
February 25, 2009 at 2:28 AM
brithaelsolitary said…
lotta good religion did her..
June 27, 2013 at 6:00 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

EVIDENCE, MIRACLES AND THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS

(Published in Faith and Philosophy 2011. Volume 28, Issue 2, April 2011. Stephen Law. Pages 129-151) EVIDENCE, MIRACLES AND THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS Stephen Law Abstract The vast majority of Biblical historians believe there is evidence sufficient to place Jesus’ existence beyond reasonable doubt. Many believe the New Testament documents alone suffice firmly to establish Jesus as an actual, historical figure. I question these views. In particular, I argue (i) that the three most popular criteria by which various non-miraculous New Testament claims made about Jesus are supposedly corroborated are not sufficient, either singly or jointly, to place his existence beyond reasonable doubt, and (ii) that a prima facie plausible principle concerning how evidence should be assessed – a principle I call the contamination principle – entails that, given the large proportion of uncorroborated miracle claims made about Jesus in the New Testament documents, we should, in the absence of indepen
159 comments
Read more

What is Humanism?

What is Humanism? “Humanism” is a word that has had and continues to have a number of meanings. The focus here is on kind of atheistic world-view espoused by those who organize and campaign under that banner in the UK and abroad. We should acknowledge that there remain other uses of term. In one of the loosest senses of the expression, a “Humanist” is someone whose world-view gives special importance to human concerns, values and dignity. If that is what a Humanist is, then of course most of us qualify as Humanists, including many religious theists. But the fact remains that, around the world, those who organize under the label “Humanism” tend to sign up to a narrower, atheistic view. What does Humanism, understood in this narrower way, involve? The boundaries of the concept remain somewhat vague and ambiguous. However, most of those who organize under the banner of Humanism would accept the following minimal seven-point characterization of their world-view.
10 comments
Read more

Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism refuted

Here's my central criticism of Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN). It's novel and was published in Analysis last year. Here's the gist. Plantinga argues that if naturalism and evolution are true, then semantic epiphenomenalism is very probably true - that's to say, the content of our beliefs does not causally impinge on our behaviour. And if semantic properties such as having such-and-such content or being true cannot causally impinge on behaviour, then they cannot be selected for by unguided evolution. Plantinga's argument requires, crucially, that there be no conceptual links between belief content and behaviour of a sort that it's actually very plausible to suppose exist (note that to suppose there are such conceptual links is not necessarily to suppose that content can be exhaustively captured in terms of behaviour or functional role, etc. in the way logical behaviourists or functionalists suppose). It turns o
151 comments
Read more