Dear Rick,

Please do not think I am in pain over past issues. My use of the childhood abuse example was to make a point, not to invite sympathy. That was a pain I dealt with years ago, and have put behind me. Just as I have also come to terms with living with Parkinson's disease and accept what current science has to offer rather than request the American people fund a cure for my disease.

The American people are already pounded by TV ads requesting funding for Lupus, MS, Breast Cancer, other cancers, Heart Disease, diabetes, cystic fybrosis and too many other diseases to mention. Americans have been so saturated by ads meant to pull at their sympathetic heartstrings, that they now turn off when the requests are made. They have families to feed, their own health crisis's to deal with, children to clothe and educate. They are not at fault anymore than I am.

I look at the disease as an opportunity to discover the strength of my beliefs. I believe if there was a way the American people could help people like ourselves they would do it at the drop of a hat.

Rick, your sensitivity is deeply appreciated as well as Thelma's, who seemed to be closer than any other response to my post; to understand my right to state my opinion as respectfully and thoughtfully as I am able. Thank you Thelma.

Radio Guy and Jean,

"I'm wondering where in my post you saw me suggesting that PD was the most important political issue" Please explain to me where in my post I addressed your remarks at all in my first responce. As I recall the article summarized by Paula, about which I was posting, mentioned the view of the author that the cure for Parkinson's disease lay in politics and that the private research industry does not have the money or desire to research for a cure.

If the "devil" is at work here, it's my opinion that "work" involves convincing otherwise well-meaning people that it's a "sin" to use the knowledge we've been given to pursue scientific solutions to the problems that face mankind."

Hitler, who considered himself a well meaning dictator, perceived the Jewish race as something to be exterminated for the good of the German people. He almost succeeded exterminating a race of people who have given great gifts to the world as a result of their culture. Hitler's justification is no different than that for using embryonic tissue. The Jewish people were treated like lab rats because the Hitler regime deemed that the Jewish people were not really human like the rest of white Europeon society. He did not succeed because the rest of the world saw the evil of Hitler's argument and chose not to accept it by conquering his regime. The knowledge learned from the research on Jewish victims of the holocaust was either destroyed or locked away and deemed not feasible to be used due to the methods that were used to get the scientific knowledge. One example was a research test which immersed Jewish holocaust victims in cold water and monitor them until death to discover how long Hitler submarine divers could survive in the cold waters. Even science can be expected to adhere to ethical standards, with or without Christianity intervention.

[B]"I'll say it one more time. I think that people who want to enforce THEIR religious beliefs on ME are standing in the way of research for a cure.

Are you one of those people? If you are, then you have to justify that in your OWN mind."[B]Are you telling me to keep my views to myself? " If you think that the embryos left over from in vitro fertilization are BETTER scraped into the garbage than being used for research, I'd love to hear your rationale for that. " Are you asking me to speak about my views?

Obviously, I cannot change your athiest beliefs, nor am I trying to. I am exercising my right of free speech to disagree with the majority of persons on this site. As Theresa stated, I am not trying to persuade anyone that my view is the right view, only that my view is different and equally has the right to be seen and discussed.

You tell me you never called me a kook, however, the dripping sarcastic tone in your post as quoted above is as disrespectful as if you had called me a kook. You are aware of the nastiness of your abusive post by trying to explain it away; "But when your beliefs get in the way of curing MY disease, I get a little cranky. Funny, I thought we all had the same"bastard of a disease". What isn't funny is that one Parkinson patient feels he has the right to belittle another Parkinson patient for having different beliefs. Not to mention another, supposedly more experienced patient, thanking him for his belittleing behaivior and encouraging it further.

Vicky