• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

Armstrong wins because he trains harder/smarter . . . not doping

Page 9 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Ninety5rpm said:
Studies done about the effect of positive thinking and even placebos on cancer patients indicate otherwise. I doubt any studies have been done on specifically measuring the effect of Armstrong inspiration, but I know too many inspired cancer patients to believe it's negligible.


Miraculous healing is one thing. Inspired by Armstrong to find out everything possible about your disease, to not blindly trust your doctors, to get second, third, etc., opinions, to explore all your options, to grit your teeth and look ahead through all the gruesome treatments, is quite another.

The positive and ultimately healing effect of the inspiration that Armstrong has undoubtedly instilled in hundreds if not thousands of cancer patients might be difficult to measure, but I'm convinced it's very real. (edit: see also this post).

Finally, the average cancer patient is not a hardcore pro cycling fan. He or she does not understand, as we do, that doping, and denying the doping, is a necessary aspect of the sport.

Among the several different messages that Armstrong is delivering in this amazing piece, at all different levels, is this one: You know better. You know I dope. You know I know I dope. You know I have to deny that I dope. You should also know that my story and image is a huge inspiration to countless cancer patients, and that has a real and positive effect on their potential outcomes. You know that exposing the prevalence of doping within the sport, even more than it already has been, is not good for the sport, and certainly not good for the ability of my image to continue to inspire as effectively, especially if I personally am the target. You know better. Let. It. Go..


Please don't conflate the need for transparency with respect to serious political issues with a need for transparency in sports entertainment. Most sports do just fine with far less transparency than cycling has - the last thing cycling needs is more transparency.

Ok I'll support Armstrong now, you've convinced me...Faust. But is there a "give up my soul" clause in the contract.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
rhubroma said:
Ok I'll support Armstrong now, you've convinced me...Faust. But is there a "give up my soul" clause in the contract.

According to what I read of your beliefs, you don't have one. So you have nothing with which to make a Faustian bargain. I guess you are going to have to try to give whomever shows up and claims to be the devil some M&M's and hide your skepticism.....:D
 
rhubroma said:
Ok I'll support Armstrong now, you've convinced me...Faust. But is there a "give up my soul" clause in the contract.

Faust? That's something else I don't get. Why the pompous moral indignation?

It's bike racing for crying out loud, an entertainment industry. Perspective, man, perspective.

Surely you don't look to sports stars for moral guidance, do you? The inspiration to achieve goals, sure. But morality? Please! Selling your soul???
 
Mar 11, 2009
124
1
0
Visit site
Complaining about pro cyclists doping is like complaining about actors using makeup.[/QUOTE]

Soooo CYNICAL.......after all these debates over faith, and you go generalise and trivalise a whole community.

I think this comment shows your true belief (lack thereof), rather than your debating points.

........and as I type this DEKKER is banished to the wastlelands :eek:
 
Jun 26, 2009
276
1
0
Visit site
Captain Kirk said:
Complaining about pro cyclists doping is like complaining about actors using makeup.

Soooo CYNICAL.......after all these debates over faith, and you go generalise and trivalise a whole community.

I think this comment shows your true belief (lack thereof), rather than your debating points.

........and as I type this DEKKER is banished to the wastlelands :eek:[/QUOTE]


You better watch out 95rpm . . . Captain Kirk is going to get Spock to do that whole Vulcan mind meld thing with your brain and turn you into a person of faith !!!!;)
 
byu123 said:
Soooo CYNICAL.......after all these debates over faith, and you go generalise and trivalise a whole community.

I think this comment shows your true belief (lack thereof), rather than your debating points.

........and as I type this DEKKER is banished to the wastlelands :eek:


You better watch out 95rpm . . . Captain Kirk is going to get Spock to do that whole Vulcan mind meld thing with your brain and turn you into a person of faith !!!!;)

First, I am a person of faith - I have faith in plenty of stuff, faith based on objective reliable evidence (though rarely if every 100% absolute proof).

What I am not is a person of blind faith. Ironically, if there were a god, I'm sure that's just how he would hope us to be (if he bothered to pay any attention to us at all). I mean, do you want your kids or anyone you care about to blindly believe in anything? The idea that god would not only hope for blind faith, but demand it, in the very creatures he created to have intelligence and the ability to discern rationally, is plain silly.

As to Kirk's comment, that I generalized and trivialized the whole community of pro cyclists, please. If you don't know that it is impossible to succeed in sports today without doping, don't blame me.
 
Jun 26, 2009
276
1
0
Visit site
Ninety5rpm said:
First, I am a person of faith - I have faith in plenty of stuff, faith based on objective reliable evidence (though rarely if every 100% absolute proof).

What I am not is a person of blind faith. Ironically, if there were a god, I'm sure that's just how he would hope us to be (if he bothered to pay any attention to us at all). I mean, do you want your kids or anyone you care about to blindly believe in anything? The idea that god would not only hope for blind faith, but demand it, in the very creatures he created to have intelligence and the ability to discern rationally, is plain silly.

As to Kirk's comment, that I generalized and trivialized the whole community of pro cyclists, please. If you don't know that it is impossible to succeed in sports today without doping, don't blame me.

Come one 95 . . . just a small attempt a levity. LETS NOT bait anyone into a discussion about anything but cycling. I won't . . . the "Vulcan mind meld" comment was just a weak attempt at humor . . . not a serious retort.
 
Mar 13, 2009
65
0
0
Visit site
Can anyone see the irony, that this thread started talking about Lance Armstrong and ended up talking about God.
I think in some peoples minds the two are not so far removed!!!:p
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Ninety5rpm said:
First, I am a person of faith - I have faith in plenty of stuff, faith based on objective reliable evidence (though rarely if every 100% absolute proof).

What I am not is a person of blind faith. Ironically, if there were a god, I'm sure that's just how he would hope us to be (if he bothered to pay any attention to us at all). I mean, do you want your kids or anyone you care about to blindly believe in anything? The idea that god would not only hope for blind faith, but demand it, in the very creatures he created to have intelligence and the ability to discern rationally, is plain silly.

As to Kirk's comment, that I generalized and trivialized the whole community of pro cyclists, please. If you don't know that it is impossible to succeed in sports today without doping, don't blame me.

OK, one last attempt. To the believer, their faith is not "blind." That is your characterization of the evidence that has convinced them. That does not mean that from their perspective, their evidence is not very real to them. You only get to judge your life.

OK, that's it.
 
Jun 26, 2009
276
1
0
Visit site
Thoughtforfood said:
OK, one last attempt. To the believer, their faith is not "blind." That is your characterization of the evidence that has convinced them. That does not mean that from their perspective, their evidence is not very real to them. You only get to judge your life.

OK, that's it.

Come on TTF we are exactly on the same page on this one, but lets give it a rest on this forum. I obviously have no problem locking horns vociferously on cycling issues I disagree with others on. But we should really give the religion faith thing a rest out of respect/deference to others here. Seriously.
 
Thoughtforfood said:
OK, one last attempt. To the believer, their faith is not "blind." That is your characterization of the evidence that has convinced them. That does not mean that from their perspective, their evidence is not very real to them. You only get to judge your life.

OK, that's it.
We must be able to distinguish faith based on objective verifiable evidence, and faith that is based totally on subjective and completely unverifiable evidence (if any evidence at all). If "blind faith" is not the appropriate term for the latter, sorry, but that's what I'm referring to with that term.

At any rate, it's very misleading to conflate both kinds of faith and use the same term to refer to either without distinction or clarification.
 
Jun 26, 2009
276
1
0
Visit site
Ninety5rpm said:
We must be able to distinguish faith based on objective verifiable evidence, and faith that is based totally on subjective and completely unverifiable evidence (if any evidence at all). If "blind faith" is not the appropriate term for the latter, sorry, but that's what I'm referring to with that term.

At any rate, it's very misleading to conflate both kinds of faith and use the same term to refer to either without distinction or clarification.


COME ON 95!!! YOU KNOW THERE IS THE OPTION TO TAKE THIS VIA PRIVATE MESSAGES. PRIVATE MESSAGE AWAY TO TTF ON THIS TOPIC. Fire away on cycling issues but take the religion/faith thing off line.
 
byu123 said:
Ninety5rpm said:
We must be able to distinguish faith based on objective verifiable evidence, and faith that is based totally on subjective and completely unverifiable evidence (if any evidence at all). If "blind faith" is not the appropriate term for the latter, sorry, but that's what I'm referring to with that term.

At any rate, it's very misleading to conflate both kinds of faith and use the same term to refer to either without distinction or clarification.
COME ON 95!!! YOU KNOW THERE IS THE OPTION TO TAKE THIS VIA PRIVATE MESSAGES. PRIVATE MESSAGE AWAY TO TTF ON THIS TOPIC. Fire away on cycling issues but take the religion/faith thing off line.
Is SCREAMING necessary, byu? The point I made here was semantic and applies to all aspects of life, including one's views about cycling, and the faith we have in riders and various related issues.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Ninety5rpm said:
Studies done about the effect of positive thinking and even placebos on cancer patients indicate otherwise. I doubt any studies have been done on specifically measuring the effect of Armstrong inspiration, but I know too many inspired cancer patients to believe it's negligible.


Miraculous healing is one thing. Inspired by Armstrong to find out everything possible about your disease, to not blindly trust your doctors, to get second, third, etc., opinions, to explore all your options, to grit your teeth and look ahead through all the gruesome treatments, is quite another.

The positive and ultimately healing effect of the inspiration that Armstrong has undoubtedly instilled in hundreds if not thousands of cancer patients might be difficult to measure, but I'm convinced it's very real. (edit: see also this post).

Finally, the average cancer patient is not a hardcore pro cycling fan. He or she does not understand, as we do, that doping, and denying the doping, is a necessary aspect of the sport.

Among the several different messages that Armstrong is delivering in this amazing piece, at all different levels, is this one: You know better. You know I dope. You know I know I dope. You know I have to deny that I dope. You should also know that my story and image is a huge inspiration to countless cancer patients, and that has a real and positive effect on their potential outcomes. You know that exposing the prevalence of doping within the sport, even more than it already has been, is not good for the sport, and certainly not good for the ability of my image to continue to inspire as effectively, especially if I personally am the target. You know better. Let. It. Go..


Please don't conflate the need for transparency with respect to serious political issues with a need for transparency in sports entertainment. Most sports do just fine with far less transparency than cycling has - the last thing cycling needs is more transparency.

wow.. really great post.

although i disagree on how much doping there is now.
 
jackhammer111 said:
wow.. really great post.

although i disagree on how much doping there is now.
Thanks.

I understand, it took me a while to get my head around it. Have you looked at this list?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Doping_cases_in_cycling

I don't think that's even complete.

Anyway, I just don't see how anyone who is not doping could be competing with, much less beating, all these guys who are absolutely known to have been doping. It is my understanding that it is not humanly possible to keep up with the recovery that is possible with doping, if you're not doping.

I'm glad that they crack down on it as much as they do, but not because I think it reduces the number of cyclists who are doping by any significant amount. That would be naive. I do think it limits the kind of doping they can do, and how much of it they can do (for example. Flandis did too much testosterone, Hamilton and Vino blew it by doing heterologous transfusions, etc.). That's good, relatively speaking.
 
Apr 11, 2009
2,250
0
0
Visit site
Ninety5rpm said:
Among the several different messages that Armstrong is delivering in this amazing piece, at all different levels, is this one: You know better. You know I dope. You know I know I dope. You know I have to deny that I dope. You should also know that my story and image is a huge inspiration to countless cancer patients, and that has a real and positive effect on their potential outcomes. You know that exposing the prevalence of doping within the sport, even more than it already has been, is not good for the sport, and certainly not good for the ability of my image to continue to inspire as effectively, especially if I personally am the target. You know better. Let. It. Go..

You know what? I think this is Floyd's thinking; I think this is Floyd speaking. Remember his demurrals to Lemond about the damage it would do to the sport if he came clean.

I think you really are Floyd L. (or Ernie Baker etc.). Amazing.

Not passing any judgments here: just mentioning who I think you are.

If you are, welcome! :D
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Ninety5rpm said:
We must be able to distinguish faith based on objective verifiable evidence, and faith that is based totally on subjective and completely unverifiable evidence (if any evidence at all). If "blind faith" is not the appropriate term for the latter, sorry, but that's what I'm referring to with that term.

At any rate, it's very misleading to conflate both kinds of faith and use the same term to refer to either without distinction or clarification.

OK, we disagree. Fair enough?
 
Apr 11, 2009
2,250
0
0
Visit site
Ninety5rpm said:
(for example. Flandis did too much testosterone)

Again, I think this is Floyd speaking about himself. Very important set of italics in the original, [his emphasis], around bolded words, LOL.

Perfectly reasonable, rational response to a situation (the difficult situation he found himself in: not the worst doper by any means, versus Discovery/Postal/peleton standards, but got caught, whatever). :D

I'm not going to quibble here about true/false, right/wrong. Just making an observation about who I think this is.

Again, welcome, :)
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Ninety5rpm said:
Among the several different messages that Armstrong is delivering in this amazing piece, at all different levels, is this one: You know better. You know I dope. You know I know I dope. You know I have to deny that I dope. You should also know that my story and image is a huge inspiration to countless cancer patients, and that has a real and positive effect on their potential outcomes. You know that exposing the prevalence of doping within the sport, even more than it already has been, is not good for the sport, and certainly not good for the ability of my image to continue to inspire as effectively, especially if I personally am the target. You know better. Let. It. Go..

I is a nice sentiment, but that would take an honesty and humility that he has never shown in my opinion. Narcissists are many times good at approximating real human emotion, but ultimately their driving force is always their selfishness.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Parrot23 said:
Again, I think this is Floyd speaking about himself. Very important set of italics in the original, [his emphasis], around bolded words, LOL.

Perfectly reasonable, rational response to a situation (the difficult situation he found himself in: not the worst doper by any means, versus Discovery/Postal/peleton standards, but got caught, whatever). :D

I'm not going to quibble here about true/false, right/wrong. Just making an observation about who I think this is.

Again, welcome, :)

Well, if it is, I have a message: Dude, without PED's, you suck.
 
Apr 11, 2009
2,250
0
0
Visit site
Careful.:p

Floyd has lost everything: status, money, wife, home (said to be sleeping on a friend's couch). Not the time to pile on, or even ever to do this, even if it's not him.

Just a thought. But if this is him alive and kicking, good for him. Go Floyd! :D
 
Mar 13, 2009
65
0
0
Visit site
Ninety5rpm said:
Do we really need to go down that road? Belief in some god is the root cause of much evil (9/11, the witch hunts, the Christian crusades, Ireland to the middle east, countless old testament stories, slavery, homophobia, etc.) . The few isolated examples of atheists who did evil, like Stalin, were evil despite their atheism, not because of it.


One question?
Why are you prepared to seperate one groups action from there belief system and not anothers?

Bad people do bad things! Yes I agree that bad things have been done in the name of religion, but all to often if you look below the surface religion was simply used as a veil to hide some other agenda, or beause of the extremely close links between church and state.

I'm sorry to go OT but it intrests me that peolple always see things from their side off the argument without trying to be objective. That applies to all the fans of different riders who like to think that others may cheat but not (insert name of favourite rider), they just train harder are more gifted or whatever.

We all think that what we think is right, we'd be fools otherwise. But you have to be open to the fact that you may just be wrong. The biggest fool is he who cant or wont change their mind, and I'm not neccesarily talking belief systems here.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Parrot23 said:
Careful.:p

Floyd has lost everything: status, money, wife, home (said to be sleeping on a friend's couch). Not the time to pile on, or even ever to do this, even if it's not him.

Just a thought. But if this is him alive and kicking, good for him. Go Floyd! :D

So have thousands of people I have known who have lost it all because of "recreational" drugs. They did it to themselves. He wants respect, drop the charade of the FFF and all that sh!t he talked about his innocence and the conspiracies of people who were just doing their job. Not to mention what they said did in regards to Lemond's sexual abuse. I feel no pity for a needle freak who still isn't honest about his life. He was public with all of the denial and vitriol, he needs to be public about his contrition for having cheated and having hurt the lives of others.

I remember 18 years ago when I was getting clean. I was whining to this old timer about all of the sh!t in my life that I had caused that was then coming home to roost. He looked at me and said "My heart pumps pis$ for you and your problems." He ended up being one of the guys that was instrumental in my sobriety not because he was worried about my "feelings" but because he was willing to tell me the truth and show me that there was another way to live that didn't involve lying and covering my as$ and covering my behavior.

That is just how I roll.
 
Thoughtforfood said:
It is a nice sentiment, but that would take an honesty and humility that he has never shown in my opinion. Narcissists are many times good at approximating real human emotion, but ultimately their driving force is always their selfishness.
Ultimately, the driving force for everyone is selfishness (e.g., some are "good" because they look forward to reward in the afterlife). Narcissists simply don't have a genuine personal interest in others - but the interest in others that non-narcissists have is still selfish. My love for my family and friends, for example, is quite selfish.

I don't mean to speak for Armstrong - obviously I can't. But I do believe he would say something like what I wrote, except of course he can't since he can't admit to the doping. But you already know that.

The thing is, Armstrong is human, and the cancer, recovery and 7 Tour wins were all real. He really did experience all that, and, that put him in a position to connect with other cancer patients. Whether that connection is authentic, I don't know or care (and for the life of me I cannot comprehend why it seems to matter so much to you). What matters is that the connection is real to hundreds if not thousands of cancer patients. Maybe Lance is taking advantage of that for his own benefit. Fine, so what? The connection and inspiration is still real for the patients. It's a good thing, no matter what his motivations are. I cannot, however, see any redeeming value in the campaign to knock him down.

You said you disagree with the other thing. To clarify... so you disagree with me when I say it's important to not conflate the two very different kinds of faith? You think it's fine to conflate them, to not distinguish? Just want to make sure I understand what you're saying...

As to the suggestions that I'm Flandis or Arnie Baker... ROTFLOL! I don't think either would refer to Floyd as "Flandis", by the way.
 

TRENDING THREADS