Religious fanatic? Blame it on 'god gene':

I wonder how they will respond to this, hmm? Will it be a "flaw" or a "gift" or some other euphemism for being blessed and chosen?

-- Allen

Oy........ the confusion all around

what would you call it?

of the lunacy of "faith" as any, i suppose.

but how do we "treat" it?

extremists are suffering from permanent brain damage as a result of years of exposure to brain washing. The normal tendencies toward using logic in determining values are bypassed in favor of the blind acceptance of ideas foisted upon them by a very disingenuous church leadership that know exactly what they are doing.

Unfortunately, by virtue of their monolithic voting block, they are able to control the voting process in the U.S. (that along with various forms of election fraud.)

But, like the rest of my D.U. colleagues, I'm long on analysis and short on remedy. I don't know how we could reach millions of Americans who are, for all practical purposes, in a rather deep state
of cognitive damage. It's like trying to convince hoards of zombies
to change their views. In fact, if there is an answer, it will most likely not include changing the zombies themselves, but rather, altering the context in which they operate.

what you call brain-washing, I call child abuse and psyche murder.

I like your last paragraph, but I don't believe we have to reach them. I believe we have to get electronic voting banned.

I'm afraid these things go deeper, and most of us parents if not all keep repeating the patterns we've been killed with, to some degree at least. What I mean is the whole carrot/stick model to which our societies from families to nations keep repeating, model that aims to kill the natural creativity and open minded questioning that we observe in our children. Creativity is it's own reward and punishment ;), additional reward/punisment just suffocates creativity.

is certainly correct. Ironically, Die-bold has been making bank ATM machines for years and they are quite accurate. I believe the key to reforming the voting and vote counting process is to have each voter's
transactions recorded and connected to the voter's SS#, which would be
aliased publicly to any ID the voter chose. Then all of the voting transactions for each precinct would be posted publicly in order to allow each voter to verify that his/her vote was correctly counted.
Their wouldn't be much risk of privacy invasion with this process since the SS numbers wouldn't be publicly posted.

If these suggestions were followed, the election process would be as accurate as you bank accounts. (I know we've all had some problems with these as well. But, not on any significant percentage level.)

Just how in the hell we're going to get any reforms in place I don't know since the "wolves" are most definitely "in the hen-house".

But fellow D.U.ers. We can only keep up the fight as best we can.

As one of those suffering from permanent brain damage as a result of years of exposure to brain washing - a zombie in a rather deep state of cognitive damage - I have a little different take. I presume that you were describing me, since you said "religious extremists" rather than "political extremists" and I share the theology of many Bush supporters without in any way being a supporter of Bush.

You say "unfortunately, by virtue of their monolithic voting block, they are able to control the voting process in the U.S." which I think is true only in the wildest dreams of those who would benefit by it.

To see it the way you describe it is to admit defeat before starting, because you are accepting what Bush and Robertson want you to believe - that they speak for and control Christians.

The block is only an artifact of shared opposition to something else. Part of that "something else" which sustains the block is Christians being called zombies and brain damaged.

I would hope a "progressive" would be more tolerant and enlightened than that. Could you clarify for us?

Very glad! :bounce:

Perhaps the way other groups of people have been "treated" in other cultures at other times when they were seen as diseased or defective? Forced re-education has been tried as well as detention and extermination.

Regardless of whom is targeted, and in what cause, talking about any group of people as being "lunatics" and asking how "it" should be treated is chillingly suppressive and frightening. It is not at all different than the way Nazis talked about Jews, or the Soviets talked about dissidents, or the current adminstration talks about "terrorists."

LOL squared!

Since they hold to a "nobody can choose to believe" philosophy.

and religious experiences. When you think about it, having a "god gene" does confer a bit of survivability. Say you have two cavemen looking at the stars. One says, "Sky god Ug made stars." The other isn't satisfied with that explanation. Caveman #1 continues on his merry way, content with his belief. Caveman #2 is distracted, may not hunt as well, etc. *shrug* Who knows.

With LSD and other psychotropes and religious experience. So what? Mental states have physiological aspect, humans like all being are integrated wholes. Does this spell materialist reductionism? Nope, not in any way. When you get to the quantum domain, it becomes clear that matter is just one aspect of being (so called wave/particle dualism).

"Caveman Number 2".

Change it before the Nov 22 deadline. Unless you really want to retain your homage to the ill-fated Russian revoloutionary Stalin murdered.

I see the tendency to either be fervently religious or non-religious. Many in her family were ministers, going back to the 13 colonies. Yet my Mom says her mother, "didn't believe in all that stuff", as much a backlash against the excesses she saw in her family than anything else.

But I have cousins who are nutsoid about religion on my Mom's side of the family. So it seems possible to me that a gene may have been responsible, just like the tendency toward alcoholism or depression. (Same gene, different manifestation?)

He should check his premises. Simpleminded materialist reductionism is soooooo last millenium. It is just as stupid as any other rigid faith.

How many folks actually chose to 'not believe' There are times when I wish I could feel the same sense of security that the good religious people I know seem to have. I went through a time of trying believe but it never took. Now I'm comfortable with my lack of belief.

Since my wife and I apparently are both missing this gene does that mean my daughters will likewise be religion-free?

are not the same. Materialist positivism as faith in the current scientific paradigm has equal function of giving sense of security as other faiths, ie. unquestioned dogmas.

Buddhism, Gnosticism, Taoism etc. are usually counted as religions, yet they have little to do with faith, on the opposite, their soteriology is to free oneself from all beliefs and other dualistic delusions.

interesting story on the "God gene." The information being put forth is a little different than what is being said here. Human beings obviously have a genetic make-up that allows them to see color, for example, but that does not imply that color does not exist. It is the human brain's ability to pick up energy and process it in a meaningful way. Same with the brain's ability to process "God." A more interesting idea is the idea that many people do not have a fully developed capacity to experience that which we call "God," and then, like the color blind, are convinced that this energy does not exist.

are somehow imcomplete because they "cannot experience God'?!?

:wtf:???

Maybe we CHOOSE to have certain beliefs!

I'll have to read it again, because I didn't see that which you are saying in the article at all. Perhaps I'm "imcomplete" too.

lacking any kind of demension in their perceptions of the universe.

Flat thinkers are much more preferable to flat earth believers.

Pistic (=faith based) Christians and believers in Science defined as dogma of materialistic reductionism; pot meet kettle. ;)

it's like they have a missing set of intelligences.
I am religious, believe in God, Christ the whole deal. I max out on tests of logic and reason. Of all my intelligences, that is my 2nd strongest trait right after reading and language.
Along with those strengths my scores in other areas put me in the top 2 percent of all people for IQ. I qualify for Mensa...
But people like to pretend lack of faith means someone is more logical, more rational. Sorry but that doesn't seem very smart to me. :shrug:

I have zero religious faith; I scored 100% on logical reasoning in the last IQ test I took, and I'm in the upper 0.5% of the population, according to the scores. Religious faith has NOTHING to do with intelligence; don't try to make it sound like it does. That's nothing but arrogance. The most fervent believers are often the LEAST intelligent. Whatever you're trying to say has no logic, I'm afraid.

Perhaps we have different understanding of the word "faith", which to me means unquestioned belief, not based on experience or logic.

If you had used e.g. 'spirituality' instead of 'faith', I would fully agree with you.

Faith bad, religion bad... spirituality good. It is really not to wise to get caught up on code words.

None of us is free from attaching emotional connotations to words, I don't claim so. The trick is to be consciouss of those emoticons. Your response so far is nothing but a brush of instead of serious attempt to engage in dialogue.

See my post below re 'faith'. In order to have meaningfull dialogue, which opens up the world, it is usefull to apply also rationality, to try to be as open as possible to others and especially to ourselves in what sense we use words, what they reveal about our perceptions of the world.

Perhaps we have different understanding of the word "faith", which to me means unquestioned belief, not based on experience or logic

It's not "unquestioned belief". Faith is belief in the absence of proof. Oftentimes, an individuals faith is based on their experiences, which are subjective and therefore cannot contribute to a proof.

try to be as open as possible to others and especially to ourselves in what sense we use words

Your inaccurate use of the word "faith" as "unquestioned belief" reveals that you think those who have faith do not question their beliefs. That is not true, and I hope you can remain open to the possibility that questioning our beliefs is important to many of us who do have faith.

In order for us to have a meaningful dialogue (oh the internet cliche` of it all) it is first necessary for you to let go of you mistaken idea of what faith means.

are not clichès without a good reason. :)

I don't think it is mistaken idea that faith is often connected to dogmatism. That doesn't mean that dogmatism is exhaustive definition of faith, and I have discussed other connotations in other posts. I can admit that perhaps from the point of view of attempting a meaningful dialogue it is not the best approach the bring up dogmatism as the first connotation.

Earlier, s/he said that "faith" is "unquestioned belief"

To my response, s/he said that s/he was talking about "dogmatic faith" even though that's not true.

And to you, the response is about "cliches" and tries to wiggle out of admitting it's daffy definition for "faith" and now claims that s/he only said that "faith is often CONNECTED to dogmatism"

This one's got all the answers, and everyone gets a different answer.

"Faith" as "unquestioned belief" is more of a tautology than definition when discussed on general level. In context of Pistic Christianity 'faith' naturally has special meaning. Getting stuck on definitions, emoticons and other connotations for too long time leads nowhere but to flame wars, but your attempt at starting one is noted.

I don't have all the answers, but I can at least to try to be more flexible than dogmagically rigid about meanings of words, and move about in various contexts. If that bugs you, sorry, can't help.

"Faith" as "unquestioned belief" is more of a tautology than definition when discussed on general level

So, in addition to "faith", you are also making up new meanings for the word "tautology". Which clashes with you earlier spin about how "unquestioned belief" was merely the definition for "DOGMATIC faith".

But I guess you forgot about how you once distinguished between "faith" and "dogmatic faith" (when it was expedient for you) and when you don't distinguish the two (when it's expedient for you)

Getting stuck on definitions, emoticons and other connotations for too long time leads nowhere but to flame wars, but your attempt at starting one is noted.

Ah yes, the old "the noticed my mistakes, so I'll blame them for wanting a flame war, even though I just said that calling it "dogmatic" was inflammatory"

The inflammatory poster is the one who keeps repeating how the other one is getting upset. That would be you. My posts say nothing about your personality or emotional state.

elections. (Aside from the theft, that is)

minus the three last letters of the fifth word.

Oh, by the way, consider it flung.

Years ago, I had fallen in love with a guy who at some point in our relationship suddenly discovered fundamentalist Christianity. Since I was considering marrying him, and he wouldn't accept an agreement to disagree, I promised to give it a try.

So I went to church with him, but it didn't take me long to realize that I just didn't belong. I had studied the Bible extensively, and I understood the Christian system of ethics from an academic and historical perspective, but I had no deep emotional tie to God. I saw people around me swaying with their arms in the air, eyes tightly closed, singing incoherently, and I tried so hard to feel it, but I couldn't. I neither experienced nor understood the sheer faith and ecstasy that all of them did. It was like I was mentally incapable of turning from my critical worldview.

We are a country of bullies, these fundies take a religious position because it is hard to fight because it's based on smoke and mirrors, they call it faith.

Religion or spirituality does not mean AUTOMATIC FUNDIE. In fact in my experience I would argue the opposite.

I think the article's use of the word fanatic to, by implication, describe Buddha is somewhat misled. Jeebus, I have no opnion on. He wanted to overthrow the existing regimes, both Jewish and Roman, so fanatic might describe him.

>They said the idea of people having a predisposition to faith simply displays a failure to understand it.

And I more than agree with this sentence. Faith is a choice. I chose to have faith (no I'm not a Christian). I didn't grow up with an innate faith in anything. I came to it after making a conscious decision to allow myself to have faith.

So all you fundy bashers, have fun. But leave spirituality and faith out of the equation.

Early Christianity was divided into Pistics ("faith-based", from the greek word for 'believe') and Gnostics ("knowledge/consciousness-based"), which the former slaughtered after allying with Emperor Constantine. The saying 'faith can move mountains' is revealing, if accepted for what it says. This requires a non-Cartesian world view where mind and matter are not separate, but mere aspectual differences, causally linked in a dynamic process.

Thus, faith is form of magic, and the hard opposition to magic from Pistics (witch hunts etc.) is nothing but the attempt of power worshippers to monopolize all magic.

What has any of your response got to do with the unthinking bigotry displayed in this thread (and really, on a lot of this board) when the term spirituality comes up? Along with their knee-jerk association to Fundamentalisim and the freep-like mob mentality that anything religious or spiritual engenders in this crowd.

I agree. Faith is a form of magical thinking. We engage in that type of thinking every single day of our lives in one form or another. I'm fully conscious of that. I spent years studying it. As I said: I chose to have faith.

Again...what's your point in posting your response? An attempt at drawing relevant connections would be nice.

My point is to share my thoughts and try open up the discussion beyond the usual trenches, see post 25.

I consider the 'faith' in the meaning of magical thinking a positive thing, I take the power of prayer for real as I do for other forms of magic, though I disagree with Pistic Christians for the explanations they give to the power prayer and especially the exclusiveness of their approach to magic - I prefer the more general scientific explanations which are not necessarily allways contradictory and keeping open mind to all magic. I realize that faith can also mean overcoming fear of death of Ego and abandoning oneself to the mercy of mystery and thus "joining with God", and have great respect for mystics like Eckhardt and Rumi from the monotheistic schools.

What I'm critical about is 'faith' as dogmatic thinking, book-worshipping, authoritarianism, something that cannot be even attempted to discuss rationally. Dogmatic thinking is something that occurs everywhere, in religions and science alike, and nothing good comes out when two dogmas clash as they usually do in the arguments between believers in (personal allmighty) God and believers in (materialistic paradigm of) science. For me, there needs not to be any contradictions between rationality and spirituality, and in my holistic world view (I call it Heraclitean paradigm ;)) there isn't, "magic" and "holy" (="achieving wholeness") are not supernatural but natural; rational thinking which is by necessity bound by dichotomy of subject and object has it's natural, but not absolute limits, of which we should try to be aware of and not deny holistic/mystic/religious experience which goes beyond dualism of rationality.

I don't know how many relevant connections I succeeded in drawing, but hopefully this clarified some things about my approach to this thread. :)

What I'm critical about is 'faith' as dogmatic thinking, book-worshipping, authoritarianism, something that cannot be even attempted to discuss rationally.

"Faith" is simply a belief in spite of a lack of proof. Please stop lecturing about faith when you don't seem to understand what it is. "Faith" has nothing to do with dogma, authoritarianism, and the other irrelevant concepts you've raised to demonize faith as "unquestioned belief" and/or "Belief in magic"

will tell you it is their faith.

--IMM

Even you implicitely admit that they're wrong.

Tell that to the faithful.

--IMM

.

Just consider all those whose beliefs are based on faith that counter other's beliefs based as strongly on faith. Some, at least must be wrong.

--IMM

Faith is sometimes wrong.....so what?

Science is also sometimes wrong.

Science postulates that it can be wrong.

Faith never admits it's wrong. Genocide is committed in the name of faith, and you say, "So what?"

Stupidest? Very revealing.

--IMM

Science postulates that it can be wrong.

So does faith.

Faith never admits it's wrong.

Wrong

Genocide is committed in the name of faith, and you say, "So what?"

So the 30 million that the atheist Mao caused to starve to death in the Great Famine was committed in the name of which faith?

When Milosevic tried to ethnically cleanse Muslims and Croats, which faith did he do it in the name of?

Stupidest? Very revealing.

Yes, it was the stupidest, and your response revealed your consistency

Are you saying genocide is not committed in the name of religion?

Can you supply some instances of faith admitting it was wrong? Catholics exonerating Galileo centuries later and acknowledging the fallacy of on Ptolemaic solar system hardly counts. They held on for so long after the notion was ridiculous.

Stupidest? Remains to be seen. I'll try harder.

(As to consistency. I worked at a school once where one of the teachers suggesting we put a grade for consistency on students' report cards. I asked what mark a student should get for consistency if they fail every test. Put that one to rest. IMO, consistency is incidental to integrity.)

On edit, did Mao have "belief without proof"? (Your definition.)

My definition: Faith is belief despite contrary proof.

--IMM

Are you saying genocide is not committed in the name of religion?

FUnny, how instead of responding to what I actually did say, you make something up that I never said, and argue with that.

Can you supply some instances of faith admitting it was wrong?

Sure - Confession is faith admitting it is wrong, and it happens every day.

You may want to read what you wrote. And don't worry, I won't accuse you of being consistent. Go through the thread.

I didn't say that faith had to be religion based in relation to genocide. But only faith can justify it. You introduced religion by bringing up atheis Mao. Then you say I'm not respondingto what you did say.

Mao had faith that he was acting in the interests of the proletariat. I think he professed "knowledge without proof." that's your definition. Or did you hear Mao say, "I'll kill all these people because I'm evil."?

Similarly, to illuminate what you said:

Confession is "knowledge without proof" admitting it is wrong, and it happens every day. Again I used your definition.

I would say that confession is people admitting that they did wrong. You would differ how?

Still waiting for examples. Just the ones that happened today will do.

Maybe I'm too stupid to think of any.

--IMM

It's not "unquestioned belief". Faith is belief in the absence of proof. Oftentimes, an individuals faith is based on their experiences, which are subjective and therefore cannot contribute to a proof.

As a matter of fact, all experience is ultimately subjective, presupposing an experiencer and something experienced, at least according to reductionist, dualistic line. Or is it possible to talk about apersonal experience? Funnily enough, Finnish verb system has apersonal verb form in addition to the three usual persons. But I'm digressing, empiricism, subjectivity and objectivity is a huge topic.


Your inaccurate use of the word "faith" as "unquestioned belief" reveals that you think those who have faith do not question their beliefs. That is not true, and I hope you can remain open to the possibility that questioning our beliefs is important to many of us who do have faith.

So my connotations are simply incorrect and yours correct? How dogmatic of you! ;)

But it does not reveal anything of the kind, if you cared to read my post, dogmatic faith was not the only meaning I gave. In no way does it follow from saying that sometimes faith is dogmatic, unquestioning, blind or whatever, that I would claim that it is allways so. Perhaps you can admit there is such thing as dogmatic faith? IMO questioning ones belief system is allways positive, and everybody has a belief system, where the unquestioned presumptions are often unconsciouss ones.

We both have our emoticons on the word 'faith', mine tend to be negative, yours positive, Gnostic and Pistic trying to speak to each other is not easy! :D But I think we can overcome this difficulty admitting things as they are, trying to be consciouss of our mutual emoticons and leave them be.


"Faith" is simply a belief in spite of a lack of proof. Please stop lecturing about faith when you don't seem to understand what it is. "Faith" has nothing to do with dogma, authoritarianism, and the other irrelevant concepts you've raised to demonize faith as "unquestioned belief" and/or "Belief in magic"

Again, nothing to do with dogma and authoritarianism? I don't know nothing about your personal faith, and am not discussing that. But from your aggressive tone it seems that something in my posts put some of your belief systems under test - which you imply is a good thing -, raising some defencive mechanisms. Please, no need to take my posts so personally, not intended so.

I'm NOT demonizing faith, as you should understand from my posts, I'm not demonizing anything. On the opposite, I don't think magic should be demonized either. I understand that the word magic has negative connotations to people whose religion has been demonizing magic, very literally, but I don't have to succumb to those connotations. You can either try to be open minded and try to understand what I mean, or stick with your defencive mechanisms. For me magic means first and foremost empiricity, trial and error in domains where conventional science has not yeat entered. From that point of view belief is usefull method (e.g. healing by power of belief), but not something one should get dogmatic about, because dogmatism suffocates creativity. Of course instead of magic we could use other words e.g. study of 'paranormal', or in the Pistic Christian context, faith and prayer, just like I did.

As a matter of fact, all experience is ultimately subjective

Umm, that's what I said - experience is subjective

So my connotations are simply incorrect and yours correct? How dogmatic of you! ;)

Again, huh? I never said your connotations are "simply incorrect". I'm sure you've made some accurate connotations in your life, but I only criticized one of them, not because it was YOUR connotation, but because it was wrong.

And if you think anything I've said is incorrect, please point it out and present your argument, instead of implying that I've declared everything I say "correct", which has only happened in your imagination. Next time, try to argue with something I've actually said.

dogmatic faith was not the only meaning I gave

Not true, You said that faith is "unquestioned belief". You did not distinguish between "faith" and "dogmatic faith", and for good reason, "dogma" and "faith" are two different things.

We both have our emoticons on the word 'faith', mine tend to be negative, yours positive

Nice. Since when does your emotional response to the word "faith" justify your making up a new definition for the word?

But I think we can overcome this difficulty admitting things as they are, trying to be consciouss of our mutual emoticons and leave them be

I have a better solution - Look up the word "faith" in a dictionary and stop making it up.

Again, nothing to do with dogma and authoritarianism?

Yes

I'm NOT demonizing faith,

No, you're mis-defining it.

I'm not demonizing anything

Which is why I said nothing aout you demonizing anything.

Do you always spend so much time addressing things NOBODY said?

For me magic means...

Umm, try a dictionary. It's much better than making stuff up, and it might help if you were to speak the same language as the rest of us, where the words mean what we all know they mean.

how can anybody argue against that? :D

Talk about book-worshipping... FYI my profession is translator (not to or from English, mind you), and I work with all kinds of dictionaries, all the time. Words and language transmit meaning, not definitions, and meaning, which is allways context sensitive, cannot be contained by any dictionary or definition. Dictionaries are man made tools, not voices authoritative voices of Truth. But you can take my comment on dictionaries as authoritative voice! :D

Like I said, either you are interested in sharing meaning through dialogue, which means reciprocity, also trying to see things from the other persons perspective, or not. Trying to hit me in the head with a dictionary shows the choise you made. Good day and have a nice life! :)

One more thing on uses of the word "faith". We often talk about doing something in "good faith". Usefull discussion requires a leap of faith, doing something in the good faith that the other is similar being to you and that meaningfull communication is possible. When someone out of fear or for some other reason refuses to take that leap of faith, communication breaks down and flame wars and other disruptive and divisive behaviour takes place.

like your habit of creating "daffynitions"

Usefull discussion requires a leap of faith

Useful discussion requires a common language and an avoidance of making up stuff as you go. It also requires that you don't go back and for from "Faith is unquestioned belief" to "DOGMATIC Faith is unquestioned belief" and then back to "faith is unquestioned belief"

Useful discussion requires that you not make unspecified accusations about how I want to start a flame war, without your pointing out any inappropriate remark on my part.

Useful discussion requires that if you accuse me of making a mistake, you point out what it is and why you think it's a mistake, instead of hiding behind another accusation about me wanting to start a flame war.

on edit: I Just noticed you have a pattern of ignoring your mistakes and accusing others of wanting a flame war. In at least five of your posts, you lecture posters about what "reasonable dialogue" requires, each one says something different.

we don't have a common language, all we can have is attempt, in good faith, towards common language. Words are not dictionary definitions, words are how we use them, each of us more or less differently.

So "making stuff up" is the way to go, not sticking to rigid daffynitions, what you falsely think I was attempting to do. I have been attempting to explore the consept of faith from many angles, in different contexts (not only yours, but including), which you seem to find also distastefull. Debates about whose daffynition is better and "right" are IMO stupid, boring and unfruitfull, and tend to lead up to flaming and making it personal, instead discussing the subject at hand.

Believe me, I'm not trying to win a debate here, that is not my motivation, so give it up, you can win all you want.

and when caught on it, you make up more stuff.

Please explain how "unqestioned belief" went from a definition of "faith" to a definition of "DOGMATIC faith", and then back to a definition of "faith"?

And maybe, this time, you can do that without accusing me of starting a flame war. All I've done is point out where I think you've made mistakes and ask questions about it. You, on the other hand, lob accusations but never explain them, something you've done to several people in this thread, as well as in other threads.

I hadn't had my caffine fix this morning...

We are in agreement on a number of things, including the difference between faith and dogma. That seems to be the problem with people here. They keep hearing the word FUNDIE every time someone says the word spirituality.

I don't even try to reconcile my "western" mind to my belief system. I'm fairly internally consistent when it comes to my spirituality and morality meshing. Where I would get dissonance between my "magical" (following the terms of your argument) abilities and my rational, orderly science-oriented mind, I simply let the western side claim it's superiority as it will. I think folks who can't admit that they are, by nature, internally incosistent are the ones who try to disprove it most. Usually by claiming religious superiority (Fundie Southern Baptist) or moral or intellectual superiority (Many DU-er's in this thread). Either way, it suggests an inability to view things critically or holistically.

Thanks for your patience with my impatience and thanks for taking the time to expand your thesis a bit. It did help.

Your questions about "my point" were most helpfull and took the discussion forwards.

>>>I don't even try to reconcile my "western" mind to my belief system. I'm fairly internally consistent when it comes to my spirituality and morality meshing. Where I would get dissonance between my "magical" (following the terms of your argument) abilities and my rational, orderly science-oriented mind, I simply let the western side claim it's superiority as it will. I think folks who can't admit that they are, by nature, internally incosistent are the ones who try to disprove it most.<<<

Sorry, I'm one of those people! :D

I seriously try to reconcile my spirituality with western science. Admittedly, having Buddhist/Gnostic/Shamanistic/etc spiritualistic inclinations and being somewhat ecclectic about western science (Bohm, Sheldrake, Mind & Quantum project, which admittedly are strong hypothesis with limited empirical support so far) does help a lot. :)

Nothingness (a study of nothing from a western scientific perspective)

The standards:
Chaos by Gleick
all of Targ and Harary's books
The beginners guide to constructing the universe
The God Particle (actually saw Leiderman speak when I was in Grad School He's like a sweet old grandpa.)
Godel, Escher and Bach
Art and Physics

Techniques of Ecstacy by Eliade
I studied with a fellow up in Ohio for 3 years. He'd done his PhD fieldwork (cultural anthropolgy) in Taiwan, so his slant on shamanic practice was fairly multicultural.


Good to meet a fellow traveler

Holograph is good analogy.

Thanks for the tips.

Here's some of my influences:
Nagaryuna (study of Emptiness, sunyata, from the eastern scientific perspective, google him)
Castaneda (yeah, I know...)
Greek Philosophy
Gospel by Thomas
Krishnamurti (both of them, Jiddu and A.G.!)
David Bohm

>>>Good to meet a fellow traveler<<<

Allways! May your path be long, winding and rewarding! :)

The Holographic Universe. Some science, some speculation...Thought provoking.

As per C.S. Lewis (arguably considered one of the greater apologists of the 20th century) faith is nothing more than:

"Belief in that which we do not fully understand"

It's also the definition which most of my Christian peers use. It may or may not agree with Webster's, but in the context of Christianity, it's a pretty accurate definition.

has been found to have a genetic predisposition for positing genetic predispositions.

It can't be true if we don't "believe" in it.

Faith. An automatic system encoded in our brains to fill in the blanks in an extremely confusing and complex world.

Faith is bullshit.

There is a great collection of writings be Bertrand Russell called "Why I am not a Christian." In it he delivers a logical, devastating blow to each and every "belief, "faith", not to mention all organized religions. A good read.

Pity it will be burned along with 1984 and other great reads after Gonzales is confirmed.

is by definition (see Popper) falsifiable; science is no better that dogmatic faith unless one understands a bit about philosophy of science and what "truth" means in scientific context, that it is never more than our current best guess and allways contextual: given the (unquestioned) presupposition A, then B. There can be no such thing as final theory of everything.

christian zealots are guilty of.

They not only ignore "science" and proven scientific truths, they wish to bar that data from the public.

Then quote someone elses writings as evidence they are right.

I'll bet you don't even know why that is funny.

It is a crutch. It is a shortcut. It is the ultimate in human weakness.

I love when people of "faith" turn off their minds and lash out by labeling those not brain-damaged by their bogus beliefs as stupid.

..to believe so strongly that "faith is bullshit."

Or maybe it just requires turning off one's mind and lashing out and labeling others as stupid.

However, I try to do something about it. I read, I study, I learn. I am open to new ideas. I DON'T need some fundie jerk telling me about some make-believe god and his son as though that has anything to do with this universe, much less this world or our country.

The inconsistencies and errors in the bible are so numerous, so humorous and so telling, that it boggles the mind. And the typical fundie answer to a serious question? "It is a matter of faith." In the face of contrary fact, reason, logic, etc.

Religion is based on fear. It causes fear. It uses fear. It scares people into acting in certain ways, makes silly promises about redemption, and demands money. Lots and lots of money. It causes people to act in irrational ways, it makes people feel guilty about the most normal and beautiful human interaction, ie sex. It demands allegiance, it demands belief in erroneous ideas, it bars plain thinking.

Religious beliefs have led to more pain, suffering, death, torture, and wrongdoing in the name of some make-believe god than any despot.

You want faith? Fine, just keep it to yourself and keep it out of our schools, our laws and our country. We don't want our children's mind polluted by this nonsence. It causes too much long term damage.

Nor your bigotry and irrationality. You start with the assumption that all of these things are tied together somehow - from your stereotype of a typical fundy all the way to a grandiose analysis of the history of mankind - and then claim the assumptions to be proven. That is blind faith and irrationality right there.

Do these people who have caused all of the world's problems - and live mostly in the South - tend to eat a lot of chocolate? Just wondering what other indicators we can drag in here to better identify the ones we need to hate and reject.

Yes, fear is one of the central questions in any religion. Lot of religious activity is not about manipulating fear (not the monopoly of religion, eh?) but searching for the causes of and curing fear. Pistic Christianity is not the only religion there is.

and you don't make enough sense. Can't you make a point without denigrating someone?

If my posts that have nothing to do with your person make you feel denigrated, unsecure or what ever is the problem (I don't claim to know), why blame me? If I don't make any sense to you, fine, so be it, hopefully they make some sense to somebody.

If I have insulted you or hurt your feelings some way, I apologize.
Could you now please stop stalking me?

If my posts that have nothing to do with your person make you feel denigrated, unsecure or what ever is the problem

Who said I feel denigrated? I noticed you don't refute my claim that you've used a term of denigration. You just try to misportray me as upset, as you've so many times before in this thread.

why blame me?

Because you're the one who is insulting everyone who disagrees with you, and I noticed that it's not just in this thread. You seem to make a habit of it.

Could you now please stop stalking me?

If you think I'm stalking you, contact the mods, but I won't stop posting when and where I want to.

with Christians. I think some Democrats want to use politics to push a disbelief about God. I think while they mean well, they are harming the ability of Dems to get our message listened to by people of faith. TOLERANCE is arguably the most important attribute of Democrats. So don't attack Christians (or Muslims or Jews) for having faith in God. Do not try to change a group's whole belief structure and expect them to listen to anything you have to say. You are speaking an alien language to many when you are talking about how religion is bad, etc. etc.

and I agree about you message of tollerance.

Most democrats are christians? Bah. Too many of them are too smart for that garbage.

I have a growing intolerance for self-proclaimed people of faith, especially when they start screwing with education, international policies and health issues. Like stem cells, abortion, contraception and much, much more.

Religious bigots have caused more war, more pain and more death than anyone else, and I take into consideration Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin and Hitler.

Religious people, those who preach their faith to others, those who demand that legal systems kowtow to their brain-damaged view of morality, ethics and proper behavior, are our biggest danger.

The fact that most neocon GOPers happen to be fundie morons should surprise no one.

I'm not a fundie. But you've defintely given proof to the point that I made with your post, lil-petunia.

And they are mostly not Christians.

Even Christians here do not agree on details of their faith. During the time of the founding, a person would identify his religion as Methodist or Presbyterian or Baptist, etc. The general identity of Christian is relatively contemporary.

I agree with tolerance. Since I think no two people agree on everything, life without tolerance would be difficult.

--IMM

Rather than bend over and take it in the rump, we have to loudly and repeatedly point out all their flaws, all of their warts and show just how badly religions serve humanity.

Zealots of faith are in the wrong, and if we don't start pointing out the error of their ways, they will just continue to be fruitful and multiply. That in turn will only make our society worse.

If you can believe the Xtion reconstructionist/Dominionist agenda, there can be no peace with these people.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/christiantaliban.jpe

I saw that definition somewhere. It was presented as a joke. The more I see it though, the more I accept it.

A story: My father was in business with a man who had strong beliefs. He would not come to our house, because my brother had rescued a stray cat. The cat was black. It was bad luck. He sincerely believed that. I think of this whenever I hear the phrase, "I respect your beliefs." Actually I respect your right to believe whatever you want, but I don't have to pay homage to those beliefs.

I have problems also with homemade definitions of concepts like energy. People use that word for whatever they want. Energy is as well defined as "matter" but since we can't see it, they ascribe it to all sorts of things. If you've seen the Sci-Fi channel's "Ghost Hunters" you hear them talk about spirits and say, "spirits are energy" as if that explains or justifies those delusions. Then there is the quantum mechanical distortions. This is largely not understood so it becomes a catch all for many imaginary notions.

I can understand the notion of "spirituality" because it defines an emotional reaction to the "miracle of existence," something I can relate to whenever I study the sky, the stars, the other wonders of nature. This I attribute to a notion of holism, an effect which transcends the elements of its makeup.

I'll go back to my idea of faith. Anything that has any basis of reality at all does not require faith. Usually, it's when the evidence is against you.

--IMM

(Edits for spelling)

a lack of knowledge and understanding leads to a decisive split among people.

When faced with the unknown, one group investigates, tests, theorizes and learns. They can be termed "rationalists"

The other group, mainly populating America's South, puts its collective head in the sand, praises some make-believe lord, prays for their local football team to win, beats their spouse, believe the earth is flat, stem cell research is a mortal sin, their god actually gave birth to some son (just wondering who was JC's mother? how come we never hear about her?) wrote some book, the death penalty is fine, but abortion is not. They can be termed "irrational jesus loving, fundie morons"

When faced with the unknown, one group investigates, tests, theorizes and learns. They can be termed "rationalists"

So as a musician I would be irrational, then, in the way that I approach my work.

The other group, mainly populating America's South,

You attack those lacking in understanding and knowledge, yet you make an ignorant and hateful statement like this.

puts its collective head in the sand, praises some make-believe lord, prays for their local football team to win, beats their spouse, believe the earth is flat, stem cell research is a mortal sin, their god actually gave birth to some son (just wondering who was JC's mother? how come we never hear about her?) wrote some book, the death penalty is fine, but abortion is not. They can be termed "irrational jesus loving, fundie morons"

Quite a grab bag of qualities there for identifying the to-be-hated "them" in your world.

You say "wrote some book" and you should add "wrote some music" as well, since composers such as Bach always credited God for their inspiration.

Jesus's mother was named Mary.

You do realize that you are describing your own belief system and defending it based on your own faith that it is a true representation of the world, yes?

Let's see. this god character has a son. He takes time out from his day job of running the billions and billions of galaxies, filled with billions and billions of stars. He spots the wicked ways of humanity populating the third rock from Sol, an inconsequential Class M star, (even before the existance of the bush administration). He has to do something about it. Forget about fire, brimstone, earthquakes, tsunamis, plagues, or droughts. Forget about making a personal appearance, or some ancient version of a good advertising campaign. Naw, those just don't have the impact needed to save the souls. Ahah, there is a use for god's son after all.

So, JC is sent to the flat earth to create a cult, have dinner, die, move some big rock, then return home? And before that god character sent JC down to earth, even the bible admits that JC existed, otherwise he could not have been sent to earth in the first place.

mary might have been his earthly mommy, but you miss the point. Who was JC's mommy in heaven BEFORE he was sent to hang around on a cross? Surely it wasn't the holy ghost, was it? So are you saying that god fooled around? Are you suggesting that JC was illegitimate before he got expelled from mary's tummy here on earth? Did mary live in heaven BEFORE she hatched JC? And who was the sperm partner in Heaven? the big guy himself? If so, who did the marriage ceremony?

The whole bible is filled with errors and bull. That bull requires "faith", not to mention deliberate, willful ignorance about the universe around us.

Unfortunately, the 'faith' is deadly to non-believers.

The Bible and Christianity - all religion - are bad and wrong, so anyone who questions your bigotry and ignorance must also be wrong?

Is it bigotry to tell the truth about how evil religions have been over the centuries? It is ignorance to mention the torture, the murders, the wars, and the strife all caused in the name of religion?

Ah, my studies suggest that christianity is not only a joke, but an actual evil, therefore I am ignorant? i see. I think.

People can be evil. People can be religious. People can use religion to justify doing evil things. That doesn't prove that religion is evil, nor does it justify your diatribes against all religious people.

Stalin and Hitler were not religious. We don't therefore say that atheists are responsible for all evil things.

You say that Christianity is "actually evil" in your post. The concept of evil is a religious concept.

I like it!
Yes, let us rid the earth of all religion, then the concept of evil will go away.

Come on. Surely the concept of evil exists outside of religion. What you are suggesting is that only religious people can understand the difference between right and wrong. That is the penultimate in hubris and conceit, not to mention willful ignorance. The religious faithful have hijacked the idea of morals and ethics. It is obvious that only they can be moral in their own minds.

Yes, christianity is evil. We have 2000 years of proof.


You never did answer my question. Who was JC's mommy before he was spawned here on earth?

They killed Jews.
They killed Muslims.
They killed each other.
They banned dancing!
They held inqusitions.
They banned birth control.
They hate sex.
Why should I take any cues from Christians, given that track record.
Ok, so they didn't all do it. Hardly a recommendation.

--IMM

Some Christians did the things you describe, many did not. Many non-Christians have killed each other and done just as many evil things as Christians have done. It would be much more logical and supportable to say that GOVERNMENTS have done all of those things, rather than Christians. There is no evidence that non-Christian governments are any less likely to do evil things. I give you Hitler and Stalin as two prime examples from recent history.

Christianity is used (by Christians) as a synonym for virtue. When governments kill, they justify it in the name of Christianity. Shit, we're doing now. That other religions do this does not excuse it. But it does say something about religion.

Why did marauding armies have crosses on their shields? You won't answer that one.

Funny that you mention Hitler, who spouted Christianity to justify his atrocities.

In defense of your anti-Christian harrangues you are asking me to defend Christianity or the crusades or something here.

I am objecting to you criticizing ALL Christians based on the actions of some. Your response is to demand that I defend all Christians. For my point to be valid, I only need cite one example of a Christian who was not evil.

Early in Hitler's politcal career he paid lip service to Christianity for political gain. He also paid lip service to socialism. Neither Christianity nor socialism deserve any blame for his subsequent actions.

Let's set our terms here.

Religion is belief in a deity. Virtue is doing good. Virtue does not come from religion.

Sometimes religious practice compels good deeds to attract followers. But that is not intrinsic to religion. What is apparent is that it commands *followers* who can be led, to do evil, and yet *believe* they are doing good because it is religion that has commanded them.

That is what Hitler took advantage of. People can be led to do horrendous things, and justify it with religion. I pointed out some examples.

BTW, I am not accusing you of having committed any atrocities. and I don't care what you believe. I deal very well with people of all religions, if they are good people.

Jerry Falwell can call somebody a good Christian. So can you. Do you mean the same thing?

--IMM

Religion is belief in a deity

Umm, Buddhism is a religion that has no god and no deities.

What is apparent is that it commands *followers* who can be led, to do evil,

Buddha taught that no one should listen to anyone but themselves.

That is what Hitler took advantage of

Umm, Hitler was an athiest

Hitler was a catholic.

"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the
will of the Almighty Creator." Mein Kampf

Hitler also espoused some pagan beliefs. I'm not aware of any place he claimed to be an atheist.

Could you supply a definition of religion that omits deities? And we'll base the discussion on that.

One of the aspects of definitions I looked at implies adherence and devotion to principle. But it's way down on the list.

When I say religion, do you think of something that "has no god and no deities"? Remember you called me stupid.

You are picking arguments to circumvent the point.

--IMM

"Hitler was a catholic."

Hitler was born into a Catholic family. 90% of the population of Europe was born into a churh at that time. Saying that "Hitler was a Catholic" tells us nothing. He was also an Austrian. So?

" 'I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the
will of the Almighty Creator.' Mein Kampf "

OK, so what? I could say that I believe my posts are in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. Does that now make it justifiable to blame Christianity for everything I say?

"Hitler also espoused some pagan beliefs. I'm not aware of any place he claimed to be an atheist."

You keep confusing what someone claims to be with what they are. Your claim is that Hitler did what he did in the name of Christianity. By your standard for evidence to support that statement, everything that every person did in Europe from 1900 to 1950 was done in the name of Christianity. That makes your claim meaningless.

By your reasoning, George W Bush would also be an atheist.

What can you say to support your contention that Hitler was an atheist? What did he say or do that supports your argument. Can you be wrong? Can there be the least possibility that you're wrong?

Back to the issue, as long as you won't consider that. I said faith allows people to circumvent their conscience, when they commit atrocities in the name of Christianity (or whatever religion). I asked why marauding armies wear crosses on their shields, and you ignored that. You say I attacked Christianity when I simply recounted history. I didn't attack Christianity, I agree with the teachings of Christ. I just pointed out that practitioners use their claims of faith to commit genocide, historical record supports this. You retort that others, namely maniacal despots with delusions of grandeur, and pretensions of deity themselves, also commit genocide. Puts Christians in dubious company, I think.

If I followed your mode of thinking, I might infer that you think of Hitler and Mao as typical atheists. I didn't say that Torquemada was a typical Christian. But people of faith particularly are vulnerable to being misled. That's inherent in even your definition of "knowledge without proof." It's even more likely, if you use my more realistic definition of "knowledge against proof."

Example: My friend says, "I flew to Australia." I believe it, no proof, no faith necessary. If he says, "I flew to Australia without a plane," that requires faith to believe.

So far, your big play has been to call me stupid. Back it up, weasel.

--IMM

His worldview was not a supernatural one, but instead based on the ideal of an amoral world of competition and an amoral "superman" that beats the competition based on notions of racial superiority.

Sound like he was a Neocon.

--IMM

Boy, you are SO perceptive! I've never heard anyone suggest that Hitler might be a lunatic before. You're a real original thinker.

I am perceptive. I'm sorry you never heard anyone describe Hitler as a lunatic; you should get out more. And thank you.

--IMM

Defining good and evil is the realm of religion. You embrace that which you attack.

Governments command people. Are they all therefore bad? Christianity calls us to take commands from a non-material non-human source. No one who is a Christian is doing the commanding, and the religion itself has no power to command people. Some command others and SAY they are doing it in the name of Christianity, but so what? People have been commanded to do things in the name of every sort of excuse or idea imaginable. No one can be commanded without their consent on some level.

To say that it is religion that "commands people to do evil" is unsupportable. People can and have been commanded to do evil things without any involvement from religion whatsoever. The actual words in the actual New Testament implore people to do good, not evil. Jesus commanded no one to do evil.

"I deal very well with people of all religions, if they are good people."

Well, I don't think you are dealing with me very well on the subject, but perhaps I am a rare exception. You say that you will deal well with people if they are "good" which implies that I am perhaps not "good" if I object to your arguments. That is much more judgemental towards me than I feel towards you. How do you define this quality of "good" while rejecting all religion?

Go ahead test me.

I didn't say that all religious people are evil or all governments are evil. And I wouldn't say that a person who professes a religion is automatically good. There seems to be no direct correlation. There are some who credit their religion for their "goodness" but who's to say they wouldn't be good people if they professed a different religion, or no religion?

If you think that religious leaders do not command their followers then maybe you missed the last election. That they "consent on some level" makes what difference? It is faith that allows them to ignore their conscience. Again I pose the question, why do marauding armies display crosses on their shields? I agree that "Jesus commanded no one to do evil." (Remember, Jesus was not a Christian.) I agree with Jesus on whatever I know of his commandments. I don't have to ascribe divinity to the fellow to agree with his philosophy.

Would you say that no evil has ever been done in the name of Jesus? Maybe these same people would have done evil in the name of Gorlok, if that was their deity. Nonetheless, it is this face that allows them to commit atrocities without conscience. Though, to forestall irrelevant arguments, I'll acknowledge that there could be other than religious motivations.

I know many good people. Their religion, or lack of it, is not a factor. It is their deeds. I'm willing to consider those who profess to be Christian as Christian. I know that others dispute that and will judge who is a "real" Christian. that's not my job.

--IMM

I know I'm stepping into anthill here, but at the risk of that we could ask if there is some way to fairly objectively to evaluate various religions, without getting overtly judgemental with our generalizations?

Obviosly matters of doctrine and faith are hard if not impossible to valuate objectively, so we are left with empiricity, functional effect of religions on the behaviour of those who subscribe to them, naturally admitting that no value judgements can never be totally objective. I would say that from that point of view Buddhism scores quite highly, pacifying Mongols among other things, and also many nature religions make my top list. As for Christianity I would also say that it all in all scores positively, even though the history of socially organized Christian religion, history of various hierarchic church nominations with their dogmatic schisms and violent intolerance, is from time to time pretty horrible.

I don't know of any Buddhist atrocities. They seem to practice what they preach. I think that Christianity in theory scores high as well. In practice one should consider that it was adopted by Europeans, who didn't do so well before Christianity. I would submit that Christianity in spite of its ideological virtues didn't improve the Europeans very much. The Jews (my own heritage) at least have the virtue of not aiming too high. They certainly recognize the virtues, they would not differ from the teachings of Jesus, himself a Jew. They just don't acknowledge that the state of perfection (grace) can be achieved. They should strive for the best, always try to improve, but they don't have "saints."

I don't know much about others. But I think that the notion of goodness, at least in modern times, is pretty universally recognized by intellegent people. One exception: those who think they are forgiven for "sins" because they utter the right words. Also hypocrites suck.

--IMM

With DU being unavailable for a while, this has been sitting on my clipboard - I don't think it is a dupe. :-)

I think when you say "I have no religion" you mean that you go to no church. Then you say "test me." Aside from the fact that I know of no such test and would not feel capable to administer it if there were, I would have to presume that we would be testing your sense of good and evil and comparing your answers against those of a Christian - self described. Now, can it be any coincidence that you, as the product of a culture within which Chrisitianity is intimately woven, would answer when tested with a very close approximation of the Christian sense of good and evil? Where do you think your sense of good and evil came from? If you are claiming that it arose wholly in your mind and is solely your own invention, then I would have to ask you why this phenomenon is so prevalent in culture where Chrisitanity is present and not on those where it is not?

"Maybe these same people would have done evil in the name of Gorlok"

Of course they would and have and do. Even if war had never occured historically excepting that it was justified by religion, this would still not prove a cause and effect relationship between the two - religion causes war. It could just as likely be that war causes religion.

I wonder if you would take a look at something I just posted about Christianity on another thread lp. We are talking past each other here and I want to understand what you are saying.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2696395#2696567

You say that "the religious faithful have hijacked the idea of morals and ethics" and that is often the case. Similarly, the Bush adminstration has used the American government to hijack the idea of freedom and democracy, but that doesn't invalidate America.

Religion IS humankind's exploration and study of ethics and morals.

I thought that too, is exploration and study of ethics and morals? :)

philosophy is the study of life

philosophy
1. a belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school
2. any personal belief about how to live or how to deal with a situation; "self-indulgence was his only philosophy"; "my father's philosophy of child-rearing was to let mother do it"
3. the rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics

Boy, I am going to get in over my head here if I'm not careful. :-)

Here is my understanding - religion is the attempt to seek out and organize spiritual - non-material - ideas into a coherent understanding of the working of the universe. This is most often expressed as a hypothesis or a belief in the existence of a diety or dieties - "a subjective relationship to certain metaphysical, extramundane factors. A kind of experience accorded the highest value, regardless of its contents" - http://www.tearsofllorona.com/jungdefs.html

I think that virtually all people are religious in that they routinely ascribe the cause of events in their lives to "metaphysical extramundane factors" whether they call it Karma, luck, a mystery, or God.

are relative, complementary consepts, not absolutes. There can be no good without the idea of evil or vice versa. I think this is self-evident to all of us.

These conspepts seem to be closely linked to feelings of pleasure and displeasure. According to Buddhism (which is usually counted as religion) and no doublt many others, both are considered as causes of suffering, displeasure for the obvious tautological reasons and pleasure because it causes addiction and other mechanistic responses.

You are aware that the word 'ratio' is the latin word for relation? I would think all inspirational art forms and especially music have lot to do with investigating, testing, theorizing and learning about relations, various structures and orders? What is inspiration if not creative and revealing insights into sets of various relations?

You are describing the methodology - technique. Those are a means to the end, the end being communication. There is no "right" or final answer, and the same set of mechanics can be done many, many times with equal or greater value each time. In contrast, the theory of relativity doesn't lend it self to hundreds of repeat re-discoveries.

I see music as much closer to religion than it is to physics.

There is lot of interesting study going on about the holistic(or "religious" from your point of view) aspect of music in the field of cognitive scienses. We perceive and create music "holistically", even though music is reproduced and transmitted acoustically in consecutive order. One interesting phenomenon is somemite "forgetting" oneself and submerging totally in the "timeless" generative order of music, "going with the flow".

Not my speciality in any way, but from what I know Nobelist Brian Josephson has been very interested in music, and I quickly googled this:

http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/mm/articles/tucson.txt

excerpt:

"The question arises, which is the mind-system in which the processes
we have been discussing occur? It cannot be the minds of
individuals, since the preferences that the model is intended to
explain are not those of individuals. Neither can it be the
cultural mind (consisting of individuals communicating with each
other musically) because, as discussed in connection with
explanations based on conditioning, the selective response to
innovations cannot be explained purely culturally. What remains is
activity involving some kind of collective or universal mind."

Thanks for linking to that.

Music somehow bridges the individual, the cultural and the intuitive without diminshing any one of the three.

The similarity between religion and music that I am seeing is that both exist in the realm of "some sort of collective or universal mind" - music to express this universal mind, religion to attempt to understand it. Not saying that I am right about that, and my view could very well be prejudiced my own personal experience.

I think is what kind of faith you are speaking about. Needles to say, I don't agree with that approach; I think rationality and empiricism are good tools to mould and constantly correct our world theories and other belief systems. But behind every theory there is a set of unquestioned premises, so the processs is endless, and often very very complicated.

Energy is Greek word for 'into-action', so the Einsteinian definition is not the only possible one, and 'energy', like you say, is often used quite freely. I don't find anything utterly condemnable about this, even though such uses and discussions tend to be fuzzy to the extent of messy. Bohm has notion of 'active information', which I find usefull. If you wan't to have a serious discussion about QM "distortions" (which I think is very poorly chosen word) I will be happy to participate.

Your point about holism (related to the word 'holy') is good one. But holism is not really so much about "transcending the elements of makeup", which can be also be explained by theories about complexity, but rather that everything is non-locally, "simultaneously" interconnected; every seemingly separate "object" is affected, defined and created by the totality of being (and non-being! ;)). Problem with holistic approaches is that we haven't yet developed language to discuss such ideas very clearly and we often have to resort to paradoxes, poetic metaphores and other such devices.

Holy has to do with deities. Holistic is loosely explained by "greater than the sum of its parts." I looked them up to make sure.

I agree to the relationship of holism and complexity, though theories of complexity imply that those can be modeled mathematically.

I'll stand by my definition of faith. Most major articles of faith, i.e. a benevolent god watches over us, Jesus, son of god, rose from the dead, Santa Clause is coming to town, etc. have no evidence and in fact contradict known evidence. Minor articles of faith as (blank) really means well are relatively inconsequential.

Yes energy has a general usage as in "I didn't have the energy to study for that test." But the way it's used in explanation of the supernatural or paranormal takes from the Newtonian or Einsteinian models. However, it cannot be detected, it cannot affect matter, it cannot be demonstrated or converted to other forms of energy. It plays large on the general ignorance of physical science.

--IMM

but I think words 'whole'/'holistic' and 'holy' are etymologically connected? "Greater than the sum of its parts" applies to holism, but I don't think it differentiates enough to make up a usefull definition. IMO non-locality is one of the essential aspects of holism, underlying the emergent spacetime observables/beables.

>>>I'll stand by my definition of faith. Most major articles of faith, i.e. a benevolent god watches over us, Jesus, son of god, rose from the dead, Santa Clause is coming to town, etc. have no evidence and in fact contradict known evidence. Minor articles of faith as (blank) really means well are relatively inconsequential.<<<

Yes, like I said, rationality should come first. The idea of benevolent, all-knowing and all-powerfull eternal Being with a Personality contains so many logical inconsistencies that it should be discarded.

>>>Yes energy has a general usage as in "I didn't have the energy to study for that test." But the way it's used in explanation of the supernatural or paranormal takes from the Newtonian or Einsteinian models. However, it cannot be detected, it cannot affect matter, it cannot be demonstrated or converted to other forms of energy. It plays large on the general ignorance of physical science.<<<


Again, I agree about the point about confused language regarding energy. Problem is, what other word to use for ("paranormal") phenomena where something very elusive can perhaps sometimes be somehow detected (e.g. telepathy), but certainly can affect matter if you count the "wave aspect" into some kind of energy, in the wider sense of the word, either immaterial or too fine energy/stuff to escape our finest measuring devices. It cannot be measured directly, by conventional scientific methods, it is observed only through statistical mathematics. Of course there is the question about the ontological status of wave potential/Quantum fields, which is, let's say, in the eye of the beholder...

Stretches the point. Holy from the Middle English halig (whole) dates back to the 12th century.

Holistic does not appear in our language before 1926, according to my dictionary. I think that makes them different.

Telepathy? A parlor trick.

Energy too sensitive to affect our instruments? Poppycock, balderdash, and hogwash. Energy can have an effect, but not on instruments designed to detect the effect? I can't detect the energy in a battery, but my meter can.

You have any, and I mean any, evidence that this exists, you should claim the JREF million dollar prize, see
http://randi.org

Statistics have noise. Measuring at the level you suppose runs up against the uncertainty principle.

--IMM

is all what rationality is about; relativity. :) And I think the point we are stretching was forgotten long time ago. Perhaps the point I was trying to make that religious or holy experience are often described, to the extent they can be described, by wholeness, non-dualism, direct interconnectness of everything, ie. close to our, or at least mine, notions of holism.

Telepathy? See for example the extensive empirical study by Sheldrake. Not necessarily inconsistent with anything, if one accepts the possibility that Quantum & Mind approach is on the right track.

>>>Energy too sensitive to affect our instruments? Poppycock, balderdash, and hogwash. Energy can have an effect, but not on instruments designed to detect the effect? I can't detect the energy in a battery, but my meter can.<<<

Strong words, considering that most of the matter/energy of our Universe is "dark", cannot be detected by our current measuring devices. Even the hunt for smaller and smaller particles (now quarks) is ongoing process, quite likely eternally so, so why should the hypothesis of finer and much more elusive forms of energy than currently recognized be outright discarded? You make the usual (IMHO wrong) presupposition that current state of science is getting close to giving some definitive answers, and yet, Einstein's Relativity and QM are theoretically inconsistent. Democritus came up with atoms 2500 years ago, was he wrong because they didn't have powerfull enough microscopes to empirically test his theory, or was he wrong because science has now moved beyond atoms, or was he wrong at all?

>>>You have any, and I mean any, evidence that this exists, you should claim the JREF million dollar prize, see
http://randi.org <<<

Puhleaze, not that poor sceptics debating trick. I thought we were trying to be serious and open minded here.

>>>Statistics have noise. Measuring at the level you suppose runs up against the uncertainty principle.<<<

Or rather, statistics are generalizations of noise? ;)

So, we run up against uncertainty principle, non-locality etc? What does that mean to you? Should we do some rethinking on our notions of subjectivity and objectivity, or give up and say, all right, science has reached it's limits, nothing else to see and theorize about?

even without having to investigate things like telepathy.

if it can't be measured, science can't do anything with it.

I don't think it is a debating trick that certain claims cannot be demonstrated under observation. You just dismiss this.

We are made of matter, not anti-matter or dark matter. The point is that dark matter doesn't interact in any detectable way with normal matter. You say it does then show me. You're using it to explain things that can't be demonstrated. What's that all about?

I have met a few "psychics." I also detected that they were deceitful. Not one that I've encountered has been authentic. Should I assume the next one is? You don't get anything for underestimating the power of bullshit. It does exist.

Do you have psychic powers? See what I mean? There is no theory (in the scientific sense) that would account for it. I don't buy the "Well we really don't know, so it must be this (quantum mechanics, black holes, dark matter) that accounts for it.

I don't think we'll see the limits of science, or the limits of delusion or fantasy either. Would you do away with skeptics? Do you wear magnetic odor eaters?

Open minded is not gullible.

--IMM

Materialism is dualistic in the sense that it presupposes observer and observed. Non-dualism is in essence non-describable, because language is also dualistic (sign and signified etc.)

>>> don't think it is a debating trick that certain claims cannot be demonstrated under observation. You just dismiss this.<<<

That is not a debating trick, that is a valid argument. Bringing up Randi is a trick.

>>>We are made of matter, not anti-matter or dark matter. The point is that dark matter doesn't interact in any detectable way with normal matter. You say it does then show me. You're using it to explain things that can't be demonstrated. What's that all about?<<<

Nope, scientists make the presumption of lots of dark matter and energy because they are needed to explain IIRC the observations about velocity of expanding university, the observations and the theory don't work unless it is assumed there is lot of stuff that cannot be observed directly, ie. "dark". Here, the first google on dark matter: http://www.astro.queensu.ca/~dursi/dm-tutorial/dm1.html
I brought up dark matter as well know example of things we have not yet been able to demostrate or explain.

>>>I have met a few "psychics." I also detected that they were deceitful. Not one that I've encountered has been authentic. Should I assume the next one is? You don't get anything for underestimating the power of bullshit. It does exist.<<<

I don't know what you mean by "psychic", or even what that is, but I gather most of them are bullshit and/or confused.

>>>Do you have psychic powers? See what I mean? There is no theory (in the scientific sense) that would account for it. I don't buy the "Well we really don't know, so it must be this (quantum mechanics, black holes, dark matter) that accounts for it.<<<

No, I don't have "psychic powers", what ever that means, but some experiences are hard to explain by mainstream scientific models. There is nothing non-scientific about quantum mind theory, which has no problems accounting for various "paranormal" experiences. Sure, it is still minority opinion and mostly still in stage of strong hypothesis, but some of the best scientific minds are working with that theory. My own best guess is that they are on the right track.
Short and not very good, but should give the general idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind
Much more, if you are seriously interested:
http://consciousness.arizona.edu/
and especially this web course:
http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/quantum/index.html

>>>I don't think we'll see the limits of science, or the limits of delusion or fantasy either. Would you do away with skeptics? Do you wear magnetic odor eaters?<<<

Please, I'm a skeptic myself, healthy skepticism is essential part of any rational inquest. There is the kind of Skepticism (Randi etc.) I don't admire, movement of "debunkers" that absolutely refuses to be skeptic about the premises of their "Skepticism", which is not open minded, but has religious attitude to currently prevailing materialistic paradigm. Closed mind is more gullible and confused than open mind.

And I have not seen evidence to contradict that.

Randi does not debunk. He invites people to demonstrate their claims. On their own terms. Point out an instance where he has been unfair.

I was gung ho when I first read Russell Targ's book from Stanford research. What happened to those subjects? I'm sure you know.

Dark matter and dark energy are good theories to explain effects that have been measured astronomically. They fall a bit short in explaining things that have not been demonstrated like telepathy.

Are there unexplained things? Sure. But a conclusion does not prove its hypothesis.

--IMM

I'm not sure what you mean by separation. Cartesian model? Mind as emergent category from neural network and nothing else? There are problems with latter, like the hard problem of consciousness (qualia), and e.g. evidence from extra-sensory perception of surroundings during near death experience.

I'm not interested in discussing Randi, who's illusionist and not scientist, hope you can accept that. :)

>>>I was gung ho when I first read Russell Targ's book from Stanford research. What happened to those subjects? I'm sure you know.<<<

Nope, sorry.

>>>Dark matter and dark energy are good theories to explain effects that have been measured astronomically. They fall a bit short in explaining things that have not been demonstrated like telepathy.<<<

Yes, I haven't been attempting explain telepathy by dark matter and energy. Personally, I see no reason not to accept Sheldrakes empirical work on telepathy, so as far as I go, it's been demonstrated. One of his experiments have been about telephone telepathy, on guessing who is calling, and the results are interesting. Not only right guesses surpass vastly the statistical expectation, as in other experiments, there is also no correlation with the spatial distance between caller and receiver, but strong positive correlation between close emotional ties and right guesses. To me this seems to give at least preliminary support for the quantum mind theory, as non-locality is quantum phenomenon, and emotional ties could very well be something akin to quantum entangelment.

>>>Are there unexplained things? Sure. But a conclusion does not prove its hypothesis.<<<

Agreed. I'm not asking you to agree with the quantum mind theory, but I hope you could keep open mind about it and acknowledge that it is one serious candidate in the field of study of conscioussness that may offer new and better answers to mind-body problem and other issues.

Materialism is dualistic in the sense that it presupposes observer and observed. Non-dualism is in essence non-describable, because language is also dualistic (sign and signified etc.)

>>> don't think it is a debating trick that certain claims cannot be demonstrated under observation. You just dismiss this.<<<

That is not a debating trick, that is a valid argument. Bringing up Randi is a trick.

>>>We are made of matter, not anti-matter or dark matter. The point is that dark matter doesn't interact in any detectable way with normal matter. You say it does then show me. You're using it to explain things that can't be demonstrated. What's that all about?<<<

Nope, scientists make the presumption of lots of dark matter and energy because they are needed to explain IIRC the observations about velocity of expanding university, the observations and the theory don't work unless it is assumed there is lot of stuff that cannot be observed directly, ie. "dark". Here, the first google on dark matter: http://www.astro.queensu.ca/~dursi/dm-tutorial/dm1.html
I brought up dark matter as well know example of things we have not yet been able to demostrate or explain.

>>>I have met a few "psychics." I also detected that they were deceitful. Not one that I've encountered has been authentic. Should I assume the next one is? You don't get anything for underestimating the power of bullshit. It does exist.<<<

I don't know what you mean by "psychic", or even what that is, but I gather most of them are bullshit and/or confused.

>>>Do you have psychic powers? See what I mean? There is no theory (in the scientific sense) that would account for it. I don't buy the "Well we really don't know, so it must be this (quantum mechanics, black holes, dark matter) that accounts for it.<<<

No, I don't have "psychic powers", what ever that means, but some experiences are hard to explain by mainstream scientific models. There is nothing non-scientific about quantum mind theory, which has no problems accounting for various "paranormal" experiences. Sure, it is still minority opinion and mostly still in stage of strong hypothesis, but some of the best scientific minds are working with that theory. My own best guess is that they are on the right track.
Short and not very good, but should give the general idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind
Much more, if you are seriously interested:
http://consciousness.arizona.edu/
and especially this web course:
http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/quantum/index.html

>>>I don't think we'll see the limits of science, or the limits of delusion or fantasy either. Would you do away with skeptics? Do you wear magnetic odor eaters?<<<

Please, I'm a skeptic myself, healthy skepticism is essential part of any rational inquest. There is the kind of Skepticism (Randi etc.) I don't admire, movement of "debunkers" that absolutely refuses to be skeptic about the premises of their "Skepticism", which is not open minded, but has religious attitude to currently prevailing materialistic paradigm. Closed mind is more gullible and confused than open mind.

England got fed up with their Puritan after the Roundheads, and chased them over here to breed. same thing with the Huguenots from Canada, the Mennonites and Amish who fled here from Central Europe If there is a "conservative Christian" gene, we have more of it here.

Too bad they cleaned house across the atlantic pond, though.

...but (lil-petunia) you've just about said everything that I feel.
I will add this though: When Fundies start talking to me about "coming to their God" I reply.. "Why in the hell would I want to hang around with someone as Incompetent, Nasty, Mean, Selfish, Blood-Thirsty and inconsiderate as your Savior..No Thanks..I have better taste in friends than that"

Come on over to the Gene Warehouse! We've got all styles and sizes! Pick your religion, sexuality, politics today! Always low prices!

Sheesh. I don't buy this gene stuff. It doesn't explain people who have never been religious but suddenly become very devoutly so. Or people in the opposite situation. I also find it offensive to suggest that religious leaders/philosophers such as Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed have some gene that also makes for fundamentalist freaks. Especially since Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed were all entirely different people, from entirely different cultures, who did entirely different things!

I present our lord and savior, Gene:

Titled "The God Module" ... which posited that religious activity stimulated specific regions of the brain, and that most likely these neural 'modules' were 'evolved' through natural selection ...

The research has, however, been strongly criticised by members of the church, reported the Scotsman newspaper published from Edinburgh. They said the idea of people having a predisposition to faith simply displays a failure to understand it.

The church once again doubts science. What a surprise. Do we even need this anachronism anymore?

Which is why some of the most virulent (sorry, best word I can think of) atheists came from fundamentalist backgrounds. It's the way you're raised.