The New "Religion Vs Science" Thread

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WBraun

climber
Mar 10, 2019 - 03:29pm PT
They don't come after.

Birth, death, disease, and old age are the four main defects of materially conditioned living entities.

We are not Material.

Life is never material nor has it ever been material.

Life always comes from life.

The gross materialist's scientists are in the greatest illusion of them all, all while completely misleading humanity .....
Minerals

Social climber
The Deli
Mar 11, 2019 - 11:32am PT

We are not Material.

Even Madonna?

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Mar 11, 2019 - 07:07pm PT
Here's a closing comment from Daniel Duane (NYT) about Alex Honnold's FS achievement. I just wanted to leave it here...

"Reasonable people consider projects like these idiotic to the point of outrage. That is perfectly defensible. Honnold doesn’t have children, but he does have a mother who loves him very much. If you count yourself among those inclined to negative judgment, and even if you don’t, I hope you’ll indulge a mental exercise for fun. Allow your mind to relax into the possibility that Honnold’s climb was not reckless at all — that he really was born with unique neural architecture and physical gifts, and that his years of dedication really did develop those gifts to the point that he could not only make every move on El Capitan without rest, he could do so with a tolerably minuscule chance of falling. Viewed in that light, Honnold’s free-solo of El Capitan represents a miraculous opportunity for the rest of us to experience what you might call the human sublime — a performance so far beyond our current understanding of our physical and mental potential that it provokes a pleasurable sensation of mystified awe right alongside the inevitable nausea."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/opinion/el-capitan-my-el-capitan.html?module=inline
MikeL

Social climber
Southern Arizona
Mar 12, 2019 - 08:45am PT
. . . a performance so far beyond our current understanding of our physical and mental potential that it provokes a pleasurable sensation of mystified awe right alongside the inevitable nausea."


I too am awed by Alex's achievement. I'm also awed by a great number of almost incomprehensible or improbable achievements outside of climbing in every area of life: in music, painting, writing, academic theory-building, running sub 4-minute miles, cutting-edge mathematics, the miracle of the production of life, and so on.

Is our experience of our own lives so paltry that we must have heroes?

It could be safe to say that every professional athlete is a freak of nature.
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Mar 12, 2019 - 06:59pm PT
re: the coddling of college students

Hey SJW,

If you want to dispute the narrative that students are overprotected at elite liberal arts colleges such as Sarah Lawrence, you probably should not put a demand for unlimited free fabric softener in your third demand (out of more than 90) to the president. Just sayin.

http://www.sarahlawrencephoenix.com/campus/2019/3/11/demands-westlands-sit-in-50-years-of-shame

Demand that Sarah Lawrence provide unlimited free fabric softener.

Woke.

tags: 1 "grievance studies" 2 feminist geology 3 liberal arts colleges 4 the coddling of the American mind
paul roehl

Boulder climber
california
Mar 12, 2019 - 07:27pm PT
If you want to dispute the narrative that students are overprotected at elite liberal arts colleges such as Sarah Lawrence, you probably should not put a demand for unlimited free fabric softener in your third demand (out of more than 90) to the president. Just sayin.

Once again a ludicrous exaggeration then applied as a broad and inappropriate generalization. A very uncritical method of argument.

Sarah Lawrence is a fine school that has been the base of a number of remarkable mentors including J. Campbell. Disparaging an institution based on the acts of a few of its students: ridiculous. Your complaints are based on your prejudices and biases and not much more.
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Mar 12, 2019 - 08:29pm PT
Once again a ludicrous exaggeration then applied as a broad and inappropriate generalization...

What is it, Paul, are you just not aware of what's going on in all these subjects (e.g., social sciences, humanities) or venues (various liberal arts colleges, e.g., Evergreen, Portland, Yale, etc). I really can't figure it.

Caring people who actually pay attention to these things, who follow this stuff, and are genuinely concerned about these various subjects care enough - they care enough - to critique them where they are falling short as means to trying to help bring some quality control to them where needed and raise performance.

With you it is as if the mere mention of certain words here by a "science type" triggers in you that proverbial knee jerk reaction / partisan response. Subjects and fields need critiquing, they need being subject to open discussion and error-correcting selection processes or they do not advance.

I really can't figure you out here. Really whether it's religion in the modern world... or social science or humanities... or colleges and their admin. Where is the deeper, nuanced thinking on your part? the due dilgence? in regards to both the specifics at various levels and the big picture. If you're sincerely so concerned about the fates of these entities. I just don't see it.

It reminds me a bit of Bill Maher who's always having to explain to a certain clique every so often and fend off the criticism - You hate America! Why do you hate America? - that it is just the opposite, that he loves America, and that this is precisely why he critiques it where it needs critiquing. To raise quality control. To advance it. To raise performance.

If you think I do not care about the state and future of the social sciences and the humanities, you are mistaken. Imo, you ought to dig a little deeper sometimes on these many issues and current affairs; I can't help thinking your response might then be different. But then again, perhaps it is something else altogether.

Disparaging an institution based on the acts of a few of its students: ridiculous.

Curious, did you even visit the link? or research this current topic in the news?
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Mar 12, 2019 - 08:46pm PT
FYI,

The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up A Generation of Failure

by Jonathan Haidt


https://www.amazon.com/s?k=coddling+of+america&crid=345SXB36YNGFF&sprefix=coddling+of+America%2Caps%2C226&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_3_19

...

Paul, dig a little deeper. Contribute.

Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/opinion/liberal-college-administrators.html
BASE104

Social climber
An Oil Field
Mar 13, 2019 - 12:29pm PT
Why does the Dalai Lama wear glasses? Myopia is a medical condition.
MikeL

Social climber
Southern Arizona
Mar 13, 2019 - 07:35pm PT
HFCS: Caring people who actually pay attention to these things, who follow this stuff, and are genuinely concerned about these various subjects care enough - they care enough - to critique them where they are falling short as means to trying to help bring some quality control to them where needed and raise performance.


"Quality control?" I get what you're going for, but your choice of terms might be regretable. We are products? Machines? Outputs? In need of "checkers" who will send folks back for re-engineering or re-programming?

One could look at the notion of "care." Care can show up in many different forms. You can be a teacher, a mentor, a coach, a parent, a counselor, a facilitator, a colleague, a manager, and yes . . . a philosopher--all in the service of others and "quality control" (ugh).

"Performance" as a concept applied to human beings, is a topic worth exploration at another time.

Be well.
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Mar 14, 2019 - 10:00am PT
"Hard work dissipates ignorance."

[Click to View YouTube Video]


https://youtu.be/bd993w3syBM
Ward Trotter

Trad climber
Mar 14, 2019 - 11:40am PT
Sarah Lawrence is a fine school that has been the base of a number of remarkable mentors including J. Campbell.

SL has descended into the same abyss of nascent totalitarianism and undisguised intolerance that most of these elite schools have in recent decades. Many of the parents have bribed their little packages of joy into these institutions of fineness and they are run consequently as finishing schools for the political and business upper crusts. Many of such "students" are shoehorned through the ivyed halls on the wings of the aforementioned bribes and family connections to receive a "degree" which operates as a status symbol only; as entry tickets to inclusion in the hallowed ranks of the ruling class.

My heart goes out to those students who have managed, against all odds. to have reached such exclusive places due to their hard work and character-- only to be forced into enduring the legion of spoiled brats and corrupt overseers.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/sarah-lawrence-college-students-protest-politics-professor-over-conservative-op-ed

Oh yeah, and fabric softenerism , lest we forget.

jogill

climber
Colorado
Mar 14, 2019 - 05:15pm PT
Unfortunately, his op ed piece is behind a paywall at the NYT.



4Arctan(1) Day!
MikeL

Social climber
Southern Arizona
Mar 15, 2019 - 08:22am PT
How science works.

Mr. deGrasse has rounded and polished the corners of scientific methdology to argue that consensus and "what works" are important final arbiters in discovering "the behavior of reality" (his language). I don't think he's being honest and forthright about the gaps in the conceptualizations of scientific practices. Consensus and "what works" has been evident in every ideology practically applied to everyday life--to include religious mythologies--albeit not to the level of accuracy that modern scientific experiments exhibit today. But please note that it's still basically consensus and "what works" (today) as it was back a couple of thousand years ago. The difference between then and now is that our modelling is more complete and measurable. It's still modelling, you know, and scientific experimentation never says what things ARE. It says how things work, and then glosses over what the very construction of "things" that purportedly are working.

I suggest in conjunction with some of Mr. deGrasse's ideas that one reads some other people who have made it their profession to look closely at methodology rather than the content of findings that most people here in this thread are so taken with and sure of. For example, if you could find the books:

"Paradigms and Fairy Tales" by Julienne Ford (a two volume set)
"The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Robert Kuhn
"Naturalisitic Inquiry" by Lincoln and Guba
"Reflexive Methodology: New Vistas for Qualitative Research" by Alvesson and Skoldberg

You could look up reviews on Amazon for these few publications. There are many more of note.

There is no single straightforward method to seeing and understanding reality. I'd say one has to use all available methods and data.
WBraun

climber
Mar 15, 2019 - 08:35am PT
There are two types of reality.

Relative reality in which the gross materialists dwell exclusively and is why they remain ultimately always inconclusive.

Absolute reality which encompasses everything.


Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Mar 15, 2019 - 01:06pm PT
"The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Robert Kuhn

how does that one stack up against the book by the same title written by Thomas Kuhn?


https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/who-will-science-the-scientists/
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Mar 18, 2019 - 12:31pm PT
"I do go around raping and murdering as much as I want."

[Click to View YouTube Video]

https://youtu.be/aB01BL0jVe8

...

I cannot say it better than Bill Maher...

I see Twitter got mad because Beto's wife didn't talk during his announcement. You're right, he's a sexist monster, we're better off with Trump. To my FarLeft friends: you're doing it again. Amy can talk or not, her call, but you need to shut the f*#k up.

re: FarLeft

Food for thought:

"Many of our 'far left friends' are Russian trolls attempting to split the party and create a 'Dems in disarray' narrative. Let's not get fooled again."

...

So how should "science types" talk about religious belief in the public sphere?

Moral authority (its nature and potential) apart from religious platforms...

Sean Carroll and Alan Lightman...
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2019/03/18/episode-38-alan-lightman-on-transcendence-science-and-a-naturalists-sense-of-meaning/

"Let’s say, for sake of argument, that you don’t believe in God or the supernatural. Is there still a place for talking about transcendence, the sacred, and meaning in life? Some of the above, but not all? Today’s guest, Alan Lightman, brings a unique perspective to these questions, as someone who has worked within both the sciences and the humanities at the highest level."
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Mar 20, 2019 - 02:08pm PT
Ben Shapiro pays a visit to Michael Shermer...

"Reason without religion can end in some really dark places, and religion without reason can end in different kinds of but similarly dark places." -Ben Shapiro

[Click to View YouTube Video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKkYdMk7wRY



Ben, nowhere, as far as I've read, does Harari say progress doesn't matter.

"We have to acknowledge the power of human reason and the limits to human reason. If we refuse to acknowledge the limits of human reason, we get ourselves into all sorts of trouble; and if we don't acknowledge the power of human reason then we get ourselves into all sorts of different trouble." -Shapiro
WBraun

climber
Mar 22, 2019 - 05:57pm PT
That's ALL you're really good for Brennan.

Just some st00pid YouTubes ..... as usual.
Ghost

climber
A long way from where I started
Mar 22, 2019 - 06:45pm PT
That's ALL you're really good for Brennan.

And you, Werner? What are you good for?

Other than posting "St00pid Americans" for the 27,247th time?
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