Re: OT: Life and Death

On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:18:42 +0000 (UTC), Vorlonagent <jt@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[...]
...But then again, having a *terminal* disease, the best care in the world's
only going to add so much time to your life.

I wouldn't be as concerned with the amount of time, as with quality of
life.

Going the homeless person route could end up giving you something far better
than adding extra seconds to the clock. Might not, too. But then a doctor
doesn't always live up to his wall-full of diplomas either.

The moral of the story is to choose the right doctor or the right homelss
person.

That's not the question. Do you go to specialists in your everyday life?
Of course, you do. Why go to specialists, and not just ask anyone? The
specialists are more likely to know what they're talking about. So, all
opinions are not created equal. All "beliefs" are not created equal.

[...]
Scientists are not making things up. Religion is. Big difference.

Talk to a quantum physicist about that some time. Take that statement to a
cosmologist and see what she or he says about it.

Why? I know how science works. btw, that scientists don't make things up
is not meant to be taken literally. Sure, they do. But then they test
their hypothesis, and others test them as well. If the theory correctly
predicts the results, it's more likely to be right than a theory that does
not predict the results with the same accuracy. Religion is the complete
opposite, in this sense. There are no theories or experimentation. You
simply have to buy someone else's story, which is very loosely based on
reality, at best. That's what I meant regarding making things up.

[...]
None of the above mentioned people are participlating in thought systems
whose precepts are anything as simplistic as "made up" at random or on a
whim but at the same time don't necessarily hold a view of relaity that
matches yours.

We all have subtle differences in our perceptions and understanding of
reality, but *somehow* we manage to agree that a green light means "go"
and a red light means "stop." i.e., we don't live in completely different
and isolated universes. There is much of this shared reality we do
perceive and understand the same way, or close enough.

[...]
How do you define reality?

Same way you do. The only way I know that any human being can. By taking
my expreiences trying to make sense of them.

Experiences are only part of the equation. In our experience, the sun
"rises" and "sets," yet we know it's actually the Earth's rotation what
causes this illusion. Also, relativity is counter-common sense, yet
experiments have proved it to be true.

If my view of reality is strange it's because I've experienced a few strange
things. In my experience, astrology works. In my expreince, I can
spoontaneously heal a cold (that happened to me once. Much to my uncomfort

That seems like a contradiction. If it's something you can do, it's
something you can do more than once.

it hasn't repeated itself). I can't prove to you I once spontoneously threw
off a cold. It's subjective and not open to the scientific method of
inquiry. Doesn't mean it didn't happen. Its unrepeatability doesn't make
it any less real.

A cold is hardly subjective. There are physical symptoms that can be
measured. If it's a cold, it's a viral infection. A virus is not a
ethereal object, like a thought or a feeling. This is very much the
realm of science.

Science is very good at measuring and interacting with the literal world.
That doesn't mean that the world is defined exclusively by science. Nor does
it mean that I need not pay attention to what it tells me.

Likewise, logic and reasoning are preferable to superstition. Ignorance
and fear are not going to teach you anything about the "non-literal"
world.

[...]
By quantum physics, that keyboard under your fingers is only very, very,
very likely to be there for your next keystroke.

If and when it disappears, I'll let you know.

The constant, explainable, predictable interpretation does by definition
come with a lot of documentation. That doesn't mean it tells the whole
story.

We never get the whole story, but the story told by logic and reasoning
is going to be better than the story told by ignorance and fear.

I'd suggest you examine is whether an either-or approach to science and
religion really provides the best and most complete worldview. See, I've
already decided and for me it doesn't. To paraphrase Christ, I prefer to
"...render unto Science, that which is Science's. Render unto God that
which is God's.".

The real question is, how do you know which is which? Is lightning a sign
that the Zeus is angry, or is it a perfectly understandable atmospheric
phenomenon?

Before you can do that you have to decide that there's a God and there's
something hereabouts to render unto Him.

And you decide there's a "God"...how? Just because there are things about
the world we don't understand? Just because it gives you comfort, to think
there is a superior being watching over you, and/or that you were created
by it?

[...]
Laws really *are* more open to revision? Really? Try telling that to
Franklin Roosevelt when he tried to get legislation passed to change the
number of justices on the supreme court. It depends on *what* laws your
talking about or *what* religious beliefs.

There are always exceptions, but you miss the point. New laws are
*constantly* being introduced, and old ones amended or annulled. When have
you seen anything like this on any religion? When have religious practices
changed in this way?

Moreover you are trying to judge everything from a strictly literalistic
perspective. Laws, like science are phenomina of the literal world. They
ought to be more easily changed in the literal world.

And personal beliefs shouldn't? Should they be dogmatic? Are you
suggesting prejudice such as racism should be very difficult to change?

[...]
Appearances can be deceiving. What I see is very little actual fire (not
"none", just to be clear), lots of smoke, and cubic miles of hot air. This
is a great issue to practice not automatically accepting as true things that
other people tell you.

You know what they say. "Where there's smoke..."

[...]
If you must have scientific proof before you'll consider that alternate,
complemantary points of view (to science) exist, this conversation is over.
I don't run my world by your assumptions and if I try to answer within them,
my answer is "I can't help you."

As you suggested, we don't require scientific proof for many things we do
every day. We take a lot for granted, but there's a reason for that. Those
assumptions are based on reality. I may not be an automobile mechanic, but
if I don't put "gas" in the tank, the car doesn't "go." That tells me
nothing about the internal combustion engine, but it's something.
Religion, on the other hand, is only wishful thinking by those standards.

[...]
If I tell you the light is green and I'm not being playful or perverse, I'm
seeing something you don't or seeing in a manner you aren't. "Proving"
might be more difficult than you might think.

Maybe you are color blind, or you are wearing color glasses, or something
else, but that doesn't change the fact that the light is red or green.
Those colors are defined as certain ranges in the spectrum, and that light
can be measured.

--
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