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To: Maurice Winn who wrote (23911)	10/5/2002 9:10:36 PM
From: Don Lloyd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Maurice, ...That method book is about processes and blah blah blah, which seemed correct as far as I read, though he got one part wrong, which was that the west just got to be better by power. No. It got better by better thinking, not by power. ... Those are both wrong, IMO. The West got better because power and authority decay through both actual and virtual inbreeding and a lack of effective corrective mechanisms, and cannot be easily and economically projected over vast geographic extents, first England, and then the New World. The lack of effective authority and the presence of both isolation and porous frontiers allows a far more effective unplanned spontaneous order to emerge as self-selected individuals must provide for themselves. Regards, Don

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (23911)	10/6/2002 1:45:18 AM
From: LLCF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

< My point, to heavily belabour the point, which seems difficult for people to grasp, is that mysticism and religion involve trusting somebody else to do the observing and thinking for you and accepting that your own puny brain and observational powers are not able to do the seeing and figuring out.> That depends who you are... religious teachings can be read like any other teaching. You take it for what you get out of it. You're confusing science with 'life'. Of course science is fantastic, in fact science will be tremendously helpful in fact instrumental in rooting out 'false religion'. BUT, religion is the realm of 'personal belief'... science hasn't touched it yet... maybe someday. But until then, people take it upon themselves [and religion, or not] to build themselves a moral structure or code. Metephores for life. Sure politics is part, but laws also are mostly based on religion. In fact the appauling reaction you get from most people about feeding virgins to volcanoes comes from religious backgrounds. In short, you are terribly confused on the whole issue IMO: "The cosmic religious experience is the strongest and noblest driving force behind scientific research."- Albert Einstein It's OK, that's how I was taught too... but I've boned up on things. DAK

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (23911)	10/6/2002 1:45:54 AM
From: smolejv@gmx.net	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Hi Mq - >> ... mysticism and religion involve trusting somebody else to do the observing and thinking for you and accepting that your own puny brain and observational powers are not able to do the seeing and figuring out. Trust me. That's what they say.<< So it's trust "Mq this time". And trust, what he says they say. (Say what?) You're talking apples with your usual fervour, and some of us are talking oranges. And some are talking peeled apples etc. There's a series of books titled "Criminal history of catholic church". I read it as far as cca 400 AC, with Tertulian exlamining "You will win under this sign, o Caesar", etc etc. Should be quite a reading, with the conquering of the New world to follow 1000 years later etc. But that is just one aspect. To make the argument overly simple, "what does that have in common with Mother Theresa" and the answer is, "nothing of importance to the subject of Mother Theresa". And vice versa. If you see the CNBC sunday schools, boring on some verse in Isaiah, well, there's a danger of prophets taking over, telling everybody, what's behind it, how to interpret, what to make out of it. But we're all free people - until the moment we're not free anymore. So, we're talking freedom aka our own existence. Of course, everybody flogs the horse, that's standing the closest. Does not take too much effort to shift the a*s somewhere away from the current point of view. >>That's what they say.<< You're too gullible. Show some curiosity; RegZ dj

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (23911)	10/6/2002 1:20:52 PM
From: maceng2	Respond to of 74559

is that mysticism and religion involve trusting somebody else to do the observing The whole point of Feyerabends book is that "anything goes" in science. So we should not be surprised if scientists use the same methods as Catholic priests and bogus religious whackos... christiananswers.net same subject different site. textbookleague.org Basically the "flat earth" belief was fraudently pushed to get people to believe in Darwinism. Just one very small example. "Against Method" is only half a book. "For Method" was supposed to be written by Feyerabends friend Imre Lakatos. Unfortunately the latter died before he had a chance. All the same it is one hell of a book. Written for science researchers. Chapter 4 starts with.. "There is no idea, however ancient and absurd that is not capable of improving our knowledge. The whole history of thought is absorbed into science and is used for improving every single theory. Nor is political interference rejected. It may be needed to overcome the chauvinism od science that resists alternatives to the status quo. The guy was a science researcher and knew what he was talking about imho.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (23911)	10/6/2002 4:58:52 PM
From: Moominoid	Respond to of 74559

My point, to heavily belabour the point, which seems difficult for people to grasp, is that mysticism and religion involve trusting somebody else to do the observing and thinking for you and accepting that your own puny brain and observational powers are not able to do the seeing and figuring out. That would be true of Islam. Christianity claims that Jesus did miracles in front of thousands of people and that gives him some authority. Judaism claims that God gave the ten commandments in front of around 2 million people. The main claim of the orthodox is that such a claim is so outrageous it must be true and they claim a chain of scholars since that day who passed on the true word from Mount Sinai. How could you invent such a story they ask. I still don't believe them or the Christians but it isn't quite the kind of situation you are suggesting.