needimprovement

Yes, that is known as moral relativism and rejects the notion of objective truth. Being guided towards objective truth in no way an abdication of reason. One can always choose whether or not to follow and discern what is objectively true or to follow their own convictions. But once you go down that road then one person's conviction is as good as the next's. As a Catholic we cannot adhere to moral relativism since that very theory refutes itself. It's basically saying that something is true because I think that it is. That statement in and of itself can never be true if even one other person believes otherwise.

Have you ever thought that maybe these experiments are a little biased for a reason? Plus I have shown you why the gorilla experiment is wrong. Plus if you have hostile eyewitnesses that is an even better indicator of the event happening as it was. Who was more hostile then Paul (Saul of tarsus)?. You cant really compare a gorilla in some sports game to the resurrection of the miracle of Fatima. I will give you an example. Say the editor and chief of O-seculo ( the communist -atheist newspaper of Portugal) is there to redicule this event. He is there to basically nail these silly believers and he would be totally focused on this event. He will not for a second lose focus at all. Yet he reported to see very close to what the others saw. He was also a very respected intellectual in his country so the chances of him losing his cool are slim to none. He was ready to nail the believers, but he didn't did he? When you have hostile eyewitnesses speaking the truth even against their enemy that is a strong validation that this event did happen as both sides saw it. Another example is the Jewish pharisees witnessing the miracles of Jesus even though they didn't believe in him. They saw the miracles and admitted to them but because of their stubbornness attested the miracles to Jesus being in league with Satan. If eyewitness tests were done in this fashion my guess is that they would be dramatically more accurate then the 50% rate that we are seeing in these experiments. This is what atheists don't want to see. This is another beautiful example of what I mean. Hope this helps. http://www.comereason.org/cmp_rlgn/cmp051.asp Most of the time when specialists refer to eyewitness testimony, they are speaking of those who have witnessed a crime. At the time people witness a crime, most are involved in other activities. When they recount what they remember, their recollection can be impeded by things such as concentrating on their own tasks, having a poor vantage point, the speed at which the events take place, not paying close attention, and lack of familiarity with the perpetrators or principals involved in the incident. However, the events surrounding the resurrection don't fit into this category. The disciples had lived with Jesus for three years. They were well aware that those in power wanted to harm Jesus (Jn. 11:8). The events surrounding His death and resurrection followed methodical practices. (Indeed, the protocol for both His trial before the Sanhedrin and His appearance before Pilate were laid out as law and had been standard practice for quite some time.) Finally, Jesus' death would have been the most cataclysmic event in the lives of the disciples, consuming their attention and making it very difficult to forget the circumstances surrounding it. Cataclysmic events have a way of etching themselves clearly into our memory. For example, I think most Americans who are old enough can tell you just where they were and what they were doing when they heard President Kennedy was assassinated. Similarly, the events of September 11 are engraved in all our memories, even more so for those who were in Manhattan. I hope this has helped show some differences in the eyewitness testimony offered by the disciples versus much of the testimony offered in our courtrooms today. Let me know if you would like further clarification on anything I've written and I pray that you will seek the truth in all things. Read more: http://www.comereason.org/cmp_rlgn/cmp051.asp#ixzz0xJCs2maY No. Follow this link and refer to post #18. (Assuming that Atheists Assume that anything in the Bible is not True)

What!!! Not real HEY; let's have some reality here. I never heard of such a thought? Watch it or Wile E. Coyote will come over with an Acme rocket. Now here’s a question if a liberal was alone walking in the woods and God struck lightening on a tree and if fell on the liberal would anybody care?

An important criterion for a physical theory is elegance, which is a shorthand term for universality, conciseness, and beauty. P.A.M. Dirac, the physicist who gave a unified picture for quantum mechanics and whose theoretical developments were the foundation for modern quantum mechanics, was all for beauty:"it is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment (not sure I'd agree here)...it seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations and if one has a really sound instinct, one is on a sure line of progress." I wasn't trying to be nice. My point-of-view has changed through these exchanges. Right now, rather than thinking in black-and-white terms, with physics (and physics derived disciplines) white and everything else black, I'd put it more in shades of gray (or maybe with a color palette to symbolize those three attributes I've mentioned for scientific endeavor). I'm glad we agree on that. Well, as I said above, I'm now thinking in shades of gray. I don't think the situation is all that common that physicists in practice promulgate false theories that are not discredited within a very short time. On the other hand, when my professor in college uses the briggs--whatever test on hapless students in a management course (this was 11 years ago) some time after the theory had been in use, it means that people in subsidiary disciplines don't get the message from reputable psychologists that it's no good. Now maybe this is due to the "public's" lack of discernent about who to trust, but let me ask: if there are official organizations for psychology, do they, after some suitable period of time, call such theories discredited? At any rate, I'm grateful that you've bothered to educate me and sandpaper away some of my prejudices. You've made some good points, and I'll concede, without reading much else about it, that cognitive/behaviorism may be an excellent theory for people's behavior, but without further reading I'm not sure how much it goes into the general problem of consciousness and "mind". Ideally, chemistry can be developed (and is, partially) from the more general --quantum mechanics. What I'm thinking is that psychological theories of how people behave are sort of like chemistry without a quantum mechanical foundation, i.e. like chemistry was 150 years ago. But even then most people called chemistry a science, so to be fair I guess I'd have to bend and call psychology a science even though its foundations have yet to be discovered.

There are plenty of proofs for the existence of God. You can review the following: ***** Also there is St. Thomas Aquinas' five proofs. ******* Philosophy professor Peter Kreeft also gives several "arguments for the existence of God" on his website (perhaps "arguments for" is a better choice of words than "proof"?): http://www.peterkreeft.com/featured-writing.htm He puts things in simple language and makes it easy to understand. As for the notion of proving God's existence, I think that there is a disconnect in the way people use the word "proof" and what they think it means. Proof does not mean "100% certainty that will compel you to believe." Even in science, most things are only spoken of in terms of probability, not absolute certainty. Yes, of course we need faith, but real faith is informed, not blind. And that faith can be more or less reasonable. Is it reasonable to believe God exists? Absolutely! Will these "proofs" for God's existence ipso facto compel everyone to believe? Probably not. But I think they illustrate the fact that belief in God is eminently more reasonable than disbelief. And they raise questions that I haven't heard atheists adequately answer. Many people also confuse "proof" with scientific proof as though the only legitimate means of coming to know anything is through the scientific method. Therefore, unless you can see, hear, touch, smell, or taste God, then you can't say anything about Him. However, reason is just as valid a means of coming to know things as science is (perhaps even more so). Hence we have philosophers speak of proofs for God's existence. Even if proof for something was more or less 100%, this still would not mean that people would be compelled to believe. Proof does not negate free will. Thus you have things like the Flat Earth Societyarguing that the world is really flat. You have people believing that "The DaVinci Code" is good history. All this despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. If evidence truly had the effect of compelling people to believe, such things would not happen. You could have all the evidence in the world that God exists, but people would still refuse to believe it because they don't want Him to make claims on their lives which would force them to change the way they live. Just some things to think about!

I don't think so. If it is against the rules, forgive me, I simply responded to Mr Skeptic's question.

There is only one God. For example, Catholics and Muslims do worship the same God. Please allow me to take the liberty of adding this clarification: In traditional Catholic teaching and philosophy the true God can be discovered by natural means without access to revelation. He is the non-contingent Creator. By it's very essence, such a being must exist and can only be one. Therefore any person or people who believed in and adore such a non-contingent being and Creator on which all else is contingent have always been deemed to have discovered the true God. Divine revelation is needed to know of the persons of God and other truths about Him, but knowledge of them is not necessary to have knowledge of God. No one would argue that Jews worship a different God. Likewise, St. Paul says that the pagans in Acts 17:23 are also worshiping the same God even though they do not yet acknowledge the Trinity (in the same chapter he also cites pagan poets teaching about the true God). Acts 17:23 For passing by, and seeing your idols, I found an altar also, on which was written: To the unknown God. What therefore you worship, without knowing it, that I preach to you: Muslims may believe falsely alledged revelations about Him, but they definitely acknowledge Him. They do not seek to worship the creature rather than the Creator as idolotors and polytheists do (who often worship beings that do not exist, but which have a contingent essence). Here are some more examples demonstrating Catholic thought on this: St. John Damascene in his "Founts of Knowledge" These used to be idolaters and worshiped the morning star and Aphrodite, whom in their own language they called Khabár, which means great. And so down to the time of Heraclius they were very great idolaters. From that time to the present a false prophet named Mohammed has appeared in their midst. This man, after having chanced upon the Old and New Testaments and likewise, it seems, having conversed with an Arian monk, devised his own heresy....He says that there is one God, creator of all things... (notice, they are no longer idolators but are considered heretics) Pope St. Gregory VII (11th century) to a Muslim prince: ‘Almighty God, who wishes that all should be saved and none lost, approves nothing in so much as that after loving Him one should love his fellow man, and that one should not do to others, what one does not want done to oneself. You and we owe this charity to ourselves especially because we believe in and confess one God, admittedly, in a different way, and daily praise and venerate him, the creator of the world and ruler of this world.’ The famous counter-reformation Jesuit and expert on St. Thomas Aquinas, Suarez: Thomas, however, rightly distinguishes two kinds of religious practices: there are those which go against reason and against God insofar as he can be recognized through nature and through the natural powers of the soul, e.g., the worship of idols, etc. Others are contrary to the Christian religion and to its commands not because they are evil in themselves or contrary to reason as, for example, the practices of Jews and even many of the customs of Mohammedans and such unbelievers who believe in one true God. Suarez, Tract. de Fide Disp. 18 Sect. III (Notice, the worship of idols is intrinsically evil because it goes against reason (the true God can be known by natural reason), yet many practices of the Muslims are not intrinsically evil in and of themselves since they are reasonable acts of worship directed to the one God.) Catechism of Pope St. Pius X : 12 Q. Who are infidels? A. Infidels are those who have not been baptised and do not believe in Jesus Christ, because they either believe in and worship false gods as idolaters do, or though admitting one true God, they do not believe in the Messiah, neither as already come in the Person of Jesus Christ, nor as to come; for instance, Mohammedans and the like. (again, they are not idolators but are like Jews) Catholic Encyclopedia: As in ecclesiastical language those who by baptism have received faith in Jesus Christ and have pledged Him their fidelity and called the faithful, so the name infidel is given to those who have not been baptized. The term applies not only to all who are ignorant of the true God, such as pagans of various kinds, but also to those who adore Him but do not recognize Jesus Christ, as Jews and MohammedansMohammedans.. Second Vatican Council: The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. See also this chapter on Islam in Hillair Belloc's "Great Heresies." http://www.ewtn.com/library/HOMELIBR/HERESY4.TXT Muslims, like the pagans St. Paul met, worship the true God without knowing it, even though they have been misled as to truths about him by a false prophet. (of course, a Muslim in good faith and good will who desires to solely humble and abandon himself to the way, truth, and life of God for love of God alone, implicitly desires Christ who is the way, the truth, and the life and may be saved. However, one who simply adores the one God while obstinately rejecting the Son of God--the way, the truth, and the life--has neither the Father nor the Son and cannot be saved.). __________________

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church: I. THE JUDGMENT OF CONSCIENCE 1777 Moral conscience, present at the heart of the person, enjoins him at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil. It also judges particular choices, approving those that are good and denouncing those that are evil. It bears witness to the authority of truth in reference to the supreme Good to which the human person is drawn, and it welcomes the commandments. When he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking. ... ! Moderator Note Link added and most text deleted. Attribute your material. Also, this is a discussion forum. Is there any discussion here?

And yet, until these phenomena were discovered and quantified and tested, they remained in the realm of the unknown. In fact, until the sciences and the related equipment became available such hypothoses were not even testable. Does the fact that these things were "unknown" or were "untestable", mean they did not exist? Of course not. They existed whether they could be scientifically demonstrated or not. They also existed whether they were needed to explain some other phenomena or not. No good scientist would dare to say that there are not things in the iniverse (or outside of it, or in parallel with it) that we have as yet not even dreamed of. So, the existance of a "deity" is not dependant upon our ability to prove it nor does it rely even on our abilbity to "dream it". Yes this is true, but can the atheist rationally argue AGAINST the personal belief in a Deity? That was the point of the thread. The Deist, in arguing for the acceptance of a Deity, particularly the Judeo-Christian Deity, is offering a hope in eternal life. The Atheist view offers no such hope. So the question of what can be "reasonably argues" cuts both ways. A lot of words for "economy of thought"..... A great many arguments can be made about specific human understandings of God. In fact I would say that MOST atheist arguments are less about whether God does or does not exist, but about whether a given understanding of God is correct. How about this for "economy of thought".... "GOD IS...All the rest is details"

First of all because there IS no more than one God. Secondly because to divide our Love in this way results in, as Jesus says, Loving one and dispising the other. Third, I Love both my parents with all may heart for The Love of God, which they instilled in my from a young age. Therefore, all stems from the Love of God. It is a unified agape Love, not some finite love that must be "divided up". When all Love that I show comes from the One God then it is infinite.

God is the un-created source of all creation. God doesn't have a creator. This is why He is God.

Many small children are familiar with the story of Jimminy Cricket who tells Pinocchio always to let his conscience be his guide. The wisdom of this advice hits people as they grow older. So "What is your conscience?"

A pluralistic society is one in which the members of the society are offered more than one norm of moral behavior. Such a situation presents the individual with the problem of not merely trying to do what is right, but of having to decide what is right in the first place. Expressing the same thing in the form of question: who has the right to do what? What should morality be based on? Which source of morality is the right one to follow? The following incident should help illustrate the nature of the problem. James is faced with the predicament often described as "damned if you do, and damned if you don't". His problem arises from his parents, as two sources of morality, telling him to do two contradictory things at the same time. On a much broader scale, this is the plight of modern day youth who are often besieged with not two but many contradictory answers as to what is the right thing to do in any given situation. It is not as though the proabortionists, for example, came out and said they realized they were wrong, but were pushing abortion all the same. On the contrary, they strongly assert that Catholics are wrong and they are right. It is not hard to see why such a situation is the cause of moral confusion and uncertainty. The following will hopefully help to further clarify this point. The following positions are held and fostered by different groups in our society today. Each of the position listed is considered to be immoral by the Church. 1. Marriage should be abolished so people could move on to another partner when they wished. 2. A woman should be allowed to have an abortion on demand. 3. We should painlessly kill the very old and the retarded because they are no longer useful to the society. 4. It is a waste of time to go to church. Besides, religion is no more than a superstitious hangover from the past. 5. The only worthwhile goal in life is to amass as much material wealth as possible. Nothing else matter. The sharp contrast between the Church's teaching and the ideas expressed above is but a small indication of the widely divergent and often contradictory answers given for moral questions. The question that automatically emerges is: "whom are you to believe?" When your faith comes up against the thinking of others, how are you to arrive at the right answer to the problem? Surely the Church is not saying that everyone is wrong except those who follow the Church's way of seeing things. Surely the Church does not ask you not to think for yourself. The picture presented is a confusing one. It seems at times as though everyone were walking on jello, and the only certain thing that can be said about any moral question is that the answer will always be certain. In this day and age, even the simplest statement is followed by a question mark. We appear to have lost our compass in a world that constatly offers to new problems. The sharp contrast between the Church's teaching and the ideas Now that we have made clear some of the moral problems that arise from living in a pluralistic society, we can begin by stating a few principles that may help to clarify things. The first point is that each person and idea with which you come in contact is only a possible source of morality. Nothing is actual source of morality until you internalize it by believing in it. As soon as we believe in someone or something, we let that idea into ourselves and are changed in the process. We see this in a child's growth and development. A child spontaneously believes, that it is internalizes, all that it is taught by its parents. This deep faith in the parents is what makes the parents such as overwhelmingly significant force in a child's life. But as we grow into adulthood, we should no longer blindly believe everything we are told. We are not meant to be sponges that spontaneously absorb every idea that is presented to us. Rather, we have both the power and the responsibility to judge for ourselves what we will believe or not believe. The following example will illustrate what is being said here. Imagine two students who are studying communism. The first student gains much knowledge about communism but his study in no way directly affects his thinking. The second student, however, actually becomes the source that changes his whole life. So, too, with any other reality of life. They remain only possible sources of morality as long as we do not believe in them. They do not become actual sources of morality until we internalize them in an act of faith. It is one thing to learn about abortion. It is something else to believe in it. One can know about atheism and remain a Catholic. But one cannot believe in atheism and be a Catholic. One of the problems of living in a pluralistic society is that we often internalizes values we see on television and elsewhere without realizing we have done so. Living in a pluralistic society calls for clear thinking and awareness of ourselves. The second point to keep in mind is that we must be very careful to distinguish between "the world" and "evil in the world." In other words, we must recognize that the Church has no monopoly on goodness. It is obvious that there is much good in the world, even though it is no way associated with the visible Church. For example, research projects that try to overcome diseases such as cancer, or the CARE or Red Cross programs that help the poor and underdeveloped nations. Being a good Catholic in a pluralistic society does not mean shutting one's eyes to the goodness in the world. On the contrary, a Catholic should be willing and ready to take an active part in all activities that work toward the betterment of mankind. The third point is that the world is not only a place of goodness but also of evil actions and ideas that lead people away from their dignity as children of God. Here the Catholic must be able to rely on his or her own convictions that flow from faith in Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Church. One well-known thinker once said, "Distinguished in order to unite." That is, just as the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle must each be perfectly shaped in order to fit together into a whole, so, too, the different groups in a pluralistic society must each try to be true to their own convictions if they are truly unite and form a living society. Catholics must take their active place in the community by being true to Christ. This cannot be done if Catholics yield to every force in society, so they become invisible by becoming no different from those who are not Christians.

Well - My original question was aimed primarily at NT and current teachings etc within the Church. However, you bring up a good point. Of course how we view things (Morally and Lovingly) today is quite different than how preceding generations have viewed things. As to ANY of the above things being based on hate, I'd wonder.....Practicality yes, but then practicality can be seen as a form of Love or arising from Love. The forbidding of certain foods and various other dietary practices, as well as being "unclean" has been explained, in the majority of cases, as matters of health. Practical? Certainly. Loving? Yup since it helps to keep the community healthy. Letting farmland rest every seven years is good practice as it allows the land to rest and recover. Such practices (though rarely employed today) have long been recognized as sound agricultural practice. Again - Practical? Yes, Loving? also yes in that it preserves the Land for future generation who do not then starve due to the greed of their forebearers. Worshiping no other God's? Well covered by the first and greatest commandment. How can you Love the Lord God with your whole being and then worship other Gods? Doesn't work. Finally the thing about Homosexuals...There could be any number of reasons for this law other than "hate". I will agree that it is a complex issue, but mostly because we have a very different understanding today than they did back then.

I'll be willing to agree that the idealized model I have is not descriptive always (indeed, not most of the time) about how scientists work...but that's a different issue from what science is. I'll agree to that, but I'm not talking about process. How one achieves faith has varied accounts, but faith itself is one thing. It isn't black and white, but a matter of degree... pretty much, although again, the criteria are simplified for purposes of discussion. I guess I'm a reductionist. To be esthetically pleasing, scientific theories should proceed from the most general to the particular. This means chemistry comes from physics, biochemistry from chemistry, biology from biochemistry and (in principle) psychology from biochemistry. When I say a discipline is not scientific, I'm not saying that what might be done with the discipline is not valuable both pragmatically and esthetically. I don't regard Oliver Saks as a scientist, but his insights and accounts are extremely interesting and valuable. Economics isn't a science, but it can provide insights and utility. I have a strong prejudice against psychology engendered by phony therapies applied to family members, phony assessments (the Briggs--whatever personality test applied in my 3rd year of Ecclesial Lay Ministry training as part of a "management" course, phony attempts to analyze mass behavior on the basis of meaningless terms). Were psychology a science, these phony parts could be swept into the dustbin as were discredited theories in physics and chemistry (e.g. cold fusion, polywater). I don't contend that therapeutic practices don't (sometimes) work...I'm contending that there isn't a general law, quantitatively described,i.e with attributes that can be measured quantitatively, to tell whether a practice will work. Accordingly, psychology is not, in my view, a science. What you and others do is very probably valuable. But it doesn't negate that a phony outfit such as (to pick a name out of the hat) Sierra Tucson can take in millions from duped celebrities and not achieve therapeutic results. What is that massive theory? I will Google the site, but again; if this theory were scientifically valid, then it would be the only theory that psychologists/therapists followed, because it would be possible to falsify the other theories. I think that is just my point. People don't realize this is what's done as good practice, because it is not possible to show other practice is false. Falsifiability is an essential element of science (see Karl Popper). Clarification - I am not trying to denigrate what you do in your profession. It sounds, from what you've written, to be a very worthwhile endeavor.. But the problem is that the other parts of psychology/psychiatry which are nonsense are still there and haven't been shown to be nonsense by scientific type measures. That's the basis of my judgment. I've enjoyed this discussion, learned quite a bit (I'll follow up on your reference), and have modified my stark views (to a degree).

No, socio-economic is general statement so I cannot comment. Wealth in and of itself, not to mention its possession, isn't per se wrong, presuming you're not vowed to poverty or anything. Not in the slightest. St Paul says that it is the LOVE of money which is the root of all evil, not merely its possession or use, whether on oneself or on others. Neither is there anything wrong with spending on your own pleasure and enjoyment, as long as you balance this out with spending a proportionate amount on others.

Assuming that "analogy" means analog, 7.5°.

I think you were talking about my statement regarding the origin of matter and energy we now observe in our universe. Someone introduced the unproven theory that all the energy and matter was once contained within an immeasurable "point" without dimensions. Cosmologists invented a word for that point..it is called "singularity". It has no volume to be sure. It further stated that this point was the forerunner or precursor of all the energy and matter that was expelled by the Big Bang. I hope this is understandable to the reader. where that energy that was in the immeasurable "singularity" came from. Obviously that point, "singularity", had to exist at a time BEFORE the Big Bang AND Before there was any primordial universe. That was a time at which there was nothing except possibly a spirit because there was no matter nor energy before that thing called singularity was produced. I think you were trying to justify an improvable concept as are the mathematicians. The secret is that I was attempting to cause someone to offer the existence of the Spirit of God as the "Cause" for the proposed events that preceded the led up to what we call our universe. Perhaps my logic is not congruent with the logic of the proponents of "singularity".

John Cuthber, I think if all these people were actually looking for something to happen then maybe that could be so, but if you studied Fatima you would know that there were many secular witnesses and secular newspapers there getting ready to redicule the believers. John Cuthber you know as well as I do that hostile witnesses who agreed with you make the best witnesses of all and there were plenty of those on that day. Plus on top of that your asking me to compare a man dressed like a gorilla in a basketball game to the miracle of Fatima? I'm sorry John Cuthber but that doesn't fit at all because there were very few things that could distract the crowd of 70,000 people on that day away from a miracle of that magnitude. Most of the people were scared out of their mind because they thought that they were going to die. Maybe you're an atheist that's why you said that people make lousy eyewitnesses. In the Bible, the New Testament is made up of eyewitnesses. Some of your posts really confuse me John Cuthber.

I'll admit I was a bit harsh in that classification, but here's my definition of science: a general theory that can support sub-theories, that can be used to make predictions, which in turn can be verified by experiments or measurements--to either confirm or falsify the theory/model. So theory, quantitation, measurement are all necessary parts of this. These elements are present in physics and allied disciplines, and to lesser extent in other disciplines. Biology makes quantitative predictions in genetics and molecular biology, enzyme kinetics and some other parts, so to that extent it can be called scientific. Taxonomy and classical evolutionary biology I don't regard as all that scientific, since the quantitative element is missing. Geology is descriptive for the most part, putting aside geophysics, and to that extent is missing what I'd call an essential element. Psychology is missing a general theory (there seem to be lots of sub-theories, but nothing equivalent to what quantum mechanics or general relativity tells us about the world) and as far as I can see the quantitation is mainly in neuro-physiology. All the IQ tests and Personality Tests I consider to be total nonsense. Here's a story Oliver Saks tells about a blind person whose sightlessness was cured by an operation--the first sight of people was like seeing trees walking (amazing how that parallels one of the miracle stories, Jesus curing a blind person); and in a similar vein, people previously blind had trouble distinguishing figures--triangles, squares, etc--visually, even though when blind they have a good tactile appreciation of the difference between different geometric forms. What this suggests to me that there's more to a perception than just sensory input. There's a learning process involved (which babies go through) and that suggests in turn a higher level of organization going on. not sure quite how to take that! I'm not quite sure whether I'm a dualist or not; there's the classic objection, how does the mind/spirit interact with the body. And the Church, I believe, says as a point of dogma that the body and soul are one entity, not two. So at this stage of the game I'm not sure how to resolve the mystery other than saying it's a mystery; divagreen, I couldn't agree with you more on what you just wrote; and I'll certainly agree that brains (or people) have to be trained to appreciate and understand music. Nevertheless there are differences in likes and dislikes that confound, I believe, psychological understanding. I tried to google a site, and what I found was very glitzy--as near as I can see, trying to plow through all the popular songs and hype, it seems that Levitin is using functional MRI (about which I know something) to show which areas of the brain light up when different types of music are played. That is not a scientific explanation, in my view of what it's all about; you can show the areas of the brain that are active, even track the chemicals that are produced in neurons, but you won't explain why I thrill on hear "Amazing Grace" or "Thaxted". I know a little about neurology (having been involved as an MRI physicist in the latter days of scientific career), and I think it's more like engineering than science. It's not exactly true, I agree, but given two people with similar backgrounds and musical training you would not, I believe, be able to form a top ten list for each (and I'm talking about classical music--popular stuff that's played now is just noise). I have. don't really understand what you wrote above. I will agree that there's a lot of physics involved in music; Pythagoras showed that over 2000 years ago when he noted the relation between harmonics and string lengths that were plucked, i.e. harmonics and frequencies. Nevertheless, that's very much like saying a novel is compounded of chemicals (I'm talking real books, not ebooks), so the novel is just a matter of chemistry. You make some good points; but what I'm trying to say is that environment, training, neurology, all the physics are incomplete; they tell part of the story, but don't explain why some harmonies, some music, some dissonances, move us deeply, or to quote from another thread, why singing a hymn is praying twice..

I'll admit I was a bit harsh in that classification, but here's my definition of science: a general theory that can support sub-theories, that can be used to make predictions, which in turn can be verified by experiments or measurements--to either confirm or falsify the theory/model. So theory, quantitation, measurement are all necessary parts of this. These elements are present in physics and allied disciplines, and to lesser extent in other disciplines. Biology makes quantitative predictions in genetics and molecular biology, enzyme kinetics and some other parts, so to that extent it can be called scientific. Taxonomy and classical evolutionary biology I don't regard as all that scientific, since the quantitative element is missing. Geology is descriptive for the most part, putting aside geophysics, and to that extent is missing what I'd call an essential element. Psychology is missing a general theory (there seem to be lots of sub-theories, but nothing equivalent to what quantum mechanics or general relativity tells us about the world) and as far as I can see the quantitation is mainly in neuro-physiology. So I am probably closer to agreeing with you to consider all the IQ tests (and I'll include Personality Tests) to be total nonsense.

Christ tells us that the two greatest commandments are based on Love and that everything else stems from it. Mt 22:36-40 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37 And He said to him, " `YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' 38 "This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 "The second is like it, `YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' 40 "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." So - My question is, can we, as Catholics and as Christians, trace every rule back to this "rule of Love"? Can you think of any rule that is not traceable to the "Law of Love"?

I brought this up because in a pluralistic society we are often confronted with conflicting moral values. A possible source of morality is made an actual source of morality by our believing in it. Such things as friends and our emotions should be among our sources of morality. We must, however, not let ourselves be guided by them in a way that undermines our own convictions. A Catholic Christian forms his or her morality basically on the teachings of Jesus as made known by the gospels and the Church. The teachings of Jesus also prompt the Catholic to withdraw from or counteract all activities that attack the true dignity of man as a child of God. Secularism, materialism, and pragmatism create an atmosphere in which it is often difficult to live up to the Christin ideals. Only by being true to Christ can we be true to ourselves and to others.

I'm still having trouble figuring out what "Reality" it is we are not accepting on it's own terms. We believe that the earth revolves around the sun. We believe that diseases are Caused by germs and viruses etc. We believe that we need to be good stewards of the Earth. We believe that we should help our fellow man. We believe that the physical sciences are extremely important to mans future etc........ There seems to be a disconnect somewhere, because you seem to think that we aren't dealing properly with "reality" because we believe there is something "Intelligent" behind the physical universe and you believe there is NOT. Yet in this, neither one of us can objectively prove their point. Perhaps I'm missing something.

I'll preface my comments by a general remark: I'm a snob as far as science goes; science is formulating a theory, predicting results expected for that theory, doing the experiment to confirm the theory, so science is basically quantitative, physics and those disciplines which involve physics (including most of chemistry). For doing an experiment I'm willing to substitute making a measurement (as in astronomy, or geophysics, or molecular biology/genetics, physiology or neuro-physiology), so a bunch of other disciplines that people call science, I would call quasi-science: biology(other than the exceptions noted above), geology (other than geophysics). I wouldn't call psychology a science, because it lacks predictive theory, although it does do descriptions, and psychoanalysis is about on a par with witchcraft. And sociology, anthropology, political science are not even quasi-sciences. Which is not to say that interesting stuff occasionally comes forth from people who call themselves psychologists or psychiatrists. Oliver Sachs says a lot of valuable things, but they're anecdotal and not science. That doesn't answer my point--qualia are individual and will never be translatable. We can guess, but never know "what's it like to be a bat". predicting how she would react is not the same as knowing what Sally experiences. This looks like interesting stuff, but I wouldn't call it science. Pythagoras made a more interesting point over 2000 years ago, commenting on the frequency relations between notes that were pleasant and unpleasant... And the article in question still gives no clues as to why one piece of music is preferred over another, Berlioz over Bach or conversely. And although this article was a pop piece, it gave no statistics/errors, etc. And I'm not sure I agree with the conclusion. A friend Chinese was a fan of Chinese Opera and then became totally enamored of Western Opera...So much for being used to the pentatonic scale. Generalizations about groups are one thing (the mean score on the SAT is higher for Asian-Americans than for Caucasians, but you can't pick an individual Asian-American and say he/she will have a higher SAT score than some other Caucasian). Physics works the other direction. It has laws of motion for individual particles/molecules and from those and considerations of statistical mechanics predicts the bulk properties. And you can predict individual particle behavior, when they're sufficiently isolated. When psychology reaches the stage of psycho-history and predicts, quantitatively, from basic theory, as in Asimov's Foundation series, I'll overcome my bias and regard psychology as a science. "when I use a word it means whatever I choose it to mean".... the significance of "mean" should be clear in context and from general usage. I don't know how I can amplify on that. I don't understand this comment. When you say "remove consciousness from the equation" could you please say more explicitly what your argument is? Right now I'm not altogether sure; In some respects, as Fr. Stanley Jaki and John Barrow have pointed out, science is intrinsically self-limiting. In other respects, like resolving the contradictions or gaps between relativity and quantum mechanics, a new theory may come up. And questions of practicality, like building particle accelerators powerful enough to prove or deny string theory, might in principle be overcome.