charles brough

Yes, I agree that sociologists are scientific, even objective, in studying groups. I said ''sociology'' when I really meant social theorists. In fact, I believe all social scientists gather their data as exactly as they can. What is really at issue is how that data is interpreted. That is where specific subjectivity or rationalizing comes in inorder to avoid conflict with our religious and secular systems or ideals.

We all know we day dream ourselves to sleep at night visualizing scenes. For example, if you drive all day, at night, you will still see road ahead. I find the same thing happens with cards. In my case, if I play ten games of Freecell in the afternoon, it will take seven hours before I can go to bed that night, close my eyes, and not see the game in front of me; I can even play the game---somewhat. It is not vivid enough to be sure of any single card and when I am looking for the best place to put it, it is apt to change so that when I put it down, it no longer goes there! Rather than fight that, I stop playing Freecell seven hours before bedtime. Anyone else have "mind's eye" experiences?

Are you serious? What an illegible pile of nonsense!

Prejudices? Its normal for people to prefer their own religion and ideology! After all, we evolved through millions of years as small group primates. We feel a sense of community mostly when our group is threatened by another group. The "praising of diversity" is one of our secular ideology's most recent doctrines and it defies human nature. No wonder it isn't working! The world is becoming more divided and its mainstream religion-based societies are becoming more hositile towards each other. That's why the West is becoming less and less able to solve growing world problems. Its all simple matter of cause and effect. brough, http://civilization-overview.com

Well, sociology is the study of groups. Science is the effort to understand what happens in the world and universe. While it is true that some groups are better at science than the others, I find it hard to attach any significant meaning to the"sociology of science" term. This is not unusual. Often meaningless terms and usages appear in sociological papers. These "buzzwords" are regarded as "cool." But we mustn't be too critical of sociologists because they are working in the only field where they are forced to be subjective. You cannot, for example, expect them to come up with anything that reflects on our Christian faith or our secular ideals. So, we hire sociologists to pretend to do science for us. They take on the onus for all the subjective rationalizing so the rest of the scientists don't have to. If you want to better understand how the rationalizing in sociology and social theory is done, check out "The Last Civilization" at my website URL below. I have twenty-one of them listed and described in the Appendix. If you want a good education to get a career, why pick a dead end? There is an immense shortage of highly trained graduate engineering experts in chemical, compter, mechanical engineering. Too many students pick a useless "liberal arts" education---thinking it will enable them to think---and end up deep in debt and without a job.

That clears up and settles that question, post and thread!

If you are seriously interested in this subject, I suggest you take a look at "The Last Civilization." In it, I make the point that the long term survival of human civilization depends upon our eventual expansion out and colonizing of space. When and if we do manage that, there is no end to human destiny. If not, we are heading for the same over-crowding crisis that characterizes all life if it cannot expand its territory. The result would be the end of civilization and a much smaller world population hand tilling the soil and restricted, probably, only to parts of it not contaminated by nuclear war radiation. It is a big subject and there is a lot more to it than that . . .

Are you sure that rodents carry more diseases dangerous to us than other wild animals or are you just associating them with the Midieval Plague? Also, flies, mosquitos and some other insects do carry diseases dangerous to us. Do you read over and check your posts before you post them? You should . . . Peace

While the quote from st. Paul uses "ye" to represent a supposedly "bad" person (it is not entended to mean man in general), there is much evidence in the Bible that Satan is regarded as a god and is even refered to as such in one part of the scriptures. Also, the so-called "Last Days" in Revelations depicts a desperate God in a titanic end-times struggle to the death with Satan, a god who was so powerful in the mythology that he could change Adam and Eve and force God to banish them "cursed forever" as sinful beings. To me, the whole point here is not that the Bible infers Christians should worship Satan but that the religion actually has four gods, that is God, Jesus, Satan and Mary. Even the Pope offers prayers to her . . . In my book, I refer to Christianity is "a near-monotheism" because it at least has fewer gods than the ancient polytheisms which listed literally thousands of gods.

In all this long discussion, has anything of use materialized, anything new understood? "To me, modern philosophers are the history-of-philosophy-loving professional students and academics who enjoy building up ivory tower edifaces of abstractions for the sole intent of carrying on a tradition that is now obsolete. Ontology is the study of the nature of things, but each thing or entity has its own nature. What is important is the cause and effect process that has led to that nature and, hence, what comes next.

To me, the subject of philosophy is a study of the history of theory until the about the last century when theory became more specialized to particular sciences. Astrophysics is more theory than physics, for example, and the social sciences build a data base which is interpreted by social theorists to concoct their theory of the world which is thought of as being our secularized way of thinking. To me, modern philosophers are the history-of-philosophy-loving professional students and academics who enjoy building up ivory tower edifaces of abstractions for the sole intent of carrying on a tradition that is now obsolete. I'm sorry about that but I just left another forum where someone claimed the social sciences are not science but philosophy. I guess I lost my tempter. . . brough http://civilization-overview.com

Certainly, you could interpret it that way, but if some people interpret "let there be light" to mean "4 billion years of evolution," they are inferring that God over-symplifies and might actually mean something else entirely. And if most people don't take the scriptures literally and instead, enterprect them so freely (and conveniently), which version of the faith is "true"? You use the word "spiritual." I have never been able to find any meaning in that word other than "belief in spirits." Is that the what you meant?

I'll accept your assessment of clinical studies. However, my experience is not consistent with that. I have seen and experienced what the focussing of one's concentration can achieve, a feat specific to hypnosis. I make no claim it achieves anything functionally or mentally or physiologically impossible. In a field requiring a certain type of awesome personality to master the technique, a field dominated by showmanship, and a heritage of "animal magnatism," no research academics could further their career by demonstrating what it can and does do.

It seems not many here are able to come up with anything original. . . .

I see your point. I would then modify my version in this way: "One usually talks about a theory being more accurate or less accurate than previous or other explanations for a specific natural phenonenon."

Yes, like anything useful, it can also be very dangerous.

If you had answered my question, I would have been in a position to answer this one of yours.

Good ones. Its like "no snap judgements." And the 2nd is also good. I think everyone could devise at least one if they think about it. well, that is the safest way to go in the military, but in real life. . . ?

Brandysails, please let me try to sum it up. It has a lot to do with what you WANT to believe. If you have to believe in Creation in order to fit into your church and you abhor the thought of not conforming, you may be better to keep your belief in that ancient, over three thousand year parchemented myth or concept. Then, it was advanced; now it lingers on only as a source of unity and hence a sense of community. If you have had a desent science education, however, you might be willing to accept that hundreds of thousands of dedicated scientists across the world who devote their lives to finding the most accurate explanation possible for everything around us, past, present and into the future. Our whole civilization depends now upon them and the continuation of their work. Do not be pursuaded by the few scholars who try to believe both. I checked the website you listed. You need to keep in mind that much of science is devoted to finding natural cause explanations for things. The whales in the desert, for example, were found near a port and could have been part of a sunami. The scientists are figuring out what explains it. They do not dismiss the finding of vast numbers of milllions of years old dynasour bones across the world and say they were the result of the Bible Story world-wide flood.

Yes, but I would change your choice of words a little: "One sually talks about a theory being more accurate or less accurate than previous or other explanations for a particular natural phenonenon." Can we improve upon that? What do you mean in your second sentence?

That is just a form of Yoga. There is the more mundane stretching exercises that can be functional, but much yoga is used to achieve mental/physical/emotional states that are not functional. Yes, with yoga techniques and a vast amount of time and auto-suggestion, one can remove feeling from parts of the body, exercise some control over the heartbeat rate, even achieve a delusion of "becoming one with the world." You can achieve an ability to fall unconscious. You might have developed a blood clot in the brain as a result. Who wants that? The so-called explanation for the techniques are mired in ancient Hindu "science" of between 500 to 1500 AD. It can all be better explained scientifically as self-hypnosis. Other than the stretching exercises, little of any of it is really useful. We need to feel pain, we need to feel distinct from the rest of the world, we need to let body-need determine the heart rate, and we do not need to have the ability to collapse as if we were experiencing an epileptic seizure.

As a tecnique, hypnosis should not be judged just on whether or not it is safe in surgery as seens to be the case in this thread. I have experience with hypnosis and consider it possible in the right type of patient but extremely impractical as it has to be preceeded by staged sessions in preparation and only with susceptable patients. But is it impossible? No, there are people who can eliminate all pain themselves. This takes years of study and self-suggestion. I feel it is important to know the subject because it leads to the individual having a better awareness of propaganda techniques, advertising tricks, etc.

This is what I learned: There is the early period of the night's sleep when you sleep "deeply." This is the most important part in getting the needed rest. Later, the sleep is "lighter" and dreaming serves to keep us asleep as long as possible to satisfy mind and body need. Sometime we wake up gradually as the dream becomes less and less bazzar and fades into conscious worry or we wake up because the dreaming has been unpleasant and stirred up the hormones.

Why do you associate what you feel with the sympathetic nervous system? My personal belief is that you would find the study of hypnosis and auto-suggestion interesting and enlightening. I did. Also, I would think you could do a better job of explaining just what you are experiencing and thinking when you think.

Your ability to "paint as you sleep" is not something I have ever heard of before. I would consider it either a "gift" or an abnormality. That includes you ability to or pathology of associating individuals with certain colors. Do you believe you can tell the mood of an individual by the color you associate with him or is that color a permanent feature to you of the other individual? My only personal experience with something like this is that if I play many free-cell games within eight hours of bedtime, getting to sleep is burdened by a vision of the cards when I close my eyes. I see a mass of black and red cards alligned indistinctly, almost chaotically, but I am somewhat self-propelled to try to match them up as in the game. However, they invariably defeat me by changing at the very time I move them!