dedo

Not all religious invent conflicts between belief and science. I never did. In fact science is part of what lead me to religion from intense curiosity which fuels science. So I wanted to see if God was "real" by seeking God. Many people also seek religion from a personal need. That can include fear or hardship & religion helps them get through it. Studies on soldiers in combat (according to Google AI) show that soldiers who have experienced combat are more likely to practice religion. People who seek religion & have an experience they attribute to the Divine, often strengthen their faith. If you believe the Divine saved your life, that is something you never forget. I had a couple of those. Never was a soldier, but the science I studied was tested every day. We expected to have minutes or even seconds to resolve a situation weekly & on a bad day, more than once. That type of situation leads people to do whatever is necessary, anything & everything, from extreme education and training, to praying. Once I saw a looming catastrophe resolve so fast with one prayer at the end of a 12h shift, I included that in my report to the relief. The next morning when I came back on & asked if it unraveled again & the SHTF, the night guy said "no your prayer worked". Those kinds of experiences outweigh a whole mountain range of argument from anyone regardless of credentials, who spout philosophy like "confirmation bias", but who have never walked on one of those life and death roads themselves.

I think the motivation behind DEI was originally good, meaning people sensed "something is wrong" & tried to fix it. However, the solution of DEI & how it was implemented likely accomplished little & may have made things worse because it was not well researched. DEI would be like someone seeing "something is wrong" with a relative with angina, so the person stays at the Holiday Inn & prescribes supplements, instead of sending his relative to a cardiologist. Republicans like to claim DEI was just used to advance liberal ideology and cronyism. Look at the people in charge of the LA govt. & the salaries they gave each other & see an example of what Rep complain about. Of course Rep could have an even worse tribalism that DEI helped bring to power. Historically, when one party has a toxic tribal agenda, the public can choose an even worse tribe as a result. So the Weimar was replaced with the Nazis.

A bar fight becomes a war when it becomes one small influence, combined with many others, that turns someone who might have otherwise been normal into a killer. Of course the person would have to rise to a political position where he could act on his predisposition. Yes, a pacifist or even a priest can accumulate aggression. A nun has been convicted of assisting genocide in African genocides. No one is immune.

Don't know if this administration will cripple science, or not. The OP's original claim if still in effect, is alarming. This video discusses the opposite view with Rand Paul, who I rarely agree with, discusses RFK nomination. There is a tribalism that can creep into any group including science and medicine such that internal change becomes difficult if not impossible. So will this admin. including RFK just create a disaster, or will they at least in some isolated cases provide stimulus for reform. Anyone's guess. However, the point RP makes about bias in science is true. Recently watched a YT video from an epidemiologist scholar who claims 500 scientific publications which is amazing. When I listened to this guy discuss the pandemic he attacked everything, all best practices, with some of "his version" of science. I felt like I was listening to a FOX News pundit. Then he said that scholars like himself, that understand literature (but have never treated a single covid patient) should be the ones to make policy. Think about that. Someone who believes a person who reads a lot, but never did something even once, should be in charge of those who both read and do. In my book it is pathology & alerts us that something is wrong. Will this admin. make some progress or make it worse? We shall see.

Not sure if this helps with your ? but here goes: It might be more than politics, but a poorly understood psychopathology in society that can infect groups, including religions, that leads to tribalism or an "us & them" mindset, that helps fuel human conflict & impairs "love for others" which is supposed to mean "will the best for another". Just examine rhetoric in people that have strong group / tribal identity, & it is common to see people overlook almost any moral violation in their tribe. Achieving the ability to "will the best for others", especially other groups, that Christianity exhorts is a life long endeavor. Religions may have an important part to play in it though, especially if accompanied by science. For example, religious visions during WWI in Fatima, Portugal, predicted future world wars that could be prevented or mitigated if enough Catholic Christians exercised "love one another" by saying certain prayers in reparation for the world. Sadly few do those prayers. Maybe if religions understood scientifically, the peril the world is in, they would make more of an effort to "love one another", at least for their own survival. So whatever your belief system, survival of humanity may depend on progress in that arena, meaning "love one another" specifically related to overcoming group on group conflict. The Fermi paradox may be a filter that prevents intelligent life that fails to progress in that area from reaching the stars. Violent intelligent cultures destroy themselves, most likely in the nuclear age.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207245/ It is important in knowing how to combat it because it provides a framework to guide efforts. Without the framework, interventions often are a hodgepodge of efforts with a much lower chance of being effective. Cumulative diseases behave in certain ways. There is an input process that should be interrupted if possible, and there usually is a treatment or "antidote". There are also elusive "super antidotes" (my term) where just one intervention can have a dramatic effect. A super antidote for obesity is semaglutide, for coronary disease a stent, and more than one high hazard industry has discovered that rarely, one intervention can dramatically lower risk. On the other hand, cumulative diseases and processes almost always end in sudden failure if not defused. If the response is uncoordinated, then it is like someone with coronary disease having broccoli with his fried chicken. It is not going to work, which is the world's current state of affairs. An example from the international relations field of an uncoordinated intervention is the belief that trade and travel prevents war. In his book, "The Psychology of War", LeShan notes that trade and travel were at an all time high in 1914, and people wrote articles claiming war was a thing of the past, just before the onset of the greatest war in history up to that time. Thus, if the model is valid, then it either gets a coordinated intervention ideally from a multi-disciplinary task force, with international input, or the world should explode sometime before 2050. You don't understand the model. A cumulative process has an input process that builds up over the course of years. So a "bar fight" is not a relevant example except that participation in a bar fight could be part of the input process. In a non-linear system, the input and output are often far apart. If you don't understand models of conflict google "The Cause of War" and there are usually chapters that can be downloaded for free to review current theories. Jack Levy has an easy to understand one. If you don't understand a cumulative disease, google coronary disease & read about that. If you have never studied a cumulative social system, study the "Swiss Cheese Model" for organizational accidents.

There is literature that claims that all violence is a contagious disease, transmitted from person to person. This point of view gives primary weight to nurture, or learned behavior as opposed to genetic predisposition. Unfortunately, this discussion has not begun in the international relations literature, that I have seen, where there is an important caveat. In this literature, there is data that suggests that human conflict is related to a cumulative process, called power law data discovered by Lewis Richardson in 1949. A power law is a relationship between frequency and intensity such that wars are either small and frequent, or rare and huge. Forest fires and earthquakes also work this way. Thus, the longer a period of relative peace, the worse will be the next war. This discovery gets little attention in the IR literature where the "cause of war" is unknown. This is important because cumulative processes usually end with sudden failure if not defused or treated, like a person with coronary disease who never sees a cardiologist. Systems that accumulate tension to failure emit symptoms when the accumulation reaches toxic levels like angina in a patient with coronary disease or near misses in a high hazard system that has accumulated safety hazards warning of impending sudden failure. The evidence seems to be overwhelming that the international system is now emitting these kinds of symptoms including the setting of the Doomsday Clock, conflicts in Ukraine & Gaza, rising authoritarianism, and political strife. Thus, if the world fails to respond to current symptoms, sudden failure or world war should not be far off.

Are you aware if the apparent superluminal velocities observed with relativistic jets from quasars is a settled issue as being caused by the angle of observation? I have heard that this explanation is disputed, but that was some time ago. Is it settled now?

Do you have a favorite warp drive theory / direction? and / or Are you aware of a mechanism to measure bending spacetime in a laboratory? This question is based on the idea that there is not enough known information to construct a testable theory of faster than light travel, so a better path may be to see if spacetime can be bent in a laboratory, & construct theory if something works. In the movie, "Oppenheimer" the scientists working on the atomic bomb discussed advancing with both a theoretical & empirical strategy. So if there is not enough information to construct a viable theory, then maybe empirical options can lead to a breakthrough.

The conversion of the Eucharist and wine to the body and blood of Jesus Christ is called "Transubstantiation". If you google it, references will come up that explain it better than I can. It is a spiritual transformation, not a physical transformation. The Catholic sacraments are one reason I stayed with Catholicism in contrast to other Christian religions whose services I have attended. You just feel differently, more at peace, and the feeling continues after you leave. As far as scientific evidence, one person who explains the interaction between religion and science better than I can is Bishop Barron. He dresses this a lot on his You Tube channel. Religion is not the only area of life that is not subject to controlled, reproducible studies. For example, there is not a single controlled prospective study that proves that jumping out of an airplane with a parachute is better than jumping without a parachute. Yet we know that parachutes work from anecdotes. That is not an example from Barron's channel, as he has better ones. My conclusion has been that God will reveal Himself to those that seek Him. There are not controlled studies of this, only anecdotes. But the anecdotes include prominent atheist scientists. One other area where the anecdotes are intriguing involve the lives of the Saints. When you study the lives of these people, the stories are consistent with people who have found something much better than anything the physical world can offer. If you ever have a chance to travel to Rome, there are numerous tours of art museums given by graduate students in art history who explain the lives of the Saints in the art they show you. It is quite amazing. Sorry, but I have not yet learned how to cut up the text and respond to each point. So I will try and summarize. I believe that God is the source of all love, so He is in all living beings including atheists. Follow your conscience, do something nice, and you are following God. Now some societies will incorrectly describe God as Zeus etc, where I believe that the correct description of God is explained by Catholic theology. However, my understanding of God is far from perfect and is on a continuum, that I hope is improving. For example, my understanding cannot come close to the understanding of God by a Saint. As I said, the incidents I described are contextual, and were meant to convince me. They will not have the same meaning to you. God is fully capable of convincing you, or anyone, individually of His existence in my opinion. As far as humanity, there is a widespread "feeling" among many people that humanity is in danger. If that "feeling" is correct, then it is logical to think that we will do better connected to God, than if we "fall away" from God. I believe that God sees the future, because He sees all possible futures. So the future is not fixed and can be changed by prayer, good deeds, intentional action etc.

In our area, after Crisis Pregnancy Centers opened in the region, abortions fell by 50%. I have not looked at other areas. You do not need to prosecute women to reduce the numbers of abortions. In terms of environmental causes of disease and violence I suggest: 1. Disease: "The Brain Maker Diet" by Perlmutter, discusses the effect of diet on gut health and how the gut microbiome may the the common denominator in scores of diseases. 2. Violence: "Why They Kill" by Rhodes, discusses how violence perpetuates violence in the criminal world.

I believe that wisdom comes from God, so any historical being who exhibits wisdom is inspired by God, regardless of his or her belief system. That is my conjecture. Jesus is different from other wise historical figures in that He is the Son of God, according to the Christian belief system that I follow. I believe that all of us can have knowledge of God; however, there are right ways and wrong ways to seek God. For example, a key ingredient to seeking God is repentance, that removes sin that separates man from God according to my understanding of Christian theology. You don't have to worry about harming my acceptance of God because my personal experience will trump an argument. Nevertheless, you may show some flaw in my belief system that could reveal an area where I am weak. I am also seeking a method to instill the desire to seek God in society. One argument I am looking at is that if God exists, then it is not logical to think that humanity will thrive apart from God individually or collectively. Thus, if you think the world is in trouble, the first step is to seek God, and then serve others according to how you are called.

I believe it is morally wrong because I believe that life begins at conception. That is not a personal belief, but is a religious belief shared by a significant percentage of the planet. If the Democratic Party were to encourage or allow diversity on this subject, Clinton might have won. Personally, I agree with the Democrats on almost every issue except abortion. For example, there are ways to cut abortions in half without outlawing the procedure. If Clinton had been just willing to go that far, she might have gotten the edge she needed. Finally, there is evidence in many areas including disease and violence, that toxic effects on humanity are environmental and self perpetuating. Since the evidence is strong that at least criminal violence works this way, it is likely that other forms of violence including abortion, will result in more violence down the road. I voted a write in, and did not support any of the presidential candidates.

The God that answered is Jesus Christ. Over the years I have reached the conclusion that God seeks to convince each of us individually of His nature. Thus, the things that happened to me will have less meaning to you, and vice versa, as we have not walked in each others' shoes. Perhaps you are a scholar in some subject about which I know little or nothing. If God were to reach you in that discipline, I could not appreciate your feeling etc. A few of the experiences included: Once a young neighbor who was learning to surf was going to Maui and he was excited to tell me about it. I knew of an easy break near where he was staying and was about to tell him about it. I had this strange premonition of danger that I heeded, and did not tell the lad about the break. That week, a surfer was killed by a tiger shark at the exact break I was about to tell my neighbor about. The kid would have been the least experienced surfer in the water, and the most vulnerable to attack. Once I had a real problem with one aspect of theology involving the coexistence of free will and God's ability to "see the future". At this time I was browsing in a religious bookstore and randomly picked up a novel about religious fiction that I felt I should read. The novel answered the question exactly. Shortly after having several prayers answered, and not knowing much about how we are supposed to interact with God, I decided to "speed up the process". I literally asked by guardian angel to meet me at a restaurant for a chat. I was sitting in the restaurant watching the front door and a person taps me on the shoulder from behind, and asks if I would like to join him and his friend for dinner. The person was my parish priest who I barely knew and his friend, another priest. I don't recall ever having had dinner with a priest prior to this episode. Nevertheless, the invitation was not ignored. Later, I learned that when people meet angels it is often to strengthen them for something awful. After that, the desire to meet one ebbed. There are scores more examples, most of which involve God letting me know that I never have to face anything alone.

The elitist hypocrisy of the American liberal is amazing. Although they have many important thoughts on areas like health care and the environment, they should also take credit for 60 million abortions they inflicted on the U.S. Neither side has any right to be sanctimonious about anything and it is time to work together.

My belief system is similar to the one described by the OP: Catholic who believes in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. My belief system was in large part based on Pascal's Wager when I was younger. However, at one point I decided to seek God partly out of intense curiosity, and partly out of a feeling of "something missing". The result was that prayers were answered etc. that erased any doubt I had had about the existence of God.

Areas to consider learning more about relating to stress are diet, meditation, and exercise, especially exercise involving stretching. Of course any new changes should be approved by your doctor, but what works for me is: 1. Regular stretching. I do a short yoga routine several times a week at home that I believe reduces stress. I read once that Hawaiian healers believe that disease comes from stress, and that stress can be relieved in the muscles by massage. Yoga is easier for me than massage. 2. Diet. Two areas of diet I am focusing on are gut health (The Brain Maker Diet), and gene switching (Dr. Gundry's Diet Revolution). I just started the second book; however, it is by a heart surgeon who wrote a book about a diet that switches off harmful genes that he has found to be particularly effective for cardiovascular disease. The brain Maker Diet is by a neurologist whose practice involves healing neurological problems, including anxiety, with dietary changes. 3. Meditation. I believe that stress is compounded in the mind by repetitive thought circles of worry that can be interrupted with meditation that trains the mind to be present. I do a form of religious meditation called "Lectio Divina" because I am Catholic, but any meditation should help. Good Luck.

It is not surprising that medical advancement in many areas is slow when the diet and activity level of populations is so bad. How can doctors make up for an unhealthy lifestyle with a pill or an operation when people just return to their unhealthy ways? I think the problem of advances in health at the population level will come in preventive medicine. However, how to achieve improvements in diet / exercise on a large scale is unknown. So far, it is proving very difficult to even change behavior among doctors. It takes on average 17 years for evidence based practice to become fully adopted by doctors once the practice is accepted in medical journals. It may be that once the problem of changing behavior among doctors is solved, enough insight will be gained to advance changing behavior among patients.

I believe in God because I when I sought God things happened that I interpreted as a response from God. These events convinced me that God exists, and that His nature is good. The nature of these occurrences, from my perspective, seemed to be specifically designed to achieve both items eg. 1. God exists. 2. God's nature is good. The events do not seem to be designed to only achieve #1, or to be used to convince someone else of #1 without #2. Thus, I have become convinced that God desires #1 and #2 together, so that He can reveal His nature at the same time that He reveals His presence.