Comment

Comment by Tony Carroll on May 1, 2013 at 5:26pm

Joan. Here is Brian Cox and D:REAM on TOTP 9Top of the Pops).

Band is so-so, but Brian is rockin' the long hair!

Comment by Joan Denoo on May 1, 2013 at 5:23pm

 Sidney M. Gonzalez, I agree wholeheartedly with your statement, 

"I do not believe that science alone can give purpose and direction for human life."

There is no quarrel there at all. People find a sense of meaning, purpose and direction many ways. If someone believes some power gives them direction, that is perfectly OK with me. Just don't impose it on me, or judge me by those lights. I am pretty good at rejecting such impositions. 

Comment by Joan Denoo on May 1, 2013 at 5:20pm

Melinda, Isn't it fun to be with people you don't have to self-monitor in order to have a good conversation. Good for you.
Please define "hump-day". I have not heard it before.

Comment by Sidney M. Gonzalez on May 1, 2013 at 5:15pm

Thanks Joan for your reply.

I still believe there are things in human life which cannot be weighed and measured by the methods of science, which cannot in fact be wholly grasped or expressed by human reason, though they are not contrary to it.

I do not believe that science alone can give purpose and direction for human life.

I believe that full reality, in relation to which alone direction for human life can be clearly seen, is outside and beyond what our senses can grasp.

Comment by Joan Denoo on May 1, 2013 at 5:11pm

Melinda, Can you imagine, a grown up adult has many options. 

1. Follow the teaching of a Bronze Age, desert goat herder; 

2. Look at the evidence: 7,113,921,600+ humans alive on the planet and quickly running out of food growing capacity; 

3. Consider getting tubes tied and a vasectomy.

Our response to them: 

I think it would be perfectly appropriate to hold them accountable for overpopulating the Earth. They should be ashamed of themselves.  

Comment by booklover on May 1, 2013 at 5:00pm

The family with 10 young kids, that I was referring to in my earlier post, are born-again xtians.

Comment by booklover on May 1, 2013 at 4:57pm

Cute LOL Cat Steph :)  That's so cool you make them!

Comment by Joan Denoo on May 1, 2013 at 3:38pm

Patricia, that is the best video I have seen in a very long time. If lower animals can do it, so can Homo sapiens.

Comment by Joan Denoo on May 1, 2013 at 3:35pm

"Patricia, Brian Cox on his days as a rocker...... http://youtu.be/buL6ATRHFqk?

Thanks Patricia. Oh this is hilarious, "Rock-star physicist" Brian Cox works on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, looking for the Higgs Boson, and he can't find a red car in a parking lot at Disney Land. I suppose that story trails him wherever he goes. 

Now, can you find any of his music?

I like the idea of music and science being very closely related. 

Comment by Joan Denoo on May 1, 2013 at 3:26pm

Sidney M. Gonzalez, a fair and good question and one I happily address. 

"why should anyone care about other people’s illusions?"

I don't care or have any interest in what others believe. However, when people or institutions express disagreement, I have the responsibility and opportunity to express my thinking, and do so without hesitation. When their beliefs intrude upon mine, when they want to bring their beliefs into public education or into marriage laws, or into family planning laws, I will not only challenge them, I do so with every bit of thought and action I can muster. I was not born to follow other's ideas, it is my responsibility to think through issues and arrive at conclusions I am willing and able to defend. I have paid a heavy price for my independent thought; It was worth it. 

"And what method does Dennett use to determine that complete strangers, people he, you and me, don’t know have dedicated their lives to an illusion;"

Dennett used his ability to think, reason, compare, contrast, discuss, and all the other critical thinking tools he, and everyone has. It is his responsibility to speak his truth; whether others agree or disagree is up to him to think about and arrive at his conclusions. If Dennett observed a person putting filthy, dirty hands into a wound, would he not be obligated to intervene?

"an illusion about what?"

There are so many delusions we encounter in life: the young Earth, a personal god who answers prayers, virgin birth, god, angels, resurrection, sun standing still in the heavens, a man created from dust and woman created from a rib, to start populating the world, a flood where everything died except what was on a boat, god giving tablets to some sheep herder on a barren desert mountain, god parting the seas. Oh, I am getting tired and I haven't even started on Buddha yet. 

Let's just cut to the chase. We live on an incredibly beautiful Earth that exists because of natural forces beyond our control. Human beings now have the power of destroying all this vast life as we know it. Human will probably not survive, and sharks and cockroaches  have already survived five known extinctions. 

Human beings continue to use power-over instead of power-with, to our detriment. We are no better than the eagle catching a rabbit or a snake eating a rat. We continue to act like humans are made only of claw-and-beak power, instead of realizing we have a frontal lobe in our brain that means only 1% different than the DNA of our closest primate in the super family Hominoides, Apes. That one% should be recognized as being capable of moving beyond apes into a whole new realm. Instead, we dead-end at Hominoides, Apes. There will have to be more evolution in the Homo sapiens sapiens family if we are to  see the end of Obama-GW Bush-Clinton-GHW Bush, Reagon and other war mongers. 

We have a gift given to us without any intervention on our part. It is our responsibility to take care of it or lose it. 

"why should anyone care about other people’s illusions?"

That is why!

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 30
• 31
• 32
• 33
• 34
• …
• 719
• Next ›
• Page