"Christianity´s Successes Are Irrelevant Because of Science" Nah, Don´t Think So

@Green Peacemst The historical successes of Christianity has absolutely no relevance to the fact that in the modern era with our current understanding of science, Christianity has been completely and utterly debunked without question. Scientific naturalism and materialism are no longer just philosophy/thought/opinion that opposes religion, rather it is the unequivocal truth of our reality. The good thing about science is that it is true, whether you believe it or not. Christianity and all other religions that humans have fabricated were purely because we as a species found ourselves sentient in a world we didn't understand. A greater purpose is actually extremely important for our psychology, but the solution for seeking that greater purpose no longer lies with religion.

​ @Joph Stphns  Right. Hail, Science. I get it. No. As a spiritual interfaith Christian, I´d say, “In seeking to understand and experience God´s love through Jesus and Buddha, etc, I love scientific philosophy, and the rest of educational (philosophical) views. So let´s examine the empirical nature of your assertions. “Christianity has no relevance...with science, which debunked it without question.”

See, it is with philosophical questioning that scientists, scientific philosophers, actually do what they do. And what other kinds of philosophers do what they do. Science is not about being “unquestioning,' and that´s the most basic of your mistakes. Based on that, You don´t quite get the meaning of your own words because you are trying to substitute philosophical inquiry itself with Science Supremacism, actually “Scientism,” and for actual philosophical scholarship that governs scientific activity. It is that which interrelates it directly to the rest of University-based, Liberal Arts scholarship and ITS diversified forms of empirical philosophy. “Science is só widespread that it rules” sums up your philosophy, that you want to act as if it were called “Scientific Truthism,” and you could tag an “Ueber Alles” to connote the Nazi Supremacists. Yet, that´s só truthfully harsh, that a more diplomatic “L´Etats, c´est moi” for Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette´s Aristocratic Supremacism is nicer. That´s a nice whisper of Jesus´ spirit. You could also check into biologist turned Philosopher of Science Massimo Pigliucci´s critiques of Scientism. Well, somebody´s not asking questions, and that includes you. However, empiricism, meaning empirical philosophy, isn´t just “scientific”, but has been widely applied in the Social Sciences and the rest of the Humanities. Climate Change has been soundly studied by a UN scientific group the IPCC repeatedly, among others. That´s one issue that isn´t being opposed primarily by religious groups, but business groups protecting their profits and anti-social ideology. Beyond that, no one talks about the 2005 World Bank-UNEP-NGO Ecosystem Assessment that was bad around all kinds of environmental angles. That´s all been updated by such reports as WWF/Global Ecofootprint Living Planet Reports (i.e. Dying Planet Reports), and more.

That´s science versus big business executives. And their paid representatives worst of all in the GOP, but also gagging the Dems too much. Yet, you call scientific materialism and materialism “no longer just philosophy....” but “the unequivocal truth of our reality.” Except that businesspeople haven´t cast aside Christianity or science. They have diversely exerted their power and influence to fund Fundamentalism, especially around anti-evolutionary science which mixes in pro-life positions. That was thanks to a Rev Fifield meeting with the National Manufacturers Association in the 1950s and on from there. By the 1971 Powell Memo to the Chamber of Commerce leaked and published in the Wash. Post, they trashed Ralph Nader. All before the Reagan-era. And só on. Why is it that scientific materialism can be manipulated by profiteering businesspeople if it is “the unequivocal truth”? Because science is a form of philosophy based on studying physical objects, not the “unequivocal truth.” Apparently, Einstein said, “Science without Religion is lame, or misguided, or something.” He´s not the last word, but a good one. Gandhi went much further. Gandhi never conflicted with science, but he showed how it is philosophy, since he acted with economic activism and lifestyles in his spiritual philosophy, linked into Christianity´s basis, Jesus´ spiritual teachings about spiritual practice and growth. Thomas Jefferson´s Civil Rights and FDR and Eleanor´s UN human rights include religion/spirituality for good reasons. Churches like the United Church of Christ and the Quakers are fine bases for any progressive reformed Christian movements. Unitarian Universalism is one attempt, that I have myself co-opted in calling myself an interfaith UU Christian. You, on the other hand, don´t know Civil Rights and human social science from your personal feelings and beliefs about whatever church experience you have had yourself. You´re addicted to something, like Dawkins and co. You don´t quite get that because you are trying to substitute Science Supremacism for actual philosophical scholarship that governs scientific activity, and interrelates it directly to the rest of University-based, Liberal Arts scholarship and ITS diversified forms of empirical philosophy. The analysis continues, but this makes a nice “Z” for Zorro for spirituality and social justice, on the one hand, and the Zombie virus fiction through profit-manipulated sci-techno-control you fantasize. “Let them eat computer chips and circuit-boards” to paraphrase Marie Antoinette´s escapist aristocratic supremacism.

&&& What a load of... look im trying to be respectful, I never said Christianity has no relevance. I said that the historical SUCCESSES of Christianity (that you named) have no relevance when it comes to disproving it (the supernatural faith, not the historical accounts from the bible which can be proved without it) with modern science. Christianity certainly is relevant in an absolute sense because unfortunately many people today still have demoted themselves to believing the arbitrary human fabrications of our reality called religion. Your points about business people funding religious fundamentalism, therefore, misrepresenting Christianity is laughable because it just contributes to the debunking of Christianity in that it is a completely plastic set of ideas that change to suit the personal interests of the humans that propagate it. It is funny that you bring up Einstein as a point in favour of Christianity when he was very much an agnostic and his personal beliefs were antithetical to Christian doctrines. He specifically maintained that he didn't 'believe'* in life after death (*not even something to believe in - life is a natural consequence of biochemistry under appropriate conditions and consciousness is a result of groups of neurons sending electrical signals and neurotransmitters, there is no soul, in my view, anyone with a credible understanding of our reality cannot also believe that there is a soul, or any form of consciousness after our material bodies die.) Einstein did not believe in a god that is anything like the Abrahamic god, he did not believe there was a god with feelings, or one that had any personal connection to our planet or our species. He believed that 'god' manifests as the physical forces and quantum properties of our universe, which truly has nothing to do with the anthropocentric inventions of religion like Roman Catholicism - arguably the biggest scam in history. Einstein specifically called himself a religious nonbeliever for the explained reasons, so it is amusing that you use him to prove the legitimacy of Christianity. Your last paragraphs are basically the whole religious morals fallacy (like saying Jefferson's rights were inherently Christian therefore Christianity is legitimate because of morals). We don't need to invent supernatural stories to give us morals and purpose, in my view it is THAT which is immoral. Morality should be based on improving the human condition, improving our society, sustaining concious life and the systems that support it and improving the conscious experience of ALL humans and sentient animals (a sentient animal is what we are after all). Morality should be based on reality, not fiction.

&&& What a load of... look im trying to be respectful, I never said Christianity has no relevance. I said that the historical SUCCESSES of Christianity (that you named) have no relevance when it comes to disproving it (the supernatural faith, not the historical accounts from the bible which can be proved without it) with modern science. Christianity certainly is relevant in an absolute sense because unfortunately many people today still have demoted themselves to believing the arbitrary human fabrications of our reality called religion. “respectful” is what you do if you´re going to get to the truth, which you are trying to pull out of your “loads of ….” Your “respect” is why Jesus´ Commandments of love are not irrelevant, bro. Your “respect” gets my compassion, which were values disdained in ancient Greece and Rome except for dumb brute strength. The question of Christianity´s successes not being relevant to your fantasies of “disproof” is an argument you need to try to articulate and make. That is because Christians fueled on Jesus´ Love as Commandment learned to make LOGICAL ARGUMENTS, not focus on disrespect. Either way, you are trying to make an argument about explanation, and confusing your issues of “disproof” with the issue of Christianity. You´re trying to argue that Santa Claus is fake, and it doesn´t matter that there was a St. Nicholas of Myra. St. Nicholas of Myra matters, because he stood in relation to God through Jesus. Santa Claus matters because the social sciences deconstruct his transformation and widespread Big Biz manipulation. St. Nicholas of Myra still stands on record for his Christian integrity and the spirit of Christmas time for any Joe unprejudiced and balanced enough to have spiritual=emotional intelligence. That´s just scratching it at the surface, however, as you wallow in your fallacies, one after the other. You say, “Christianity certainly is relevant in an absolute sense because unfortunately many people today still have demoted themselves to believing the arbitrary human fabrications of our reality called religion.” Nice, you just turned yourself into a circular ball of scientism snowball slush. Did that give you a rush? Yeah, don´t worry man, I can be respectful because you can´t argue your way out of scientism´s paper bag. Your points about business people... and Christianity is laughable … and debunks Christianity's plastic set of ideas....” Funny, for a guy worried about being “respectful”, you didn´t get that my point included science. You assert that science is the ultimate truth, and yet it is putty in Big Biz´s hands in the US, as if scientists have no more sense than fundies. The Union of Concerned Scientists has stepped up, as have the Physicians for Social Responsibility, in their calm and cool way that has as little relative sway as average not for profits like Greenpeace and WWF. Not quite the whole truth there. Jim Hansen has gotten arrested, perhaps having met the progressive Christian Al Gore got him hooked on the moral issues that frame the use of sci-tech by Big Biz. Other than that, scientists are trained to obey rules in their distilled Christian-derived lab rat mindsets and are more likely to wait for the authorities, or even side with Big Biz because they are deprived of spiritual backbone and morally inept. And philosophically unable to legitimize spirituality because of confusion such as your scientism. As for Christianity, you´re a little eager to jump on your own bandwagon. Just like you ignored how almost no scientists are getting arrested like Jim Hansen like Climate Change and Ecosystem catastrophe don´t matter, you bite into the mirage of fundamentalism. The point is that Big Biz up to the catastrophic end of WWII had few references to sustainability to control and manage it as it fueled insane growth. You try to smear Christians as weak fundies, but it was UK Deist Robert Owen inspired by a Christian doctor and the UK and US Quaker-anchored anti-slavery abolitionists who followed Luther and the Enlightenment, all high integrity Christians who dissented from hypocritical Christian authority. That´s where your attempt to disqualify Christian success is what is the truly laughable thing. You can´t tell the difference between hypocritical trends in Christian institutions, and the psychological-spiritual and social experience that underlies Christian integrity. After WWII, the moral extreme lunacy of the Nazis has focused Germans in their context. America, however, has had Big Biz AND a Superpower Identity pushing indoctrination. However, FDR and Eleanor founded the UN. The atheist Stalin, meanwhile, wanted to execute all Nazi officers. Sadly, your own forced attitude that you are “trying to be respectful” followed by simplistic and inane fallacy puts you more in the league of those who have committed similar fallacies of thought that they fantasize as justification. It is funny that you bring up Einstein as a point in favour of Christianity when he was very much an agnostic and his personal beliefs were antithetical to Christian doctrines. He specifically maintained that he didn't 'believe'* in life after death (*not even something to believe in - life is a natural consequence of biochemistry under appropriate conditions and consciousness is a result of groups of neurons sending electrical signals and neurotransmitters, there is no soul, in my view, anyone with a credible understanding of our reality cannot also believe that there is a soul, or any form of consciousness after our material bodies die.) Einstein did not believe in a god that is anything like the Abrahamic god, he did not believe there was a god with feelings, or one that had any personal connection to our planet or our species. He believed that 'god' manifests as the physical forces and quantum properties of our universe, which truly has nothing to do with the anthropocentric inventions of religion like Roman Catholicism - arguably the biggest scam in history. Einstein specifically called himself a religious nonbeliever for the explained reasons, so it is amusing that you use him to prove the legitimacy of Christianity. As for Einstein, I mentioned him for his wise statement recognizing religious phenomena, His personal materialistic beliefs were his and demonstrate his profession as a physicist. What´s “funny” is that I also mentioned Gandhi, who you ignored entirely. Actually, it´s more typical than funny. Shallow in your comfort zone and keen on plumbing Einstein´s own materialism. His beliefs are those of a heavily scientific materialist, só you just confirm your own bias. The issue is empirical study. “Life after death” is a secondary doctrine to Jesus´ teachings of 2 Commandments. Nor is it even emphasized in Judaism, a basic aspect of Einstein´s religious etc background. However, life after death is a Hindu belief in reincarnation, as well as Allen Kardec´s spiritism already by Einstein´s time. Maybe if Einstein hadn´t married his first and second cousin and had more concern for his schizophrenic son, he would have felt a little more driven to seek Christian and interfaith possibilities, even at Lourdes, Christian Science, or that crazy psychotherapy thing, where W Reich cured a schizophrenic. However, this is not to judge Einstein, but to classify his spiritual status with greater accuracy. Einstein´s beliefs don´t determine the reality or not of an afterlife. Empirical study does. I Stevenson MD at UVA in the 1960s started studying reincarnation in the US and abroad. Not least of all, he discovered correlations between scars in the reincarnated recipient that match deaths in the person who died. B Greyson PhD started studying Near Death Experiences (i.e.Revived from Death Exp). Using medical contexts, he gets highly precise information. That includes especially the result that previously unknown information is gained by people in NDEs. There are other phenomena and testimonies. That´s RELEVANT philosophical empirical information that can be evaluated. Your indulging in Einstein´s beliefs is an appeal to an authority like many a fundamentalist does. Your attempting to assert a materialistic definition of neuronal function and foundations, and dismiss any other possibility is IRRELEVANT to evidence of Stevenson´s and Greyson´s kind of research. That is both a reductionism and denialism fallacy, a double logical error pure and simple. You then comment on Roman Catholicism. This discussion isn´t limited to RCism, but even they have Lourdes and other testimonies. That´s a part whole fallacy mixed in with your appeal to authority and denialism. Your last paragraphs are basically the whole religious morals fallacy (like saying Jefferson's rights were inherently Christian therefore Christianity is legitimate because of morals). We don't need to invent supernatural stories to give us morals and purpose, in my view it is THAT which is immoral. Morality should be based on improving the human condition, improving our society, sustaining concious life and the systems that support it and improving the conscious experience of ALL humans and sentient animals (a sentient animal is what we are after all). Morality should be based on reality, not fiction. As for religious morals, it´s an issue with specific topics, not any simplistic fallacy. Do we need supernatural stories to give us morals and purpose....? The first empirical examination is what is the context of modern morals in the first place. As is typical of your myopic scientific materialism, you deny that science is philosophy, and make reductionistic fallacies left and right and every turn. Christianity isn´t just “legitimate” because of morals, but its origins in spiritual-religious experience, complex and multigenerational at that, which provided Jesus´ specific Jewish prophetic and heritage of one level of spiritual-religious ethical standards that Jesus took to a new level of spirituality, yet was dampened institutionally and arguably pragmatically in his legacy. This is human-related phenomena, and thus terminology and phenomena in philosophical empirical investigation are not predetermined by your preferred bias. “Supernatural stories” are not defined as such except by an ideologue trying to push caricatures. What people “need” is also not predetermined, but in need of examination. The truth is that spiritual-religious experience has demonstrated specific qualities in human accomplishments, and Christian society´s moral development. That traces events historically including Luther´s Reformation, and on the other hand the fall of aggressively secular and anti-religious ideologies like the French Revolution, Totalitarian Communism, Nazi opportunism, and the unsustainability of US-led profiteering economics. In modern times, the simple observation is that prayer and meditation, and belonging to a religious community provide various benefits. That extends to the coherence of Mosaic-Jesus Commandments and Jesus´ legacy, and its correspondence to reality. You and your view, on the other hand, try to reject philosophy as you blunder in fallacies around your prejudice. Atheist anti-theist materialists swollen on science´s widespread toys making grade school philosophical fallacies are amusing, not serious. Science´s toys have been abused, and Christianity´s resurgent high integrity demonstrates spiritual-religious experience in full form already hinted at in actual scientific studies of prayer and meditation. Luther´s Reformation was inspired by his courage in relation to an omnipotent God of the Bible after his spiritual agonizing. Beforehand, science itself was already simmering because of monastics and clerics like Robert Grosseteste in the 1300s, and the unprecedented community that Christianity made possible. You don´t know the difference between integrity in Jesus and the more complex processes of modernization and hypocrisy. Your perspective of atheist anti-Christianity is based on crude stereotyping and basic illiteracy, even in terms of the benefits of prayer and meditation and their larger significance cross-culturally and understood in the past. The “supernatural” no less has various dimensions beyond the afterlife, already empirically demonstrated in materialistically impossible healings confirmed by medical attestation and spiritual-religious testimony.

&&& ​ @Joph Stphns  Man, you are so lacking in literacy that your comments about a "load of..." and "trying to be respectful" show how you confuse your own clownish lack of literacy with the myopic and steroid-addicted beliefs about sci-tech toys and experiments. Your view can be characterized "Why, good and bad people have many qualities that can be compared to machines, and that means science and I know it all!" Widespread tools, and experiments that have lopsidedly expanded physico-bio science (not even understanding that it is actually a form of philosophy) apply nowhere else directly. Empirical philosophy has expanded the social sciences, which you barely grasp, and philosophy itself is necessary to resolve the issues among physical and human disciplines, that includes understanding "emergence" adequately and the meanings of modern terms like "transpersonal," "transcendental", and more traditional terms like "supernatural." You don´t even know David Bohm´s relevance and his ideas of implicate and explicate order, sucking as you do on Einstein´s "beliefs" like a lollipop. Just as essential to evaluating Christianity adequately, You don´t know the difference between integrity in Jesus and the more complex processes of modernization and hypocrisy. Your perspective of atheist anti-Christianity is based on crude stereotyping and basic illiteracy, even in terms of the benefits of prayer and meditation and their larger significance cross-culturally and understood in the past. The “supernatural” no less has various dimensions beyond the afterlife, already empirically demonstrated in materialistically impossible healings confirmed by medical attestation and spiritual-religious testimony. The relevance of my reference to Einstein is that he apparently acknowledged religion and science as interdependent, but that doesn´t make him a qualified expert on religions. He was a physicist with some spiritual ideas and opinions. Besides your clumsy and eager prejudicial misstep there, you IGNORED my mention of Gandhi. Gandhi, unlike Einstein, engaged in ample spiritual-religious research and practice on top of his law degree, another discipline that is relevant to human-based disciplines, and less scientific materialism. I am someone advancing the thought of morality based on reality, not fiction, and it is fictional science supremacism and scientism that you are doing. Published sources in the right direction include Fritjof Capra, Gandhi, John B Cobb´s Process Theology (based on math-philosopher AN Whitehead), and WL Craig´s arguments for the existence of God (although his personal doctrinal affiliation is largely and unwisely conservative, he has shown responsiveness to concerns about human rights). Unitarian Universalism had insightful contributors to its Principles and Sources, as well. Until you try to grapple with appropriate thinkers in appropriate disciplines, you are full of the "load of..." and pretense of "trying to be respectful..." you crudely dump in dialogue as if your pride in science´s physical achievements were not foolishness. It is foolishness. Respect modern University education´s basis in philosophical diversification and do your appropriate research. Again, Einstein is a physicist, with some spiritual ideas. Gandhi researched his spirituality in depth and conducted a rich campaign filled with the relevance of the Transpersonal and transcendent. The British Empire is full of atheistic aristocrats who failed to indulge their assumptions about military power. Their default basis was the sufficient presence of Christian integrity and withdrawal. In Africa, the British slaughtered and tortured the less spiritually sophisticated Mau Mau in Kenya, as one recent film portrayed. Until you recognize that your contradictory impulse to deny Christianity´s successes and your total inability to comprehend the interaction of hypocrisy, integrity, modernization, and the dependence of atheist ambitions on spiritual-religious experience itself, you are trapped in your absurd assumption starting with "Einstein was an expert on spiritual-religious experience." Fiction, not reality, indeed.

&&& You’re a fckwt. I was not denying Christianity’s successes lmao. Christianity and Abrahamic religion is dying, it’s end is guaranteed thanks to the information era. Yes I guess I am a scientific supremacist, pretty stupid thing to say since science does in fact rule supreme in our materialist universe. God doesn’t exist, when we both die we will meet the meaningless, timeless void where consciousness no longer exists. Unfortunately you won’t be sentient to realise that you were wrong all along though, and that you dedicated your single life to a lie. Sad. &&&

Oh, I´ve got wit allright. What you do to yourself in your sadly and poorly tutored mindset is your own perverted business. “Sad” is an emotion that represents genuine emotional feelings of disappointment, and is twisted out of shape in your “unquestioning” judgmental and blind vomit. I am something, but as a lab rat testtube junkie in a goldfish bowl, you project yourself in various amusing ways in your various ad homs. Your ad hom about a “load of...” proving again that in fact it is you that is “full of....” All That continues to be clownish. You´re trying to use words that have been developed by scholars, as if you suck a test tube, work out in a gym, and think like some locker room clown from gradeschool, “Ey, I got a pin up of a sci-tech car. Ey, everybody´s got a car. Yeah, I guess I am a car supremacist.” No, science doesn´t actually “rule supreme.” It´s like a tool that everybody is using like a car, but neither US democracy nor UN human rights are “scientific” accomplishments. “Supremacism” is not being able to tell the difference between cars and mechanics and moral reasoning and spiritual-religious experience. Similar to “White Supremacism” who confuse achievement with superiority, even when most whites are exploited by the richest in a hen-pecking system of its own. That´s why Jesus is not optional, nor irrelevant, nor tangential. As for acknowledging “Christianity´s successes”, yeah, you try to project mockery, but all you´ve done is get my words wrong. I specifically noted that you try to dissociate that from the religion´s faults in your fallacious stereotyping. I also noted that resolving your contradictions takes knowing what words and concepts like “integrity” mean among others, that takes scholarly philosophical competence. You show that you can´t step out of your locker room fantasies and see the way you bruise yourself. So, “sadly” your “stupid things to say” all end up in your face. And then you indulge yourself about your materialist views, unscientifically, more precisely, unphilosophically, and most precisely, unspiritual, and in the most encompassing sense, unChristianly. But, the love Jesus taught led to the Freedom of Religion and University study that science and profiteering businesspeople will find themselves unable to exterminate, to all appearances. You couldn´t even sustain explicit “respect,” and you sure as hell never touched the necessary respect that scholarship makes possible and requires, in fact. Don´t let the historical church door bang your head metaphorically on your way out.

"Religion Is Just Claims Based on History and Psychology..." : Is That Scientifically Accurate?

just because religion is universal doesn't mean it represents something that actually exists or correspond to anything real There are many cognitive errors which are Universal. People have all sorts of cognitive mistakes and perceptual illusions But often times these are more beneficial for our survival and reproduction So religion and the common human tendency to personify Nature, 2 assign agency to the natural world. It clearly can give us survival and reproductive advantages and it also can clearly not be an accurate representation of reality Just like we don't naturally feel that the Earth is spinning, we don't naturally feel that the Earth is revolving around the sun, we don't naturally feel that space and time are relative, we don't naturally feel the effects of quantum mechanics, there's many things that we don't naturally perceive or experience that nevertheless we have found out to be a more accurate understanding of the world Religion is just a bunch of claims based on our history and psychology, and the overwhelming majority of those claims do not jive with science

You try to evaluate “religion” with an absolute and final invalidating judgment by associating it simplistically with “personification” a psychological term in fact, in a presumptuous and dismissive sense, and “jiving with science” that itself reveals your unexamined assumptions and projected fallacies. The meaning of “universal behaviors,” “(Universal) Cognitive mistakes,” “what we feel,” and “perceptual illusions” “agency” have similar baggage in psychology´s own subdisciplinary divisions, all of which operates as epistemological subdisciplines of Philosophy. That ultimately applies no less to your ultimately conformism to the presumption that the physical sciences establish the “most accurate” basis for evaluating claims.

Except that YOUR kind of claim that “science” is the “MOST ACCURATE BASIS” of evaluating “truth,” held by many as an “absolutely objective” basis, is nevertheless equally misguided despite your care with the nuance of “accuracy.” You aren´t aware of your slipping and sliding, but your foundational reliance on “science” is itself a foundational illusion, something you not only don´t feel and perceive, but don´t understand and neglect. I felt that problem personally as early as 10th grade. The History of Science illuminates the point well, as T Kuhn pointed out in his landmark work most famously known in terms of scientific paradigms and their shifts. Philosopher of Science M Pigliucci nails the point by noting that Darwin, like Newton and all their colleagues, were called “natural philosophers” in their time still. “Scientific Philosophy” also is plausibly accurate, while “Science” gets exposed as a term that has played a popularizing role, and was switched through its delusions of grandeur of “all truth” and judge of all else as mere “pseudoscience.” Sorry, Charlie. You´ve got big muscles in “scientific philosophy´s accomplishments, but you´re not quite able to secure some things as crucial as social and environmental sustainability from techhie and greedy biz influences, along with attacks on Social Science (also subdisciplines of phil), classical Philosophy, all in addition to Religion (especially its phil forms). Moreover, you´re not clear that it is sci phil´s larger empirical philosophical method that is discernible and transferible. Thus in Therapeutic Psychology, “feelings” weren´t a term the pioneer Freud used, but “instincts.” “Passions” was used by DesCartes et al. Those are “phenomena,” and “introspection” and “empathy” are part of the relevant empirical philosophy. Psychology´s emp phil demonstrated its religious insights early as W James did a comparative study, and Freud (of non-Christian roots) found himself retreating from his invalidating stance of absolute reductionism to allowing for “historical” reality. Jung superseded him and Transpersonal Psychology began to be articulated by Maslow and others.

The discussion of Religion, thus, is best put in the context of the multi- and inter-disciplinary Philosophy of Comparative Religion. In empirical terms, it involves meditative and prayerful states , often in relation to ritual and spiritual-religious materials and practices. While sci phil orients its practitioners to try to objectify the Universe´s phenomena, spiritual-religious activity in the phil of comp rel involves relating to the Universe´s Creator and sustaining aspect. Modern Christian Philosophy of Religion was developed, like scientific philosophy, by Christian monastic schools that led to modern University-based society. Simple reductio ad absurdum arguments reveal your fallacies. All mothers and fathers of all species, human (animal), tree-living primate monkey, and all non-human animal can also be termed “maternal and paternal units.” Your desire, a common one, NOT to call your mom and dad “maternal unit” despite its depersonalized “objectivity” raises questions about legitimate psychosocial processes, “What are legitimate?” “Mommy” is a term used by children. “Maternal unit” is a term used by, well, freaks, to put it in popular terms, or those harboring intense rationalized anger and resentment, as the psychologically literate might say. Just as you don´t take seriously the notion that “maternal unit” should be used for “mommies,” “moms,” or “mothers” except as young adult scientistic slang, subjects like environmental sustainability, stakeholders, and Human Rights have raised alerts about problems because of unsustainable profiteering objectification of natural resources and non-shareholder employees and citizens who are stakeholders with Human Rights. A kind of spectrum should be obvious already that involves epistemological Levels of Explanation and complexity, all part of philosophical disciplines.

Meanwhile, you say that “we don´t naturally feel the Earth spinning, … and quantum mechanics.” The Chinese Tao is associated with a non-objective spiritual philosophy and human activity systems like Tai Chi, Chi medicine, and Chi Gong that have demonstrable effects in context. Buddhism, as well. Both spiritual-religious systems are more systematized than traditional shamanic practices, although anthropologist M Harner, and perhaps others, have started Western systems. Western scientists are studying psychosomatic healing and stress, based on broader reported phenomena often based on direct spiritual-religious phenomena, and always indirectly. Harner, and the reporting and study of Chinese, Buddhist, shamanic, psychosomatic, and diverse spiritual-religious knowledge and phenomena also involve a modernization process in University philosophical and empirical scholarship. As for Christianity, the Jewish Jesus in the Abrahamic-Mosaic prophetic tradition reported consistently that God Commands “Love God first,” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Harry Harlow´s monkey mother-infant experiments showed that mother´s love matters, and any mechanical maternal unit provides a deficient relationship. Humanistic Psychology was developed because of the problem of dehumanizing objectification in therapy techniques. Thus, again, the spectrum from “maternal unit-mom” to environmental sustainability to shareholder-stakeholder-Human Rights leads to the effects on people of secular materialism in an objectified Universe. Fragmented, disconnected rationalists exploited by business profiteers supporting Fundamentalists. Identifying the Universe´s Creator and Sustainer based especially on the teachings that underlie modern University-based modern empirical forms of philosophy including the very prominent scientific philosophy, i.e. Jewish Jesus Christ´s Commandments about love and spiritual practice, isn´t simplistic “personification” and fantasized “agency.” That is recognition of the coherent and consistent spiritual and religious experience that underlies the Universe´s relationship to Western culture and the individuals that have been building it. Trying to invalidate religion is like trying to call your mom a “maternal unit” and the rest, and invalidate psychology because humans are evolved animals with classifiable survival characteristics and traits. Humans evolved sweat, too. Don´t invalidate human cognition just because of that, along with your anti-religious and anti-theist errors and epistemological fallacies. “Humans sweat, só of course they don´t need to think like their maternal units try to teach them.” That´s an analogy of your fallacy, só you know.

Do You Believe In God?

Do you believe in God? I like this question also, and it´s a good sign that this question gets raised in places. Do I believe in God, and does it matter?

My start in Unitarian Universalism and spiritual philosophy with the Chinese Tao have come a long way, thanks to many influences including especially Buddhist psychology, the 12 step groups for relationships like Al-Anon, Christian Science, not-for-profit ecosocial justice activism like Greenpeace and food co-ops, and my masters using psychosocial Social Constructionism. I´ve been able to use my education to deconstruct "science" and economics from their "Master of the Universe" illusions back to human empirical philosophy, linking it to the other branches including Religious Studies. Thus, contemplative experience and scientific study can supplement the need to value spiritual practice, a person´s inner life, psychological growth, God´s transcendence, and community life that can inspire and support. Below is the reflection that led me to this summary....

I had oriented myself thanks to a friend´s casual question in high school, my dad´s books including Huston Smith´s classic, and a local Unitarian Universalist congregation. I recall Smith describing the Chinese Tao as "a creative continuum that is always accessible." To my atheist humanist upbringing and in my moderately privileged circumstances, that shifted the scientific mechanicist/materialist view I/we was/were getting in school enough that I remember saying, "If there´s a God, that´s it for me!" Yet, UUism defined nice and clear then in 1981 their support of individual spiritual paths. The process of personal learning and growth was laid out for me.

The question of "inner spiritual reality" certainly prevailed in me, as scientific materialism prevailed in the external world of people and objects. Therapeutic psychology and creativity offered slight variations. In neurophysiological studies in college, I noticed that some groups of scientists assumed cognitive control of emotions, while evidence indicated emotional initiatives. Right and left brain dynamics also seemed relevant. Harry Harlow´s baby monkey studies, as well, among others.

I recently heard P Clayton of Claremont Theology describe a mental illness of brain damage that has people satisfied with sensing God and engaging in quiet activity. He also is acquainted with an old prof of mine from college Bio Anthro. He left the subject of spiritual reality uncomfortably in that vein.

Then came psychosomatic healing. After college, a year in Africa, and starting to work in NYC Soc Svc, Louise Hay´s You Can Heal Your Life was brought to my attention thanks to a Haitian colleague, as were the 12 step groups thanks to a recovering colleague. Consultants also introduced us to emotional awareness counseling, and Milton Erickson MD. Intrigued, I got a book on Erickson, and discovered a modern creative and communicative genius, whose work took hypnotherapy and lifestyle wisdom with amazing results.

That, and martial arts self-defense training, holistic arts classes like Buddhist psychology and shamanism, improv and regular acting all deepened my sense of personal growth and possibility. My ecosocial justice activism also guided me in volunteering for Earth Day 1990 and more.

I was also doing some songwriting with percussion, and my Soc Svc workplace literally self-destructed because of corruption causing conflict. I began to write.

All this involved my psychological level of experience, until a flashback of childhood mistreatment took place. Besides that, a small collection of visions took place that appear related to extended psychological knowledge of my father´s circumstances, another two with experience of possible reincarnation significance.

Yet, my life just continued with standard demands. I found Christian Science at its Reading Rooms that structured my basic sense at that point of "divine guidance" and Higher Power restoration" with God´s Divine Love and Mind, and more, and testimonies of healing and other blessings.

As I pursued my masters at mid-life, researching pro-ecosocial enterprise mostly based on modest European innovations, but spread internationally. Thanks to both Christian Science´s ambitions to refer to early Christian and OT healing, and UUism´s own Christian history, I began to question secularism in University-based democratic and activist Civil Society type of society. I traced it first to Thomas of Aquinas and Francis of Assisi, in Jesus´ legacy, perhaps Anti-Slavery efforts as well already.

After all that, I moved abroad to marry and start a family in a non-English speaking, developing post-colonial nation where my Dad was from in Brazil. That experience was rough and tumble, but fried my hamburger of a self a little less raw, Because I had a transition from fear of economic abandonment to increased trust, despite a lack of standard abundance in a low income simple lifestyle with a wife and kids in a post-colonial land. And then I bumped heads with the anti-theists.

In addressing their ideological objections for evidence and definitions, I have thought further through the meaning of spiritual practice in prayer and meditation, etc as relational to and with God. The scope of the Jewish prophetic heritage of Jesus has become clear in its fairly involuntary character, that shifted with Jesus teaching about God as parental, emphasizing love foundationally, and the need to "seek" and "pray." And even Jesus´ perspective beyond words of "God´s will," that people needed to "go and learn," and that people would "lay hands on the sick," and do "greater things" as "God teaches, and those who listen and learn would arrive in me (Jesus)." John 6.

And then WL Craig. Aristotle´s First Cause (that he rejected) and the thinking of Anselm, Aquinas, and DesCartes, and Islamic scholarship gain a modern form in Craig´s Kalam Cosmological Argument. God as Creator of the Big Bang hypothesis and (quantum) Higgs field conditions. God as identifiable in Jesus´ Resurrection, and the powerful textual implications of the NT. Psychosomatic healing, and Transpersonal factors and qualities had been a major guide for me. Testimonies of healing in Christian Science had already given me a view of God´s Transcendental reality as healing and beneficial through Jesus´ legacy. Medical attestations like Marlene Klepees healing from cerebral palsy brain damage through a prayer-vision-new church sequence recorded at the Mayo Clinic exceeded the basic materialistic biological and psychological mechanisms and processes. Unfortunately, televangelists like Joel Osteen are able to access the wonders of transpersonal healing without being faced directly with Jesus´ concerns about "Manna," which modernize as socioeconomic injustice and sustainability. The paths I see to creating the psychosocial conditions to address that require contributing to the efforts already in that direction, whether Equal Exchange organic and Fair Trade food co-op Corp´s Interfaith Network or the Evangelical Environmental Network, and more.

My start in Unitarian Universalism and spiritual philosophy with the Chinese Tao have come a long way, thanks to Buddhist psychology, the 12 step groups for relationships like Al-Anon, Christian Science, and my masters using psychosocial Social Constructionism. I´ve been able to use my education to deconstruct "science" from its "Master of the Universe" illusions back to human empirical philosophy, linking it to the other branches including Religious Studies. Thus, contemplative experience and scientific study can supplement the need to value spiritual practice, psychological growth, and God´s transcendence that can inspire and support.

Pope Affirms Big Bang and Evolution, Disavowing God as Having "Magic Wand", Yet Hold On...

In about August, 2021, the Pope declared in his position as the head of the Catholic Church that "the Big Bang theory and evolution are real, and that God is not a magician with a magic wand."

The Pope is probably talking mostly about evolution. Still, he may be actually meaning to emphasize the importance of Christian and other humanism and personal effort, rather than physics. Actually, for the Big Bang, it IS something out of nothing. Scientists explain the Big Bang because they have extrapolated back. The question, "Why is there something instead of nothing?" actually does take us to a "magic wand" moment, the instance before the Big Bang. In fact, that´s where philosophy "rears its ugly head," and blows the whistle on science. Science itself has "magical" aspirations for some number, as if the ancient Greeks and atheist humanists created it. The simple principle that modern science requires intense and sustained community and honest effort to work should make anyone "suspicious." Stan Jaki and James Hannam have done great work around that, among others. Historical sociology shows how Christians imperfectly but significantly were oriented by their religious values in creating science, including the freeing thought of an omnipotent Creator.

As for abiogenesis, it is so fascinating a subject that it deserves special attention. Science tells us that God hasn´t needed to intervene specially in physical and biological evolution because lawful regularities have unfolded. "Random mutations", BTW, are actually only random as interpreted by parameter-limited, and perhaps control hungry, scientists. In fact, it is merely complexity. Philosophically, we set that straight. Yet even with everything showing lawful regularities, a biologist named van Bertanaffly started thinking about the interrelatedness of biology, chemistry, and physics, for starters. Physics doesn´t actually map out chemistry, even though chemistry is defined as how atoms and molecules interact and react in combination processes. Biology itself is a whole complex level of complex, self-sustaining chemical activity.

So, whoa. They observe that the processes in the shift in levels involves a new whole that seems to be more than the sum of its parts. Chemistry is more than just fancy physics, and biology more than just fancy chemistry. They call that quality, "emergent properties," "emergence," and "emergentism."

Thus, science´s true nature shows through again plainly, that it is one kind of philosophy, not technical "revelation of truth." Thus, the Pope´s point is directed at anti-science fundamentalists, but it´s not a full and fair assessment. "Emergence" actually challenges many scientists who focus so much on reductionism that they even say that "mind" doesn´t exist, just "brains." Never mind the question of psychosocial and cultural experience, and of course, Transpersonal and Transcendental spiritual and religious experience and God.

Astrophysicist Reeves on the Invisible God, Leaves Out Invisible Problem´s of Science, etc

Mark R M Says the secular astrophysicist in hi-tech that drives the secular business world that descends from those who have superficially sliced off their religious and spiritual links, just retaining the hypocrisy. Religion largely submitted itself to science and business dictates. George Fox´s Quakers woke up in the 1600s as DesCartes began advancing his "mind-body(-spirit-nature)" split, despite concerns by Pascal. Artist-mystics-seekers like Blake, Wordsworth, and Emerson started raising awareness around nature in their movements. Post-Presbyterian eco-mystical John Muir founded the Sierra Club in 1892, and others led to the 1909 Paris Congress on the Preservation of Nature. Meanwhile, the term "science" was sliced off from"scientific philosophy" to make it align with technical mindsets in the 1800s who could control things scientifically. Bizpeople in turn took control of tech, as Edison crossed over himself, for profiteering. The 1929 Crash wasn´t the religious and non-rich messing around. Einstein represented an interesting angle, since he was a Jewish guy who could integrate as University secularism showed modernized Christian integrity, but associated it with materialism. The Universities and scientists failed to acknowledge their Christian integrity, as far as it went, and through the baby out with the bathwater.

Einstein was also very philosophical, showing what had been lost by the technical move to the term "science." He was also relatively spiritual, but disconnected from the Freud-Jung sensibility that later fostered Eco-psychology, basically. Gandhi was active, and a profound example as the automobile launched new technology. Rudolf Steiner formulated biodynamic principles along with his communitarian ideas. The US´s Social Gospel yielded mostly to liberal intellectualism, as FDR and Eleanor brought a pro-social angle.

This kind of comment grates on me more than not, since astrophysics is itself part of the unleashed Western technical mindset ravaging nature, and getting judgmental. Very doctrinally Christian, tellingly. Secularism has merely shaved off doctrinal exteriors, without the necessary spiritual transformation. Fritjof Capra has made progress in making intellectual links, while religious examples include JB Cobb´s Ecological Civilization done with biologist C Birch and economist H Daly. Union of Concerned Scientists and Physicians for Social Responsibility are also noteworthy. Reeves´ very accusation of "insane" demonstrates the very impulsive drive that underlies the problem itself. For one thing, "Man" is not just Westernized humanity, as Jared Diamond showed in his book Collapse. Ancient indigenous populations faced ecological systems with certain constraints, from the Mayans to the Anasazi Pueblo people and more, and they violated those constraints as their settlement culture demanded more resources for cultural projects.

Western society, Jesus´ legacy of Christian-based cultures, shows a special pitfall, however, and as an astrophysicist Reeves is intimately party to that. Science shot upwards in social status as DesCartes´ analytical geometry revolutionized math and science in the mechanistic direction. Yet, Giambattista Vico quickly began refuting its unadapted application to human affairs, as he pioneered constructivism in more or less, ("we invent and innovate the truth.") given human complexity and special processes. DesCartes did write about the passions as he also innovated the "I think, therefore I am" idea representing a new level of human individual awareness in Western secularizing Christianity.

Copernican, Galilean, Newtonian, and so on were practicing natural philosophy. The term "science" as the physical and life sciences came into use some time in the 1800s. It´s notable how it shifts focus and emphasizes the technical reliability and utilitarian usefulness of things using science´s new tested ideas and formulas. That is, using scientific philosophy´s new tested ideas and formulas. Except, Einstein´s insights showed that even as Jewish scholars had joined Christians historically through secularism in Universities, science really is scientific philosophy. It is humans thinking, and in a very specific legacy that believed in lawfulness because an "invisible" God had coherently gained recognition in Moses and the 45+ prophets of Jesus´ heritage, corresponding to Jesus´ 2 Commandments like no 2 "Love thy neighbor as thyself, as Jesus loved others."

Thus, humans like Einstein thinking in a psychocultural legacy meant that James Watts´ earlier invention of the steam engine around 1769 as a technological achievement was first in a part of culture in fact promoting Vico´s kind of constructivism, and DesCartes´, Newton´s, and so on´s kind of mechanicism. Blake´s "satanic mills" and Wordsworth´s nature poetry like "Tintern Abbey," and Mary Shelley´s Frankenstein appeared and captured aspects of people resisting the split from nature. They were celebrating Nature´s importance. JS Mills felt depressed in his youth, and restored by Wordsworth´s poetry. Mills also went on to innovate the term "stationary state" in economics that imagines a sustainable homeostatic state of balanced use and reuse in economics. He also saw through to employee ownership, as the co-op social biz was innovated in a sequence from R Owen´s pro-social biz to labor protests.

Environmental awareness gained scientific recognition as scientific philosophy broke creationist ideas, with Darwin´s natural selection. Yet, his mental health was challenged as he suffered in his hyper-intellectual context. He was so workaholic that he barely got relief on one trip to the countryside of Scotland, and otherwise by "hydrotherapy." Jumping in rivers by a field had its own extracted Western context! Emerson had left the Unitarians, and gained new direction writing about naturalists´ botanical work he saw in France. Wide-ranging botanist John Muir in the US founded the Sierra Club, as others founded the Audobon Society, and birding associations in the UK and elsewhere organized by 1909 and a conference in Paris. And many efforts until 1972 UN Stockholm conference on the human environment, UNCHE. Ecopsychology also emerged, reminding us that our human studies in sociology and anthropology count deeply. All natural science has effectively alienated itself from human social studies, and the work of Freud, Jung, Rogers, and so on helps understand why Marx, Durkheim and others observed devastating stress in modern society´s people.

Thanks, Mr. Reeves, but science has not been angelic, and in fact has become toxically part of the problem. Fritjof Capra has been building on van Bertanaffly´s and others´ Systems Theory to try to help restore sanity and link science to the social sciences. He doesn´t use "philosophy" to emphasize the human thinking element that I, like some or many of us, see is necessary.

Da Gr @MRM I think most of us would agree that humanity has taken the protection and responsible maintenance of our home for granted. But visceral guilt and condemnation alone falls short in empowering people to find ways of amending our former insensitivities. It also invites blame laying and finger pointing which achieves nothing purposeful. All aspects of our societies have been late in coming to this realization and it’s definitely going to take all of those groups working in tandem to make any significant progress.

M Re Mo Da Gr You sound worried about offending people of science, as if their carefree opinionating about religion doesn´t make them accountable to their own integrity. "Astrophysicists" are not masters of reality, nor is "science." As someone with a strong background in science, liberal arts, and the international affairs of eco-social sustainability, I assure you, scientists are not divine beings. In fact, anti-religious scientists talking about ecological matters in terms of an "invisible God" and "visible Nature" rather urgently need a taste of how they demonstrate a tendency to make SCIENCE´s responsibility for anti-environmentalism as "invisible" as (Christian) religion´s special role in ADVANCING science itself and environmental activism. However, that requires demystifiying science and scientists, and situating spirituality and religion adequately, which I have done naturally in balancing my education and experience. Thanks to the likes of F Capra, I´m understanding the issues in growing detail.

Astrophysicists yakking and blaming religion are demonstrating rank judgmentalism and hardly showing an integrity of character, as I rightly pointed out. R Dawkins, more than this Reeves the astrophysicist, has been so public that I learned that he does apparently drive an electric car. Yet, his views are so biased and unscholarly and clouded that he´s never relaxed enough to understand that sustainability is in Jesus´ spiritual integrity and legacy directly. Instead, he equates profiteering-funded hateful fundamentalism with religion itself, and has ridiculed religion in a way that marks him as virtually unapproachable by pro-sustainability religionists. Thus, an analysis of him, like Reeves, isn´t primarily for them, scientists and off-base, religion-blaming characters. It´s for US as people of faith, conscious of God´s love to one degree or another, in evaluating THEM primarily, and ourselves secondarily. To the degree that we are active in spiritual practice and expressing integrity in Jesus, we have the potential Gandhi talked about in "being the change you want to see in the world."

Scientists themselves will need to be dealt with, at some time or another, in terms that they understand. My own efforts have involved identifying the intellectual category errors governing prevailing discourse. Massimo Pigliucci has nailed New Atheist physicist L Krauss in a key way. It involves in part restoring science to its human nature as philosophy, not "objective truth," nor absolute truth, issues that religion, spirituality, and philosophy can address empirically and effectively. Science has made contributions, and they make fine supplements. Gandhi did talk about his approach as "experiments with truth."

As people of faith, we need to understand our very fundamental importance, and that it is us who have the solution as much as we start to advance spiritual-religious integrity. Not scientists' opinions blaming religion broadly and hypocritically. Jim Hansen of NASA has gotten arrested protesting Climate Change and titled his book, something like For Our Grandchildren. He´s not imitating Reeves. He met the maverick modern progressive Christian Congressman for environmentalism and Climate Change Al Gore, and sounds like he was inspired by the very spiritual and modern Gore. Da Gr MaRe Mo , I think the religious circles fired the first shots in the battle between religious theories and scientific discoveries. But let’s no quibble over who resents who. There are also many in both camps who do see the connections offered in both approaches to observable life. Money and power have corrupted certain parts of both endeavors just as it has every other human effort. You’re correct, I don’t see the virtue of taking sides. They both have things to offer us if we aren’t distracted by bias. Ma Re Mo DaGr Your last sentence is intimately part of my operating assumptions. However, you equate that with disqualifying the need for adequate criticism of science and its sound basis, analysis. "Analysis" soundly informs us of another basic philosophical principle that is widely neglected, Levels of Explanation. In fact, in your case you are apparently using the infamous Galileo and Darwin clashes to justify implying blaming "religion" and sustaining your mystified view of science and scientists, as if it were the Pope, Jim Wallis of Sojo . net, and F Graham riding roughshod in plastic bottle and oil companies, and by extension who forced Reagan-era admin to shut down NASA´s wind turbine research, and who fail to join the Union of Concerned Scientists and Physicians for Social Responsibility, making Jim Hansen´s getting arrested protesting a virtually unique indictment of "scientific complicity by objectivist extremism." UN and similar reports have their place, and Greenpeace and co. are hardly twisting the science. Also, here you express your minimization, and even trivialization of money and power, diluting it in the abstraction of its widespread presence.

Moreover, you are not paying attention to the precision I am getting at. I´m not actually taking sides. I´m addressing imbalances in general and in appropriate detail, understanding that people can choose to change if they are made adequately aware. I believe I may have already mentioned around here that my analysis has already uncovered a basic intellectual gap in discourse, and that is science not being the "absolute truth," but a form of philosophy, and religion addressing the need for spiritual modernization to shift from doctrinal blinders that freeze and lock in much hypocrisy to spiritual practice of individuals taking actions for integrity. Advancing Bernie-Obama and Social Europe style eco-social lifestyles, consumerism, and economic activism exemplify that. BTW, your blaming "religious circles attacking science first" as a "mea culpa" is itself an example of what might be called "passive literacy" as you take the word of complainers and accusers without question. Galileo´s conflict with the Pope/Vatican involved that church authority and individuals specifically, and the church´s institutional mechanisms, and that was already after the Protestant Reformation.

If you read about Galileo´s work, he didn´t present a neutral thesis. He used a provocative character named "Simpleton" to characterize the Pope, a former friend, and the Ptolemaic position. Luther himself avoided arrest in the previous century because he was fully respectful in all his conduct, while Galileo actually wasn´t. In that encounter for starters. DesCartes made his own moves at that time, no less. A French Catholic, he operated largely in Holland, alerted to Protestant religionists´ doctrinal displeasures by expulsion from Leiden U or so. As his writing progressed in analytical geometry (e.g. y=mx+b), he heard from Pascal complaining that mechanicism ignored God´s ways or the like. In the end, DesCartes was inconvenienced and alerted, but unresponsive to the concerns represented by Pascal and his expulsion. It was thus that the Cartesian "mind-body(-spirit-nature) split" emerged, on the side of science (i.e. scientific philosophy). You haven´t been able to grasp this point so far. Instead, you show that you do "take sides," and aren´t willing to question scientism (which is not actually science). Here, I´m using Historical Sociology, incidentally, a key philosophical Level of Explanation.

To situate how science emerged with monk-clerical talents in their spiritual mindsets, see James Hannam, who has done great historical work expanding the scope of the History of Science and Religion. UK Bishop R Grosseteste is linked to the Oxford Franciscan School for work in the 1200s as T of Aquinas was bursting with his scholarly fruits at the U of Paris. In 1277, the Bishop of Paris responded to concerns, and pronounced a prohibition on using Greek limiting assumptions, like objects can´t travel in a straight line, based on God´s omnipotence and lawfulness, the 1277 Condemnations. That particular point helps crystallize the intellectual role of Judeo-Christian thinking in taking ancient Greek efforts and making modern Christian-based scientific philosophy.

"Taking sides"? What about giving a "fair and balanced presentation." You´re accepting a superficial and biased fairy tale-tunnel vision version of history. The question is, why are you so inclined not to look at the issues, to hold people accountable and address misconceptions? You are avoiding my empirical discussion and its detail oriented nature by planting your coping mechanism ideas that are similar to mythologization: "nobody overcomes money and power corruption, not least religion that started it all against the pretty much all-powerful and all-knowing science."

It comes down to our own senses of self-worth, I´d say, negative or positive (not so much "low" or "high"). The 12 step groups for relationships offer a powerful spiritual technique to address our self-awareness and the loving power of clarity in God´s love that sleeps there, or is tangled up. As Jesus taught, "Clean the inside of the cup...." He said, "where there is wickedness," but in modernity we might expand that, "where there is a lost and wounded inner child with unmet needs in search of love lost in various forms of abuse and neglect." "Cleaning the cup" is more a question of John Bradshaw´s "loving our inner child" and achieving a "homecoming.".