Stonehead

Are we assuming that in this point in our cultural history, religion is subordinate to the state, that the state will always hold the highest authority? The assumption is mistaken. Just as many people see religion as being wrong in its particular views, so too can we regard the state. There is nothing inherent or constant about the state, despite ones which have checks and balances, that necessarily demands perpetual and objective self examination to judge the rightness of its moral course especially as regards to its exercise of power in what seems its absolute certainty of purpose. Sometimes religion, not by virtue of its monolithic body but through its process of engendering individual moral conscience, is superior by compelling the state to change. Let's turn everything on its head: Can shoplifting really be justified? Why violating civil law is not always immoral Also refer to Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.

The simple answer would be an unqualified “no” if you put the question to the specific context of violent radicalism that you stated. But there are people who believe that the cause justifies the means. I know you don’t believe in capitulation so what should be the proper response, not in general but as applicable to several particular cases? Cases have to exist where there should be constraints on the exercise of liberty versus the maintenance of the general good, even within the juxtaposition of Secularism and Theism. Like, for instance, the use of the First Amendment to promote what many consider to be pornography especially within the context of its social effects on young minds. It’s a special case, of course, since it also involves community standards but it is a moral issue intertwined with religion. And we do regulate morality with laws especially involving property and against the unjust taking of life. Also, I believe in our particular rule of law (with its attendant belief in natural rights) but when can it be harmful? We believe our values are superior but regardless of that, is it right to insert our values directly into another system to provoke a revolution in dominant ideas? So, should we see the breakdown of traditional forms to be replaced by a secular model, the progression of which might follow something along the lines of the Russian example---from Czarist to Communist to Oligarchy? Just asking...

Maybe it's not so much the religion as much as the type of thinking and behavior that you so well illustrate.

Should we just advance the European approach first exemplified by the proposed French prohibition on burkas (restrictions on religious expression). Perhaps the secular (or should we say, atheistic) European approach will establish a better model for peaceful coexistence in our global world?

Uh huh. But you're so much better than KaskadskyjKozak, right?

Yeah, it's entering the realm of thought crime. But here, the idea is whether the action (the cartoon or the response to it) is justified by a higher cause.

Unless you're speaking of Christianity, no?

So, we’re indicting the whole body of ideas that comprise the religion and its entire legion of followers due to some high profile reactions to a political cartoon? Satire is a great way to send a political message but at what point does it mutate from being relatively benign to becoming socially malignant? I would ask if there are hands that seek to manipulate the scenes in the world play. Are the initiatory acts intentional? Not that the unequal response is justified but if the reaction can be predicted with some certainty, then isn’t the initiator also guilty of a provocative act? Is it criminal? For instance, is it criminal to participate in a conspiracy to incite a riot? Sure, in a Machiavellian sense, religion is a vehicle that propagates ideas which can be manipulated or corrupted to serve a purpose which appears antithetical to the general good that’s inculcated by the social body characteristic of a religion. So, the question becomes can we discern the purpose behind the hands that manipulate the scenes or are these simple intentional acts of small purpose that more or less are random? Is it too sinister and conspiratorial to propose that the intelligence organizations are the movers behind the scenes, that we are pawns whose perceptions are influenced for larger purposes? Is it just coincidence that the Nigerian would be bomber serves as the impetus to escalate the war in Yemen and to initiate further restrictive measures here? A useful idiot? The National Security Archive at George Mason University

There are two issues. One is reclassifying marijuana from Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act. The other is the general legalization of marijuana. Your question is a subjective one that is usually answered by personal anecdotal examples. As far as studies, I don't believe the question can be answered conclusively on the basis of comparison sufficient to qualitatively separate this particular illegal drug vs the legal drugs. If you rephrased the question as "is pot as bad as" then you might be able to qualify marijuana as the lesser of the evils when viewed through the lens of perspective. The fact that the public and parts of the medical profession have addressed this as a perceptual issue in a number of states through the initiative process lends support to the rescheduling of marijuana for regulatory purposes in drug policy. The major stumbling block remains the potential for abuse. The general push to legalization appears to be driven by the monetary effect. The arguments I've heard regarding legalization center around reducing the profit motive and the consequent effect that may have on reducing violence. A change to legal status will also have an effect on incarcerations. Those two effects could add to cost savings in law enforcement and administration. Another tact being taken regards regulation and taxation of marijuana for revenue purposes. Additionally, an often unacknowledged effect is the public perception of the War on Drugs as a war against the people with such things as no-knock warrants, asset forfeiture laws, and other legal weapons that appear to erode our constitutional protections and the tradition of due process. Politicians such as Governor Schwarzenegger and Seattle Mayor McGinn have called for legalization but unless Congress or the Executive Branch gets into the act, marijuana will probably remain an illegal drug for quite a few more years but with low emphasis placed on enforcement (of the low hanging fruit) of individual users.

Haven't seen it yet in its element, only that in previews on 2D which has to be a vast understatement of effect. "Any technology sufficiently advanced is virtually indistinguishable from magic." --Isaac Asimov Technology can yield somewhat of a controlled experience. Nature not as much. Fish that triggers hallucinations found off British coast (yeah, that global warming again)

It's not whether something specific comes to pass but whether you might be prepared to deal with its contingencies. Something similar to deciding what to carry on an alpine route given what you know and then adapting as the conditions change. It's another thing altogether psychologically speaking. Jung spoke of the human need for order, something like an organizing function, that in times of disorder one would seek to establish at least a semblance of order if not in fact. He believed in the collective unconscious where forms arise and spoke of mandala figures appearing from the subconscious or unconscious. You strict rationalists know all this Jungian stuff is pseudoscience, right?

Trends forecaster Gerald Celente suggests 2010 might be the year of an event greater than or equivalent to 2001. Dirty bomb in a major city. Mass exodus. Impetus for massive potential bank closures (bank holidays) as financial crisis is revealed to have only been papered over rather than dealt with structurally. More doom and gloom, etc. Stock market to correct. Gold prices soaring. Suggests that government's overreaching is not the solution, to look to local communities to solve problems, self-sufficiency. Riots. http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=9060 Another prophet of a different sort: C.G. Jung

Dyson's proposal is actually modeled after a natural process evident in biological history. You see more efficient carbon sequestering by plants (C3--->C4 & CAM plants, for instance) through evolutionary time. The process might work better with photosynthetic oceanic plankton which I believe bury carbon on a greater scale than terrestrial plants. The carbon compensation depth might rise due to carbon dioxide levels but the actual effects of ocean acidification though seemingly simple are not fully known. In CO2-rich Environment, Some Ocean Dwellers Increase Shell Production So what if all the measures to combat climate change are ineffective? The rules of the game have been up to now, adaptation or extinction. Is extinction necessarily bad, similar to the related question of whether individual death is bad in itself? We seek to prolong life and postpone death at all costs even when quality of life suffers. Death is a necessary evil. It opens the way for future generations. Similarly in evolution, extinction opens ecological niches to be filled through adaptative radiation.

I don't deny that there's climate change and that there's an anthropogenic component. The attention should be focused on the hyped urgency of rushing measures through, actions which are reminiscent of another rush that actually became a costly affair and which was based on faulty assumptions. You gotta wonder when one of the leading climate scientists is saying that the Copenhaugen talks are so flawed that they should fail. Couple that together with the role of investment banks in cap and trade and given the mess that these same entities caused in the financial markets, perhaps we should give pause to look more closely at this method of regulating carbon emissions. Copenhagen climate change talks must fail, says top scientist Investment banks are chasing opportunities in a $126 billion carbon market The emphasis should be on the alarmist scenarios raised by the ICPP and CRU. These research and political bodies should be scrutinized. The data is there but how much were the models tweaked to support a catastrophic scenario? All of the controversy over the leaked emails should serve as a counterbalance to the alarmist rhetoric. CRU's programming 'way below expected standards' Himalayan glaciers melting deadline 'a mistake' Questioning the alarmist scenario is not the same as denial of climate change. But comparing others who question the alarmist rhetoric to flat earthers etc. is definitely divisive, not inclusive. All of the defensiveness should ideally yield to an open atmosphere to prevent the bitter divisiveness that all to often seems reflective of partisan politics. Oh, and BTW, I heard that Copenhaugen is unofficially choosing a Dylan song as its anthem. Not this one but it seems more fitting to the situation: [video:youtube]IMIlP4zB0EM

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Why don't you jump on the biotic vs abiotic origin of hydrocarbons? How deep does the biosphere go? Oh wait, that's right - as deep as we have been able to sample and then some... So you confess belief in Gold's hypothesis that thermophile bacteria cross-contaminated abiotically derived petroleum to indicate a biotic origin due to the artifact presence of those biomarkers?

Who's denying that climate change occurs? Who's denying that an anthropogenic component exists? Nobody. The point of contention is what is the magnitude of the anthropogenic contribution to climate change. How much and how often was the data tweaked to support a catastrophic scenairo based on political necessity? What Do We Really Know About Climate Change?

Why don't you jump on the biotic vs abiotic origin of hydrocarbons?

What a crock of shit! The Climate Science Isn't Settled according to Richard Lintzen, professor of meteorology at the MIT

One possible answer to the Fermi Paradox is that sentient life has a "cosmic roadblock". The Billion-Year Technology Gap: Could One Exist?

[video:youtube]4fCLFKlYW3c

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Well then, why do you emulate me with my icon?

Feelings? Personally, I don’t believe that feelings such as fear, doubt, and grief are in themselves to be regarded in any negative sense. I believe you’re right about the generality of feelings however, I thought I had read an article of MRI study of the brain involving subjects contemplating religion and other triggers. Could I have imagined it? Anyway, this work indicated some specificity in activation of the brain. Whether the specific areas of activation evolved directly or are the byproduct of the development of another function does not matter since the effect is physiological. Doesn't it still point to the primacy of religious affect? Imagination. Magic. Mage. These words have the same etymological root. The imagination can produce phastasms but it is also the birthplace of many things which manifest in the material world. One can believe that all we do is copy nature and modify what evolution has unfolded. Other things may exist independently on another plane such as an imaginal realm. These include such things as mathematical formulas or depictions of relationships in reality, e.g., E = mc2. Some religions refer to this plane as the Ground of Being (alaya in Buddhism). These ideas are common to the esoteric flavors of the mainstream religions. I’m not really qualified to speak of this but perhaps you get the picture. Anyway, my point is I won’t disparage the importance of the imagination in our existence. I know that what we’re actually talking about is more a discussion of people’s reaction to Christianity in particular and not so much to religion in general. But there’s indicators that point to validity. There's a passage in the Bible that says man was created in God’s image. Image. Imagination again. Regarding the brain’s tendency to fill the void: http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2009/10/hallucinations_in_se.html Psychological readjustment: The ExtraRoom, a space to achieve psychological alterations. [video:vimeo]5319345 I would say more but I gotta go. Got an appointment in the snow.

Here’s another link for you, j_b: The Top One Reason Religion Is Harmful I disagree with the central thesis of the article. My partial defense of religion: I’m of the mind that religion is innate, that there are areas in the human brain that respond to religious feeling, that religion has a basis in physiology but that the body is not the final word just as consciousness cannot be explained easily through reductionist science. The crux, however, is how you define religion. I don’t see religion as the sole territory of the monotheist, or the polytheist, or even the monist. It encompasses all of these modes. Religions such as Buddhism even go beyond the idea of deity to a state of mind. All however seem to have some supernatural aspect. Some people say that religion is mind control yet eradication of religion will not necessarily make you free. Maybe there are memes in some religions that are helpful in preventing enslavement to ideas such as excessive material consumption, etc. When religion itself is reduced or deconstructed it loses its numinosity. For better or worse, that aspect of numinosity is a mysterious quality that functions similar to a kind of cosmic cauldron where all things are placed, things like new and old knowledge, to be mixed and consumed by society. Sometimes religion is a mirror that shows us who we are. We’re social creatures who need myth to inform our place in the universe, where we’ve been and where we’re headed. Religion cannot remain static. It must evolve. There are examples from history that show that it has and it will again. When E.T. phones the pope God is not the Creator, claims academic