A larger presence, the unknowable total of all there is
Tang Huyen
by David Brooks, "Neural Buddhists".
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/opinion/
13brooks.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
<<Researchers now spend a lot of time trying to
understand universal moral intuitions. Genes are
not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people
seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy
and attachment.
Scientists have more respect for elevated spiritual
states. Andrew Newberg of the University of
Pennsylvania has shown that transcendent
experiences can actually be identified and
measured in the brain (people experience a
decrease in activity in the parietal lobe, which
orients us in space). The mind seems to have the
ability to transcend itself and merge with a larger
presence that feels more real.
This new wave of research will not seep into the
public realm in the form of militant atheism.
Instead it will lead to what you might call neural
Buddhism.
If you survey the literature (and I’d recommend
books by Newberg, Daniel J. Siegel, Michael S.
Gazzaniga, Jonathan Haidt, Antonio Damasio
and Marc D. Hauser if you want to get up to
speed), you can see that certain beliefs will
spread into the wider discussion.
First, the self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic
process of relationships. Second, underneath the
patina of different religions, people around the
world have common moral intuitions. Third,
people are equipped to experience the sacred, to
have moments of elevated experience when they
transcend boundaries and overflow with love.
Fourth, God can best be conceived as the nature
one experiences at those moments, the
unknowable total of all there is.
In their arguments with Christopher Hitchens and
Richard Dawkins, the faithful have been
defending the existence of God. That was the
easy debate. The real challenge is going to come
from people who feel the existence of the sacred,
but who think that particular religions are just
cultural artifacts built on top of universal human
traits. It’s going to come from scientists whose
beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism.
In unexpected ways, science and mysticism are
joining hands and reinforcing each other. That’s
bound to lead to new movements that emphasize
self-transcendence but put little stock in divine
law or revelation. Orthodox believers are going to
have to defend particular doctrines and particular
biblical teachings. They’re going to have to defend
the idea of a personal God, and explain why
specific theologies are true guides for behavior
day to day. I’m not qualified to take sides, believe
me. I’m just trying to anticipate which way the
debate is headed. We’re in the middle of a
scientific revolution. It’s going to have big
cultural effects.>>
Tang Huyen
Evelyn Ruut
"Tang Huyen" <tanghuyen{delete}@gmail.com[remove]> wrote in message
news:0eOdnaYNTPax87TV...@supernews.com...
Cool article. Thanks for sharing it.
--
Best Regards,
Evelyn
Keynes
Scientific spirituality seems like an oxymoron to me.
It's an attempt for materialism to transcend itself without
transcending itself. It assumes it's conclusion from it's
initial premise, and borrows 'spirituality', since it can't
be ignored, to fill out it's materialistic world view.
Scientifically speaking, we're all deterministic meat
machines. Where can you go from there?
Will a brain scientist (or any other materialist) ever
question their first premise? If not, they will never
get out of their own stink.
I feel what they're doing is very similar to the concept
of blasphemy, the reducing of the sacred by some shabby
butchery. And they're very evangelical about it, self-certain
and willing to teach anybody and everybody.
Scientific spirituality is the deadest of dead ends.
Even if they could deliver an 'enlightenment pill',
it wouldn't be an enlightenment.
Ali
<tanghuyen{delete}@gmail.com[remove]> wrote:
The man's a clueless douchebag. a blitherer. He'd be lost even on
"these boards".
Dowd is the clever one, and she steers clear of this sort of nonsense.
the_sunny...@yahoo.com
>
>
> The man's a clueless douchebag. a blitherer. He'd be lost even on
> "these boards".
> Dowd is the clever one, and she steers clear of this sort of nonsense.
Dowd's a good writer -- she'd make a great usenet troll! ;-) -- and
Brooks strikes me as just another right-of-center columnist, but I
wouldn't say he's unintelligent (and just what do you mean by "lost
even on 'these boards'"??).
I'm a bit surprised to see him take up this topic, though; what, has
Hillary not said something outrageous again all day yet? ;-) But
then again, I suppose it's a "cultural wars" piece, which right-of-
center folks seem to like to write.
Not sure that there's the kind of synthesis going on right now which
he claims...seems to me that there's no synthesis possible, logically:
either there is "something" "out there" "beyond" the material world or
there is not. Perhaps what he imagines as a happy synthesis of views
is really just a growing agnosticism in the general population
(there's a subtle but important difference).
the_sunny...@yahoo.com
>
>
> Scientific spirituality seems like an oxymoron to me.
> It's an attempt for materialism to transcend itself without
> transcending itself. It assumes it's conclusion from it's
> initial premise, and borrows 'spirituality', since it can't
> be ignored, to fill out it's materialistic world view.
Yeah, I was thinking about posting the article myself today but
decided against it for about similar reasons...the piece was a bit
like those PBS specials involving Deepak Chopra or Robert Kiyosaki, if
you know what I mean -- rather like a "populist" misunderstanding of
the issues involved....
> Scientifically speaking, we're all deterministic meat
> machines. Where can you go from there?
Well, we seem to have the potential of re-engineering our own bodies
and reprogramming our own minds....
> Will a brain scientist (or any other materialist) ever
> question their first premise? If not, they will never
> get out of their own stink.
Note that scientists don't necessary have to be "ideological" about
their research; not all, if even most, just "run wild" with a certain
interpretation of current evidence....
> I feel what they're doing is very similar to the concept
> of blasphemy, the reducing of the sacred by some shabby
> butchery. And they're very evangelical about it, self-certain
> and willing to teach anybody and everybody.
>
> Scientific spirituality is the deadest of dead ends.
> Even if they could deliver an 'enlightenment pill',
> it wouldn't be an enlightenment.
Alas, such loaded words...!
Keynes
Scientific materialism is taken for an inescapable truth.
But it really is what the Buddha called delusion.
Zen is about transcending gain and loss, birth and death.
Materialism is all about gain (presumably without loss,
which is an impossibility). It's a world of conflicts
and sorrows. But it's really just the common state
of mind, as any other opinion must be.
Matter is irrelevant next to Mind. Even philosphy knows
this. But materialists believe the other thing. (Even if
they wish that they didn't.)
It isn't about angels and demons and mansions in the sky
forever and evermore. Those are just the imagination
of hopeful materialists in a materialist society.
Tang Huyen
the_sunny...@yahoo.com wrote:
> Not sure that there's the kind of synthesis going on right now which
> he claims...seems to me that there's no synthesis possible, logically:
> either there is "something" "out there" "beyond" the material world or
> there is not. Perhaps what he imagines as a happy synthesis of views
> is really just a growing agnosticism in the general population
> (there's a subtle but important difference).
I haven't read any of the books recommended by
Brooks, but here are my two cents.
The atheists -- I mean Western atheists -- capitulate
to the object of their objection right off, because
they accept the premisses of what they reject,
namely those of the Book. In critical thinking, one
starts by examining everything, especially one's
assumptions, and here they begin by accepting the
assumptions of the Book and the thought-world that
it spawns. Therefore they have lost the war before
any battle begins.
You say: <<seems to me that there's no synthesis
possible, logically: either there is "something" "out
there" "beyond" the material world or there is not.>>
You have fallen prey to the same error, in that you
have accepted the premisses that should be put back
into questioning.
My understanding of mental culture in Stoicism,
Daoism and Buddhism is that one opens oneself up,
and part of that opening up is that one drops all
norms and standards that prevail in one's thinking
and behaving, across the board, so that one opens
up to what one doesn't know, which indeed may
never fit well into the norms and standards of any
kind of mentational structure. One begins by
dropping such omnibus boxes as mind and matter,
etc., and cleans up one's mind of them (I already
run into a paradox there, but there will be plenty
of them, as the cleaning up runs into the mess that
it tries to clean up, so long as it keeps within boxes,
but if it drops boxes, then it can be free).
When one drops all boxes and opens up, strangely
the Kingdom of Nature becomes the Kingdom of
Grace, in place, unasked. One doesn't need to
believe in anything ahead of time, and indeed any
belief will be just another box to be dropped. One
may need to have faith, but it is mere faith that the
process of dropping boxes and of opening up will
work, and other than that it is faith without object,
without reference, because any object or reference
will be just more boxes to drop. E. g., if one believes
in the Bookist God, that will be a box, an obstacle.
If one believes in the Hinduist Oneness, that will be
a box, an obstacle. If one believes in Buddhist
suchness or thusness (tathata), that will be a box, an
obstacle. One drops them all and merely opens up,
in deep faith (remember, this faith consists only in
the faith that dropping all boxes and opening up
will work, and has no further specifications or
stipulations, such as those named, the Bookist God,
the Hinduist Oneness, Buddhist suchness or
thusness, or whatever else). When one so does,
everything lights up, the universe lights up, the
Kingdom of Nature becomes the Kingdom of Grace,
in place, unasked. Nature becomes enchanted, in
place. It has to be experienced to be believed.
But that is still content. The dropping goes right on
and drops such content, however marvellous, and
keeps to measure and proportion, detachment and
equanimity, balance and perspective, humour, irony,
levity. This attitude, of rising above it all, is the real
salvation. Any content is dangerous if attached to,
regardless of what it is or is not.
Indeed such transcendent content easily misleads
its experiencer into taking it for real and attaching to
it, and many people, especially if they are still in
tender adolesence, can well be knocked off their
feet and overwhelmed by it, and will never recover
from it thereafter, for the rest of their lives. Salvation
consists in remaining above it all, and thus is free of
content. If it was content, if it was bound to content
(e. g., the beatific vision in theistic religions), it would
be bondage and not freedom. But since salvation is
content-free, there is no truth to it, and truth is free of
truth, otherwise truth would be encumbered with
truth.
Due to this nature of salvation, it is (looking in from
the outside) purely subjective and strictly sentimental.
It has nothing objective to which it can be pinned
down. If it had something objective to which it could
be pinned down, it would be bondage and not freedom.
But from within (more paradoxes, because I am trying
to talk of what cannot be talked about), it is free of
boxes such as inside and outside, mind and matter, etc.
It is pure openness, free of all boxes of whatever kind.
But enough babbling. It is mere fluff, it is all made up,
better just relax and be serene.
Tang Huyen
Déjà Flu
...
> The atheists -- I mean Western atheists -- capitulate
> to the object of their objection right off, because
> namely those of the Book. In critical thinking, one
> starts by examining everything, especially one's
> assumptions, and here they begin by accepting the
> assumptions of the Book and the thought-world that
> it spawns. Therefore they have lost the war before
> any battle begins.
!
I rarely seen you try to be rational, especially when
(and if) talking about critical thinking. But I know of
no atheist who accepts the "assumptions of the Book"
except as hypothesis. In critical thinking, all hypotheses
are equal (null) at the beginning and the "assumptions of
the Book" are simply another hypothesis. If you call that
"acceptance", it's a misuse of the term.
Furthermore, most scientific hypotheses aren't based on
"assumptions" at all, but on observations and previous knowledge
or, second-handedly, on authority (from which observation is
presumed). That said, there certainly are hypotheses derived
from everything else, too. Including those dreamed up from
thin air, like your "crashing" hypothesis, homeopathy,
"chi", acupuncture, chiropractic, etc. To my knowledge,
no one who pasted a piece of gold leaf on a buddha-statue's
nose ever got a more beautiful nose from the Nose Fairy,
and that one's been tested for centuries.
Perhaps you're familiar with the process of examining and
testing hypotheses. If so, perhaps you should apply it to
the one you presented above. We await your survey results,
your address list (of "western atheists"), and the questions
you asked of them in order to prove your hypothesis (that
they "...accept the premisses (sic) of what they reject,
namely those of the Book". It'll be an interesting bit of
research.
Déjà Flu
...
> Matter is irrelevant next to Mind.
I didn't mean to laugh...
...really...
Keynes
Take your critical thinking back a step or two.
As you say, the scientific method of testable
results validates it's hypotheses. But this is
a closed system that accepts time and cause
and effect as the only truth possible. As far
as it can see, it's irrefutably correct -- but it
can't see very far at all, because it has already
accepted a very limited world view.
There is birth and death, gain and loss, unquestionable
truths that must define the world and everything in it.
But that's really just a common way of thinking. As
long as that common opinion prevails there is no
escape from the imaginary sorrows of the
highly opinionated.
It's really just arrogance and fear that cause folks
to ossify in some supposedly solid position of
unassailable certainty and apparent security.
The best science in the world (at that time) is
found in the old testement, a flat earth with four
corners. Now we laugh at their ignorance. But
we are as cock sure as they ever were and never
do laugh at our own ignorant pretentions.
Science and materialism are more or less logically
consistent. Doesn't mean that they're right and true,
but only that their premises are indeed their premises.
Keynes
Don't get down on yourself.
Idiocy is the norm.
oxtail
What he is trying to say is probably that
if you define yourself by negating something,
you are already subjugating yourself to that something.
Anyhow, if you go around telling people that
you don't believe in loving your neighbor,
you should not be surprised to hear that
your neighbors deny ever knowing you.
--
oxtail
Déjà Flu
<sigh>
One might seriously doubt that science
"defines itself" by negating nonsense, eh?
> Anyhow, if you go around telling people that
> you don't believe in loving your neighbor,
> you should not be surprised to hear that
> your neighbors deny ever knowing you.
I wish.
Hya, Stumps
Keep up the good work.
Hollywood Lee
> Tang Huyen wrote:
> ...
>> The atheists -- I mean Western atheists -- capitulate
>> to the object of their objection right off, because
>> they accept the premisses (sic) of what they reject,
>> namely those of the Book. In critical thinking, one
>> starts by examining everything, especially one's
>> assumptions, and here they begin by accepting the
>> assumptions of the Book and the thought-world that
>> it spawns. Therefore they have lost the war before
>> any battle begins.
> ...
>
> !
>
> I rarely seen you try to be rational, especially when
> (and if) talking about critical thinking. But I know of
> no atheist who accepts the "assumptions of the Book"
> except as hypothesis.
To the extent they both make claims of truth and certainty based on mere
appearances, they both sing from the same Song Book of Presumptions,
even if their particular selections vary.
Awaken21
>
I think science and Buddhism share the fundamental premise of
observation.
Déjà Flu
:) You sound like Keynes here, bud. What "presumptions"?
Hymnals (media and advertising) notwithstanding, could one
therefore presume they've explored the efficacy of prayer,
vs antibiotics and vaccines?
Maybe we just see "science" differently, though. I've not
seen any claims of "truth and certainty" in it, per se.
Buddhism, otoh, makes four, and with *absolute* certainty.
Think about that.
Hollywood Lee
> Hollywood Lee wrote:
>> Déjà Flu wrote:
>>> Tang Huyen wrote:
>>> ...
>>>> The atheists -- I mean Western atheists -- capitulate
>>>> to the object of their objection right off, because
>>>> they accept the premisses (sic) of what they reject,
>>>> namely those of the Book. In critical thinking, one
>>>> starts by examining everything, especially one's
>>>> assumptions, and here they begin by accepting the
>>>> assumptions of the Book and the thought-world that
>>>> it spawns. Therefore they have lost the war before
>>>> any battle begins.
>>> ...
>>>
>>> !
>>>
>>> I rarely seen you try to be rational, especially when
>>> (and if) talking about critical thinking. But I know of
>>> no atheist who accepts the "assumptions of the Book"
>>> except as hypothesis.
>>
>>
>> To the extent they both make claims of truth and certainty based on
>> mere appearances, they both sing from the same Song Book of
>> Presumptions, even if their particular selections vary.
>
> :) You sound like Keynes here, bud. What "presumptions"?
Well, the hard atheist asserts the non-existence of God, an assertion
that, to me, is simply the other (dogmatic) side of the coin to the
assertion of the existence of God. Part of the net of views to be set
aside.
> Hymnals (media and advertising) notwithstanding, could one
> therefore presume they've explored the efficacy of prayer,
> vs antibiotics and vaccines?
>
> Maybe we just see "science" differently, though. I've not
> seen any claims of "truth and certainty" in it, per se.
Now I'm confused. Why conflate science and atheism? I was referencing
atheism above, which seems to have little to do with science and the
scientific method.
>
> Buddhism, otoh, makes four, and with *absolute* certainty.
> Think about that.
Can't help what those dumb ass Buddhist think.
Déjà Flu
I guess I haven't met any "hard atheists" who aren't scientists,
then. Seriously. I've never met an atheist who didn't reason his
or her way there via experimental data.
> > Hymnals (media and advertising) notwithstanding, could one
>> therefore presume they've explored the efficacy of prayer,
>> vs antibiotics and vaccines?
>>
>> Maybe we just see "science" differently, though. I've not
>> seen any claims of "truth and certainty" in it, per se.
>
> Now I'm confused. Why conflate science and atheism? I was referencing
> atheism above, which seems to have little to do with science and the
> scientific method.
Ummm, evidence? experimental data again? Maybe I'm more confused than
you are here. Yeah, I get your point, but... hmmm... you're telling
me that people are atheists without even thinking about it? They
just believe that they shouldn't believe, making their disbelief
a belief?
Velly Intelesting...
>> Buddhism, otoh, makes four, and with *absolute* certainty.
>> Think about that.
>
> Can't help what those dumb ass Buddhist think.
LOL!
Hollywood Lee
Perhaps it is a definitional problem. I would see a hard atheist as
someone making the positive and certain assertion that something like a
god does not exist. This would be in contrast to the soft atheist or
agnostic who doesn't believe that gods exist as an experiential fact,
but would admit the belief is not certain.
In my case, I have no empirical, psychological or other basis for
believing in something like the God of the Book, Brahman, the Flying
Spaghetti Monster or Thor. More to the skeptical point, dogmatic
debates and claims about the existence or non-existence of gods seems
diversionary to the getting on with life.
Yet the True Believers of God and Atheism think the matter is settled.
Weird.
Déjà Flu
I agree (to the definitional problem).
But I think the "hard atheist" definition only equates to a scientist
who argues the point (as we seem to do ;) as far as possible.
This may be seen as "hard" or "stubborn", but it's really just
good debate, rather than "belief" so far as I've seen.
Perhaps, in the second case, "agnostic" is a better word.
Which is the recommendation of buddhism, but that was prior
to our currency and we should consider (on our own authority)
whether it still applies.
> In my case, I have no empirical, psychological or other basis for
> believing in something like the God of the Book, Brahman, the Flying
> Spaghetti Monster or Thor. More to the skeptical point, dogmatic
> debates and claims about the existence or non-existence of gods seems
> diversionary to the getting on with life.
We all, genetically, seem to have a propensity to "believe"
physically and psychologically (basically the same), in authority,
be it any of the above. I'd say we're better off recognizing and
admitting it (especially to ourselves) than we are claiming to be
independent of it. To me, this translates somewhat into buddhist
"mindfulness".
> Yet the True Believers of God and Atheism think the matter is settled.
> Weird.
Indeed.
I remind my students that evolution is always current - not
some collection of historical stuff. And these ancient tendencies
toward authoritarian belief and such are present forces in the world.
They will not suddenly vanish and reason will not suddenly triumph.
They may not, in fact, ever vanish at all. They may vanquish
reason and prevail, as they have in the past. We live in very
tenuous times, at the edge of survival in this remarkable ability.
But then, so has everyone before us... ;)
Back in a few daze...
Keynes
This works in any rigid dogmatic system. The lone
survivor of a great disaster may say, "It was awful.
But God saved me!" Didn't God kill all the others,
Genius? Robertson and his ilk can blame hurricanes
on homosexuality with perfect certainty. They know
God is working in the world according to the Book.
The great earthquake in China was probably because
God found out there was a homosexual in Shanghai.
Dinosaur bones were just buried by God yesterday
to test our faith. We need prayer in the schools just
like in Palestine and Northern Ireland.
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
You can get it anywhere in any flavor.
But you won't like it.
Richard Corfield
> Scientific materialism is taken for an inescapable truth.
> But it really is what the Buddha called delusion.
> Zen is about transcending gain and loss, birth and death.
> Materialism is all about gain (presumably without loss,
> which is an impossibility). It's a world of conflicts
> and sorrows. But it's really just the common state
> of mind, as any other opinion must be.
There's two meanings of the word materialism. I think you confuse them.
Scientific materialism is the belief that everything in the world is
material. There's nothing other to explain it. It's all just stuff. I'd
say atoms if I didn't know there was more detail than that. Also known
as Naturalism, which is nothing to do with running around naked.
Materialism in terms of "I want lots of wealth and material things" is
independent of whether or not you believe the world is material or not.
You can have a very non-material outlook, believing in things like
non-greed, helping others, trying to make things good for many, while
still believing that everything out there is just material.
> Matter is irrelevant next to Mind. Even philosphy knows
> this. But materialists believe the other thing. (Even if
> they wish that they didn't.)
Very Zen (as I'm finding out talking to more Zen people). Next stop for
me Theravada?
- Richard
--
_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ Richard dot Corfield at gmail dot com
_/ _/ _/ _/
_/_/ _/ _/ Time is a one way street,
_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/_/ except in the Twilight Zone
Keynes
Actually, you're supposed to apply the scientific
method and do the experiments. But we're a race
of cheaters who suppose that the crib book will
get us through.
Richard Corfield
>
> I rarely seen you try to be rational, especially when
> (and if) talking about critical thinking. But I know of
> no atheist who accepts the "assumptions of the Book"
> except as hypothesis. In critical thinking, all hypotheses
> are equal (null) at the beginning and the "assumptions of
> the Book" are simply another hypothesis. If you call that
> "acceptance", it's a misuse of the term.
I think western atheists spend so long dealing with The Book is because
they are both born in a world where a lot of its norms are taken, and
because they face and sometimes feel threatened by evangelism by people
of The Book.
We see norms here like "Heavenly", "Hellish", "The Cook's / Computer
Programmer's / Whatever you want to do Bible". It's in our language.
Christianity at least aims to evangelise, so its proponents try to do
their best, such as mandating religious teaching in schools. There's a
boundary being pushed each way by both sides, so neither side feels it
can stop pushing.
Richard Corfield
>
> Hymnals (media and advertising) notwithstanding, could one
> therefore presume they've explored the efficacy of prayer,
> vs antibiotics and vaccines?
It has been done. I think the ones who knew they were being prayed for
came out slightly, but very slightly, worse in one study, but other
people have reported very slight improvement.
I'd guess at statistical noise or psychological effects of knowing
you're being prayed for combined with whatever you believe about that.
I wonder what would happen if you told a load of Christians that Vishnu
was being prayed to for their healing.
Keynes
Here we see the rational point of view, irrational as it
may be. Do vaccines and antibiotics 'save lives'?
No. One way or another folks find a way to die.
Do vaccines and antibiotics make life worth living?
Not at all. They are irrelevant in that respect.
Long life, short life, no difference.
Quality of life, big difference.
Life can't be 'saved'.
Even if it could, what would be the point of that?
"He who would save his life will lose it.
But he who loses his life for my sake will find it."
"The last shall be first, and the first shall be last."
Those sayings speak of a different mode of 'life'
even in this world, not in the never-never of time.
A quality, not a pointless (and imaginary) quantity.
Death used to be quick and merciful, by wounds,
loss of blood, infections, diseases, accident, etc.
But modern science has improved on that. Now you
can hang on for years and years of feebleness and
decrepitude, waiting for cancer to eat you alive.
Doctors make it as slow and excruciating as they
can, trying to 'save' your life.
There are fewer deaths in modern war, but medicine
has saved the wounded for a whole lot more suffering
as no longer able to fit in and connect with society,
physically, psychologically or both.
I don't say that folks ought to die, but simply that
they must, one way or another. Our rational meddling
has not been an improvement IMO.
Matters of life and death really are beside the point.
But it's all some folks can ever think about.
Tang Huyen
Hollywood Lee wrote:
> Déjà Flu:
>
> > Buddhism, otoh, makes four, and with *absolute* certainty.
> > Think about that.
>
> Can't help what those dumb ass Buddhist think.
*All* Buddhist teachings are mere hypotheses,
working hypotheses, and once they have done
their job, they are discarded, truth or not truth.
In the enunciation of the four Holy Truths, the
Buddha says of the second one: “this Holy
Truth of the arisal of suffering must be given
up (tam kho panidam dukkha-samudayam
ariya-saccam pahatabban, Skt. tat khalu
duhkha-samudayam arya-satyam abhijñaya
prahatavyam).” SA, 379, 103c19, SN, V, 422
(56, 11, 10), Sangha-bheda-vastu, I, 135,
Maha-vastu, III, 333.
He says what he says, and means it. After one
has realised the four Holy Truths (and not all
Buddhist saints, but only a few of them, do so),
they are gone for good, period, end of
discussion, all of them and not just the second
one. Contrariwise, if one still hangs on to them
or some of them, one has not realised them yet.
But Mrs. C. A. F. Rhys-Davids, in n. 1
appended to Woodward’s translation of the
Kindred Sayings, V, 358 says: “But we must
omit ariya-saccam; otherwise the text would
mean ‘the Ariyan truth about the arising of Ill
is to be put away. Craving has to be put
away.’” (See J. J. Jones, tr., Mahavastu,
London: Pali Text Society, 1956, III, 326, n.
1).
Mrs. Rhys-Davids, no shrinking violet when
it comes to expounding and defending her
attachment to the self (atta), shrinks back
from the unholy thought that a Holy Truth
can and should be put away! Heaven forbid!
Is there anything holy anymore? Her pious
attachment is quite moving.
Fu claims that Buddhism makes four truths
"with *absolute* certainty." He has a rich
and vivid imagination. Very Christian of him.
"What and what they think it, it is otherwise."
"The vast sky does not hinder white clouds
from flying."
Those dumb-ass Buddhist think quite freely,
it seems. They drop their truths, absolute or
not (by the way, when they drop their truths,
there is no "thud" sound, because their truths
are mere fluff, lighter than air). Some even
attain to the absence of views, the absence
of thinking.
Tang Huyen
Hollywood Lee
My version was shorter.
Keynes
Look into vipassana (mindfulness meditation)
as taught by the Buddha
Online book on Mindfulness Meditation
http://www.realization.org/page/namedoc0/mipe/mipe_0.htm
By materialism I mean belief in 'physical reality'
as the ultimate ground of being. Such a belief is
a severe limitation and the cause of suffering.
It's an opinion, not a fact, and it's called 'delusion'.
Self is assumed to be body and mind.
Body is matter, but mind is neither large
nor small, red nor blue, here nor there.
Folks consider the body to be expendable
if they can take their mind-soul disembodied into some
place in the sky after death. In fact, many would think
it a great improvement to put away the flesh with it's
appetites, it's necessities, it's stinks and it's pains.
Body without mind is nothing, a dead body.
Mind is everything. Even the matters of the world have
no power as great as the mind. For instance no material
thing, or apparent physical success can produce happiness.
Nixon was on top of the world with no higher to go, but he
was as unhappy as any greedy, insecure power seeker can be.
I think that he was happier after his downfall than before.
Materialist-physicalists suppose that body makes mind.
But isn't that backward? Mind knows body, but body
knows nothing. Body doesn't live, only mind can live.
We are minds, not bodies. But what is this Mind?
oxtail
> On 2008-05-14, Déjà Flu <cha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>:) You sound like Keynes here, bud. What "presumptions"?
>>
>> Hymnals (media and advertising) notwithstanding, could one
>> therefore presume they've explored the efficacy of prayer,
>> vs antibiotics and vaccines?
>
> It has been done. I think the ones who knew they were being prayed for
> came out slightly, but very slightly, worse in one study, but other
> people have reported very slight improvement.
>
> I'd guess at statistical noise or psychological effects of knowing
> you're being prayed for combined with whatever you believe about that.
>
> I wonder what would happen if you told a load of Christians that Vishnu
> was being prayed to for their healing.
>
> - Richard
>
Still trying to catch a sperm whale
with a fly fishing rod?
What are you using for bait?
--
oxtail
^@%>---*=#
"oxtail" <oxtail@empty> wrote in message
news:VaednbqgDIrPj7bV...@ptd.net...
your gonads. no wonder they're
not biting.
Richard Corfield
>>
>> It has been done. I think the ones who knew they were being prayed for
>> came out slightly, but very slightly, worse in one study, but other
>> people have reported very slight improvement.
>>
>> I'd guess at statistical noise or psychological effects of knowing
>> you're being prayed for combined with whatever you believe about that.
>>
>> I wonder what would happen if you told a load of Christians that Vishnu
>> was being prayed to for their healing.
>>
> with a fly fishing rod?
> What are you using for bait?
Tuna normally suffices.
Ali
He doesn't mind.
Ali
<Richard....@REVERSE.uk.me.littondale> wrote:
>On 2008-05-14, Déjà Flu <cha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>:) You sound like Keynes here, bud. What "presumptions"?
>>
>> Hymnals (media and advertising) notwithstanding, could one
>> therefore presume they've explored the efficacy of prayer,
>> vs antibiotics and vaccines?
>
>It has been done. I think the ones who knew they were being prayed for
>came out slightly, but very slightly, worse in one study, but other
>people have reported very slight improvement.
>
>I'd guess at statistical noise or psychological effects of knowing
>you're being prayed for combined with whatever you believe about that.
>
>I wonder what would happen if you told a load of Christians that Vishnu
>was being prayed to for their healing.
>
> - Richard
Vishful thinking.
Benjamin
Also makes you wonder what people view as the point of prayer. Is it
really only to have a physical affect on the person you're praying for?
I find that to be a fairly limited understanding of what prayer is.
Ben
dt
And do you want to believe in a beancounter god? *How many* prayers
have to be said, before this god heals the person? What if we miss it
by a few? Doesn't god know they want to get well, even if no praying is
done?
DT
Ned
"dt" <dal...@ATnewsguy.com> wrote in message
news:g0fb4n$gh2$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu...
>
>>>> I wonder what would happen if you told a load of Christians
>>>> that Vishnu was being prayed to for their healing.
>>>> - Richard
>>
>>> Vishful thinking.
>>
>> Also makes you wonder what people view as the point of prayer.
>> Is it really only to have a physical affect on the person you're
>> praying for? I find that to be a fairly limited understanding
>> of what prayer is.
>> Ben
>
> And do you want to believe in a beancounter god? *How many*
> prayers have to be said, before this god heals the person?
> What if we miss it by a few? Doesn't god know they want to
> get well, even if no praying is done?
> DT
>
Ask William if he recited the mani mantra 10,000 times.
Ned
Wilson
Because it don't matter.
--
Wilson
Wilson
Seems to me those kinds of things usually benefit the person
doing them. I do know that my attitude affects people around
me.
--
Wilson
Richard Corfield
>
> Look into vipassana (mindfulness meditation)
> as taught by the Buddha
>
> Online book on Mindfulness Meditation
> http://www.realization.org/page/namedoc0/mipe/mipe_0.htm
Something I've heard of - sounds interesting. I know there are retreats
where you can go off for a week to learn this - or try being mindful in
life. It's hard actually.
> By materialism I mean belief in 'physical reality'
> as the ultimate ground of being. Such a belief is
> a severe limitation and the cause of suffering.
> It's an opinion, not a fact, and it's called 'delusion'.
Though physical reality, and even ideas such as "Me", seem useful. Even
if we see ourselves as just processes as part of something bigger then
the convention surely helps.
> Body without mind is nothing, a dead body.
> Mind is everything. Even the matters of the world have
> no power as great as the mind. For instance no material
> thing, or apparent physical success can produce happiness.
> Nixon was on top of the world with no higher to go, but he
> was as unhappy as any greedy, insecure power seeker can be.
> I think that he was happier after his downfall than before.
This seems a common theme. I see happy wealthy people, but they tend to
be the ones for whom the wealth is a side effect not the reason. These
people have other aims in life. They just happen to also have wealth.
There seems to be a tendency in the really rich ones to try to use that
wealth to help others. Quite a nice situation to be in.
> Materialist-physicalists suppose that body makes mind.
> But isn't that backward? Mind knows body, but body
> knows nothing. Body doesn't live, only mind can live.
The bit of body that's grey and somewhat squishy anyway.
After all, if you damage it or chop bits away then mind changes. You can
also measure things like changing electromagnetic fields and changing
blood oxygen consumption as mind does things.
Richard Corfield
>>
>> Vishful thinking.
Maybe it would Ram the point home? Some may Shiva at the thought of it.
I'd Radha not think about that, better Sita-while.
> Also makes you wonder what people view as the point of prayer. Is it
> really only to have a physical affect on the person you're praying for?
> I find that to be a fairly limited understanding of what prayer is.
Prayer as a means of effecting your own mind, also as a social thing and
a means of sharing your problems with others in your community. That
seems very powerful.
The abstract shape of the Lord's Prayer in Christianity with its
sections including supplication. Devotion to something, whether Christ
or Dharma, seems a useful tool.
Noel Friesen
"Déjà Flu" <cha...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:gumdndP4PeTK-LfV...@comcast.com...
Tang Huyen
Richard Corfield wrote:
> Déjà Flu:
>
> >:) You sound like Keynes here, bud. What "presumptions"?
> >
> > Hymnals (media and advertising) notwithstanding, could one
> > therefore presume they've explored the efficacy of prayer,
> > vs antibiotics and vaccines?
>
> It has been done. I think the ones who knew they were being prayed for
> came out slightly, but very slightly, worse in one study, but other
> people have reported very slight improvement.
>
> I'd guess at statistical noise or psychological effects of knowing
> you're being prayed for combined with whatever you believe about that.
>
> I wonder what would happen if you told a load of Christians that Vishnu
> was being prayed to for their healing.
This is a red herring. Fu is here misleading
people with the error of overpervasion, in
that he insinuates that because prayer
doesn't work, therefore all spirituality is
useless.
There is in Buddhism an undeniable reality
which often resists and fails our wishes and
desires (including Fu's fake claim to "full
enlightenment").
As the Buddha says:
"Form is not-self. If form was self, this form
would not lead to affliction, and it could be
had of form: Let my form be thus, let my
form not be thus. And because form is
not-self that it therefore leads to affliction,
and that it cannot be had of form: Let my
form be thus, let my form not be thus." SN,
III, 66 (22, 59).
"When a monk does not dwell devoted to
cultivation (bhavana), even though such a
*wish* as this might arise in him: 'Oh, that
my mind might be liberated from the cankers
by non-clinging!', yet his mind is *not*
liberated from the cankers by non-clinging.
For what reason? It should be said: because
of lack of cultivation (a-bhavitatta)." SN, III,
153 (22, 101).
That part, the world of facts, is not where
the issue is. The issue is spiritual salvation,
which is scarcely related to facts. From the
outside looking in, salvation is purely
subjective, strictly sentimental, and has
nothing objective to pin it down to.
Contrariwise if it had something objective to
pin it down to, it would be bondage and
not freedom.
Then how are the world of facts and the
world of salvation related? The world of
salvation is accessible to one when one
opens oneself up, without condition,
without specification, without stipulation,
with the faith that such an opening up will
work, but without directing such a faith to
any object or any reference of any type. It
is mere opening up, period. The world of
facts is accessible when, from such an
unconditional opening up (which is the
default state, the state that is always there
unless one does something to obstruct it),
one narrows one's reception down to
everyday facts (sorry for the tautology,
but that is how it works). The world of
science is accessible by a further narrowing
down, when one adopts the strict,
rigourous norms and standards of science.
All three world-views (and there are some
others, like the shamanistic one) encounter
some sharable, repeatable reality, but even
the scientific one runs into issues of
probabilism and not determinism.
Two awakeneds, standing next to each
other and looking at the same scenery,
perceive it with less commonality than two
deludeds, because the deludeds share the
norms and standards of their milieu, which
filter theirt experience the same way,
whereas the awakeneds share their freedom
and normlessness, which let whatever world
of facts that they encounter free to be itself
without their interference. Awakening has
no content, is bound to no content, but is
mere opening up. If it had content, if it was
bound to content, it would be bondage
and not freedom.
Returning to praying, in salvation one prays,
or rather adopts a praying attitude, but
without asking for anything, for oneself or
for anybody else. One merely puts oneself
into a prayerful mood, without expecting
anything in the world of facts. In so doing,
one puts oneself into accord and harmony
with oneself and one's world, but such
accord and harmony are purely subjective
and strictly sentimental. If they exert some
infuence on the world of facts, fine, if not,
fine, but the point is that one doesn't expect
any result in the world of facts. Accord and
harmony are their own rewards (and at the
other extreme, aggravation brings no
reward).
Is salvation then an escape from the world
of facts? In salvation one doesn't take
anything seriously but rather fluffily, in
balance and perspective, detachment and
equanimity, measure and proportion, in
humour, irony, levity, and this attitude is
universal and covers the world of facts also.
The world of facts is not then something
hard and fast from which one escapes, but
counts as fluffy, airy and light as whatever
experience one experiences when one
opens up, and one shifts from one to the
other swimmingly and seamlessly, and not
as two separate worlds. However one
doesn't lose balance and perspective on
the world of facts, which is left to be itself,
though when one opens up, the one and
self-same world from the Kingdom of
Nature becomes the Kingdom of Grace
unasked. Nature becomes enchanted,
though such enchantment is purely
subjective and strictly sentimental.
What then is the value of salvation? It is
purely subjective and strictly sentimental.
The one and self-same world from the
Kingdom of Nature becomes the
Kingdom of Grace unasked, nature
becomes enchanted, though such
transformation is purely subjective and
strictly sentimental. One changes one's
attitude, which is the only thing that can
be changed, and when one changes one's
attitude, one's perception of the world
changes, but the world itself remains the
same, only one opens up more from one's
own side. One redeems oneself, and when
one redeems oneself, one also redeems
one's world, but the world of facts
remains unchanged. One attains to calm,
peace, serenity, grace, and freedom,
whatever the world is or is not. That part
is the realm of freedom, and the world
of facts remains the same, though now it
gets situated in a different light, a different
perspective, namely the light of freedom,
the perspective of freedom. It all happens
as if God shone his light on the world and
the world lit up in freedom, was saturated
with freedom.
In eternity all is fleeting and all is eternity.
In grace all is fluff and all is grace.
Tang Huyen
Tang Huyen
Hollywood Lee wrote:
> Déjà Flu:
>
> > Tang Huyen:
>
> >> The atheists -- I mean Western atheists -- capitulate
> >> to the object of their objection right off, because
> >> they accept the premisses (sic) of what they reject,
> >> namely those of the Book. In critical thinking, one
> >> starts by examining everything, especially one's
> >> assumptions, and here they begin by accepting the
> >> assumptions of the Book and the thought-world that
> >> it spawns. Therefore they have lost the war before
> >> any battle begins.
>
> > !
> >
> > I rarely seen you try to be rational, especially when
> > (and if) talking about critical thinking. But I know of
> > no atheist who accepts the "assumptions of the Book"
> > except as hypothesis.
>
> To the extent they both make claims of truth and certainty based on mere
> appearances, they both sing from the same Song Book of Presumptions,
> even if their particular selections vary.
In life as in debate, one should be careful about how
one approaches it, and in debate one should be careful
about the terms in which one takes it. If one's
interlocutor throws some conditions of debate (the
terms of the debate) at one and one immediately
jumps on them and takes them for oneself, one has
already suffered defeat even before the debate begins,
as one has already been framed. If one doesn't want
defeat, one has to choose the terms of the debate for
oneself so that one doesn't get framed (by one's
interlocutor) and can proceed the way one wants to
proceed, rather than the way one's interlocutor wants
one to proceed.
Even before that, one has to decide whether such a
debate is worth it. If, as Lee Rudolph says about a
"supreme being" (5 Oct 2007): <<I have no idea what
a "being" is supposed to be, but mostly because I can't
assign any non-fatuous meaning to the notion of any
hierarchy among such "being"s which is such that
there need or could be any "supreme" member of that
hierarchy>>, then why bother devoting time and
energy to fight such a fatuous idea? Why not let it
wallow in its inanity of its own accord?
The agnostics accept the premisses (correct spelling,
see OED) of the Book, but only negate them. Lee
Rudolph is different, in that he stands back from
Bookist assumptions and refuses them right off, and
therefore does not need to fight them. He sees them
as inane and fatuous, and therefore that it is not worth
wasting his time fighting them.
On these boards, Stumper and Julian are very skilful
about refusing to play by the terms of somebody else
and are very good about imposing their terms on
others. They can't be framed. They play by their own
rules.
Sphere is a sad example of getting framed by what he
fights against, more specifically about God, to him the
Bookist God. Before and after his crash, he morosely
chases the topic around and around, and is obviously
very attached to it. In fighting the Bookist God, he
doesn't pay attention to the possibility that he, Sphere,
has enslaved himself to the object of his scorn, the
Bookist God. He is wholly "taken in" and "sucked in"
by what he purports to fight. He is the exact anti-type
of the type that he fights against, which is a good
definition of being framed (it doesn't matter whether
one is framed in concave or convex, in either case one
is framed). He has no awareness of what he does. As
the Book says, he knows not what he does. He doesn't
reflect on what the Book says: Vanity of vanities, etc.
Here in logic there is the distinction between a contrary
negation and a contradictory negation.
The negation is contrary, in that, for instance, the
good/skilful is opposed to the bad/unskilful, and axiology
works on that single dimension, in that the former is taken
to be of more worth than the latter, and both extremes
are in the same dimension and there is nothing outside
of the dimension. The dimension is the whole range of
validity of application, and one's thought moves *only
within* it. It exhausts the scope of thought on the topic.
In Buddhism, the negation is contradictory, in that the
good/skilful is opposed to the bad/unskilful, but that
there is that which is outside of that opposition, and
axiology works on that dimension *and* in excess of
that dimension, in that the former (good/skilful) is taken
to be of more worth than the latter (bad/unskilful), but
that both extremes are in the same dimension and there
is something *outside of* the dimension. The dimension
is not the whole range of validity of application, as there
is something that the dimension does not apply to, does
not encompass, and is flatly invalid with.
In modern logic, there is the distinction between an
abstract quality and the concrete examplifications of it.
It is not the case that [the colour green is green or not
green], because it is abstract, but physical things can be
green or not green. The colour green is outside the
range of application of green and not green, as this range
pertains only to physical things, which can be green or
not green.
The Buddha says that a person composes harmful body
compositions, harmful speech compositions, harmful
mind compositions, and having composed them he
arises in a harmful world. Ditto with harmless
compositions, and both harmful and harmless
compositions. AN, I, 122-123 (3, 23), Samtani,
Arthaviniscaya-Sutra, 115, also Zitate, 232.
The Buddha says that there are four kinds of deeds, the
black deed with black result (vipaka), the white deed
with white result, the black and white deed with black
and white result, and the neither black nor white deed
with neither black nor white result, it has no result (Skt.
a-vipaka). The first three are the same as those of the
preceding text; the fourth and last (which is, though this
is left implicit, neither harmful nor harmless, and
therefore not deed at all, and which will not lead to any
re-arisal in any world, harmful or harmless) is the
volition (cetana) to cut all three other kinds of deed,
leading to the ending of deed (kamma-kkhaya, Skt.
karma-ksaya). AN, II, 230-231 (4, 232), MA, 111,
600a26-28, Zitate, 312, Stache-Rosen, Sangiti-sutra,
113, Harivarman, Tattva-siddhi, T, 32, 1646, 281a23-24,
Maha-vibhasa, T, 27, 1545, 589c.
At AN, III, 387 (6, 57), the blowing-out (nibbana) is
called neither black nor white.
The Buddha says: "By the cutting of craving, deed is
cut; by the cutting of deed, suffering is cut." SN, V, 86
(46, 26).
Thus skilful and unskilful deeds are both dropped and
indeed all deed is dropped. Here one has to distinguish
between means and end. The teaching on skilful and
unskilful deeds is mere means, and they lead to the
ending of deed altogether, which is the end, namely
liberation. In liberation one has dropped both extremes,
and not only has one dropped both extremes, but one
has also dropped the dimension that encompasses both
extremes.
In Buddhism, the good/skilful is opposed to the
bad/unskilful, both belong to the same dimension, and
both belong to delusion. Awakening escapes that
dimension, is outside of that dimension, so constitutes
a contradictory negation, in that the pair good/skilful
versus bad/unskilful does not apply to it, is flatly invalid
with it. Awakening is *outside of* the dimension
constituted by good/skilful and bad/unskilful. Both
extremes and the dimension constituted by them has to
be dropped altogether for awakening to occur.
The pair good/skilful versus bad/unskilful is made up by
mentation and works within mentation, but is good to
mentation (its maker), and does not extend beyond
mentation. Awakening ends mentation and thus surpasses
the pair good/skilful versus bad/unskilful.
What it comes down to is that eradicating in Buddhism
applies to *both* good/skilful and bad/unskilful, though
*at the beginning* some works may need to be done in
the good/skilful versus bad/unskilful line, in the favour of
the former and to the detriment of the later, to prepare
for the eventual dropping of both. But the work is not
done until both are dropped singly and together.
Just to remind ourselves of what extremes the Buddha
inveighs against explicitly, they are: good/skilful and
bad/unskilful, merit and demerit, male and female,
existence (bhava) and non-existence (vi-bhava),
self-indulgence and self-mortification, eternalism and
annihilationism, name and form (nama-rupa), etc.
The last pair, name and form (nama-rupa), is commonly
understood in our time as mind and matter. It is one link
in Dependent Arisal, and it has to be dropped. Both
members of it have to be dropped, and the dimension
constituted by them (name and form, mind and matter)
has to be dropped.
In liberation one drops all such dimensions of thought,
and each dimension is constituted by a pair of extremes.
Liberation is liberation from all such dimensions. It is
free of norms and standards, baskets and cages, criteria
and references.
Tang Huyen
DharmaTroll
<Richard.Corfi...@REVERSE.uk.me.littondale> wrote:
> On 2008-05-14, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Look into vipassana (mindfulness meditation)
> > as taught by the Buddha
>
> > Online book on Mindfulness Meditation
> >http://www.realization.org/page/namedoc0/mipe/mipe_0.htm
>
> Something I've heard of - sounds interesting. I know there are retreats
> where you can go off for a week to learn this - or try being mindful in
> life. It's hard actually.
>
> > By materialism I mean belief in 'physical reality'
> > as the ultimate ground of being. Such a belief is
> > a severe limitation and the cause of suffering.
> > It's an opinion, not a fact, and it's called 'delusion'.
>
> Though physical reality, and even ideas such as "Me", seem useful. Even
> if we see ourselves as just processes as part of something bigger then
> the convention surely helps.
>
> > Body without mind is nothing, a dead body.
Note how dualists like Keynes assume that body without mind is a body
missing a soul/self/spook. Rather, body withingt mind is better
expressed as damaged, dysfunctional body; and body with mind is better
expressed as functioning body. There simply is no reason to posit
Keynes' extra ineffable, intangible spook. That's why the mind/body
dualism of Keynes and Descartes just just doesn't make sense anymore,
given what we know about the function of brains.
> > Mind is everything. Even the matters of the world have
> > no power as great as the mind. For instance no material
> > thing, or apparent physical success can produce happiness.
Not an argument of a spook or soul.
That all can be restated as the power of the functioning (i.e.
conscious) brain.
> > Nixon was on top of the world with no higher to go, but he
> > was as unhappy as any greedy, insecure power seeker can be.
> > I think that he was happier after his downfall than before.
Again, not an argument for a spook or soul.
>
> This seems a common theme. I see happy wealthy people, but they tend to
> be the ones for whom the wealth is a side effect not the reason. These
> people have other aims in life. They just happen to also have wealth.
>
> There seems to be a tendency in the really rich ones to try to use that
> wealth to help others. Quite a nice situation to be in.
>
> > Materialist-physicalists suppose that body makes mind.
> > But isn't that backward? Mind knows body, but body
> > knows nothing.
No. Everything that is known is known by brains. Minds, like knowing,
are software teorms. Brains are the hardware. Again note how Keynes
tries to say that hole his spookie ghost knows. No. Information is
gained physically through physical sense organs, and experienced by
brains interpreting sense se data and stored in brains, in neural
fibers. No room for Keynes immaterial, inneffable ghost in the neural
net. Drill a hole through Keynes brain and no more 'mind' or
'thinking', or 'consciousness'. Period. This is a brute fact.
>
> The bit of body that's grey and somewhat squishy anyway.
>
> After all, if you damage it or chop bits away then mind changes.
Exactly.
> You can also measure things like changing electromagnetic fields
> and changing blood oxygen consumption as mind does things.
>
> - Richard
Yup.
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
wrote:
> Richard Corfield wrote:
> > Déjà Flu:
>
> > >:) You sound like Keynes here, bud. What "presumptions"?
>
> > > Hymnals (media and advertising) notwithstanding, could one
> > > therefore presume they've explored the efficacy of prayer,
> > > vs antibiotics and vaccines?
>
> > It has been done. I think the ones who knew they were being prayed for
> > came out slightly, but very slightly, worse in one study, but other
> > people have reported very slight improvement.
>
> > I'd guess at statistical noise or psychological effects of knowing
> > you're being prayed for combined with whatever you believe about that.
>
> > I wonder what would happen if you told a load of Christians that Vishnu
> > was being prayed to for their healing.
>
> This is a red herring. Fu is here misleading
> people with the error of overpervasion, in
> that he insinuates that because prayer
> doesn't work, therefore all spirituality is
> useless.
And interesting point, Tang.
First, I don't know if Fu is insinuating this, and you are notorious
for projecting false motives and intentions into others, Tang.
But suppose you are right. Then I agree it would be a mistake to
throw out spirutuality. However, I think it would be very reasonable
to throw out superstition. You can have all the ethics and mystery
without superstition and blind faith. Indeed I claim that
spirituality without blind faith is even stronger than with it.
To know that praying to a magical beastie doesn't work, and that this
has been demonstrated over and over, may help you find a more
authentic kind of spirituality. Just as knowing that magical snake
oils and acupuncture and reflexology and homeopathy are all just
exploiting the placebo effect might lead you to seek out actual
medicine that is causally effective.
In several other posts, my mind/body dualist nemesis Keynes claims
over and over that to ground oneself in naturalism is deluded, and
only in supernaturalism with his capital-lettered babble, is wisdom to
be found. The idea that we are natural animals, that brains are
conscious, and no ghost is needed, horrifies him.
It likewise horrified his Christian counterparts like Jerry Falwell.
Creationist fundies see Darwin as the anti-Christ. Why? Because he
said we were wholly, fundamentally animals. No spookies. No
ineffable beasties. No magic powers. Our consciousness is the fruit
on the tree of evolution. That horrifies the Christianist fundies as
well as the supernaturalists like Keynes here.
Why is nature so scary? Why are Keynes and his Christionist
counterparts so quick to condemn grounding oneself in the physical
(natural) world as deluded or evil, and find clinging to magic
ineffable minds or Gods gives them a feeling of security?
The original Buddha's Buddhism has a wonderful dry, physicalist/
naturalist sense to it. The Mahayanist and Tibetan flavors get more
supernatural. There are Buddhisms for all types. Buy why the
alienation from nature, from the physical.
The Atlantic Monthly republished one of my favorite articles on its
100th anniversary. This is great. You like what I say -- read this.
It was one of the things that stirred me spiritually in high school.
You can't stand me? Read this -- it will give you a big target to
attack.
For a lot of these discussions seem to boil down to supernaturalists
saying that grounding oneself in physicality, in nature, is deluded or
evil, and naturalists responding, no it's not, and that the deepest
spirituality is the rediscovering a deep interconnection with nature,
a unity with nature, instead of a split from or transcendence of
nature. Regardless of which side you are on, this article is a great
read. It jarred me out of Catholicism and toward Buddhism, at least
the physicalist, agnostic Buddhism that is found in Theravadins such
as Stephen Batchelor.
Enjoy.
--DharmaTroll
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/190804/burroughs
The Divine Soil | John Burroughs | April 1908 | The Atlantic Online
Excerpt:
It jars upon our sensibilities and disturbs our preconceived notions
to be told that the spiritual has its root in the carnal and is as
truly its product as the flower is the product of the roots and the
stalk of the plant. The conception does not cheapen or degrade the
spiritual, it elevates the carnal, the material. To regard the soul
and body as one, or to ascribe to consciousness a physiological
origin, is not detracting from its divinity, it is rather conferring
divinity upon the body. One thing is inevitably linked with another.
How science has enlarged and ennobled and purified our conception of
the universe; how it has cleaned out the evil spirits that have so
long terrified mankind. It has prepared the way for a conception of
man, his origin, his development, and in a measure his destiny, that
at last makes him at home in the universe.
Keynes
wrote:
>On May 14, 6:16 pm, Richard Corfield
><Richard.Corfi...@REVERSE.uk.me.littondale> wrote:
>> On 2008-05-14, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> > Look into vipassana (mindfulness meditation)
>> > as taught by the Buddha
>>
>> > Online book on Mindfulness Meditation
>> >http://www.realization.org/page/namedoc0/mipe/mipe_0.htm
>>
>> Something I've heard of - sounds interesting. I know there are retreats
>> where you can go off for a week to learn this - or try being mindful in
>> life. It's hard actually.
>>
>> > By materialism I mean belief in 'physical reality'
>> > as the ultimate ground of being. Such a belief is
>> > a severe limitation and the cause of suffering.
>> > It's an opinion, not a fact, and it's called 'delusion'.
>>
>> Though physical reality, and even ideas such as "Me", seem useful. Even
>> if we see ourselves as just processes as part of something bigger then
>> the convention surely helps.
>>
>> > Body without mind is nothing, a dead body.
>
>Note how dualists like Keynes assume that body without mind is a body
>missing a soul/self/spook. Rather, body withingt mind is better
>expressed as damaged, dysfunctional body; and body with mind is better
>expressed as functioning body. There simply is no reason to posit
>Keynes' extra ineffable, intangible spook.
Are you determined to misunderstand?
You can't be as thick as you seem.
There is nothing more tangible than mind.
Unless (as may be the case) that you are
out of your mind. But even that mischief
would still be just an idea in a mind.
Without mind what could there ever be?
If there were a billion universes and no
mind anywhere, it would all be unknown
and as good as non-existent.
>That's why the mind/body
>dualism of Keynes and Descartes just just doesn't make sense anymore,
>given what we know about the function of brains.
>
Tell me how atoms (which know nothing)
make neurons (which know nothing) that exchange
chemicals and charges (which know nothing)
produce a mind which knows something.
I'm dying to hear all about that hocus pocus.
Matter exists as an object of mind.
(Brains or no brains.)
You're a meathead, son. A big Fat Meathead.
It's your decision, not mine.
>> > Mind is everything. Even the matters of the world have
>> > no power as great as the mind. For instance no material
>> > thing, or apparent physical success can produce happiness.
>
>Not an argument of a spook or soul.
>That all can be restated as the power of the functioning (i.e.
>conscious) brain.
>
Congratulations. I never did argue for a spook.
You're the guy who dreamed that up.
Apparently you are infested with spooks.
>> > Nixon was on top of the world with no higher to go, but he
>> > was as unhappy as any greedy, insecure power seeker can be.
>> > I think that he was happier after his downfall than before.
>
>Again, not an argument for a spook or soul.
>>
Are you finally paying attention?
Ha! Not in a million years.
>> This seems a common theme. I see happy wealthy people, but they tend to
>> be the ones for whom the wealth is a side effect not the reason. These
>> people have other aims in life. They just happen to also have wealth.
>>
>> There seems to be a tendency in the really rich ones to try to use that
>> wealth to help others. Quite a nice situation to be in.
>>
>> > Materialist-physicalists suppose that body makes mind.
>> > But isn't that backward? Mind knows body, but body
>> > knows nothing.
>
>No. Everything that is known is known by brains. Minds, like knowing,
>are software teorms. Brains are the hardware. Again note how Keynes
>tries to say that hole his spookie ghost knows.
After you nail your foot to the floor
do you ever wonder why you're going
in circles? (Just curious.)
>No. Information is
>gained physically through physical sense organs, and experienced by
>brains interpreting sense se data and stored in brains, in neural
>fibers.
Ah. The famous Rube Goldberg theory of mind.
>No room for Keynes immaterial, inneffable ghost in the neural
>net. Drill a hole through Keynes brain and no more 'mind' or
>'thinking', or 'consciousness'. Period. This is a brute fact.
>
You brute. Is destruction all you can do?
However a mind arises (and you really have no clue
how that's done) there is work for the mind.
Brains or no brains, you live absolutely and
completely in your mind and nowhere else.
Can you even imagine any other sort of 'being'?
And your mind is hopelessly askew and untidy.
It isn't matter that tells you about space and time
and the so-called facts of life -- it's your mind.
If mind can tell you that it could well be lying
or mistaken. But you know by means of your
big fat head what's really true - your mind says so.
Oh no. It's meat that tells you everything.
You have what's called cranial-rectal syndrome.
>>
>> The bit of body that's grey and somewhat squishy anyway.
>>
>> After all, if you damage it or chop bits away then mind changes.
>
>Exactly.
>
>> You can also measure things like changing electromagnetic fields
>> and changing blood oxygen consumption as mind does things.
>>
>> - Richard
>
>Yup.
>
>--DharmaTroll
You are so deep in delusion you'll never get out.
Your ego depends on it. So is it really your ego
that you have, or is it the ego that has you?
Keynes
wrote:
>On May 14, 7:05 pm, Tang Huyen <tanghuyen{dele...@gmail.com[remove]>
Damn. An escaped catholic.
And he has mistaken me for the Pope!
I fear you're still deeply FU, D'Troll.
You jump from one pole to the other, first perfectly and
certainly ignorant one way, and then perfectly and ignorantly
certain the opposite way. Who's the fundamentalist? Sad case.
Here's a clue. Whatever one thinks must be wrong.
Human understanding is not up to the task of understanding.
RaaN
>
> By materialism I mean belief in 'physical reality'
> as the ultimate ground of being. Such a belief is
> a severe limitation and the cause of suffering.
> It's an opinion, not a fact, and it's called 'delusion'.
>
> Self is assumed to be body and mind.
> Body is matter, but mind is neither large
> nor small, red nor blue, here nor there.
>
> Folks consider the body to be expendable
> if they can take their mind-soul disembodied into some
> place in the sky after death. In fact, many would think
> it a great improvement to put away the flesh with it's
> appetites, it's necessities, it's stinks and it's pains.
>
> Body without mind is nothing, a dead body.
> Mind is everything. Even the matters of the world have
> no power as great as the mind. For instance no material
> thing, or apparent physical success can produce happiness.
> Nixon was on top of the world with no higher to go, but he
> was as unhappy as any greedy, insecure power seeker can be.
> I think that he was happier after his downfall than before.
>
> Materialist-physicalists suppose that body makes mind.
> But isn't that backward? Mind knows body, but body
> knows nothing. Body doesn't live, only mind can live.
>
> We are minds, not bodies. But what is this Mind?
What is that mind? The mind that wrote that is deluded beyond belief.
--
RaaN
RaaN
> On Wed, 14 May 2008 17:26:37 -0700 (PDT), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
Try reading Gregory Bateson "Mind and Nature" and get a damn clue.
--
RaaN
possum
"RaaN" <raan...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:bdf5af5e-63c1-489b...@x41g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
my body has a mind of its own.
> --
> RaaN
Keynes
What mind? Aren't we all just a bunch of Fat heads?
There is no mind, no delusion, no liberation, just brains.
And asses.
>> --
>> RaaN
>
>
>my body has a mind of its own.
Body does what it does, but it doesn't think
or know anything (as we consider that we do).
Citizen Jimserac
> exploiting the placebo effect might lead you to seek out actual
> medicine that is causally effective.
>
Er... pardon me for interspersing a comment but
Homeopathy works though its mechanisms remain unknown
and the placebo theory explanation is just that,
a theory.
Acupuncture has had significantly more definitive research than
Homeopathy and its operational mechanisms are starting to be known and
understood. Research clearly shows MRI activity, for example in the
visual cortex when Acupuncture points related to the eye
are needled and NO such activity when random other points are
selected.
Would you like some links?
Sorry to be off topic but there has been a concerted
attempt to kill of an entire field of medicine,
Homeopathy, on specious grounds and easily
made fallacies such as your offhand comment
need to be set right.
About reflexology I have no knowledge of it nor opinion.
Citizen Jimserac
Hollywood Lee
Mine's still shorter. Odd thing to brag about, I know.
DharmaTroll
Tangible means physically touchable, aka physical.
Brains are tangible, and minds are functioning brains.
> > Unless (as may be the case) that you are
> > out of your mind. But even that mischief
> > would still be just an idea in a mind.
>
> > Without mind what could there ever be?
> > If there were a billion universes and no
> > mind anywhere, it would all be unknown
> > and as good as non-existent.
Wrong again. There WAS a universe that grew for billions of years
without mind anywhere, and it was meaningful and better than non-
existent because it eventually, after 13.7 billion years without mind,
grew to the point where it became conscious (i.e, grew us -- critters
with conscious brains).
> > >That's why the mind/body
> > >dualism of Keynes and Descartes just just doesn't make sense anymore,
> > >given what we know about the function of brains.
>
> > Tell me how atoms (which know nothing)
> > make neurons (which know nothing) that exchange
> > chemicals and charges (which know nothing)
> > produce a mind which knows something.
The same way on-off circuits in my computer know nothing but in
combination they produce this amazing machine that can beat me every
time in chess and can send my posts to this list.
Like the IDiots (Intelligent Design / Creationists) you are so
convinced that nature is crippled and stupid and has to be
supplemented with your supernatural spookery, Keynes. How did you get
to have such a prejudice against nature and see it as so stupid? Did
you go to Catholic schools too?
> > You're a meathead, son. A big Fat Meathead.
> > It's your decision, not mine.
We're all meatheads. It's nobody's decision. It's how we evolved and
who we are. Why add a spook? What is the compulsion. Stop insulting
for one moment and examine your fear, why don't you?
> > >No room for Keynes immaterial, inneffable ghost in the neural
> > >net. Drill a hole through Keynes brain and no more 'mind' or
> > >'thinking', or 'consciousness'. Period. This is a brute fact.
>
> > You brute. Is destruction all you can do?
Destruction of idiocy opens the door to intelligence. Emptying
oneself of superstition allows one to open to the deep mystery.
Letting go of stupid thoughts allows mindfulness. All you do is add:
more stupid thoughts, stupid supernatural beasties, stupid judgments.
The key is emptying, the key is less, not more, Keynes. As usual,
you've got it all ass-backwards, you dualist dummkopf!
BINGO!!! Whoa. "Mind and Nature" was the single most philosophically
moving book I recall reading in college. I bought at least a dozen
copies for friends. Yeah, that's the book, and it deals just with
this issue, doesn't it? Cool, RaaN. Awesome. Everyone should read
Bateson's "Mind and Nature" if you haven't already.
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
> On Wed, 14 May 2008 18:10:00 -0700 (PDT),DharmaTroll<dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
While that formula works well for you (but you're a willing
conspirator, defending only bullshit and shunning anything that is
coherent or has been tested), it isn't generalizable.
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
> > exploiting the placebo effect might lead you to seek out actual
> > medicine that is causally effective.
>
> Er... pardon me for interspersing a comment but
> Homeopathy works though its mechanisms remain unknown
> and the placebo theory explanation is just that,
> a theory.
No, homeoeopathy has been demonstrated over and over to be equal to
sugar water. The placebo effect is a theory, but one which has be
demonstrated and verified. Gravity is just a theory as well. But it
also has a lot of quantitative data. So does modern physics. It's
all just theory, but it's very testable. Put something in your
microwave oven. We can test if it really gets hot, and see if it's
only a subjective feeling. It isn't.
Whereas homeopathy fails ever test. It babbles nonsense, and makes
ridiculous pseudoscientific claims. It's utter nonsense, on the level
of astrology. The tests all fail.
>
> Acupuncture has had significantly more definitive research than
> Homeopathy and its operational mechanisms are starting to be known and
> understood.
You mean the tests where random needles are placed instead of at the
places according to the woo-woo explanations? The clients did equally
well, and both much better than those with no treatment. So what
rationalization do you make to explain why random needles do as well
as acupuncture according to the ancient secret magical mystical
formulas? Again, it's the placebo effect.
> Would you like some links?
>
> Sorry to be off topic but there has been a concerted
> attempt to kill of an entire field of medicine,
> Homeopathy, on specious grounds and easily
> made fallacies such as your offhand comment
Homeopathy isn't medicine: it's pure bullshit. There's nothing to
kill but superstition.
Except for the case of FairDeal Homeopathy: the only honest hucksters
of the bunch.
--DharmaTroll
Reposting from earlier:
On May 10, 10:31 am, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
> It's still the old medicine show with banjos,
> dancing, and miracle cures in a bottle. But
> these days the hucksters all wear white coats,
> so they must know what they're talking about,
> mustn't they?
Actually there's a big difference, Keynes -- it's called clinical
trials. Hucksters hate clinical trials and squirm at the idea of
being put to the test, whether they are wearing white coats or not.
Real doctors and researchers, on the other hand, demand an
extraordinary amount of clinical trials. When they are sloppy, they
make the news, but it's a completely different world.
Chiropractors are notorious for hating clinical trials. It's because
chiropractic doesn't do any better than placebo in repeated studies,
except for a slight improvement in lower back pain. Massage
therapists do way better. Acupuncture always does much better than
control groups not having acupuncture -- but then recently studies
were done that compared traditional acupuncture to acupuncture
administered the same way except chose random locations instead of the
spots on the 'meridians' and where the flowing of the 'chi'
harmonizes, and so forth. The fake random acupuncture did as well as
the random acupuncture -- leading to the conclusion that like with
chiropractors, it's the placebo effect at work.
If you study the histories of these fascinating pseudosciences, you
can see just what is going on. Acupuncture came from the Chinese idea
of 'chi' which was a spiritual wind that flowed through the veins.
You see, they weren't allowed to have autopsies in China. The only
opportunity for anatomy lessons came after battles (or executions,
where beheading was the preferred method).
Professor Yuan Zhong of Beijing Union Medical University, a member of
the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, is a specialist in Chinese
medical history focusing on medical philosophy. He explains that after
the fall of the ax, blood quickly leaves the body and ancient
observers assumed that this liquid came from the body cavity, not from
the curious, seemingly empty tubes that they later were able to see
after the blood had drained away. We now know that these other vessels
are the carotid arteries and jugular veins, which transport blood.
Ancient observers guessed that because these tubes appeared empty and
deflated, that some form of air or special gas must inflate them,
hence the name qi (air). They believed that our bodies were inflated
and nourished by this special air and that the arteries and veins were
simply part of the respiratory system. According to the ancient
medical text Ling Shu Jing Shui, this is where the idea of qi began.
Pulse diagnosis appeared in China during the early Warring States
period (about 2,500 years ago). At that time, doctors believed that
what they were feeling were pulses of air (qi), not blood. Later, when
closer observations revealed residual blood inside veins (trapped
there by the bicuspid valves), the theory of qi was modified to state
that veins carried blood and arteries carried air. As early as the
late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) the famous anatomist Wang Qingren held
to the mistaken belief that arteries carried air, not blood. Yet
today, acupuncture is still performed based on mystical theories and
talk of 'meridians' and so on all based on the mistaken belief that
arteries and veins carried mystical spiritual life-force instead of
blood!
Chiropractic is no better. It was invented in 1895 by Canadian-born
Daniel David Palmer, who called himself a "magnetic healer" and was a
leftover vitalist from the 19th century. He denied that viruses and
bacteria exist, and claimed that they were all part of a scientific
conspiracy. Instead, he babbled about "vital energy" which he called
"Innate Intelligence". His belief was that this Innate Intelligence
flowed through the body from the brain, through the spine, the nerves
and on to the various organs of the body and that all disease without
exception was caused by the misalignment of vertebrae. A vertebra that
is out of alignment, known as a "subluxation", blocked the natural
flow of the vital "Innate Intelligence" through the body; thus leading
to disease. Nowadays, chiropractors are given pseudo-degrees in all
sorts of stuff, much of it legitimate, like counseling and physiology,
but underneath they still claim to cure everything and are grounded in
quackery, and they avoid clinical trials like the plague.
I could go on and on. But no, the hucksters are not anything like
science, because when clinical trials don't validate their claims, the
scientists admit they are wrong and they fix their mistakes. The
hucksters only poo-poo science and then provide woo-woo unfalsifiable
explanations and excuses. Once again: science good -- hucksters
poo-poo and woo-woo. Got it?
Just to be fair, there is one pseudoscience snake-oil peddler on the
net that is actually honest, and my hat is off to them. Well done and
good job by the company, Fair Deal Homeopathy! Blurb from the web
site of this wonderful pseudo-pseudo-science company below.
--DharmaTroll
http://www.fdhom.co.uk/products.asp
What am I buying?
FairDeal Homeopathy will supply you with a carefully prepared
homeopathic preparation*. Carefully selected ingredients are diluted
and shaken (homeopaths call this shaking process "succussion") beyond
the level where there is any active ingredient left in the solution.
This "remedy†" is then dripped onto sugar pills which are mailed out
to you immediately. We'll also send you some information on homeopathy
in general.
What do I do with my remedy**?
As soon as you receive your remedy, take the first of the pills.
You'll hopefully start feeling better as the placebo effect kicks in.
Take the pills as often, or as infrequently as you feel is required.
If you still feel ill, go and see your doctor or local pharmacist.
Remember, homeopathy of any kind is not a substitute for real medical
advice or treatment.
Why do you say you don't lie?
Homeopathy works through a complicated interaction with the human body
and mind known as the "placebo effect". Many homeopaths will try and
explain any health improvements through made-up science such as
"memory of water", "nano-particles" or other non-existant molecular
interaction. The truth is that the human mind and body is a remarkable
combination, and is perfectly capable of healing itself. If you think
a remedy is helping you, it may well actually do so, especially in the
case of self-limiting illnesses (ones that, if left alone will get
better anyway). For some reason, many homeopaths feel they have to
tell their patients lies and fairy stories, and try to baffle them
with pseudo-science. Here at FairDeal Homeopathy, we treat you like
adults, and only tell you the truth.
What side effects can I expect?
None. That's one of the great things about homeopathy - there are no
side effects (unless you're diabetic, allergic to sugar, or water) as
there are neither actual medical effects, nor active ingredients in
the remedies!
Are your products tested on animals?
Absolutely not.
Can I get homeopathic vaccines from you guys?
NO!! If you're traveling to parts of the world where you run the risk
of picking up a disease, make sure you get vaccinations as recommended
by your doctor. In addition, make sure your children are vaccinated
properly. Homeopathy is not capable of protecting you or your family
from any future medical condition or disease. You're more than welcome
to take our products alongside proper vaccination programmes if you
like though.
Awaken21
Yes, it's true, it appears accupuncture has scientific evidence to
support it. The only thing is the map used by the Chinese may be
slightly inaccurate in that it is not detailed enough. Medical
Scientists are now using technology to create a more accurate of the
map of accupuncture areas of insertion and effect. Accupuncture is in
fact scientific, whereas Chiropractics is still withcraft.
Keep up folks, we're doubling our knowledge every 4 years. :)
DharmaTroll
Well, the studies with the random needles really question the value of
acupuncture. And while Chiropractors are indeed American
witchdoctors, they now go through intensive training where they get
information that physical therapists and psychotherapists get, so that
legitimate skills are added to the woo-woo. This is intentionally
done to hide the nonsense -- when people get positive benefits, rather
than attribute it to counseling skills, they will attribute it to the
woo-woo, and then say, "see, Chiropractic is effective" when it's
really all the peripheral training that is creating any benefit other
than the placebo effect.
Homeopathy is the worst of the bunch, of course.
--DharmaTroll
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sue_blackmore/2006/05/lets_not_fund_quacks_in_our_nh.html
Homeopathy is bunkum:
If any money is going spare for the NHS, let's spend it on real
medicine that actually works.
Sue Blackmore, Zen Buddhist and author of "The Meme Machine"
May 23, 2006
A group of brave doctors has tried, again, to stop our precious NHS
resources being spent on quackery.
Oh yes, I'll get in trouble for saying "quackery"; I'll be told that
alternative therapists are not quacks, that they are all kind, caring,
open-minded people who help the sick and fight against the oppression
of closed-minded scientists who don't understand the holistic nature
of these truly spiritual human beings.
But these poor doctors will have it worse. They will get hate mail
from people who claim to be more loving and caring than them; they
will be called "arrogant" by people who "just know" that homeopathy
works; they will be threatened and ridiculed by people whose children
have been "saved" from the horrors of modern medicine by a homeopathic
remedy that their hardhearted doctor denied them on the NHS; and they
will be questioned by reporters who are nervous about siding with the
unfashionable, commonsense practice of actually testing whether a
medicine works or not.
How do I know? Because it all happened to me during my 30 years of
tackling paranormal and alternative claims. And little has changed.
Indeed, the fact that mountains of negative evidence are simply
ignored was one of the reasons I finally got out. You can only bang
your head against true believers for so long. And being told you are
arrogant, closed-minded, unspiritual and heartless when all you are
doing is trying to find out the truth eventually gets you down.
We know that homeopathy doesn't work. We know this because (unlike
those of some treatments) the claims it makes are straightforward and
testable. Traditional homeopathy claims that if you choose the right
remedy for that particular person and give it at the right dilution
(usually diluted so much that it is nothing but water), then the
person will get better. In hundreds of experiments, this claim has
been disproved (among them the famous "remembering-water" experiment
James Randi showed to be fraudulent and repeated for television).
The opposition has recently become more sophisticated, with the claim
that conventional double-blind testing is not appropriate for
alternative therapies. We heard a version of this on BBC Radio 4's
Today programme from the wonderfully articulate, 93-year-old Jane
Gilcrest, who said it was "difficult to collect data" because it was
hard to prove the effectiveness of a therapy "based on people, not on
symptoms".
Don't be fooled by this claim: the double-blind design works perfectly
well for people, not symptoms. Take 100 people suffering from anything
you like, as long as their state of deterioration or recovery can be
measured. Then let the best homeopaths do whatever it takes to choose
the right treatment for each one. They can spend hours or days
questioning them; they can explore their symptoms in any detail they
like; they can do anything it takes (other than give them real
medicine, of course).
Now divide the group in half (ideally with roughly equal types of
illness, age, sex and so on in each of the resulting two groups); give
the people in one group whatever the homeopaths advised for each of
them on the basis of their personalised, holistic appraisal; take the
other 50 and give them someone else's bottle of specially chosen
dilute solution (it won't do them any harm: it's only water). And
here's the critical point (the double-blind): don't tell either the
homeopaths or the patients whether they are receiving their own
treatment or someone else's. Now what happens?
We know what happens: it makes no difference. Experiments of this kind
have been done again and again. The people given the wrong homeopathic
solution get better just as often as the people upon whom time and
effort was lovingly lavished to choose exactly the right subtle
combination of spiritually attuned dilutions for their individual
situation.
Homeopathy is bunkum; the time and effort are not. And there's the
rub. Please, please let's use NHS money to provide more time for
doctors instead of treatments we know don't work. If there is any
money to spare on holistic practices and on caring for the whole
patient, not just the symptoms, then let's give it to real nurses and
doctors who use real medicine that actually works. Then they, too,
will be able to lavish time and effort on their individual patients
and bring about better medicine and a better NHS.
Keynes
wrote:
>On May 14, 10:27 pm, RaaN <raan2...@hotmail.com> wrote:
If you touch something with your hand
how in the world do you know it?
>> > Unless (as may be the case) that you are
>> > out of your mind. But even that mischief
>> > would still be just an idea in a mind.
>>
>> > Without mind what could there ever be?
>> > If there were a billion universes and no
>> > mind anywhere, it would all be unknown
>> > and as good as non-existent.
>
>Wrong again. There WAS a universe that grew for billions of years
>without mind anywhere, and it was meaningful and better than non-
>existent because it eventually, after 13.7 billion years without mind,
>grew to the point where it became conscious (i.e, grew us -- critters
>with conscious brains).
>
Time is completely non-physical isn't it?
If I'm wrong please send me a few pounds of
last tuesday. Or send me a picture of tomorrow.
There is no 'physical' access to time except
memory and imagination, and that only in
the present, not the past or the future.
And you speak of great gobs of measurable time?
Who's spooking it up now?
>> > >That's why the mind/body
>> > >dualism of Keynes and Descartes just just doesn't make sense anymore,
>> > >given what we know about the function of brains.
>>
>> > Tell me how atoms (which know nothing)
>> > make neurons (which know nothing) that exchange
>> > chemicals and charges (which know nothing)
>> > produce a mind which knows something.
>
>The same way on-off circuits in my computer know nothing but in
>combination they produce this amazing machine that can beat me every
>time in chess and can send my posts to this list.
>
Computers can do rote tasks much faster than
humans can, more accurately, and dirt cheap.
That's why they have taken away our jobs.
But computers are totally dumb and can't
be any more usefully psuedo-intelligent
than the humans who program them.
They have no consciousness.
>Like the IDiots (Intelligent Design / Creationists) you are so
>convinced that nature is crippled and stupid and has to be
>supplemented with your supernatural spookery, Keynes. How did you get
>to have such a prejudice against nature and see it as so stupid? Did
>you go to Catholic schools too?
>
On the contrary. Nature made us. If there is any
intelligence in us, it came from intelligent nature.
It certainly was none of our own doing. And if
you think you are the master of your body, try
holding your breath for 30 or 40 minutes.
The body knows what to do, beating the heart,
breathing the lungs, digesting the food, fighting
infections. (All this knowledge was contained
in a single tiny cell on fertilization.) But the
body, per se, is not 'conscious' as we presume
that we are. That consciousness is our 'being'
and our life, and no life or being without it.
This is the so called hard problem of science
and philosophy. And if you mention Dennet,
who claims mindlessness, I'll agree that you
are also without mind. (As you have been
demonstrating so conclusively.)
>> > You're a meathead, son. A big Fat Meathead.
>> > It's your decision, not mine.
>
>We're all meatheads. It's nobody's decision. It's how we evolved and
>who we are. Why add a spook? What is the compulsion. Stop insulting
>for one moment and examine your fear, why don't you?
>
You are that spook, whatever it is.
Three pounds of brain Fat just doesn't make it.
(Or supermarkets would get up and walk.)
What fear are you talking about?
I already told you that I don't have any.
>> > >No room for Keynes immaterial, inneffable ghost in the neural
>> > >net. Drill a hole through Keynes brain and no more 'mind' or
>> > >'thinking', or 'consciousness'. Period. This is a brute fact.
>>
>> > You brute. Is destruction all you can do?
>
>Destruction of idiocy opens the door to intelligence.
If only.
>Emptying
>oneself of superstition allows one to open to the deep mystery.
What mystery? Brains at Walmart for $3.98 a pound?
There ain't no mystery as you constantly assure everyone
since you know everything about everything without a doubt.
>Letting go of stupid thoughts allows mindfulness.
Where suddenly is this mind to be mindful of?
Don't you deny there is such a thing?
How you do go on, babbling and spewing and
puking on yourself. It's indecent I tell you.
Indecent.
>All you do is add:
>more stupid thoughts, stupid supernatural beasties, stupid judgments.
>The key is emptying, the key is less, not more, Keynes. As usual,
>you've got it all ass-backwards, you dualist dummkopf!
>
You're the dualist. Or maybe the triplest?
The multiple monist with mud in his eye?
Go kick a priest if it'll make you feel better.
Raan, when will you stop embarrassing yourself?
You are an arrogant, disagreeable, irrational, ignorant anti-buddhist
through and through. Go to alt.philophy and get your ass kicked there.
>BINGO!!! Whoa. "Mind and Nature" was the single most philosophically
>moving book I recall reading in college. I bought at least a dozen
>copies for friends. Yeah, that's the book, and it deals just with
>this issue, doesn't it? Cool, RaaN. Awesome. Everyone should read
>Bateson's "Mind and Nature" if you haven't already.
>
>--DharmaTroll
Less is more alright. Uh huh.
You know zombies eat brains because they haven't any.
What have you got of your own that you didn't steal
from some other raving nincompoop?
(Geez, you are so simple.)
Keynes
wrote:
>On May 14, 9:45 pm, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
Your knowledge claims (however laughable) are
incompatible with buddhism. You deny mind, and
yet recommend mindfulness. You are a physicalist
taking refuge in a bogus certainty. Possibly even you
can see that is completely contrary to buddhism.
Can't have your Kate and Edith too.
Richard Corfield
>
> Your knowledge claims (however laughable) are
> incompatible with buddhism. You deny mind, and
> yet recommend mindfulness. You are a physicalist
> taking refuge in a bogus certainty. Possibly even you
> can see that is completely contrary to buddhism.
> Can't have your Kate and Edith too.
If mind is a phenomenon, a result of the skandas, does it matter exactly
how? I wonder if you're both actually very much in the same ballpark
but failing to recognise each other.
Maybe other questions would distinguish you. Does Keynes believe in
reincarnation, as a single Atman or other unit of mind coming back
again? Does DharmaTroll not, at least beyond the continuation of our
ripples in the pool of nature beyond the existence of what is notionally
us?
(Such reincarnation would be many to many? I am the result of the ripples
of a large number of people, most strongly my parents and my teachers. My
ripples will turn up in all sorts of places, most notably my children
and those I teach.)
Allen L. Barker
>
> Ask William if he recited the mani mantra 10,000 times.
>
There is
Nam myoho renge kyo
for the Nichirens. More strictly it is Namu, but
the last syllable tends to be suppressed. The "a"
in Nam is more like in "say ahhh" rather than in the
slang for Vietnam. Some mp3s on the web provide
examples.
Unfortunately, this chant has so many connotations
these days (well after the days of Nichiren himself).
Chant this for cars, chant this for good-looks, chant
this to win the lotto, chant this to support a party
of the Japanese government. Really, of course, the
chant is the name of the Lotus Sutra in Japanese.
There is
Om mani padme hum
with the "hum" possibly pronounced as in "things that
make you go..." This is a well-known chant. It
tends to be associated these days with Tibetan
Buddhism.
As an activist for human rights -- regardless
of what government or group is suppressing those
rights -- I certainly sympathize with the Tibetan
people. But, as a meditative chant to transcend
all categories, for some people this chant can tend
to reinforce the categories. Not for all people, of
course, but for some.
So, what is a good "whatever you meet, whether
facing inward or outward, just kill it" Rinzai sort
of person supposed to chant, when he or she decides
to employ the time-tested practice of chanting
(empirically, at least, to observe what it might be
useful for)?
The above two chants are OK, of course. Try them.
There are also various Japanese-language chants of
whole sutras, but really, who has time to learn all
that?
There is the "supreme mantra" from the Heart Sutra:
Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha
But really, in practice, it doesn't seem to be
optimized for 10,000 repetitions (like a crazy Nichiren
would do with Nam myoho renge kyo). At least that's
how it seems to me.
So, for the Zen-types who want a chant to consider, I
present the following.
For a while I tried the chant of "zero, zero, zero, ..."
and had some success with it (in some very harsh
conditions). It is a good chant, signifying nothing. ;-)
But it still does not have quite the right musical-feel
and cadence to it. This gives the advantage to the
crazy Nichiren-types, which Zen-devils certainly cannot
allow!
Without further ado, the suggested chant for the Zen
types is:
Mu, only just don't know
As usual, the "u" in "Mu" is pronounced as in the word
"put." Put the infinitum in "ad infinitum," rather
than the nauseum in "ad nauseum"! Repeat 10,000 times,
plus or minus!
Mu, only just don't know
Mu, only just don't know
Mu, only just don't know
Mu, only just don't know
Mu, only just don't know
Mu, only just don't know
etc.
Svaha!
DharmaTroll
<Richard.Corfi...@REVERSE.uk.me.littondale> wrote:
> On 2008-05-15, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
>
> > Your knowledge claims (however laughable) are
> > incompatible with buddhism. You deny mind, and
> > yet recommend mindfulness. You are a physicalist
> > taking refuge in a bogus certainty.
There is no certainty. I don't deny mind, only egos/souls which are
separate from brains. Keynes, you insist on a Jerry Falwell Buddhism
where nature is denied and one has blind faith in a magic ego that
possesses a body and survives it's death. Not only don't I see how
your Cosmic Egoism has anything to do with Buddhism, but like other
Hinduists and New Agers, you wish to hijack Buddhism to fit your own
magic superstitions. You deny the Buddha as you deny Einstein.
> > Possibly even you
> > can see that is completely contrary to buddhism.
> > Can't have your Kate and Edith too.
>
> If mind is a phenomenon, a result of the skandas, does it matter exactly
> how? I wonder if you're both actually very much in the same ballpark
> but failing to recognise each other.
>
> Maybe other questions would distinguish you. Does Keynes believe in
> reincarnation, as a single Atman or other unit of mind coming back
> again? Does DharmaTroll not, at least beyond the continuation of our
> ripples in the pool of nature beyond the existence of what is notionally
> us?
>
> (Such reincarnation would be many to many? I am the result of the ripples
> of a large number of people, most strongly my parents and my teachers. My
> ripples will turn up in all sorts of places, most notably my children
> and those I teach.)
>
> - Richard
Well, sure, Richard, I go for that completely. But there need not be
any extra magic ineffable ego or soul separate from a brain that
continues in such a case. Rather than such a spook, what I call 'I'
is just a narrative center of gravity to describe the organizing of
this present whirlwhind of thoughts and experiences taking place in
this particular brain. Some of those thoughts will be reproduced in
other critters and the actions I label as 'mine' will affect others in
various ways.
One holy dude who shares my view very closely is Thich Nhat Hanh (got
the spelling right this time, Tang). The Zen guys tend not to have
the reincarnation stuff in their cultures in Vietnam, Korea, Japan, or
China so much, whereas the Tibetans seem to stress it the most. And
Keynes sounds like he's from Kansas. TNH describes just what you
describe, which takes place through natural, physical ways, and not
through the survival of a separate ego/mind after death. THN's view
on reincarnation is pretty much exactly mine, though I didn't get it
from him.
--DharmaTroll
TNH, from _No Death, No Fear_, page 125-126:
<<Ask yourself, 'Where shall I go after this?' Our actions and our
words, which are being produced at this moment, take us in a linear
direction. But they also take us in a lateral direction as they flow
into and influence the world around us. They can make the world more
beautiful and bright. that beauty and brightness can go in to the
future. We should not look for our real selves in just one vertical
direction.
When I make a pot of oolong tea, I put tea leaves into the pot and
pour boiling water on them. Five minutes later there is tea to drink.
When I drink it, oolong tea is going into me. If I put in more hot
water, making a second pot of tea, the tea from those leaves continues
to go into me. After I have poured out all the tea, what will be left
in the pot is just the spent tea leaves. The leaves that remain are
only a very small part of the tea. The tea that goes into me is a much
bigger part of the tea. It is the richest part.
We are the same; our essence has gone into our children, our friends,
and the entire universe. We have to find ourselves in those directions
and not in the spent tea leaves. I invite you to see yourself reborn
in
forms that you say are not yourself. You have to see your body in what
is not your body. This is called your body outside of your body.
You do not have to wait until the flame has gone out to be reborn.
I am reborn many times every day. Every moment is a moment of rebirth.
My practice is to be reborn in such a way that my new forms of
manifestation will bring light, freedom, and happiness into the world.
My practice is to not allow wrong actions to be reborn. If I have a
cruel thought or if my words carry hatred in them, then those thoughts
and words will be reborn. It will be difficult to catch them and pull
them back. They are like a runaway horse. We should try not to allow
our actions of body, speech, and mind to take us in the direction of
wrong action, wrong speech, and wrong thinking.
If you look for yourself like that, you will be able to see your
continuation into the future. You will not be caught in the idea that
you will be annihilated. You will not be caught in the notion that you
will not exist anymore when you die. The truth is that you are not
permanent, but neither are you annihilated. When the flame of the
candle reaches the end of the wick and goes out, it is still there.
You cannot find it by looking in a linear direction.
You have to find it also in the horizontal direction.>>
DharmaTroll
> On Wed, 14 May 2008 21:14:39 -0700 (PDT), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
> wrote:
>
> >> > Unless (as may be the case) that you are
> >> > out of your mind. But even that mischief
> >> > would still be just an idea in a mind.
>
> >> > Without mind what could there ever be?
> >> > If there were a billion universes and no
> >> > mind anywhere, it would all be unknown
> >> > and as good as non-existent.
>
> >Wrong again. There WAS a universe that grew for billions of years
> >without mind anywhere, and it was meaningful and better than non-
> >existent because it eventually, after 13.7 billion years without mind,
> >grew to the point where it became conscious (i.e, grew us -- critters
> >with conscious brains).
>
> Time is completely non-physical isn't it?
No, space-time is part of the fabric of the universe. Indeed it's
curvature accounts for why the Earth stays in orbit around the sun,
and doesn't go flying off into left field the way you do.
If you heard something about imaginary time, that refers to the square
roots of negative numbers, not that time isn't part of physical
reality.
> There is no 'physical' access to time except
> memory and imagination, and that only in
> the present, not the past or the future.
Except what is present for you has to do with your particular frame of
reference. You're also confusing psychological experiences of time
(where everything is present, and past refers to memories, and future
to projected memories) with space-time, which is the physical fabric
of the universe. Again, even 'present' is only a relative term for
your location. Perhaps you are intending to collapse into idealism or
solipsism here and claim that if you didn't experience the world, it
wouldn't exist? The world was around for billions of years before any
critters had points of view and experiences of it.
> And you speak of great gobs of measurable time?
> Who's spooking it up now?
Einstein's space-time is plenty spooky, I'll admit. But there still
aren't any spooks that possess and are separate from brains. That's
just you're own separation from nature and denial that you're a fruit
on the tree. You prefer to think of yourself as an alien ego. That's
why you wear a tin foil hat.
> >Like the IDiots (Intelligent Design / Creationists) you are so
> >convinced that nature is crippled and stupid and has to be
> >supplemented with your supernatural spookery, Keynes. How did you get
> >to have such a prejudice against nature and see it as so stupid? Did
> >you go to Catholic schools too?
>
> On the contrary. Nature made us. If there is any
> intelligence in us, it came from intelligent nature.
I'm saying we are that nature, and that intelligence is manifested in
the complex structure of our brains. You're insisting that nature is
stupid, not intelligent, so an ego/mind/soul has to be added to the
mix, or else we would ontologically be the same as computers
(zombies). And I'm saying that the innate intelligence of nature is
present in the very structure of these meatheat brains, that we are
complete without adding your fictional ego, what you call mind.
> And if you mention Dennet,
> who claims mindlessness, I'll agree that you
> are also without mind. (As you have been
> demonstrating so conclusively.)
Yes, you are correct that Dennett has it right (it's two t's) and his
view is very close to the Buddha's original view of self. Dennett is
the one who coined the term narrative center of gravity for self.
> >> > You're a meathead, son. A big Fat Meathead.
> >> > It's your decision, not mine.
>
> >We're all meatheads. It's nobody's decision. It's how we evolved and
> >who we are. Why add a spook? What is the compulsion. Stop insulting
> >for one moment and examine your fear, why don't you?
>
> You are that spook, whatever it is.
No, I'm a conscious animal. No spook needed. Better call
ghostbusters.
--DharmaTroll
norbu....@gmail.com
> Déjà Flu wrote:
> > Tang Huyen wrote:
> > ...
> >> to the object of their objection right off, because
> >> they accept the premisses (sic) of what they reject,
> >> namely those of the Book. In critical thinking, one
> >> starts by examining everything, especially one's
> >> assumptions, and here they begin by accepting the
> >> assumptions of the Book and the thought-world that
> >> it spawns. Therefore they have lost the war before
> >> any battle begins.
>
> > !
>
> > I rarely seen you try to be rational, especially when
> > (and if) talking about critical thinking. But I know of
> > no atheist who accepts the "assumptions of the Book"
> > are equal (null) at the beginning and the "assumptions of
> > the Book" are simply another hypothesis. If you call that
> > "acceptance", it's a misuse of the term.
>
> > Furthermore, most scientific hypotheses aren't based on
> > "assumptions" at all, but on observations and previous knowledge
> > or, second-handedly, on authority (from which observation is
> > presumed). That said, there certainly are hypotheses derived
> > from everything else, too. Including those dreamed up from
> > thin air, like your "crashing" hypothesis, homeopathy,
> > "chi", acupuncture, chiropractic, etc. To my knowledge,
> > no one who pasted a piece of gold leaf on a buddha-statue's
> > nose ever got a more beautiful nose from the Nose Fairy,
> > and that one's been tested for centuries.
>
> > Perhaps you're familiar with the process of examining and
> > testing hypotheses. If so, perhaps you should apply it to
> > the one you presented above. We await your survey results,
> > your address list (of "western atheists"), and the questions
> > you asked of them in order to prove your hypothesis (that
> > they "...accept the premisses (sic) of what they reject,
> > namely those of the Book". It'll be an interesting bit of
> > research.
>
> What he is trying to say is probably that
> if you define yourself by negating something,
> you are already subjugating yourself to that something.
i understand what you intend, but the way to say it needs to be a bit
more
carefully phrased. If i define my self as a non-murderer/non-harmer
i'm not at all sure that has limited my possibilities in any way that
i would call
"subjugation". i'm a non-child molester and nun-raper and cat-
torturer...
am i thus subjugated to all the things i do not do? i do not try to
breathe
rocks, so am i subjugated to a broken self image of a non-rock-
breather?
devil's advocate point, just to be clear. your key point was "if you
define
yourself by..."...
but a quibble there, as i don't think you needed to qualify the
process of defining as negating
something or affirming..."defining" is problem, not how it's done.
"atmadrsti"
>
> Anyhow, if you go around telling people that
> you don't believe in loving your neighbor,
i don't believe in loving my neighbors
i'm just here 100% with no idea, honest...
maybe my neighbor needs to hate themself for awhile, or be jealous, or
proud...
it ain't kosher, but if that's what they need to go through to get to
the next point,
yeah, i'll dance with the music - i don't need to make them "right" or
make them
"suddenly full of love" or think that they should go to love without
having to be honest
with the baggage and they and all of us are working with...
> you should not be surprised to hear that
> your neighbors deny ever knowing you.
Usually on the news they just say "He was such a quiet friendly
guy, ...We're so shocked that he
did that!" - Because there is the facade of love but no honesty.
>
> --oxtail
Tang Huyen
Richard Corfield wrote:
> If mind is a phenomenon, a result of the skandas, does it matter exactly
> how? I wonder if you're both actually very much in the same ballpark
> but failing to recognise each other.
>
> Maybe other questions would distinguish you. Does Keynes believe in
> reincarnation, as a single Atman or other unit of mind coming back
> again? Does DharmaTroll not, at least beyond the continuation of our
> ripples in the pool of nature beyond the existence of what is notionally
> us?
>
> (Such reincarnation would be many to many? I am the result of the ripples
> of a large number of people, most strongly my parents and my teachers. My
> ripples will turn up in all sorts of places, most notably my children
> and those I teach.)
Don't bother about any of it, mind, matter or whatever.
"What and what they think it, it is otherwise". Just
relax further and further, drop further and further,
open up completely without wondering about anything,
and you'll be free. A larger presence, the unknowable
total of all there is will offer itself to you unasked.
That is the tradeoff.
Tang Huyen
dt
It's even worse than that:
My mind's got a mind of its own
It takes me out a walkin' when I'd rather stay at home
Takes me out to parties when I'd rather be alone
My mind's got a mind of its own
I've been doing things I thought I'd never do
I've been getting into trouble without ever meaning to
I no sooner settle down but I'm right back up again
I feel just like a leaf out in the wind.
(chorus)
I seem to forget half the things I start
I try to build a house and then I tear the place apart
I freeze myself on fire and then I burn myself on ice
I can't count to one without thinking twice
(chorus)
I tell myself to do the things I should
And then I get to thinkin' that them things ain't any good.
I tell myself the truth but know I'm lying like a snake
You can't walk on water at the bottom of a lake.--Butch Hancock
Strangely, while looking for the lyrics, I discovered it's in something
called, "What Book!?: Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop".
http://snipurl.com/28yna
DT
Keynes
wrote:
>On May 15, 2:44 am, Richard Corfield
><Richard.Corfi...@REVERSE.uk.me.littondale> wrote:
>> On 2008-05-15, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
>>
>> > Your knowledge claims (however laughable) are
>> > incompatible with buddhism. You deny mind, and
>> > yet recommend mindfulness. You are a physicalist
>> > taking refuge in a bogus certainty.
>
>There is no certainty. I don't deny mind, only egos/souls which are
>separate from brains.
You project your dislikes and misunderstandings like popcorn.
Is that mindful? (Even though it quite amusing to watch.)
If you had to choose, which would you rather have --
a mind or a brain? If you say brain, then you need
drugs or a surgeon to deal with your problems.
If you say mind, then you might possibly do
something about it all by yourself.
Mind IS separate from brains and everything else.
Why must you attempt to tie it down and explain it (so poorly)?
Give up your foolish rationalism if you can. It's delusion.
>Keynes, you insist on a Jerry Falwell Buddhism
>where nature is denied and one has blind faith in a magic ego that
>possesses a body and survives it's death.
I've never said anything of the sort.
Because I don't believe any of that. YOU DO.
It's always on your mind. Look into it.
>Not only don't I see how
>your Cosmic Egoism has anything to do with Buddhism, but like other
>Hinduists and New Agers, you wish to hijack Buddhism to fit your own
>magic superstitions. You deny the Buddha as you deny Einstein.
>
Time, space, learning, knowledge, life and death --
those are the superstitions, and you insist on them,
you rationalizing ego balloon of no content.
>> > Possibly even you
>> > can see that is completely contrary to buddhism.
>> > Can't have your Kate and Edith too.
>>
>> If mind is a phenomenon, a result of the skandas, does it matter exactly
>> how?
That is a rational explanation of mind for rationalists,
giving them some hope of entering the path of transcendence.
It is by no means the whole truth.
>>I wonder if you're both actually very much in the same ballpark
>> but failing to recognise each other.
>>
DT is a rock solid materialist and rationalizer.
He deals in appearances and bogus explanations
not daring to take the thing directly into
his own hands and look right at it.
>> Maybe other questions would distinguish you. Does Keynes believe in
>> reincarnation, as a single Atman or other unit of mind coming back
>> again? Does DharmaTroll not, at least beyond the continuation of our
>> ripples in the pool of nature beyond the existence of what is notionally
>> us?
>>
What's the use of an extra life if one can't even deal with this one?
So put that stuff aside as irrelevant. Life is not a day to day
journey. Not even moment to moment. So why even dream
of past and future? Such dreaming would just be endless
procrastination, eternal dithering and confusion.
>> (Such reincarnation would be many to many? I am the result of the ripples
>> of a large number of people, most strongly my parents and my teachers. My
>> ripples will turn up in all sorts of places, most notably my children
>> and those I teach.)
>>
>> - Richard
>
>Well, sure, Richard, I go for that completely. But there need not be
>any extra magic ineffable ego or soul separate from a brain that
>continues in such a case.
There is nothing that continues even now!
Brain worships is just silly. I much prefer chuck roast.
>Rather than such a spook, what I call 'I'
>is just a narrative center of gravity to describe the organizing of
>this present whirlwhind of thoughts and experiences taking place in
>this particular brain.
Why do it? What does it get you?
>Some of those thoughts will be reproduced in
>other critters and the actions I label as 'mine' will affect others in
>various ways.
>
So have a care what you spew.
>One holy dude
'Holy dude'? Jayzuz christ again?
Get over it. Get over it.
>who shares my view very closely is Thich Nhat Hanh (got
>the spelling right this time, Tang).
Apparently your mind was first in a book.
And you been stealing from books ever since.
Musty, dusty, moldy, second hand mind.
Upaya.
If you stoop to think about it this is OK.
But why be stoop-ed?
Citizen Jimserac
... ignorant innuendo snipped ...
A. simple google, for example to the research published
by Dr. Iris Bell MD, Phd, can be found at:
http://nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org/articles/view,173
and some of this research is mentioned in her
superb Homeopathy talk which can be viewed here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wYO6nNQGe1M
I was lucky enough, not long ago, to encounter "The Science of
Homeopathy" by George Vithoulkas, an outstanding book and a book which
finally gave me confidence that Homeopathy, though it rests on the
border between known and unknown, operates with good scientific
principles, and continued investigation of it and its properties will
prove to be of enormous benefit to medical science.
It is unfortunate that a system of medicine which seem human beings as
MORE than a collection of interconnected mechanical parts, could be so
profoundly threatening to standard medicine with all of its wonderous
advances and attainments.
As you might expect, ENTRENCHED interests of the most dire kind have a
huge VESTED interest in denial of Homeopathy, and, as the contemptuous
skeptics of this newsgroup have and will demonstrate, ANY tactic,
distortion of one's comments, refusal to look at research, refusal to
even consider research published in Homeopathic journals, refusal to
acknowledge the numerous Homeopathic research with POSITIVE results
in DOUBLE BLIND studies (even though such studies
may be weakened by violating the necessity of
INDIVIDUALIZED prescriptions in Homeopathy) and
Please don't advertise your complete stupidity with
regard to Homeopathy by repeating such ignorant
comments as you have made. By doing so, you
are merely acting as an unpaid dupe for the
big commercial interests which have a vested
interest in making sure that Homeopathy reserach
does NOT continue.
And... by the way, Homeopathy is an alternative
system of medicine whose remedies are regulated
by the FDA.
Thanks
Citizen Jimserac
Citizen Jimserac
BUNKUM removed...
Here, for those interested in reading
FACTS and real RESEARCH about
Homeopathy, from an earlier post:
For those interested in reading real research articles about
Homeopathy applications to major and chronic illnesses, for those
whose minds have not been closed
by zombies for whom any new breakthrough, any change in the status quo
of orthodoxy is seen as a threat to the hobgobblin like consistency of
their little minds,
the links are EASILY found, for example THIS one:
http://nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org/articles/research.jsp
Homeopathic research is growing every day, by leaps and bounds, and
SOME of the testing, not all, just some, is coming back positive. It
may be that Homeopathy works exactly as advertised or may be something
else or maybe this placebo effect that these "scientifically" minded
respondents keep talking about but which they cannot define or
explain.
Citizen Jimserac
Ned
"dt" <dal...@ATnewsguy.com> wrote in message
news:g0heao$ai2$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu...
>
> Strangely, while looking for the lyrics, I discovered it's in something
> called, "What Book!?: Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop".
> http://snipurl.com/28yna
> DT
>
Hey, there's a poem by Atanu in there. (Page 131)
Ned
dt
Cool! How'd you find it? I can't seem to get to that page. When I
googled him/it I found '"The Buddha and I" by Atanu Dey. Reprinted from
Alt.Buddha.Short.Fat.Guy (UseNet). Reprinted by permission of the
author.' !!! Got a copy somewhere in your infamous archives? ;-)
Hang on, googlegroupsearch finds....this! From talk.religion.misc, Dec.
28, 1993!
The Buddha and I
----------------
I met the Buddha in a dream
I asked him to tell me
Why it seemed so real
Although it was just a dream?
He smiled with compassion
And spread his palms
From which dropped one
Perfect pearl...
I picked up the pearl
And looked inside
And saw within it
Me standing in front of
The Buddha...
---
(1992 Nov)
Atanu
All things are buddha things.
DT
Ned
"dt" <dal...@ATnewsguy.com> wrote in message
That's it. I was just plugging through the table of contents
(GOD I hate those 'picture' displays of books!) and saw his name.
It took about 5 minutes to get to page 131 using the scroll bar
(did I mention how I HATE those displays of text in picture
format - which you CAN'T search!)
Anyway, thanks for the URL.
Ned
Thread Terminating Skinhead Demon!
That's the same poem. The page arrows are flaky and loose the hundred's
digit so it looks like page 31.
Don
Evelyn Ruut
"tara" <jackpine@xplornet{removethis}.com> wrote in message
news:0001HW.C451AEC0...@news.usenetmonster.com...
> On Thu, 15 May 2008 00:31:15 -0400, DharmaTroll wrote
> (in article
> <3e82796a-3ea8-4361...@s50g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>):
>
>>>
>>> Acupuncture has had significantly more definitive research than
>>> Homeopathy and its operational mechanisms are starting to be known and
>>> understood.
>>
>> You mean the tests where random needles are placed instead of at the
>> places according to the woo-woo explanations? The clients did equally
>> well, and both much better than those with no treatment. So what
>> rationalization do you make to explain why random needles do as well
>> as acupuncture according to the ancient secret magical mystical
>> formulas? Again, it's the placebo effect.
>
>
> Acupuncture for persistent allergic rhinitis: a randomised,
> sham-controlled
> trial - The Medical Journal of Australia.
>
> http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/187_06_170907/xue10055_fm.html
>
>
> tara
Hi T,
I have had acupuncture a couple of times in my life. Once it worked
spectacularly, and once it didn't. All the stories I have heard from
others are pretty much the same. It is either strikingly effective, or
totally useless.
I also swear that the chiropractor fixed my severe back pain. I was
living on pain pills for a couple of years, and nothing helped. I kept
going to the chiropractor, thinking it wasn't really helping all that much,
but the little relief I did get was worth the trouble of going. One day he
cracked my back a certain way, and YEARS of excruciating pain disappeared
instantly. Now that was dramatic!
I wouldn't go to either a chiropractor or an acupuncturist for an infection
or a toothache, but if something helps you, why not do it? As for back
pain, the allopathic docs only have pain pills and anti inflammatories.
Sometimes they work, but they make other problems too. Chiropractic has no
side effects.
Another "woo woo" factor tale that DT will probably go ballistic over......
A couple of years ago I had a really horrible case of plantar fasciitis.
It was excruciatingly painful and I couldn't walk on that foot, and it
lasted for months. I can't begin to tell you how debilitating this was.
The podiatrist gave me two horribly painful injections into the muscle and
it only gave me partial relief.
A friend came to visit who happens to do Reiki. She said "let me do some
Reiki on your foot.." So what the heck, what did I have to lose? I let
her do it. Guess what? Immediately there was NO MORE foot pain, and it
hasn't returned for a couple of years now.
I don't know about homeopathy, but there are many who swear by these things.
I don't care...... if it helps them, let them do it!!!!! If it is
placebo, who cares? All that is important is that it helps people!
--
Best Regards,
Evelyn
Evelyn Ruut
news:g0heao$ai2$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu...
That is a good one!
--
Best Regards,
Evelyn
Citizen Jimserac
>
> I don't know about homeopathy, but there are many who swear by these things.
> I don't care...... if it helps them, let them do it!!!!! If it is
> placebo, who cares? All that is important is that it helps people!
>
> --
> Best Regards,
>
> Evelyn
That's a good attitude and, more importantly,
you do not attack others who wish
to try out or investigate alternative
systems of medicine. Four states
in the U.S. have already passed
"freedom of choice" laws, describing
exactly the things that acupuncture
physicians and other properly educated
and trained alternative medicine pracitioners
and Homeopathists can treat and
prescribe.
Once again, regarding Homeopathy,
there are plenty of double blinded
placebo tests of it for various
illnesses and for those that are
interested some excellent research
articles from well established
peer reviewed journals
can be found here:
http://nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org/articles/research.jsp
You will note that Dharma Troll, after
spouting the usual innuendo
lies against Homeopathy promptly
vanished when faced with the huge
amount of genuine research
showing positive results.
Citizen Jimserac
RaaN
The evidence is ambiguous at best. I for one would not put money, let
alone my life on it. Reduce stress and the body can heal itself more
efficiently. That's about all I've gleaned from reading about
alternative mind over matter pseudo scientific cures.
--
RaaN
Tang Huyen
dt wrote:
> All things are buddha things.
It looks simple-minded, but it works:
just take all things as Buddha things,
and you'll be calm, peaceful, serene.
It is a universal view that can relieve
much suffering, just like that. Another
version of the same thing is the saying
of Epictetus often quoted by Naked
Ape:
"Learn to wish that everything should
come to pass exactly as it does."
Tang Huyen
Evelyn Ruut
news:3e34950f-6512-4077...@m45g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
I don't condemn DT for his stance on these things.
I can tell you that I know of MANY people who decided to treat their cancer
with 'natural' methods as opposed to allopathic medicine. They are ALL
DEAD now, I am sorry to say.
If one is confronted with a serious medical condition, I think one should
definitely go to the doctor. A real medical doctor. Get treated. Then and
only then, go to the alternative practitioners and hope for the best.
If you think it is nothing life threatening, then go to all the alternative
practitioners you want. Feel good any way you can.
Now that's just my take on it.
--
Best Regards,
Evelyn
Evelyn Ruut
Yes, absolutely. I know of several people who didn't listen to the real
medical doctor and went alternative. They are all dead now.
--
Best Regards,
Evelyn
Citizen Jimserac
> "CitizenJimserac" <Jimse...@gmail.com> wrote in message
I can think of no better advice than
to see an M.D. for regular checkups.
Citizen Jimserac
Citizen Jimserac
If you check on that research link I posted,
you'll find double blind placebo controlled
tests giving positive results for Homeopathy
for certain conditions. Nothing ambiguous
about it. The problem in Homeopathy is that
nobody understands how it is working,
when it works.
Acupuncture and Chinese Herbs have research
easily showing definitive positive results
for a variety of ailments. The World Health Organization recognizes
Acupuncture for a variety
of conditions and not too long ago recognized
the Herb "qing hao" (Artemesia), used by
the Chinese for hundreds of years, as a treatment
for Malaria equal or superiour to quinine.
Homeopathy has been in use for 200 years
and has actually performed better in
past cholera
and influenza epidemics than the standard
treatments of the times.
When I first read about Homeopathy I found
it absurd, then learned more and thought it
rather speculative, then learned even more
and now believe it to be a viable treatment
modality. The key to Homeopathy is
that you have to accept that the mechanism
by which it works is unknown, but then, up until a few decades ago,
the mechanism by which aspirin worked
was unknown and yet it was universally used.
I suspect that with advanced modern test
equipment such as MRI's, continued research
will confirm Homeopathy's mechanism and/or
deny or confirm the placebo theory of its successes.
Citizen Jimserac
Evelyn Ruut
> On Thu, 15 May 2008 14:17:47 -0400, Evelyn Ruut wrote
> (in article <482c7e5d$0$7064$4c36...@roadrunner.com>):
> one way or the other. But if it works for others, with or without the
> science backing it, like you, I'm all for it. I must admit though, if I
> was
> desperate for a cure or relief from pain, I would probably try anything
> and
> everything and to hell with science. :)
>
> tara
Yes! When you have nothing to lose by trying it, why not?
--
Best Regards,
Evelyn
Déjà Flu
> On May 15, 2:17 pm, "Evelyn Ruut" <evelyn.r...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I don't know about homeopathy, but there are many who swear by these things.
>> I don't care...... if it helps them, let them do it!!!!! If it is
>> placebo, who cares? All that is important is that it helps people!
I hope you learn more than that from your chelation therapy
lesson -$900,000 of your tax money is going to NIH (and then out
the door in grants) for that study, which could have gone
to far more rational research.
> That's a good attitude and, more importantly,
> you do not attack others who wish
> to try out or investigate alternative
> systems of medicine. Four states
> in the U.S. have already passed
> "freedom of choice" laws, describing
> exactly the things that acupuncture
> physicians and other properly educated
> and trained alternative medicine pracitioners
> and Homeopathists can treat and
> prescribe.
*Exactly* what are these quacks legally allowed
to treat and in which states? Runny noses in Alaska?
Sneezes in the Pollen Belt?
There is no such thing as an "acupuncture physician",
and no standards for, "...properly educated and trained
alternative medicine pracitioners and Homeopathists..."
Just because you can put a noun and an adjective together
doesn't mean you can create a class of science.
So just what are you babbling about?
> Once again, regarding Homeopathy,
> there are plenty of double blinded
> placebo tests of it for various
> illnesses and for those that are
> interested some excellent research
> articles from well established
> peer reviewed journals
> can be found here:
> http://nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org/articles/research.jsp
Ummm...no. Most of those are junk citations.
I went through PubMed and they ain't there.
Guess what? They're only cited on the homeopathetic
web sites...
> You will note that Dharma Troll, after
> spouting the usual innuendo
> lies against Homeopathy promptly
> vanished when faced with the huge
> amount of genuine research
> showing positive results.
Don't worry, you have more than just DT to deal with.
Homeopathy *does* show "positive results" - in cash.
Ever hear about the $20-million-dollar-duck"?
<<Oscillococcinum, a 200C product "for the relief of colds and flu-like
symptoms," involves "dilutions" that are even more far-fetched. Its
"active ingredient" is prepared by incubating small amounts of a freshly
killed duck's liver and heart for 40 days. The resultant solution is
then filtered, freeze-dried, rehydrated, repeatedly diluted, and
impregnated into sugar granules. If a single molecule of the duck's
heart or liver were to survive the dilution, its concentration would be
1 in 100^200. This huge number, which has 400 zeros, is vastly greater
than the estimated number of molecules in the universe (about one
googol, which is a 1 followed by 100 zeros). In its February 17, 1997,
issue, U.S. News & World Report noted that only one duck per year is
needed to manufacture the product, which had total sales of $20 million
in 1996. The magazine dubbed that unlucky bird "the $20-million duck.">>
I think it showed up on Dr. Barrett's Quackwatch
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/homeo.html
You asserted earlier that the FDA regulates hoe-me-apathy.
Not so. In fact if you peep the history of both, you'll
find some amazing amazements. That's right - it's all about $$$.
Lots of it. Donated by people like yourself. No different,
in any way, from the churches.
I had this great vision after reading your crap: of you
writhing on the floor in terminal agony with pancreatic
cancer - surrounded by little brown bottles, some still
full of water, but all with scientific-sounding labels.
BTW, if you think I'm a meanie, just wait 'till DT gets back
from his nap. Erm... I mean "meditation"...
ps:
Hey, Tara, that acupuncture "study" turned out
to be just another badly designed and managed
"experiment", with ingrained bias aforethought.
From Australia, no less (AU and NZ are more isolated
than just geographically - they're hotbeds of woo-woo
transplanted from Prince Charlie's garden).
Déjà Flu
> If you check on that research link I posted
You'll find junk "studies" interested only in
continuing the enormous profits obtained from
selling snake oil to the ignorant masses.
Promoting ignorance, as the Bible Boys do,
is in their best interest (currently 28% APR
on VISA).
Robert Epstein
> On May 15, 12:35 am, Awaken21 <lukecar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On May 14, 11:17 pm, Citizen Jimserac <Jimse...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>On May 14, 9:10 pm, DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>On May 14, 7:05 pm, Tang Huyen <tanghuyen{dele...@gmail.com[remove]>
>>>>wrote:
>>
>>>>>Richard Corfield wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>Déjà Flu:
>>
>>>>>>>:) You sound like Keynes here, bud. What "presumptions"?
>>
>>>>>>>Hymnals (media and advertising) notwithstanding, could one
>>>>>>>therefore presume they've explored the efficacy of prayer,
>>>>>>>vs antibiotics and vaccines?
>>
>>>>>>It has been done. I think the ones who knew they were being prayed for
>>>>>>came out slightly, but very slightly, worse in one study, but other
>>>>>>people have reported very slight improvement.
>>
>>>>>>I'd guess at statistical noise or psychological effects of knowing
>>>>>>you're being prayed for combined with whatever you believe about that.
>>
>>>>>>I wonder what would happen if you told a load of Christians that Vishnu
>>>>>>was being prayed to for their healing.
>>
>>>>>This is a red herring. Fu is here misleading
>>>>>people with the error of overpervasion, in
>>>>>that he insinuates that because prayer
>>>>>doesn't work, therefore all spirituality is
>>>>>useless.
>>
>>>>And interesting point, Tang.
>>
>>>>First, I don't know if Fu is insinuating this, and you are notorious
>>>>for projecting false motives and intentions into others, Tang.
>>
>>>>But suppose you are right. Then I agree it would be a mistake to
>>>>throw out spirutuality. However, I think it would be very reasonable
>>>>to throw out superstition. You can have all the ethics and mystery
>>>>without superstition and blind faith. Indeed I claim that
>>>>spirituality without blind faith is even stronger than with it.
>>
>>>>To know that praying to a magical beastie doesn't work, and that this
>>>>has been demonstrated over and over, may help you find a more
>>>>authentic kind of spirituality. Just as knowing that magical snake
>>>>oils and acupuncture and reflexology andhomeopathyare all just
>>>>exploiting the placebo effect might lead you to seek out actual
>>>>medicine that is causally effective.
>>
>>>Er... pardon me for interspersing a comment but
>>>Homeopathy works though its mechanisms remain unknown
>>>and the placebo theory explanation is just that,
>>>a theory.
>>
>>>Acupuncture has had significantly more definitive research than
>>>Homeopathy and its operational mechanisms are starting to be known and
>>>understood. Research clearly shows MRI activity, for example in the
>>>visual cortex when Acupuncture points related to the eye
>>>are needled and NO such activity when random other points are
>>>selected.
>>
>>>Would you like some links?
>>
>>>Sorry to be off topic but there has been a concerted
>>>attempt to kill of an entire field of medicine,
>>>Homeopathy, on specious grounds and easily
>>>made fallacies such as your offhand comment
>>>need to be set right.
>>
>>>About reflexology I have no knowledge of it nor opinion.
>>
>>>Citizen Jimserac
>>
>>Yes, it's true, it appears accupuncture has scientific evidence to
>>support it. The only thing is the map used by the Chinese may be
>>slightly inaccurate in that it is not detailed enough. Medical
>>Scientists are now using technology to create a more accurate of the
>>map of accupuncture areas of insertion and effect. Accupuncture is in
>>fact scientific, whereas Chiropractics is still withcraft.
>>Keep up folks, we're doubling our knowledge every 4 years. :)
>
>
> Well, the studies with the random needles really question the value of
> acupuncture.
How about hospitals that are using it for partial anaesthesia, reducing
the danger of overmedicating?
Robert
- - - - - - - -
Déjà Flu
> How about hospitals that are using it for partial anaesthesia, reducing
> the danger of overmedicating?
Which hospitals?
The idiot who brought acupuncture to the west was
operated on in China. His claim that only acupuncture
was used turned out to be false.
DharmaTroll
> "Citizen Jimserac" <Jimse...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Actually, homeopathy, the silliest of the bunch, has been disproved
over and over and over, and there has been no evidence for it being
more effective than placebo in 200 years. Homeopathy is literally a
sugar pill. Indeed, homeopathy is where we coined the term "sugar
pill" for a placebo. For in homeopathy you are given two things. A
sugar pill. And a story. That's all. It's pure, unadulterated
placebo. Yes, the placebo effect works great. And yes, homeopathy is
fraud. Pure, unadulterated fraud.
If you want to be open minded, you can be charitable to acupuncture,
which unlike homeopathy, has in some cases, especially pain, been
slightly better than placebo. Perhaps the needles affect nerves or
something, who knows. But the woo-woo story that you're told is
complete fairy-tail nonsense about meridians. Yet because, unlike
homopathetic medicine, you're actually getting something done to you
besides just being given a sugar pill and a tall tale, there may be
something to it. Sure.
Same with chiropractic. Yes, the explanations are 100% certified
bullshit. But the chiropractors these days go through a lot of
training which overlaps a lot with massage therapy, physical therapy,
and counseling/psychotherapy. So maybe some of them are helpful in
real ways. But it ain't because of the woo-woo magic forces that flow
through the spine and so forth. It's that in spite of the woo-woo,
they also learn some legitimate massage therapy stuff. And so they
often help people. Hey, I had back pain and I got a hot girl to walk
on my back with her bare feet and grind her heels into my butt and
ribs and she cracked my back several times and it felt great and all
the pain went away. If I'd gone to a chiropractic I'd have paid a
ridiculous sum of money, and then had the quack crack my back and I'd
probably have felt just as good. Personally, I'd rather have the hot
girl walk on me and then spend the money taking her out on the town
than giving it to a quack. But, suit yourself.
So it might pay off to go to a chiropractor, or an acupuncturist. But
never homeopathy, which is a pure sugar pill and a tall tale. The
nonsense they peddle is so laughable though, that most folks won't be
swindled -- not even the gullible ones on these lists. The claim is
that they dilute substances and sprinkle it on the sugar pill. Well
they dilute it so much that the chances are slim that there is even
one single molecule of the original compound in the diluted water.
When this was proven, they made up the story that the water has magic
memories. But this is testable, and every test has failed. 200 years
and the tests all have failed.
There was one thing really really good about homeopathy. When it was
invented, there was so much quackery and nonsense going on before
modern medicine came about that homeopathy was the best medicine
possible because, being only a harmless sugar pill, it didn't kill you
-- and all the other cures did!!!
Seriously, 200 years ago, better to take a sugar pill than to be
poisoned or bled with all the nonsense that was peddled. Samuel
Hahnemann (1755-1843), a German physician, began formulating
homeopathy's basic principles in the late 1700s. Hahnemann was
justifiably distressed about bloodletting, leeching, purging, and
other medical procedures of his day that did far more harm than good.
Opening veins to bleed patients, force disease out of the body, and
restore the 'humors' to a proper balance was a popular medical
practice until the late 19th century.
Hahnemann rejected the notion that disease should be treated by
letting out the offensive matter causing the illness. In this, he was
right. On the other hand, he argued that disease should be treated by
helping the magical woo-woo 'vital force' restore the body to harmony
and balance. In this, he was wrong.
He rejected other common medical practices of his day such as
purgatives and emetics "with opium and mercury-based calomel" (ibid.:
145). Here he was right to do so. Hahnemann's alternative medicine was
way more humane and less likely to cause harm than many of the
conventional practices of his day.
So 200 years ago, homeopathy saved countless lives, not because it
cured a damn soul, but because it was harmless, a pure sugar pill, and
every other form of medicine was gruesome, harmful quackery. So it
won by default.
Once you understand the history, you see what is going on. It's like
an ultra-conservative movement, as today people demonize drug
companies and doctors. Except today, drug companies and doctors do a
hell of a job, despite some mistakes. So the idea is to go back the
the alternative that was the very best 200 years ago. But it was the
best because it did nothing, and all the others killed the patients!
That's the story. What Hahnemann was tring to do was to "balance the
body's 'humors' by opposite effects," so he developed his "law of
similars" —- a notion that symptoms of disease can be cured by
extremely small amounts of substances that produce similar symptoms in
healthy people when administered in large amounts. The word
"homeopathy" is derived from the Greek words homoios (similar) and
pathos (suffering or disease).
> > You will note that Dharma Troll, after
> > spouting the usual innuendo
> > lies against Homeopathy promptly
> > vanished when faced with the huge
> > amount of genuine research
> > showing positive results.
Can you believe this crap? I -um- went to bed. I am not a 24 hour
fraud-debunking superhero, and I'm here to discuss Buddhism.
Overwhelming the list with bullshit and then claiming that I didn't
stay up all night long refuting endless nonsense is the best rebuttal
you can come up with?
Actually it is. After all, 200 years with no results, and the
treatment proven to be pure sugar pills? You have no other argument
but to attack me and say that because I didn't stay up all night to
refute magical claims of water with memories (that have been disproven
over and over and over), I must be wrong? And I had a serious post to
write in response to RaaN, which was more important than the nutter
thread. Hah. I mean, even Keynes wouldn't try that argument, he has
too much self-respect (even though he's wrong about everything, he has
honor).
So I will -- with great hesitation -- grudgingly admit that acupunture
and chiropractic might help people because of accidental side effects,
such as nerves being stimulated or massage therapy being helpful, even
though the stories and woo-woo explanations given by the practitioners
are pure bullshit.
However, homeopathy is a pure sugar pill. In a sense, it is the
purest and most extreme of all quack medicines. And again, it
ironically was the very best medicine 200 years ago because of it
being just a sugar pill -- because all the other treatments were
ridiculous and fatal! Hope that history clears things up. I could
flood the list with tons of studies proving homeopathy to be pure
sugar pills, but I think I would only be preaching to the converted
with most folks here. And I'd really rather argue about Buddhism. Or
physics. Or even politics.
> I don't condemn DT for his stance on these things.
Of course you don't, Ev -- because you know I am right!
> I can tell you that I know of MANY people who decided to treat their cancer
> with 'natural' methods as opposed to allopathic medicine. They are ALL
> DEAD now, I am sorry to say.
Me too. A friend's wife had cancer. She was a spiritual New-Age kind
of person, and her friends overwhelmed her with all these stories
about how drug companies were corrupt, that the government agencies
were on the take and in conspiracies, and that doctors were just mean
body mechanics, while "alternative medicine" was so much better and
"holistic". She ignored the doctors, didn't have chemotherapy, and
went for the woo-woo. She felt wonderful and peaceful from the
treatments -- and she keeled over and died. If she'd seen a real
doctor, yeah she'd have been sick and taken drugs with side effects
and had her hair fall out. But she might be alive today.
That's why I take whacks at folks who glorify cancerous addictive
cigarettes while peddling misleading gossip about drug companies,
government agencies, and real doctors -- all of whom are human and
prone to mistakes and problems -- but all of whom also do a damn good
job and saving millions of lives. That kind of gossip and prejudice
against drug companies and real doctors leads to people like my
friend's wife dying instead of getting real treatment that could have
saved her life. (Keynes argues what does it matter if one dies
tomorrow or in 50 years, as we're going to die anyway -- it matters a
lot to my friend who is now a widower -- it matters every waking day
to him.)
> If one is confronted with a serious medical condition, I think one should
> definitely go to the doctor. A real medical doctor. Get treated. Then and
> only then, go to the alternative practitioners and hope for the best.
Right. Even better -- do both. If the doctor isn't warm enough, go
to the reiki chick as well so that psychologically you can feel
better.
> If you think it is nothing life threatening, then go to all the alternative
> practitioners you want. Feel good any way you can.
Here's where we disagree, but just a little. By paying money for
sugar pills and crazy magical woo-woo stories that go with the pills,
you are promoting ignorance. Same as with having your horoscope
read. That is, I think it's wrong to give money to homeopaths because
they are really a form of astrologist -- someone who takes your money
and then lies to you and gives you a sugar pill with a nonsense story,
or in the case of the astrologist, just a nonsense story. If you read
your horoscope in the paper without paying extra, well, ok, that's
fine, as long as you know that it's all nonsense.
>
> Now that's just my take on it.
>
> --
> Best Regards,
>
> Evelyn
--DharmaTroll
http://www.fdhom.co.uk/products.asp
What am I buying?
FairDeal Homeopathy will supply you with a carefully prepared
homeopathic preparation*. Carefully selected ingredients are diluted
and shaken (homeopaths call this shaking process "succussion") beyond
the level where there is any active ingredient left in the solution.
This "remedy†" is then dripped onto sugar pills which are mailed out
to you immediately. We'll also send you some information on homeopathy
in general.
What do I do with my remedy?
As soon as you receive your remedy, take the first of the pills.
You'll hopefully start feeling better as the placebo effect kicks in.
Take the pills as often, or as infrequently as you feel is required.
If you still feel ill, go and see your doctor or local pharmacist.
Remember, homeopathy of any kind is not a substitute for real medical
advice or treatment.
Why do you say you don't lie?
Homeopathy works through a complicated interaction with the human body
and mind known as the "placebo effect". Many homeopaths will try and
explain any health improvements through made-up science such as
"memory of water", "nano-particles" or other non-existent molecular
interaction. The truth is that the human mind and body is a remarkable
combination, and is perfectly capable of healing itself. If you think
a remedy is helping you, it may well actually do so, especially in the
case of self-limiting illnesses (ones that, if left alone will get
better anyway). For some reason, many homeopaths feel they have to
tell their patients lies and fairy stories, and try to baffle them
with pseudo-science. Here at FairDeal Homeopathy, we treat you like
adults, and only tell you the truth.
What side effects can I expect?
None. That's one of the great things about homeopathy - there are no
side effects (unless you're diabetic, allergic to sugar, or water) as
there are neither actual medical effects, nor active ingredients in
the remedies!
Are your products tested on animals?
Absolutely not.
Can I get homeopathic vaccines from you guys?
NO!! If you're traveling to parts of the world where you run the risk
of picking up a disease, make sure you get vaccinations as recommended
by your doctor. In addition, make sure your children are vaccinated
properly. Homeopathy is not capable of protecting you or your family
from any future medical condition or disease. You're more than welcome
to take our products alongside proper vaccination programmes if you
like though.
DharmaTroll
Exactly. Btw, of course homeopathy works -- because it's a placebo,
and because the placebo effect works great! Yes, if you give people
sugar pills and tell them it's medicine, they feel better than if you
don't give them sugar pills. That's the magic of homeopathy. The
beauty is that it works and we know exactly how it works, though the
hucksters selling the snake oil, or in this case sugar pills, claim
that we really don't know how it works. But we do. In fact it's the
very fact that homeopathy was successful by just giving sugar pills to
folks led to the use of placebos in clinical studies.
--DharmaTroll
Déjà Flu
> Hello! it was published in a reputable Journal for christ sake. Ok, show me
> how it "turned out to be just another badly designed and managed experiment.
> I'm all ears.
>
> Or are you just kidding me? Hell, I don't know anything anymore.
> Anyway, if you are serious, back up your claim... show me the proof. ;)
Hya sweetie! :)
No, I'm not kidding, but I just fly through this
kind of stuff and don't link it. As I said, I looked
on PubMed. You can find a zillon self-serving links
of so-called "studies" on whatsisname's Home-of-Apathy
site, too. BTW, 99.9% of positive home-schooling
results are published by home-schooling organizations
and other q.e.d.'s... If you're really trying to believe
in accuratetyrepuncture, I'll dredge up some antidotes,
though. I'd hate to see you burning incense on your head.
I watched "Charlie Wilson's War" recently. I'd say it
was the most ironic movie I'd ever seen. Maybe until the
production of "The Bush Monopoly", anyway...
Hey - if you haven't read Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine",
I'd recommend it VERY strongly. Gabe sent me a copy and
I'm now reading it for the third time. Fukkin' amazing...
Citizen Jimserac
Excuse me, but the studies are done
by well credentialed researchers,
many of them M.D.'s and PhD's.
Many of these studies are published
in non-Homeopathic medical
journals as well as the Homeopathic
ones. There are many of them,
here, for example one from
the British Journal of Pharmacology
(NOT a Homeopathic journal, you
will note)
Robin Gibson et al., "Homeoathic Therapy in Rheumatoid Arthritis:
Evaluation by Double Blind Clinical Trial", British Journal of
Clinical Pharmacology, vol 9 (March 1980), pages 453-459;
The results of the test were
(surprise!) positive.
Now, you want to call them quacks
you go ahead. I don't know if others
will accept your innuendo... I know I don't.
Also, I and everyone else does NOT
NEED you to make up our minds for us
about medicine. That's what freedom
of choice is all about.
You get MS and the standard medicine
treatment does not work for you
then you can stay in your bed.
There are people, formerly bedridden
who resorted to Homeopathy for just
such an illness in utter
desperation and their condition
improved dramatically. And yes
I understand that MS is a disease
with alternating relapses and remissions.
Do you understand that standard
medicine has NO cure for it?
So because YOU think Homeopathy
is absurd, you've decided FOR EVERYONE
that they should not have a chance at it?
Citizen Jimserac
DharmaTroll
> "tara" <jackpine@xplornet{removethis}.com> wrote in message
>
> news:0001HW.C4522EB5...@news.usenetmonster.com...
>
>
>
> > On Thu, 15 May 2008 14:17:47 -0400, Evelyn Ruut wrote
>
> >> "tara" <jackpine@xplornet{removethis}.com> wrote in message
> >>news:0001HW.C451AEC0...@news.usenetmonster.com...
> >>> On Thu, 15 May 2008 00:31:15 -0400, DharmaTroll wrote
> >>> (in article
You have your money to lose. Woo-woo is notoriously expensive.
--DharmaTroll
Déjà Flu
According to International Treaty, you're not supposed
to reply to my posts. Tang will get confused and begin
to attack physicalists all over the world, endangering
biologists and possums (whom we enjoy studying) alike.
Home-E-Apathy (and placebo) works because there isn't
anything wrong in the first place - just like Sid's
Magic Formula that "cures" suffering.