sinequanon:


Don't be lazy. Read properly.

I am impatient with laziness. And I am not as patient as you seem to be, with stupidity.

Do we agree on everything? Have we fought? No. Because neither of us is controlled by dogma.

The problem people are having is that they cannot attack me "successfully" by ignoring my points and attacking some dogma, like religion or science. They try, find that I am not religious or atheist, then they get upset and frustrated.

That is how mainly how things have worked. People rant off topic.

But please show me a thread where I started a fight.



Nope.

Your premise was wrong.

I comment on religion and its limitations.

I comment on science and its limitations.

I do so without pandering to people's sensitivities, hypocrisies and denials.

Folks feel "attacked" and start ranting off topic.

Then I tell them that they are ranting and intellectually compromised. Fact.

I'm not going to get on a high horse and start acting as if I haven't been as rude as you in the past, and even occasionally in the present. I do.

But the challenge I set myself is to develop my abilities as a communicator.

Rather than call people lazy or stupid-, I am trying to see their failure to understand as My failure to make myself understood. It works both ways.

I know that there are different levels of engagement when people meet and discuss.

There is the level of comparing arguments on an issue to find the stronger argument. This is just sticking to the topic of the conversation.

Then there are other levels. A common one is status. Some people are so stuck on the issue of being intellectually superior and when they discuss that is the real issue at stake, not the topic of the conversation. everything they do and say will be to maintain that sense of intellectual superiority. If they realise that their arguments do not hold, instead of being happy that someone is correcting their error they instead panic that they are about to lose their authority as the Know-It-All on the issue.

This matter of status, intellectual and enlightened-wise, used to be found mostly in christians and they would often look down on ATR and Muslims and being backward etc. Lately Atheists have become more vocal and they have overtaken christians with being obnoxious on this matter of intellectual superiority. This is partly to explain for why many of the christians here have run away. It was a matter of Overtake don Overtake Overtake which is equal to ODOO = 0.

I understand that many Atheists might take to attacking you personally when they cannot provide an argument to support why they feel intellectually superior to religionists. But by the time you react to them with such belligerence even before they post it makes for No discussion at all. A lot of the threads of you versus the atheists are very tedious to read, even pointless. Overtaking has really resulted in Odoo.

I personally would rather ignore anyone that I can't have a proper conversation with (I could interact with them without really getting into the topic or presenting arguments to them). But then, to each his own.

PastorAIO:
I understand that many Atheists might take to attacking you personally when they cannot provide an argument to support why they feel intellectually superior to religionists. But by the time you react to them with such belligerence even before they post it makes for No discussion at all. A lot of the threads of you versus the atheists are very tedious to read, even pointless. Overtaking has really resulted in Odoo.

I personally would rather ignore anyone that I can't have a proper conversation with (I could interact with them without really getting into the topic or presenting arguments to them). But then, to each his own.

You have summarized it well.

If you check, you will find I do A LOT of ignoring.

Occasionally, ranters INTRODUCE interesting angles, but I know a discussion with them will not go far. My intention is usually only to respond to their post (hich is usually a cut-and-paste job or cliche). As soon as they start ranting, I tell them where to go.

As for intellectual superiority, that only features when people show themselves up by resorting to swearing, cartoons, ranting and kindergarten tactics, instead of being able to rest the case they say they have made so well. In a proper debate I don't know why "intellectual superiority" enters into the picture.

I like to improve my communication skills. But I won't be beating my head against a wall trying to communicate with a hypocrite. Why not just focus on communicating well with people capable of making a solid point and confidently resting their case?

ooman:


ok, how is atheism guilty of this?

bible say ''if the foundation is shaky what can the righteous do?''

sinequanon:


This is equivocation. This is a way for science to define itself retrospectively. "If it works it then it was science".

There isn't a being called science that defines that. those were all my words and my name is not science. I was talking about what it take for something to be accepted as knowledge. It has to be tested and when it is tested and it passes the test then it is accepted. This happens in Scientific institutions and it also happens with Babalawos. It is mostly just a/the way the human brain is convinced.

The product of these "witch doctors" is not science. Neither is it accidental science as they sometimes like to call it, or ignorant folks "stumbling" upon facts later verified by science.

Why not? It is tested and appraised on the results of the test. I've never heard of this 'accidental science' but I do know that many many many scientific discoveries are stumbled upon accidentally. Why can babalawos too not accidentally stumble on knowledge?

They are very clear that science is what is published in "respected, peer review journals". When you argue scientifically, that is what is demanded. You can't reject something on this ground one day, and then relax your definition the next.

That is the latest and most fascinating definition of Science that I've ever heard. So until a scientist publishes his work in a 'respected peer review journal' what he has been doing is not science. What about if he decides to keep his discovery secret, or he is working for a government agency that requires secrecy. Does that disqualify him from being a scientist?

I think that is just you missing the point.

Okay, so the point is not that it is european. You had me fooled the way you were going on about.....

That is precisely how you lose your culture instead of developing it.

The ATTITUDE of the diviners and healers towards nature was very different to that found in "modern" medicine and botany.

The modern terminology subsumes the African culture under Western practices and consigns the difference to the rubbish heap.

You are an example of how that process works. You lose your culture because you have accepted the language that consigns it to the rubbish heap.

(Did you mean physician? I don't know what kind of physics a babalawo does.)

Faith healing. Your faith is important in a treatment.

In Western medicine, a treatment is deemed ineffective if it fails a test on a randomly chosen group of people regardless of their attitude towards faith and "superstition".

I meant physics but physician will do if that is easier. (I didn't mean to say that babalawo does physics, I said that the process via which the physicist acquires knowledge is not so radically different from the process of the babalawo).

In western medicine we know for a fact that there is something called the Placebo effect. It is recognised in medicine. We might not know how it works but we recognise it. There is no doubt that one's belief on a number of issues affects the outcome. Tests have been done on this matter in many fields.

ooman:


What genetic defect did he ignore?

my point is this, dose he not known that marrying close relative can cost genetic defect?
Note please, am not into science, but I think I make my point. Thank you

malvisguy212:
my point is this, dose he not known that marrying close relative can cost genetic defect?
Note please, am not into science, but I think I make my point. Thank you

Actually, Darwin got married before Mendel published the first publication on genetics. So genetic knowledge was not common during his time.

Ok?

malvisguy212:
bible say ''if the foundation is shaky what can the righteous do?''

And what foundation is shaky?

ooman:


Actually, Darwin got married before Mendel published the first publication on genetics. So genetic knowledge was not common during his time.

Ok?

something I know nothing of ,I can't argue about it. Ok mr.

ooman:


And what foundation is shaky?

darwin was the pillar of atheism, there are disturbing messages about him in that link I post.

malvisguy212:
darwin was the pillar of atheism, there are disturbing messages about him in that link I post.

Darwin was not the pillar of atheism. Atheistic thought were already common in europe starting from 16th cemtury. Perhaps you mean he was the pillar of evolutionary thought. That would be right. But atheism is not synonymous with evolution, ok?

ooman:


Darwin was not the pillar of atheism. Atheistic thought were already common in europe starting from 16th cemtury. Perhaps you mean he was the pillar of evolutionary thought. That would be right. But atheism is not synonymous with evolution, ok?

Why did you become an Atheist?

Thugnificent:
Why did you become an Atheist?

Because I found the creation account unfounded.
Because I realized that absence of faith is the absence of god.
Because I cherish knowledge more than I cherish faith.

ooman:


Darwin was not the pillar of atheism. Atheistic thought were already common in europe starting from 16th cemtury. Perhaps you mean he was the pillar of evolutionary thought. That would be right. But atheism is not synonymous with evolution, ok?

alright ooman.

ooman:


Because I found the creation account unfounded.
Because I realized that absence of faith is the absence of god.
Because I cherish knowledge more than I cherish faith.

darwin invented the theory of evolution , saying. Man evolve from ape,darwin was not there when all this happen,don't you evolution is a belief just like religion but the only difference is 'faith'?

ooman:


Because I found the creation account unfounded.
Because I realized that absence of faith is the absence of god.
Because I cherish knowledge more than I cherish faith.

Atheism is the disbelief in the existence of DEITIES, no? but your grouse is always about the Christian God/Christianity, why?

malvisguy212:
darwin invented the theory of evolution , saying. Man evolve from ape,darwin was not there when all this happen,don't you evolution is a belief just like religion but the only difference is 'faith'?

To begin with, Darwin did not "invent" evolution, rather, he gave the first precise and complete explanation in one volume.
Before him, people of various fields have always had their philosophy of unintelligent design, but he [Darwin] kind of compiled it. This is why he is credited with the modern evolution theory.
He didn't even coin the term "survival of the fittest", Wallace did that.

Back to point, Darwin surmised that organismal similarities show ancestral similarity. So, though we were not there when every single gene was getting mutated to form human, we can actually look into other animals, and know that we are similar.

Darwin published this before genetic information became available, and after we learn about genes, we found that all organisms share the same genetic code and that organism that look morphologically similar also have a large portion of their genes similar.
Humans share 97% (or 98%) of our genes with chimpanzee for instance.

Hence, we now know that evolution occurred, occurs and will occur, we don't believe or have faith. Ok?

Thugnificent:
Atheism is the disbelief in the existence of DEITIES, no? but your grouse is always about the Christian God/Christianity, why?

All gods are the same. Destroy one, you destroy all.

Besides I was a Christian before I became an atheist, so I only know about the Christian god. I don't have a say on alla for instance, because I was never a muslim. Ok?

PastorAIO:
That is the latest and most fascinating definition of Science that I've ever heard. So until a scientist publishes his work in a 'respected peer review journal' what he has been doing is not science. What about if he decides to keep his discovery secret, or he is working for a government agency that requires secrecy. Does that disqualify him from being a scientist?

The definition may "fascinate" you, but this is what is demanded in practice.

One of the main assertions of scientists is that scientific claims are open to scrutiny by anyone.

Another claim is that science is unified. Unlike religion, we are told, you don't have scientists holding one theory in one place and another theory somewhere else.

If you allow for your secrecy examples, then there is no consistent definition of science. It would be neither unified nor "open to scrutiny by anyone".

That is why I pin science down and define it by its practical definition -- the one that surfaces in open discourse.

PastorAIO:
Okay, so the point is not that it is european. You had me fooled the way you were going on about.....

The point is that European or Western science is what displaced much African culture. You must be reading your own prejudices into this fact. I think Western science succeeded, not because it was more "accurate", but because many Africans fled from the dark and fearsome misuse of their own knowledge. There is a huge lesson there about using knowledge to good ends. Western science didn't seem to displace Indian and Chinese knowledge so readily. Today, you find practitioners of this knowledge competing strongly with mainstream science.

PastorAIO:
In western medicine we know for a fact that there is something called the Placebo effect. It is recognised in medicine. We might not know how it works but we recognise it. There is no doubt that one's belief on a number of issues affects the outcome. Tests have been done on this matter in many fields.

You are skirting the point.

Western science rejects the placebo in its clinical trials. It separates placebo effect and drug.

A babalawo may work with belief as an integral part of treatment.

sinequanon:


A babalawo may work with belief as an integral part of treatment.

If you'd ever bothered to open a biology textbook in your miserable life, you would have noticed how common it is for different scientists in the same field to hold contrasting theories about a single observation.

Stop all the long winded nonsense about nothing. Or you should open a thread on philosophy, because that's about the only thing you have to offer.

Shamans and babalawos, the real ones, take drugs. Consciousness altering drugs. That's their secret. Belief is merely a complimentary factor as in any form of treatment.

PastorAIO:



I'm not going to get on a high horse and start acting as if I haven't been as rude as you in the past, and even occasionally in the present. I do.

But the challenge I set myself is to develop my abilities as a communicator.

Rather than call people lazy or stupid-, I am trying to see their failure to understand as My failure to make myself understood. It works both ways.

I know that there are different levels of engagement when people meet and discuss.

There is the level of comparing arguments on an issue to find the stronger argument. This is just sticking to the topic of the conversation.

Then there are other levels. A common one is status. Some people are so stuck on the issue of being intellectually superior and when they discuss that is the real issue at stake, not the topic of the conversation. everything they do and say will be to maintain that sense of intellectual superiority. If they realise that their arguments do not hold, instead of being happy that someone is correcting their error they instead panic that they are about to lose their authority as the Know-It-All on the issue.

This matter of status, intellectual and enlightened-wise, used to be found mostly in christians and they would often look down on ATR and Muslims and being backward etc. Lately Atheists have become more vocal and they have overtaken christians with being obnoxious on this matter of intellectual superiority. This is partly to explain for why many of the christians here have run away. It was a matter of Overtake don Overtake Overtake which is equal to ODOO = 0.

I understand that many Atheists might take to attacking you personally when they cannot provide an argument to support why they feel intellectually superior to religionists. But by the time you react to them with such belligerence even before they post it makes for No discussion at all. A lot of the threads of you versus the atheists are very tedious to read, even pointless. Overtaking has really resulted in Odoo.

I personally would rather ignore anyone that I can't have a proper conversation with (I could interact with them without really getting into the topic or presenting arguments to them). But then, to each his own.

You really relayed my mind here bro...Kudos!
You are 1000000000% correct!!

joseph1013:

ON A DAY LIKE THIS...

There are many things we could wish for but, if you have only one wish, you need to make it really work for you.

This is a no brainer for me. I would wish that I had at least a thousand of such wishes, and I'll start from there.

joseph1013:
A few thoughts... (7)

What if I worshiped you, yes you?

All day long, every day, I do nothing but worship you. WHAT WOULD YOU GET FROM THAT?

Whatever it is, it's exactly what God gets when you worship Him.

Now, what if me and 100 other people stood around you all day long, every day, and worshipped you aloud? Would you need more? God does.

God has a whole class of angels just to worship him all day long, every day, but that is not enough for him...he demands that everyone, everywhere worship Him everyday, all day long.

God is an insecure, narcissistic egotistic slowpoke. He needs constant ego massage and validation, else he'll feel less like a god.

joseph1013:

ON A DAY LIKE THIS...

There are many things we could wish for but, if you have only one wish, you need to make it really work for you. My wish would be that people would care, really care, whether or not the things they believe are true.

Our behaviour is driven by our beliefs yet the great majority of people in the world are more concerned to believe things that make them happy than to believe things that are true.

Believing you could spend eternity in Heaven may make you happy but it may also change how you behave in life. It may encourage you to think of your life as an unimportant prologue to the real thng—worse still it may make you think other people's live are unimportant too...

If you believe things that make you happy, expect to believe lies. And expect to make bad decisions and expect to be less than you could be.

Didn't I see this on Facebook today

McSterling:
Didn't I see this on Facebook today

Yeah, you did. Probably facebook friends.

sinequanon:



You are skirting the point.

Western science rejects the placebo in its clinical trials. It separates placebo effect and drug.

A babalawo may work with belief as an integral part of treatment.

Science tries to isolate the effect of a drug to study it on it's own. It's called reductionism, I think, and it is only a part of how science is done.

The fact that placebo might be separated in clinical trials does not mean that 'science' does not recognise placebo. If I try to separate the effect of atmospheric pressure on the boiling point of water when I heat it up that doesn't mean that I reject the fact of Pressure, or it's effect on boiling points.

Doctors work with placebos as a part of their treatments too. The number of times that I've suspected, and once even caught out, a doctor for giving me a placebo affirms this for me.

PastorAIO:
Science tries to isolate the effect of a drug to study it on it's own. It's called reductionism, I think, and it is only a part of how science is done.

By "drug", what we are really talking about is "active" chemical ingredient.

All participants in most clinical trials observe that chemical ingredients are being used. How do you establish that chemical ingredients are "active"?

You have to establish this before you can decide what the "placebo effect" is, because the placebo effect is defined in relation to the absence of active ingredients.

But to prove that your ingredient is "active", you first have to isolate it from the "placebo effect".

"Active" and "placebo effect" are fine labels. But once again, we have scientists slapping labels on things to hide circularity.

PastorAIO:
The fact that placebo might be separated in clinical trials does not mean that 'science' does not recognise placebo. If I try to separate the effect of atmospheric pressure on the boiling point of water when I heat it up that doesn't mean that I reject the fact of Pressure, or it's effect on boiling points.

You may vary temperature and pressure independently of one another (which is not isolating one or the other), as they can be measured more or less independently. It is very clear how the relevant quantities are being recognized, in this case.

Apart from the aforementioned circularity in defining "active ingredient" and "placebo", the rejection I am referring to is not rejection of the existence of whatever they are labeling "placebo".

My point is that a treatment that is deemed to be "no better than a placebo" fails clinical trials AS A TREATMENT. Scientists do not consider it to be medical treatment, and there is pressure to get them removed from the sale to the public. Placebos have been described as deceptions and their effects as "subjective" experience.

PastorAIO:
Doctors work with placebos as a part of their treatments too. The number of times that I've suspected, and once even caught out, a doctor for giving me a placebo affirms this for me.

Absolutely! The medical establishment equivocate over placebos. If you are to take their literal word in the matter, they use placebos necessarily to DECEIVE their patients.

This is not necessarily the case for a babalawo. As I said, the treatment is generally more holistic and the question of deception does not arise in the same context.

(Deception may arise in the context of someone pretending to be a trained babalawo, or a babalawo who exploits his patient, e.g by gaining psychological or "spiritual" control over them.)

sinequanon:


By "drug", what we are really talking about is "active" chemical ingredient.

All participants in most clinical trials observe that chemical ingredients are being used. How do you establish that chemical ingredients are "active"?

You have to establish this before you can decide what the "placebo effect" is, because the placebo effect is defined in relation to the absence of active ingredients.

But to prove that your ingredient is "active", you first have to isolate it from the "placebo effect".

"Active" and "placebo effect" are fine labels. But once again, we have scientists slapping labels on things to hide circularity.

I don't know about circularity and all the other stuff you're bringing up. My point is that there is something scientifically recognised called the placebo effect. I don't know if you prefer a different label on it, or you'd rather leave it unlabelled. Perhaps you'd rather that they called it Faith.

sinequanon:

You may vary temperature and pressure independently of one another (which is not isolating one or the other), as they can be measured more or less independently. It is very clear how the relevant quantities are being recognized, in this case.
Apart from the aforementioned circularity in defining "active ingredient" and "placebo", the rejection I am referring to is not rejection of the existence of whatever they are labeling "placebo".
My point is that a treatment that is deemed to be "no better than a placebo" fails clinical trials AS A TREATMENT. Scientists do not consider it to be medical treatment, and there is pressure to get them removed from the sale to the public. Placebos have been described as deceptions and their effects as "subjective" experience.

Don't conflate Treatment with drugs. A drug is tested and found to be ineffective but if administered as a placebo it works. The administering of drugs is the Treatment, but the drug itself is just the drug.

Bottomline, Science recognises that subjectivity plays a part in healing. They call it the placebo effect. They seek to isolate this effect from the testing of pharmaceuticals/drugs.
Placebo IS subjective, and calling it a deception puts a kinda dark slant on it, but I suppose it can be a kind of deception, only that it isn't because it does the job. You can call it Faith if you like, but it amounts to the same thing. Belief. Beliefs have an effect on healing.

sinequanon:
Absolutely! The medical establishment equivocate over placebos. If you are to take their literal word in the matter, they use placebos necessarily to DECEIVE their patients.
This is not necessarily the case for a babalawo. As I said, the treatment is generally more holistic and the question of deception does not arise in the same context.
(Deception may arise in the context of someone pretending to be a trained babalawo, or a babalawo who exploits his patient, e.g by gaining psychological or "spiritual" control over them.)

What exactly is it that the babalawo does that is different from the doctor administering a placebo?

PastorAIO:
I don't know about circularity and all the other stuff you're bringing up. My point is that there is something scientifically recognised called the placebo effect. I don't know if you prefer a different label on it, or you'd rather leave it unlabelled. Perhaps you'd rather that they called it Faith.

I don't think it is clear at all what they are calling the "placebo effect".

PastorAIO:
Don't conflate Treatment with drugs. A drug is tested and found to be ineffective but if administered as a placebo it works. The administering of drugs is the Treatment, but the drug itself is just the drug.

I can't make sense of this.

What prevented the placebo effect when the drug was tested?

PastorAIO:
Bottomline, Science recognises that subjectivity plays a part in healing. They call it the placebo effect. They seek to isolate this effect from the testing of pharmaceuticals/drugs.

I disagree. Science assumes that what it is calling the placebo effect is totally objective, e.g a deterministic neurological response.

PastorAIO:
Placebo IS subjective, and calling it a deception puts a kinda dark slant on it, but I suppose it can be a kind of deception, only that it isn't because it does the job. You can call it Faith if you like, but it amounts to the same thing. Belief. Beliefs have an effect on healing.

They call a placebo a deception because of the INTENT behind the administration, regardless of the faith of the recipient. This is a point I made earlier. The faith of the recipient is not monitored in clinical trials of "pills" (as you don't like the term "treatments" ).

And, in regards your earlier point of 'administering the pill as placebo', please describe the difference between that and 'administering a pill as a drug'.

(NB you are making a distinction between an object (pill) that can be a placebo or a drug depending on factors which you have not clearly explained.)

PastorAIO:
What exactly is it that the babalawo does that is different from the doctor administering a placebo?

A "faith healer" puts healing intent and 'spiritual' energy into the "pill".

The scientist claims that this makes no difference, and does not.