From what you've said, you seem to be almost stating a Platonic conception of truth- a world of forms which stands above and outside our world, which is a poor imitation.

The movie or what you said about Einstein, Newton and Pythagoras etc? Maybe I read too much into your comment. These guys looked behind what's visible to the eye to discern the underlying truths of our cosmos and basically that's what Plato was about.

I'm not concerned with philosophies atm, I'm talking about paradigms.

Obviously you'd prefer not to look at different concepts and instead place labels as you see fit.
That would agree with your current mindset I'm sure.

I was just on my way out when I caught your last post, Amadd. I was just trying to get a handle on where you were going but I got it wrong, sorry. No, go right ahead what concepts do you want to look at when it comes to spirituality? You did say that you had different concepts to Christianity. You hinted at it by talking about revealed truths.

The floor is all yours. I'll be back later today , I guess, to see what you have in mind.

It's fashionable to beat up Christianity and Islam these days.  I guess the two religions deserve it in a way by being so exclusive.  

If you want people to have totally "rational" beliefs, I think you're collectively deluded. It's just a fundamental thing about being human. Humans like to have their "comfort blanket". Apart from that, we all think in what I'd term idiomatic thought patterns. Our highly idiomatic speech patterns reflect an underlying idiomatic mind pattern.

Even if we pushed these religions out the door, another mental idiom would spring up in their place.

Think of the most serious scientific researchers imaginable - those paragons of rational thought. I worked in a research lab many moons ago. A lay person might think that these people would be somehow very rational and logical.  That's very far from the truth.  We'll never lose our humanity. One research paper I was assisting with  concerned certain long chain carboxylic acids and enzymes and their role in the breakdown of certain pharmaceutic grade products. We were using liquid chromatography to determine a way of separating them and working out the relative proportions of each. Instead of using the technical terms, within our group, the prof used the names Archie (arachidonic acid) Lucy (Linoleic acid) and Charlie Brown (stuffed if I can remember that one). Incidentally the related arachidic acid is found in peanut oil.

We all have a need to think illogically at times. We have a sense of humour. Many of us cling to religions too. It's all a part of being human.

Axle wrote on Feb 10^th, 2011 at 6:33pm:



Yeah, I don't agree with the postmodern deconstructionist's view. Generally, their view is that everything is a social construction. But this paradigm wipes out possible biological, genetic, or hereditary influences. The postmodernists try to sever thousands of years of evolutionary biology through cunning semantics. It's easy to expose the fallacy in their paradigm. A very simple example is babies crying as soon as they are born. The baby obviously wasn't taught to cry by "society", rather, it's obvious that we are born with certain instincts even before any socialisation occurs. This goes for other instincts as well, like sex, happiness, anger, and hunger.
There was an interesting fiasco a little while back called the Sokal affiar. Sokal exposed the lack of intellectual rigor in the postmodernist's view by writing a hoax article and then submitting it to one of their journals. Sokal, a physicist, wrote a parody claiming science is all a social construction. The postmodernists lapped it up. It showed that the postmodernists never actually engage in the scientific methodologies themselves, they believe they can just stand back and label it accordingly to their prejudiced beliefs.

I really gotta say Lisa, I find it hilarious that you deleted my comment about not having enough balls to look at the different paradigms concerning Christianity.
It was actually directed to Axle who previously requested my take on differernt concepts regarding Christianity.

So is it that "balls" was such an obscene word? Oh gee whiz, golly jeepers..maybe I should have said "kahunas".

What you actually expressed there Lisa, was the paradigm that you follow and your refusal to compare concepts. It's all too common place, so don't worry too much about it.
Even Muso chimed in with a "fashionable beating up of mainstream religion" comment.

No, the only thing that is being beat up is the will to look for truth.
If something obviously counters your beliefs, then you'll stick your head in the sand. That's not very courageous.
But please consider all of those throughout history who were forced to tow the line of opposing paradigms.
They deserve to be heard don't they?
I'm really starting to wonder where you get off thinking that you even have a spritual bone in your body Lisa...besides your left winged agnostic hubby that is...that's a joke OK?  

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Feb 13^th, 2011 at 12:54pm:

Isn't that the genesis of all neuroses (Obsessive pain avoidance)?