Why are a lot of left-winger into new-age religions?

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Tue, 2009-06-09 12:13

500_Apples

Cueball wrote:
your airy-fairy hippy notions about social relativism...

someone who wants to avoid social responsibility in favour of self-gratification...

But I don't convenience my own personal ego and ambition by asserting social relativism and "naturalism" as a justification for my own teripitude...

Strangely, you consider yourself a scientist. ...

Parlour tricks and bullshit semantics. ...

are you blandly stating that your life has a greater or lesser value than any other human life?<

Get back to me after you take a chill pill.

At least you didn't accuse me of paedophilia, or call me a nazi. There's that much.

Tue, 2009-06-09 12:18

#103

500_Apples

RosaL wrote:

There are some excellent posts in this thread

Anyway, I think the thread title should have been, "why are a lot of liberals into new age religions?" A certain type of liberal certainly is into new-ageism and it's an interesting phenomenon. (Terry Eagleton makes some good points.) But I have not observed people left of liberal to be prone to new-ageism.

edited to add:
Quote:
Seriously, is it really true that young scientists are being produced in universities in this country without even rudimentary knowledge of fundaments of basic political philosophy?

In my experience, yes. I found it quite striking.

I agree with the first thing you said. I live in the USA and have been here for the past two years, the spectrum is different here and liberals are the local left.

As for the second thing, that was a personal attack from cueball directed towards me. I've actually taken a lot college-level humanities (~10), I had a good time doing so. He decided to attack all scientists in order to be cute. It turns out he's wrong. There's a lot of variation of course, and the human body of knowledge is just way too big for someone to be an expert at everything, but most scientists I know are quite knowledgeable about a few other areas than their own specialty. Around here alone I can think of one person who also works at an arts center, one who got into a graduate program for south asian history of some sort, one who regularly reads marxist literature, et cetera.

In general I do think everyone with a science degree should have an arts minor, and vice versa. I don't think political science is the quintessential humanities concentration as implied by its singling out by Cueball. Personally if I were to do so now I'd go for sociology. It seems more reality-oriented, and I like the people better.

I'm wondering, do you find it "quite striking" that most students in the humanities never take proper statistics courses? What about the fact our politicians seem to think the global warming debate comes down to who has the best verbal arguments, as befitting their background in law?

Tue, 2009-06-09 12:25

#104

RosaL

[/quote] I'm wondering, do you find it "quite striking" that most students in the humanities never take proper statistics courses? [/quote]

Indeed I do.

Tue, 2009-06-09 12:38

#105

500_Apples

RosaL wrote:
I'm wondering, do you find it "quite striking" that most students in the humanities never take proper statistics courses?

No. Universities make a choice between demanding as much of a well-rounded education of their students as possible (example: Columbia and Chicago) and demanding a lot in their major with freedom elsewhere (example: McGill).

Personally I favour the former approach but I'm not wedded to it, there's advantages either way and both philosophies have strong advantages.

Tue, 2009-06-09 12:40

#106

RosaL

500_Apples wrote:
RosaL wrote:
I'm wondering, do you find it "quite striking" that most students in the humanities never take proper statistics courses?
No. Universities make a choice between demanding as much of a well-rounded education of their students as possible (example: Columbia and Chicago) and demanding a lot in their major with freedom elsewhere (example: McGill). Personally I favour the former approach but I'm not wedded to it, there's advantages either way and both philosophies are respectable.

Sorry. My post got screwed up. That was your question and I responded to it: "Yes, I do find it striking." I didn't intend to throw it back at you.

Tue, 2009-06-09 19:39

#107

Fidel

Sven wrote:

Oh, the one thing that I'll give "spiritualism" is that most people who are "spiritual" don't have an need impose their beliefs on others, unlike much of Christianity and Islam. In that sense, I think "spiritualism" is harmless: If someone wants to believe that they have a spirit or a soul, have at it, I guess. But, "spiritualism" doesn't seem to be intellectually grounded in any way.

Meditation is considered taboo in Christianity. And it's an ancient practice that science and medicine are revealing now can have powerful effects toward healing and dealing with stress. Stress, they say, can kill a horse.

And I think there isnt much known about what happens to the human mind after death because nobody's really looked into it using the scientific method.

[url=http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs//2008/080911_NGOSymposium.doc.htm]Dr. Sam Parnia[/url] and a number of medical facilities from the UK to America are doing clinical studies into what happens during a "near-death" experience. Actually, Parnia says the people being studied are dying a clinical death ie. no heartbeat, not breathing, no brainwave activity, or in an other word, they have "flatlined" for anywhere from five minutes to an hour before being brought back to life. And some of them recount events which took place in the emergency room after their time of death was recorded. Parnia and others think the results of this study could alter accepted scientific and medical perceptions of death and the mind-body paradox.

Tue, 2009-06-09 19:53

#108

Tommy_Paine

"No. Universities make a choice between demanding as much of a well-rounded education of their students as possible (example: Columbia and Chicago) and demanding a lot in their major with freedom elsewhere (example: McGill).

Personally I favour the former approach but I'm not wedded to it, there's advantages either way and both philosophies have strong advantages."

All I can do is observe. And, as a person who has driven through the campus of the University of Western Ontario, I'd favour students learning a Newtonian approach towards crossing the road, as opposed to what appears to be a Quantum approach mixed with dollops of postmodernism.

But then, maybe running underneath it all is a biology experiment related to evolution. If so, clue me in, I'll speed up.

Tue, 2009-06-09 20:35

#109

Fidel

"Man has a limited biological capacity for change. When this capacity is overwhelmed, the capacity is in future shock."

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn" - Alvin Toffler

Wed, 2009-06-10 07:21

#110

Cueball

500_Apples wrote:
Cueball wrote:
your airy-fairy hippy notions about social relativism... someone who wants to avoid social responsibility in favour of self-gratification... But I don't convenience my own personal ego and ambition by asserting social relativism and "naturalism" as a justification for my own teripitude... Strangely, you consider yourself a scientist. ... Parlour tricks and bullshit semantics. ... are you blandly stating that your life has a greater or lesser value than any other human life?<
Get back to me after you take a chill pill. At least you didn't accuse me of paedophilia, or call me a nazi. There's that much.

No I accused you of not answering a question, which is fairly asked. When asked, predictably you demanded that I answer first. Then after I did that, you made a few pithy comments, as a means of evading the queation some more.

You have yet to summarize what "frequency", to use your wording from the OP, you think the "left" has that might make it resonate with with the "frequency of spirtuality" of the "new age". Clearly, you seem to think "the left" has some "frequency", or other, Care to define it?

Wed, 2009-06-10 08:47

#111

500_Apples

Cueball wrote:

500_Apples wrote:
Cueball wrote:
your airy-fairy hippy notions about social relativism... someone who wants to avoid social responsibility in favour of self-gratification... But I don't convenience my own personal ego and ambition by asserting social relativism and "naturalism" as a justification for my own teripitude... Strangely, you consider yourself a scientist. ... Parlour tricks and bullshit semantics. ... are you blandly stating that your life has a greater or lesser value than any other human life?<
Get back to me after you take a chill pill. At least you didn't accuse me of paedophilia, or call me a nazi. There's that much.

No I accused you of not answering a question, which is fairly asked. When asked, predictably you demanded that I answer first. Then after I did that, you made a few pithy comments, as a means of evading the queation some more.

You have yet to summarize what "frequency", to use your wording from the OP, you think the "left" has that might make it resonate with with the "frequency of spirtuality" of the "new age". Clearly, you seem to think "the left" has some "frequency", or other, Care to define it?

You might want to take a hint from the fact I've responded to every single poster in this thread who addressed me except you: you're not in this for discussion, you're (coming off as) trying to prove your intellectual alpha male bonafides, it's lame.

No matter how I respond, even if my corporeal form is temporarily possessed by the spirit of Hannah Arendt, you would still contrive some way to argue that my response is ignorant.

And you did a lot more than accuse me of evading a question, you accused me of not valuing human life, of subscribing to social relativism, and implied I was a pseudoscientist. What's the matter with you?

Wed, 2009-06-10 09:05

#112

500_Apples

Cueball wrote:

As for "winning" and "losing" and Alpha maleness and all that rot, that starts with you in post 31.

Cueball, you shouldn't fib when there's a written record.

Post 31 is the post which succeeds post 30, one of your early belligerent contribution.

Cueball wrote:
You are a pseudoscientist, if you actually think that the evidence on this thread suggests that you are not responding to me because I have been less than polite with you.

I've responded to everyone except you (unless I forgot someone),

It's either because you're more intelligent than everyone else and ask better questions, or because of what distinguishes your post, a ton which implies a lack of interest in advancing knowledge.

Wed, 2009-06-10 09:07

#113

Cueball

You are a pseudoscientist, if you actually think that the evidence on this thread suggests that you are not responding to me because I have been less than polite with you. In fact, I started off in quite a civil tone. I even answered your question for you, as you asked, but when it came to providing a definition of the "frequency" of "left" you ducked. And you are continuing to duck, pleading rough treatment when you were backed into a corner.

Your question was an offensive put up job, for the reasons I outlined.

I didn't accuse you of not valuing human life, I pointed out the falacious nature of your retort to the "essential equality of persons", when you quipped, that all persons were not the "same" so therefore they are not equal. I mean, either you believe that all lives have equal value or you do not? Which is it? If you do, then apparently you agree that all persons have "equal" value, if not the "same". If you don't, well then I guess you think some persons have more value than others. Fairly simple, I think.

As for "winning" and "losing" and Alpha maleness and all that rot, that starts with you in post 31.

Wed, 2009-06-10 09:27

#114

Cueball

Damn! Your right: Post 32...

500_Apples wrote:
Your argument is dependent on false accusations, ergo, you have lost.

Affirmed in post 34, once again...

500_Apples wrote:
You lose once more.

So don't bullshit me about macho Alpha male winning/losing blah blah, you came in wearing that. It's really quite ripe for you to be so red in the face, when the OP is simply a put down of a whole slew of people who you have lumped together for reasons only known to yourself. When questioned on what basis you did this lumping together, you evaded any response.

And even worse you assigned these highly prejudicial values in the name of "science", as opposed to "tea leaf reading" when you can't even come up with definitions for the qualifiers in your own equation.

Wed, 2009-06-10 09:30

#115

ennir

Interesting.

Jas, I really appreciated your comments.

I have met quite a few people into new age religions and for the most part they did not strike me as being into the left at all, they struck me as being very much into themselves but then I define the left as an awareness of social injustice and a commitment to work toward positive changes while some seem to define the left as anything they find loopy.

What do we really know?

Not long ago a Tibetan Lama that I knew died, he died sitting up in meditation posture and his body did not decompose although his heart had stopped, as had his breathing but his skin retained resilience for eight days. I am sorry but I can't remember what it is called. For thirteen days ceremonies were held and then he was cremated. I spoke with the funeral director at the ceremony and he said he was nearly positive that he was the only funeral director in Canada that had encountered this, he was referring to the fact that there was no odor of decomposition after thirteen days. This defies everything we are taught to be true so what is true? What is death?

I don't know, I am not a student of Tibetan Buddhism, I am student of the school of "not knowing". lol

Wed, 2009-06-10 09:50

#116

Maysie

Long thread, closing for length.

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