Taking Stock at Age 45
Sean and Annette Prophet
I turned 45 today, and I am hopeful, both for my future and for the future of the world. That is the best gift I could have: a sense of renewed possibilities. That we might actually be on the verge of moving toward real and permanent global sanity and sustainability. Instead of continuing along our previous (and insane) path of using the same old unsustainable methods, the same old buy-now-pay-later mentality, then being surprised when we have the same old problems.
But first, meet the new first lady of BSJ. I got married March 28, 2009 to longtime reader and all around dream-girl Annette Couch, from Adelaide, Australia! We met in early 2008, and had already been waiting since last June to get married. The story is bittersweet, because even though it’s official, we now have to wait for U.S. immigration to process her paperwork before we can be together in Los Angeles. We don’t know how much longer this will take.
Today, I’m going to run down the top 5 issues that have been the most important to me personally this year, and why its inevitable they will change. Tomorrow (or when I get to it) I’m going to discuss the top 5 realizations or changes I’ve made in my thinking or methods during the past year.
To all of you who’ve emailed or sent birthday wishes to me today, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
1. Climate Change
I’ve never experienced anything more discouraging than the mendacious, self-serving, and mean-spirited denialism about climate change and its man-made causes (primarily burning carbon and raising livestock). The kooks, conspiracists, populists, and anti-tax crowd have found their bete noir. It’s their ultimate paranoid wet-dream “socialist/globalist plot.” If you watched Alex Jones’ execrable propaganda film The Obama Deception, he insists carbon-cap legislation is all being planned by the “international bankers.”
Uh, no.
What should be a simple scientific imperative to take appropriate global action has degenerated into a political food fight. And the worst is yet to come. Now that we finally have a US President who will do something about it, the fossil lobby knows its days are numbered. If Congress doesn’t act, the EPA will. Count on the carbon-peddlers to spend their last dollar to delay and derail the inevitable. Count on desperate mooing and bellowing from ‘free-marketers’ who are used to having open season to burn and profit from as much combustible material as they can scrape out of the soil.
It’s why I took the unusual step of donating my birthday to the Alliance For Climate Protection on Facebook. Sorry, everyone, for the annoying messages, and thanks to everyone who contributed. I raised a grand total of $87, which is a drop in the bucket, but still extremely helpful. You can still sign up and donate here.
2. Globalism
Just as climate change is global in scope, so are financial difficulties. We are nearly seven billion interdependent citizens of the world. Without global governance, all citizens are subject to events taking place in foreign lands, with no say in the outcome. This year, we learned the hard way that recessions have no borders. We also took steps for the first time to move closer to a global currency reserve system, as the International Monetary Fund’s mechanism of Special Drawing Rights was beefed up to $250 billion in April.
Some people distrust the idea of global governance, but in my view it is inevitable. Therefore, we should embrace it and work hard to define the new structure based on ironclad political freedoms. We must take the best of Western liberal democracy, and add air-tight constitutional sustainability mandates across all industries and populations.
Given the intransigence of dictatorial and Islamic regimes, and without a gradual move toward a global government, how do we ever expect to prevent genocide and compel universal human rights? No one seems to give a crap about Africa, or women under Islam, and the U.N. is mired in compromise, hamstrung by the OIC and procedural maneuvers–as the years and lives tick by.
Anything less than a full global stand for human freedom is just mealy-mouthed excuses.
3. Health Care
Obama’s health care bill hasn’t even been written and already the GOP slime machine is cranking up to oppose it. Here’s a very simple way to look at health care: The measure of the morality of a society is how well it takes care of its weakest members. Everyone pays lip service to free markets and personal responsibility. I agree–to a point.
Taken to the extreme, what “personal responsibility” means is that some people will fall out of the system and become roadkill–especially during hard times. It makes me ill to think that some people have to choose between rent and seeing a doctor or getting their medication. I would personally pay higher taxes to avoid this.
There but for good luck go I… Everyone thinks it can’t happen to them. Recently I just heard about a good friend who worked hard his whole life, and yet fell victim to a random attack that left him brain-damaged and with blurred vision. He was physically fit, an extreme surfer and skilled construction worker who traveled all over the world. After the attack, he has been in and out of nursing homes for the last 4 years. Now he is completely reliant on public assistance. His speech is slurred and he will need years and years of rehabilitation.
If anything similar were ever to happen to me or a member of my family I would want to know I would be covered. It’s common sense.
What good is it to be the strongest nation in the world, if everyone doesn’t have the right to see a doctor when they need it? As a small business owner who pays for my own health plan, I’m well aware of its limitations. I chose a $2,500 annual deductible. When you’re paying out of your own pocket, it’s amazing what you’ll sacrifice. People say they want to be able to choose their own doctor, and get treated for anything they want. But will they pay? Under a private system, you get what you pay for. Managed care is just that: we have to make compromises and accept limitations to get what we want. Look ahead to higher deductibles and increasing co-pays. It’s coming, private or public.
The devil is in the details. Conservatives throw out the red-herring of “socialism,” and “socialized medicine.” They’re so convinced they’re right, they usually can’t even make a decent argument. Other than an anecdote they possibly heard about some nightmare in Europe or Canada about someone not getting proper treatment or draconian care rationing. At which point I say, “Oh, yeah, let’s deliberately put in a flawed system like that.”
We can design whatever type of system we want. It’s not a question of government-run or private. That’s a false choice. It’s “What are the rules?” There will be tradeoffs. Are we willing to embrace tort reform and arbitration to keep costs down? Are we willing to have more restrictions on our care so that everyone can have the most basic coverage?
The people who argue against national health insurance are likely covered by some private “full-ride” health plan. But they couldn’t give a damn about the small business owner or the working poor who aren’t so lucky. I’m sick of these hypocrites. They won’t prevent the inevitable, but they’ll sure make a lot of noise.
4. Gay Marriage
I’ve often been asked “why do you care so much about gay marriage if you’re not gay?” Aside from the warmth I feel about my gay friends who love each other, there are two very sound reasons: 1) It’s a human rights issue. If people can be denied a social benefit because they’re gay, any other group can be so targeted. 2) The only remaining arguments against gay marriage are scripture and the “yuck factor.” We’re a nation of secular laws, so scripture is disqualified. Churches can refuse to recognize the marriages, but as tax-exempt organizations, they can’t try to influence the laws. The “yuck factor” was used not so long ago against interracial marriages. The “argument from personal distaste” is a primary cause of discrimination and “out-group” dehumanization. It’s a remnant of tribalism, and we need to get over it.
Gay marriage is now legal in five states. A statistical analysis of the remaining states shows it’s inevitable. Even holdout Mississippi will have it by 2024. So again, why fight the inevitable? People still think they’re going to turn back the tide of progress and recapture 1950’s Norman Rockwell America. It ain’t gonna happen. That world is gone for good–and I feel just fine.
Annette and I feel so strongly about gay marriage rights, we included the following statement in our ceremony:
This marriage is a celebration of all types of relationships between all types of people. Sean and Annette are saddened by the fact that in many countries of the world including this one, people of the same gender are forbidden by law from enjoying the full legal rights of marriage. Sean and Annette realize that they enjoy a special privilege to have their marriage recognized by their respective governments. They stand in remembrance of all those of different races who were previously dishonored in their quest for solemnization of their love. And they stand today in solidarity with all those who have had their marriages so denied on the basis of gender. They are saddened by the fact that it is the very institution of religion which is supposed to bind us all together in the expression of our highest humanity has instead been a force for division and has sought to continue denying full marriage rights to all. May all people of good will unite in condemning this outrage.
5. Immigration Reform
The personal is political, and for me this is nowhere more true than about immigration. Long before I found myself and my wife at the mercy of the U.S. bureaucracy, I was aware of others’ difficulties in this regard. An ex-girlfriend of mine had to wait two years to get her Brazilian husband into the country. A man I’ve known since I was eight years old was forced to wait seven months to bring his Kyrgyz bride home.
But it’s not just family immigration. It’s the whole question. To many Americans, themselves children or grandchildren of immigrants, only a few generations removed from other lands, immigrants have morphed into a threat and a symbol of loss of American dominance.
Apparently they haven’t read Thomas Friedman’s excellent book The World is Flat, or the even more topical follow-up, Hot, Flat, and Crowded.
The important point to remember is that immigrants built this country, and they will continue to build it. African slaves built the White House. Irish, Polish, German, and Italian immigrants built New York City. Mexican carpenters built my home. The horrible invective directed at these hard-working people has always come from Americans who are too comfortable, and seek only the extension of their privileges and entitlements. Labor unions have not helped.
The outsourcing of jobs to India and elsewhere has proven that closing borders is not a solution. But still, radical-right hate groups like the Minutemen and others take perverse pleasure in “patrolling” the Mexican border, sometimes by webcam. The governor of Texas put the webcams there in the first place. But it’s vigilanteism, and it’s wrongheaded.
In a truly global society, anyone would have the right to live, sell their labor, or start a business anywhere without fear of retribution or deportation. Or worse, getting arrested by ICE and imprisoned without trial simply for being in this country. Spending a year without the love of my life has given me a visceral sense of how much immigrants, nearly always separated from their families, have suffered and are now suffering.
Reform is desperately needed, and it is inevitable.
Comments (38 comments)
Bruce / May 10th, 2009, 9:04 am / #1
Happy Birthday.
Jerry Posner / May 10th, 2009, 11:57 am / #2
Sean, wishing you much happiness and fulfillment in your marriage, your writings and your life (not necessarily in that order)! All best wishes, Jerry
Jerry Posner / May 10th, 2009, 11:59 am / #3
Though, maybe the order is correct
And by the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Darkeros / May 10th, 2009, 6:08 pm / #4
This is AWESOME, Blacksun~Sean!
Happiest of Birthdays to youuuuuuuuuuuuuu! and yes, the weaving of your intelligence into a GRAND DESIGN… the CREATION OF YOU! yes…. YOU ARE THE GOD! may you continue to deepen in this magnificent life tapestry … and may I be fortunate enough to be a witness.
Amaterasu / May 10th, 2009, 8:35 pm / #5
Well, it's hopeful for everyone that you are a high note in a chorus of voices of sound reason.
After all, we as humans have always evolved - ourselves, our tools, methods and societies toward that which is more effectual to our well being. There are methods of energy production - oil, coal for example, that need to be pulled like bad teeth off the face of this beautiful planet. Planet earth is the only planet in the solar system (and beyond - who knows how much further beyond) where conditions allow liquid water to exist at the surface. I see evidence of that water drying up. Lake by lake, river by river, ice berg etc. You've posted articles about this.
This article above also prompted me to consider the IMF. Fraught with drama whenever they meet in member countries to discuss policies with government and banks, they are beset by (sometimes rabid) protests.
IMF is a benevolent organization that was set up at the end of the second world war in 1944 to prevent a reoccurrence of the Great Depression. After the great depression nations raised barriers to foreign trade and all this did was plummet employment and living standards in many countries. The IMF began as a framework for international economic cooperation.
I guess what the protester's hate is the word "surveillance". But how can you make any suggestion to improve the economy, if it's not observed?
To ban poor countries from obtaining cheap goods and keeping them in a rut of poverty and all the ills that come with it, is crazy. People need to be enabled toward self sufficiency, and that's also what the IMF does by providing technical assistance to low and lower-middle income countries. Helping them to manage their resources and economies.
Thanks for opening up discussion with your article and all the BEST for the future!
Orgatta8 / May 12th, 2009, 1:28 am / #6
Happy birthday, Sean, and congratulations on your marriage to Annette!
I asked my sister who married a Berber for some pointers about how to work with the INS. She thought it might be easier for someone who is not from a third world country, however things have become strict since 9/11. Annette should be able to come as a tourist while working on a permanent solution. My sister had to document her case with pictures of travels together, meeting with each other's family, proof of joint purchase of major items, joint bank accounts and had periodic interviews with the INS to prove they maintained a marriage. Today a cotttage industry has sprung up due these very issues and hiring a lawyer might be less costly than traveling back and forth to Australlia to meet. Or, perhaps you have already done so, as a lawyer should know how to produce the right forms and give the best advice.
BlackSun / May 12th, 2009, 1:39 am / #7
Orgatta8,
Thanks so much for your suggestions and good wishes. We have an attorney who is doing everything by the book. We should have all our i's dotted and t's crossed. It just takes forever!!
jonathan / June 25th, 2009, 9:24 pm / #8
Happy Birthday!
The problem with health care in the US is not just that not everyone has it (universal health care will leave at least 10 million
people out of the system). There is disconnect between spending and receiving health care. Almost all payments
are made by a third party who invariably "adjusts" the costs to make a profit.
nathaniel briggs / August 28th, 2009, 12:18 pm / #9
Hi Sean,
My name is Nathaniel Briggs. It has been over 30 years since we met outside the Scottish Rites Temple in San Francisco during the summer of 1979. Your mother was giving dictations of the ascended masters at a weekend conference there. I was 16, and you were 15. Rafael, one of your friends from the Montessori school introduced us.
At the time, I saw through the hypocrisy of the Church Universal and Triumphant by virtue of its brainwashing effect on my older brother Jonathan who was an active staff member from 1975 until the late 1980s, and is still peripherally involved with CUT. However, the birds eye insider's perspective that you shared with me back then brought my understanding to another level. Although we had planned to get together later that weekend, your mother's "bodyguards" presumptuously determined that I was a "fallen angel," which ultimately led me to get bodily thrown out of the temple and down the temple steps before we ever had a chance to talk again. While you were undoubtedly immune to such gross iniquities carried out by CUT staff, the series of events that weekend is indelibly etched in my memory.
nathaniel briggs / August 28th, 2009, 12:19 pm / #10
After my abrupt introduction to CUT tactics in San Francisco, my brother Jonathan (who had stayed in Los Angeles at the time of the San Francisco dictations) managed to convince higher levels of CUT staff that it wasn't implausible for a highly independent teenager (the preceding month I had hitched across the US, from Boston to Los Angeles, by myself) to respond provocatively when cornered in the back hall of a temple by a couple of pricks who demanded a graphic account of his day-to-day activities without ever bothering to introduce themselves. So, I spent the summer in LA living in a house with some CUT members, while my brother Jonathan lived at the LA ashram. In trying to encourage Jonathan to move beyond CUT, I also made periodic visits to Camelot and had an opportunity to see some of the CUT operations from an observant outsider's perspective. As a 16-year old kid, it was easy for me to feign naive interest in CUT. However, I was considered too dangerous to ever communicate with you or Rafael again.
nathaniel briggs / August 28th, 2009, 12:21 pm / #11
After that, I occasionally interfaced with CUT to keep in touch with my brother. This brought me once to the CUT headquarters in Montana and also to the Washington, DC ashram where my brother was a staff member. I met one of your sisters in DC, but if memory serves me correctly you were going to school at Northwestern (?). After starting medical school in 1985, I had relatively little communication with my brother, apart from bailing him out financially in 1990 … Jonathan decided to quit his job in Washington, DC, and went to Montana to wait for the world to come to an end after buying a bunker in CUT's bomb shelter for about $7,000 (closer to $15,000 in 2009); parenthetically, the check kiting spree carried out by Keepers of the Flame who purchased goods from Montana merchants in the spring of 1990 could be made into a comical interlude in your documentary. A couple of years ago, I learned that my brother was asked to coordinate the writing of a CUT book on Saint Germain that, per dictation from some new CUT spokesperson, is supposed to combine fact with fiction. What a way to establish credibility!.
BlackSun / August 29th, 2009, 6:28 pm / #12
Nathaniel,
I do vaguely remember that incident. Although I don't think I realize that you had been physically thrown out. A lot of what went on was kept from me. I remember my mom taking gifts away from me that I had received from people she thought were "unbalanced." She also forced me to return gifts to a girlfriend she didn't approve of. Needless to say, she was very controlling.
BlackSun / August 29th, 2009, 6:32 pm / #13
That's disgusting, as was the entire bomb-shelter fiasco. What a waste of talent and resources. I'm glad you saw through it from the beginning. I wish I had. Really sorry about your brother. I've had my own disappointments with family (obviously) so I know what it's like. In the end, all we have is ourselves. We don't choose our parents or siblings, and as far as I'm concerned are under no obligation to them unless they treat us well. You went above and beyond to bail out your brother, and still he didn't learn the lesson. For you I'd say the sage "once bitten, twice shy" applies. Best wishes!
nathaniel briggs / August 29th, 2009, 10:49 pm / #14
You, Rafael and I were going to party with some girls from the Montessori school who lived in San Mateo. The two of you didn't know how to get there. I figured out which bus lines would get us there. Rafael and I went to see the girls but you decided not to go at the last minute to avoid getting in trouble. Rafael and I hooked up with the Montessori girls and spent the day drinking beer and chilling out. Since Rafael was concerned about getting back to the conference, we headed back to SF in the early evening. After getting back to the temple, all hell broke loose.
nathaniel briggs / August 29th, 2009, 10:50 pm / #15
When we walked in, a couple of your mother's henchman (according to my brother, one of them was named Monroe) grabbed Rafael and disappeared with him into the bowels of the temple. Then some guy came out to ask me to go back there. I asked about Rafael. This guy said he would take me to where Rafael was. So, I went with him. After going down various hallways, we turned the corner and I saw two guys standing there side by side, but not Rafael. One of the guys demanded to know what I had done that day. I told him it was none of his ****ing business and demanded to know what they had done with Rafael. The guy then threatened me. I lost my temper and was about to start fighting with him when Rafael screamed out from inside a closet that these guys had locked him. Rafael implored me not to mess with them. I thought maybe they were armed or were going to hurt Rafael later. So I let them grab me and throw me out of the temple.
nathaniel briggs / August 29th, 2009, 10:53 pm / #16
"I'm glad you saw through it from the beginning. I wish I had."
Sean, you did see through the hypocrisy of CUT when you were 15. You were as cynical as I was. I remember the graphic account you gave me of your mother and her consort frolicking down in Mexico, and the description of your mother's preoccupation with extravagant jewelry.
BlackSun / August 29th, 2009, 10:56 pm / #17
Yeah, I went back into the belief system, though. Kind of a cognitive backflip. I had a brief period of enlightenment as a teenager, but when I accepted ordination at 23, they had me lock,stock and barrel.
BlackSun / August 29th, 2009, 11:15 pm / #18
Oh, yes. The Flynn sisters. Very much worth spending the afternoon with. Cool people. Should have gone with you guys. I got back in touch with Mary a few years back and she seemed to be doing well. She was working as an engineer for NBC at the time.
nathaniel briggs / August 29th, 2009, 11:22 pm / #19
Incidentally, as a scientist, I can no longer throw out the baby of spirituality with the bath water of organized religion … there is a growing body of scientific literature showing a statistically significant impact of intercessory prayer and the "spoken word." If you are open to the possibility that there may be empirical support for phenomena that have, heretofore, been ascribed to the domain of "religion" and supported only by "religious apology", I would be happy to share information from publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Perhaps the most insidious thing about groups like CUT is that there may actually be a grain of truth at the foundation. When historic fact is deliberately adulterated by fiction (eg, with the book on Saint Germain, per dictation of [presumably] Saint Germain), and any sort of scientific corroboration of religious tenets is repudiated, the most logical response is to dismiss religion in its entirety and start from scratch.
BlackSun / August 30th, 2009, 1:35 am / #20
I am unconvinced. Whatever floats your boat, though. I would accept these claims if they could be proven as unequivocally as electromagnetism or gravity. Vague results at the limits of statistical analysis don't cut it for me. Recently, water was discovered on Mars. If there was a connection between prayer and physical events that was real and not a fantasy, it would put that discovery to shame.
I'm waiting for the decent evidence. It is my opinion, and strictly an opinion, that I will never get it. But if I'm proven wrong, so be it.
nathaniel briggs / August 30th, 2009, 7:30 am / #21
Hmm. Classical mechanics (eg, gravity) takes us through the 1700s and electromagnetism takes us through the 1800s … and the end of a first-year course in college physics. There have been some advances in physics since the 1800's … notably relativity and quantum physics.
In quantum physics, everything dissolves into a vast array of probabilities that, in your words, would be "at the limits of statistical analysis."
Therefore, in as much as you dismiss a probabilistic approach to science, am I correct in drawing the corollary that you also dismiss quantum physics?
BlackSun / August 30th, 2009, 7:53 am / #22
Wrong on both counts. Of course I don't dismiss quantum physics. But that has no bearing whatsoever on spirituality. It just says we can't be sure of where particles are or how fast they are traveling at a given time if we're looking at them. All those probabilistic effects cancel out at real-world dimensions. There could never be enough observers to affect any real-world object. This was deconstructed in a 2004 article in Nature which is now behind a paywall.
http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041220/full/04122...
Even if reality were completely indeterminate, it would still say nothing about other dimensions or the supernatural. It would just say particles behave strangely and we don't understand them yet. You'd be amazed at how often this misconception shows up in new age thinking.
What I meant about the limits of probabilities is as follows: the only studies I've seen about any effect of prayer or thought on matter were inconclusive and very, very, close to what would be expected as a result of random chance. Some people who were prayed for did worse than those who were not.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/0604...
BlackSun / August 30th, 2009, 8:22 am / #23
Here's a snip I found of the Nature article:
Natural selection acts on the quantum world
Philip Ball
Objective reality may owe its existence to a 'darwinian' process that advertises certain quantum states.
If observing the world tends to change it, how come we all see the same butterfly?
A team of US physicists has proved a theorem that explains how our objective, common reality emerges from the subtle and sensitive quantum world.
If, as quantum mechanics says, observing the world tends to change it, how is it that we can agree on anything at all? Why doesn't each person leave a slightly different version of the world for the next person to find?
Because, say the researchers, certain special states of a system are promoted above others by a quantum form of natural selection, which they call quantum darwinism. Information about these states proliferates and gets imprinted on the environment. So observers coming along and looking at the environment in order to get a picture of the world tend to see the same 'preferred' states.
If it wasn't for quantum darwinism, the researchers suggest in Physical Review Letters1, the world would be very unpredictable: different people might see very different versions of it. Life itself would then be hard to conduct, because we would not be able to obtain reliable information about our surroundings… it would typically conflict with what others were experiencing.
http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041220/full/04122...
They survive monitoring by the environment to leave 'descendants' that inherit their properties.
Wojciech Zure
Physicist, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico
nathaniel briggs / August 30th, 2009, 10:27 am / #24
"Even if reality were completely indeterminate, it would still say nothing about other dimensions or the supernatural. It would just say particles behave strangely and we don't understand them yet. You'd be amazed at how often this misconception shows up in new age thinking. "
By analogy, the notion that modern science can't provide a full understanding of why particles behave strangely is certainly consistent with the notion that modern science is also incapable of explaining other dimensions or the supernatural … which, at the very least, supports an agnostic perspective, rather than an atheistic perspective. Where many new agers go wrong is that the idea that science can't explain the supernatural is used as justification to explain the supernatural in terms of anything that their imaginations can conjure up.
nathaniel briggs / August 30th, 2009, 10:30 am / #25
"What I meant about the limits of probabilities is as follows: the only studies I've seen about any effect of prayer or thought on matter were inconclusive and very, very, close to what would be expected as a result of random chance."
Evidently, you haven't taken a statistics course or read through a primer on basic statistics. At some point, you may want to look up the definitions of "p-value", "95% confidence interval" and "statistical significance". This would give you some perspective on what "very, very, close to what would be expected as a result of random chance" does and does not mean. That said, many of my graduate students get confused about the concept of statistical significance even though many of them took a course in statistics while they were in college.
nathaniel briggs / August 30th, 2009, 10:32 am / #26
"Some people who were prayed for did worse than those who were not.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/0604... "
Yes, some of the associations were statistically significant (ie, p-value of <0.05 … or probability that association was due to chance is less than 1 in 20). Paradoxically, this supports the notion that intercessory prayer can impact health outcomes. When interpreted in context of the study's methodologic limitations, the finding that intercessory prayer can negatively effect health outcomes is not inconsistent with the possibility that intercessory prayer can positively effect health outcomes … they are two sides of the same coin. Rather than reviewing boiled down synopses from sources like http://www.sciencedaily.com, would you like to read the actual peer-reviewed article from the American Heart Journal … along with some insightful critical commentary in the form of letters to the editor (the latter helps to reconcile the paradox)? If you want, I'd be happy to send you the original article and associated letters to the editor… along with any other peer-reviewed scientific journal articles you might be interested in.
nathaniel briggs / August 30th, 2009, 10:38 am / #27
"Here's a snip I found of the Nature article:
Natural selection acts on the quantum world
Philip Ball"
No such article published in the peer-reviewed journal "Nature."
BlackSun / August 30th, 2009, 4:47 pm / #28
I read the article when it came out. It was published.
BlackSun / August 30th, 2009, 5:01 pm / #29
If the lord of the universe existed and would intercede on our behalf, it wouldn't be at the obscure end of some statistical scale. I think you are grasping at straws. I don't have to be a college level statistician to smell bullshit.
If there was an all-powerful god, he would be earth-shaking and unmistakable. There are too many problems with the idea, which I've discussed with others ad nauseam. I still find this utterly unconvincing. I am convinced that we are physical beings (mammals) governed entirely by physical laws, until proven otherwise.
It would take something on the scale that 90% of scientists would accept, you know, like global warming, to convince me otherwise. Vague, borderline results don't cut it for me at all.
BlackSun / August 30th, 2009, 5:10 pm / #30
Everything that exists is natural and could be explored using the scientific method. So the very idea of the supernatural is incoherent. I think it is used to keep certain areas off limits to exploration, especially to protect otherwise unsupportable views such as you describe. "We can't explain it, therefore X."
I consider myself a 6 on Dawkins' 7 point scale of belief. "De-facto Atheist: I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable and I live my life under the assumption that he is not there."
BlackSun / August 30th, 2009, 9:31 pm / #31
This is way, way, way, way above my pay grade. But here's some original source material.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0105/01051...
Bottom line, Nathaniel, I just don't find current discussions of quantum theory relevant in any way to our knowledge of the subject of ontology, cosmology, or the bigger questions of human existence. (QM simply raises questions, which WHEN RESOLVED, may help contribute to this understanding.) These are quirks and paradoxes in our understanding of matter, but don't change its nature, which has always been the same, whether we've known about it or not. What is, is. And what will be will be.
We just don't have the information at this point to make sweeping claims, and we need to be patient rather than jumping to any conclusions. Whatever quantum physics unveils in the future will most likely be a refinement of classical mechanics, much like relativity. Except at the extreme margins, our world still operates on Newtonian principles.
The burden of proof of the effect (if any) of thoughts on matter is on the claimant. And the standard of that proof is extremely high. I find it intellectually dishonest to act as if these marginal prayer studies or quantum uncertainty in particles prove anything.
I don't have much interest in going further with the discussion. If proof becomes available, it will have to be bold and decisive. Right now, consensus science firmly rejects this idea. People distort these fringe theories to ridiculous levels. The only reason I'm even responding about it, is that I've met you and me have a history. Otherwise I consider these kinds of arguments to be a complete waste of time.
Here's a response I wrote to someone claiming that "science would discover spirituality someday:"
http://www.blacksunjournal.com/science/1264_the-r...
nathaniel briggs / August 31st, 2009, 11:23 pm / #32
Yes. It was published … in "Nature News" and not "Nature." They're not the same. Ask any academic scientist.
nathaniel briggs / August 31st, 2009, 11:30 pm / #33
"It would take something on the scale that 90% of scientists would accept, you know, like global warming, to convince me otherwise."
Lemming is the first word that comes to mind. If 90% of scientists thought the world was flat, then I suppose you'd take it as the gospel (uhhhh … wrong expression for this web page … change "as the gospel" to "as scientific fact")? Give me a break.
nathaniel briggs / August 31st, 2009, 11:49 pm / #34
"Everything that exists is natural and could be explored using the scientific method. So the very idea of the supernatural is incoherent."
If you read your post that I was responding to, it should be clear that you, and not me, introduced the term "supernatural" into the discussion. Now you deride the very term that you chose to use a day earlier?
nathaniel briggs / August 31st, 2009, 11:51 pm / #35
"The only reason I'm even responding about it, is that I've met you and [we] have a history."
Should I feel privileged that you condescended to engage in a dialogue? … if you want to call it that. Well, it's your web page. I'll leave you in peace.
BlackSun / August 31st, 2009, 11:58 pm / #36
Well, when you talk nonsense about prayer being scientifically proven, frankly, yes.
BlackSun / September 1st, 2009, 12:02 am / #37
I may have been the first one to use the term, but you brought up the concept.
BlackSun / September 1st, 2009, 12:25 am / #38
Lemmings. For following the scientific method. Which means wait for better evidence before deciding something is true. Nice try with the flat-earth insult. Is that what you learned in college? To argue that dishonestly? You have shown yourself to be truly delusional. Grasping at straws.
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