why such huge veneration of science?

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None of which has anything to do with science.

But to go further, if Ghandi had been corrupt, he could hardly have gained enlightenment. Corruption hides understanding -- it doesn't lead you to an understanding.

After thinking about earlier comments for a few minutes, I remember seeing it argued that a completely natural world is enlightened and anything else leads away from that enlightenment. I don't understand this notion. At the very least, though, it isn't related to science all except maybe to a strong dislike of science and of progress. I think that to those of that mindset, progress is never good -- it is corruption.

So when was mankind in its purest state of being? As nomadic hunters looking for whatever game they could find during the last glaciation of this ice age? Some Garden of Eden nonsense?

I would argue that there is no such "purest state of being" and I certainly do not want to go backwards. Most of us would have died long ago in such a world. I'm alive today solely because of modern medicine and definitely do not consider that to be corruption.

Enlightenment is good, corruption is evil. How one uses what one finds through corruption might be anywhere between the two.

Possibly true, but such are the meanderings of an ASD forum.

You may be correct, in the short term, but if you look at all types of corruption over the history of man, it eventually leads to enlightenment. Communism for example - which could be considered a relatively short term result in regard to enlightenment. Initially communism shut down many forms of light, but in the end it revealed itself for what it was, causing a choice to be made. Corruption might seek to hide enlightenment, but it generally doesn't succeed in the long term, and in failing to hide it, it gives more enlightenment.

I agree with you regarding the mindset against science. Originally I thought that's where tomato was heading. Then I got the idea that it was more quasi-fatalistic, with the notion that the end product would be enlightenment at some future date. But now I'm not sure. Regardless, some of what he wrote struck a chord with me, even if it doesn't approach the original question.

I don't think it ever was. I forget what it was called, but I thought Dawkins cleverly showed the long change process with his photo of every ancestor going back through thousands of generations. Very poignant to such a discussion.

True, but medicine is the result of corruption - cellular corruption. Enlightenment (understanding how that corruption works) led to antibacterial agents and other medicinal achievements.

Very true. But I think, over long periods of history, corruption eventually leads to good, through enlightenment. For example, we value freedom ever more so these days, largely because of slavery.

As a former Christian of several decades, during which I was highly skeptical of science, my own enlightenment has led to a great appreciation for science. Like a starving man who appreciates a sandwich, perhaps I wouldn't have appreciated science as much, if I had been atheist all along.

I'm still basically a Lutheran except for the fact that when there is a discrepancy between science and religion, more often than not it is our very faulty idea of God that is the problem. All we really know about God is what someone, often someone with some kind of authority, claims to know about God. I have my doubts about whether or not we can ever know anything about God for sure. The only thing I am sure about is we are usually wrong in what we think we know about God.

Note that this is an opinion. I make no claim of science or anything else behind it.

I'm a Lutheran, too, and I think we are both on the same page regarding science.

I held that view too. Humans claiming to know God (or god or gods) are as likely to understand such a being as an ant would the stars.

Eventually I realized that the next step is functionally atheist. While no longer a Christian, I accept the possibility of some form of deity or deities or force or whatever, but functionally it makes me equivalent to an atheist. And then there's Dawkins' salient words: "We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."

I agree and thanks for the clarification.

This is a support site for Autism, which means that reciprocal social communication will not always be clear and or concise but, never the less, Tomato's general BIG PICTURE INSIGHTS are discernible enough to me, as I've been there and done the hard stuff.

There are lots of folks here who have really good grammar, spelling, and concise and coherent language with very little deeper insight about life, and yes, that's just a generalization that I have anecdotally noticed.

I am 54, have three college degrees, graduating at close to the top of the class through all of my academic career; a quarter of a Century wearing many hats in government service retiring at the NF4 level, which is equivalent to the GS9 to 11 pay grade. During my employment I directly interacted with tens of thousands of people during those over two decades in government service, as it was in public service for the military.

I've been married for close to 25 years, own a home, and am financially independent.

I have suffered through the worst pain known to mankind, per medical literature, described as type two trigeminal neuralgia, for over five solid years, during all waking hours as an almost complete shut-in.

At the beginning of that pain, I went for 40 days with only 1 hour of sleep each night with only the aid of a powerful alpha blocker, and none for the last 5 days out of that 40. The current NOTED world record for not sleeping at all is 264 hours or 11 days straight.

The one hour of sleep each night for the first 35 nights, provided by the Alpha-blocker did not refresh anything for me.

Additionally, I was diagnosed with a total of 19 medical disorders and given no chance of recovery by a doctor who was treating me.

A few more of the more challenging disorders were Sjogren's Syndrome, where my eyes quit making tears; Dysautonomia, where my blood pressure and heart rate would no longer synch together through neurological autonomic control, so I almost passed out just attempting to walk around my neighborhood block or after eating a meal; and fibromyalgia which is constant pain throughout one's entire body.

There was no pain killer that would do anything for the type two Trigeminal Neuralgia, which was like having a dentist drill a person's teeth without Novocain, except for in my case, it was in my right eye and ear making effective use of those sensory organs close to useless for five years.

The Autism diagnosis in middle age was no big deal at all compared to the rest of everything else EXCEPT for the fact that at the end of my career I was doing duties as financial manager for an entire department at a Navy Military Installation, Personnel, Payroll, General Accounting, Information Technology Support, Athletic director of that Military Installation supervising anywhere from 31 to 130 employees, and going toe to toe with a Captain of a Military Installation, filling in for the department head when necessary, AND ETC., ETC. ETC.; SO YES, the social stress did TEND to finally catch up with my abilities in that area of life, per the AUTISM challenge, per THE CHRONIC KIND of stress THAT can and WILL KILL FOLKS, LEFT UNESCAPED, LIKE IT ALMOST DID to ME.

The doctors had nothing to cure me, so I searched within and found the WILL, FAITH, BELIEF AND HOPE IN ME THROUGH THE REAL SCIENTIFICALLY EVIDENCED HEALING POWER NOW OF THE EASTERN PHILOSOPHY WAYS OF HEALING BY INCREASING PHYSICAL INTELLIGENCE THROUGH practicing it and THEREBY regulating emotional intelligence and sensory integration to heal ONE'S OWN SELF through the real power of human HOPE, BELIEF, FAITH, AND WILL THAT ARE TRULY EMOTIONS AT CORE THAT MOTIVATE BOTH HUMAN ACTION AND HEALING.

SO YEAH, ALOT OF THAT HEALING stuff that Jesus was talking about in what is currently reported in the New Testament, no matter who really wrote it, IS TRUTH, and while science now shows it works, science still hasn't come up with an INSTRUCTION MANUAL THAT WORKS consistently FOR FOLKS TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.

SACRED TEXT LIKE THE TEXT BELOW THAT IS LIKELY CLOSE TO TWO THOUSAND YEARS OLD, IS TRULY ABOUT AS GOOD AS IT GETS TO TRY TO EXPLAIN IT TO ANYONE, with eyes that truly see beyond black and white life.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/thomas.htm

Oh, AND I almost forgot BUT I DID NOT, I Can prove the fact that It works as I have the documented evidence of me leg pressing 810 LBS with my legs, 12 TIMES, which is more than any 20 something year old Marine can lift at my elite Military Gym; me leading a diverse dance group of girls, numbering now in the 100's, documented as such in photos over the course of 40 weeks, at Old Seville Quarter in Pensacola, rated as one of the top 100 dance clubs in the U.S.; and dance walking 2800 miles in a martial arts/ballet mix in the 16 months since what at least one treating professional terms as a bonafide religious miracle occurred and all 19 disorders disappeared out of my life.

And, also at 232LBS now, and around 6 Feet tall, I do a PRACTICE of Nude Renaissance flesh and blood male art, in legal restricted blog way, approaching 10 thousands views, and several million words on other blogs, with close to one million views now on my clearinghouse site of art, per my Google Plus web page.

I've been around the block friend; now it's your turn; what have you done lately. ;)

If you don't want to tell and show like I do, I totally understand, as I used to be shy too, before I WENT TO REAL HUMAN HELL. HEAVEN IS MUCH EASIER no matter what one HAS TO DO.

My life is a miracle; just the fact that I am here at all, as there is NO RECORD OF ANYONE EVEN surviving what I survived per sleep deprivation and living, to just name one little hurdle of mine and MIND, relatively speaking, and truly my life IS PROOF THAT THIS THINGY THAT FOLKS HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS PER A HIGHER POWER IS REAL AND TRUTH, PER THE DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE THAT IS MY flesh and blood life.

YEAH, THE COOLEST THING OF ALL IS I DOCUMENTED THE WHOLE THING DOWN TO THE NITTY GRITTY AND CAN PROVE IT WITH NO DOUBT, EVEN to the NayEST of naysayers in life, with 'eyes' to see.

And nah, I AM NOT special, I just have the TRUE POWER OF WILL, FAITH, BELIEF AND HOPE ON MY SIDE, and in relative FREE WILL MASTERY, WHICH REQUIRES ABSOLUTELY NO RELIGION OR FAIRY TALES TO MAKE COME TRUE.

AS IT IS ALL NATURALE DOWN TO THE CORE OF WHAT Human being Means.

And HELL yes, of course I'm passionate about this.

If someone else was Lazarus or Job for metaphor, they would be at least, close to this passionate too; AND YOU CAN MARK MY WORDS ON THAT. :)

BUT anyway, thanks for asking friend, as sure, I've got a TRUE STORY TO TALE that is worth sharing, to most so-called 'normal people', anyway.

For what it's worth, I'm 60. I used to be the head of manufacturing and R&D for a small high tech company in the Houston area and was being groomed to become president of that company. Unfortunately, do a couple of bad decisions by the president of that company, that of trusting certain individuals when he should not have trusted them at all, the company ended in bankruptcy. I had only a couple of thousand shares less than the second largest stockholder and nearly ended in bankruptcy myself.

I have two degrees (Mathematics) and enough hours for for a doctorate in Computer Science. However, my committee chairman packed up and moved away leaving me with a new committee chairman who was interested in only one very tiny piece of the field, one that I was mildly interested in, but did not want to focus on it at all. My second choice was in computational neuroscience, but the only prof available for that was intent on retiring at the end of each year. He was in somewhat poor health and was supposed to have retired at the end of my first year back in school but didn't actually retire until I left.

As for sleep deprivation, I really don't consider that a good thing. The longest I ever went without sleep was from when I got up one Sunday morning until when I went to bed on Friday night. I was really miserable.

On other hand, I did go for ten years on about two hours of sleep a night. While I liked all the extra hours I had available to me, I hated missing out on my dreams which have always been quite pleasant. It was a bit disconcerting to instantly wake up to full consciousness. At first, I would crash for several hours every couple of weeks while working at one full time job and teaching college math classes in the next state over but after a few months it was strictly two hours a night unless I was taking medication that made me drowsy. I finally got sick one July and started getting more sleep. At first to 3 or 4 hours a night and then a couple of years later to about 5 or 6. Today, my sleep schedule is rather odd -- I may sleep 3 to 4 hours some days and 12 to 15 hours other days. It's very rare that I sleep more then 3 or 4 hours without waking up for at least an hour or two. Kind of like a First Sleep - Second Sleep pattern. Or one some days, First Sleep - Second Sleep - Third Sleep - Fourth Sleep.

I take it you never heard of a Thesaurus then

http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/corruption

Which those synonyms listed do not have negative connotations? I suspect that the least negative is "nepotism".

Note, too, that purity, purification, and pureness are antonyms of corruption.

Any private definition of the word "corruption" that tries to claim it is about purity is just plain wrong.

^^Note the word purity.


I have seen the word used in all sorts of ways. For example, I've seen blood described as corrupt when it contains a disease.

But still... regardless of the semantics or definition, as I said, I can see what tomato meant, for any definition you care to use, and I thought I was pretty clear explaining that. Please tell me if I wasn't.

Interesting, thanks for sharing that Eric, and as i say I am NO ONE SPECIAL..:)

i think you are more special than i am.. in FACT..:)

My partner is an accomplished historian with a wall covered in awards, degrees and accolades, and his closest friend, although less accomplished, is smarter than he is. I go head-to-head with them pretty frequently. One thing that I have learned from knowing them is that, the further up you go in any of the arts or sciences, the more specialized the area of study gets. A lot of highly experienced and extremely educated heart surgeons are actually startlingly ignorant about the brain, for instance, and even a few brain surgeons who could use review on the workings of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. In fact, a GP really has to be more knowledgeable than people in such narrow specializations and is often more broadly knowledgeable. When you start pursuing a high level of education in one area, you have to accept that you only have lay understanding outside of fields related to your area of study.

The sciences work somewhat differently from pure mathematics. This is an important point.

Isn't that obvious, IT WORK!! !
We are doing things that have been long thought impossible; like using flying machines and using machines with incredible power of calculation that hold in a pocket. All thanks to science. We aslo been on the moon, even though lack of budget mean we didn't came back since long.
It's also thanks to science that half of peoples do not die before reaching 18, thanks to science and it's alliance with medicine. We can see proof of that in romantic literature when they talk about sickly children and peoples worrying they won't reach adult years with they're tendency to be sick. Never before in the history of humanity have we seen such life expectency as now.

If I had known that people had such strong emotional attachment to the subject and would take things so personally I might not have said that. In any case I didn't necessarily mean people on here, but people in general. And yes I agree that a lot of times people who scold others for not being open-minded are the most closed-minded of all, or so it seems a lot of times at least. That is a philosophical subject that I have been thinking quite a lot about. And I'm not God, I'm just trying to discuss my views that appear to differ from a lot of people's views on a particular subject. I just got back from work and have still not read the entire thread, not sure if I will but maybe, just saw that quote.