Stitch on 4/3/2008 at 15:01
Quote Posted by Vivian
And all that stuff about a time machine... really. That's like telling physicists to 'just go ahead and invent cold-fusion already, sheesh'.
For whatever it's worth, nobody but BR thinks he's scoring any points here.
Rogue Keeper on 4/3/2008 at 15:36
Quote Posted by Vivian
As I said before, how on earth do you know any of that? You're presenting stuff you basically pulled out of your bum as bare facts. Which pisses me off. You can call me an Idiot-Fachs whatever for that if you want to, it doesn't change the fact that you were talking crap and I called you on it.
We have something called Social Psychology, which tries to examine how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals are influenced by other people sharing the same cultural backround and how in turn individual psychologies create social consciousness. He could have smarts in his head on average as we do, but he was „simpler“ than us anyway! Even simpler than contemporary New Guinean tribals. His brain didn't face complicated intellectual or aesthetic stimulations of modern days, he didn't need to process and evaluate overload of often contradicting trivial information which we process every day - for example by engaging internet discussions. The range of his intercultural experiences and conflicts was quite poor. The biggest society he lived in was his tribe, he was maybe fighting few similar tribes at most and he wasn't confronted with very different ethical systems of other different far cultures - because the cultural and social variety which creates different ethical systems wasn't much developed yet! He hadn‘t much opportunity to re-evaluate his moral values, he didn't face ethical dilemmas emerging from rapid technological progress or the ways how current man shapes his environment. His relationship with the nature was different. He did live in classless society which had quite different values and priorities than hierarchical society which has developed only about 6000 years ago, he had different understanding of value human and animal life, he had different understanding of his place in the world, which was much simpler world than ours. Calling him a half-savage is not a racist insult, that's what he is, that's what he was supposed to be in order to survive. You think that cultural level of society and social psychology can be so easily separated? So wrong!
Don't you think that if antrophology could cooperate more with other social and interdisciplinary sciences, we could learn a lot more about our predecessors?
Quote Posted by Vivian
Besides, Groves is also quoted as saying this: "And despite the development of technological advances, he says there's no evidence that Homo sapiens has become more intelligent in the last 50,000 years". Which was my point. Nyar nyar
Gooood, now you are quoting authority I can respect! But not even Groves can guarantee that intelligence (and thus psychogical and cultural sophistication and social ethics) may grow a bit in next 100 000+ years. That would be for future scientists to confirm or disprove.
Quote Posted by Vivian
And all that stuff about a time machine... really. That's like telling physicists to 'just go ahead and invent cold-fusion already, sheesh'.
I was pulling your leg with the time machine a bit, yes. But I can imagine it would be a dream of many antrophologists to go back in time and observe them in reality. And a great addition to our knowledge. And now, to show you my good will, I have for your enjoyment a notable specimen of a modern Cro-Magnon chick :) :
Inline Image:
http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/8360/caveman2102photo2vy9.jpgfett on 4/3/2008 at 17:09
Quote Posted by Epos Nix
Straight from Wikipedia as per their entry on Missionaries of Charity foundation:
They have schools run by volunteers to educate street children, they run soup kitchens, as well as many other services as per the communities' needs. They have 19 homes in Kolkata (Calcutta) alone which include homes for women, for orphaned children, and for the dying; an AIDS hospice, a school for street children, and a leper colony. These services are provided to people regardless of their religion or social caste.
You've missed the point entirely Epos. I don't disagree that they provide services via
hospice ministry. The only thing on that list that is pro-active or
combating the suffering in Calcutta is the soup kitchen (whoopie! Everyone + my grandmom runs a soup kitchen these days.) My beef is that instead of hospices -which are places for ailing people to
die -they could spend the money on actual medical care facilities that enable people to
live. It is NOT altruistic or even humane to chose the former over the latter. The ONLY reason they have done so is because people are more vulnerable when dying and therefore more likely to hope for eternal life via induction into the RC church.
The very reason that most of these people are dying is that Calcutta has piss poor medical services and education, and can't (read:won't) spend money to buy life-saving medications - particularly when it comes to HIV. MoC has the funds to provide these, yet they choose not to. This is tantamount to
preferring that the individuals die instead of helping them to live - what is the motive for this? The RC church itself has enough money to establish REAL hospitals in Calcutta, provide life-saving drugs, and educate the populace about HIV and other bacterial related diseases. Instead, we applaud them for providing people with a nice place to die. In what twisted sense is this a good thing?
Quote:
Now, I know that by saying this you are intending two things: 1) it denies the foundation's nuns of any altruistic role and 2) you are making the Catholic church look like an organization that only cares about how many pews its sitting. But do you ever sit for a second and wonder
why you are trying to deny these people their altruism, both in your mind and in the minds of others? What if Mother Teresa was
actually trying to make an impact on the world, regardless of her religion or the religious views of those she was trying to help.
I don't believe for a second that Mother Teresa had any self-serving motives in anything she did for the poor, despite your claims. But then again, I kinda like seeing altruistic people in society.
I too am inspired by genuinely altruistic people, but it is my contention that Mother Teresa is not such a person. Maybe there were no self-serving motives, but that doesn't absolve her or the MoC leadership of responsibility for their narrow and dismal version of "humanitarianism." I think in the beginning she may have been just as much a tool of the RC church as the rest of the workers in the Calcutta hospices. Nevertheless, if you support or perpetuate a wicked system, you are not absolved of responsibility due to your own ignorance.
Even at that, these issues were put to Mother Teresa many times in interviews over the years, and she was more than willing to play the role if the poverty stricken, suffering nun. The fact is that she knew how much money the organization was taking in and how it was being spent - she was part of the upper echelons of the MoC. I would have more respect for her if she had simply admitted that dying people are easy convert targets, instead of pretending MoC was doing the best they could. The motivation is as transparent as Oral Roberts, Bob Tilton, and the rest of their ilk. The only thing missing IMO is the satellite TV program.
Edit: This is one reason why I tend to admire Bono - not for the self-serving egomaniac that he is, but because instead of feeling sorry for/showing compassion for the poor and sick, he's actually come up with several tangible, practical plans over the years (Jubilee 2000, debt-relief via the ONE campaign, etc.) that have teeth. These plans have held governments responsible on both sides of the fence, and made small dents in the source of the suffering - HIV meds, clean water, health education, and sterile birth control options for women. Say what you want to about him as a person or musician, but if more people would approach humanitarian issues in this way, shit would get done. Much better IMO than the humility and "compassion" feigned by MoC so they can stand by administering last rites while people die, all the while collecting millions to buy nicer beds for them to do it in.
piano-sam on 4/3/2008 at 20:37
Quote Posted by Vivian
Really? What, further back than
heidelbergensis? Sounds interesting, don't suppose you remember where you heard that, do you?
By "new" more acurately, I mean that the theory is actually as much as a decade old or thereabouts, but still one in active consideration. As theories go, thats new according the gospel of Sam.
Up until a few years ago anthropology in general, and more specifically paleo and cultural anthropology significantly dominated my interests, so I ate all that kind of stuff up. Suffice to say I couldn't narrow down with certainty where I first was exposed to the theory, but I've since heard a brief version in a couple Discovery Communications specials. I'll look through my old dvds to divine the titles of these.
Scots Taffer on 5/3/2008 at 01:06
Jury's still out.
Rogue Keeper on 5/3/2008 at 09:08
Quote Posted by Rug Burn Junky
Ha, You've obviously never read
Christopher Hitchens's work, because if you had, you would know that one thing he does not do is shy away from lambasting and denigrating his intellectual inferiors in pretty much the same way I do...etc.
Quote:
Library Journal called the book "The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice" : "...[a] readable, caustic polemic [which] is very short on biographical data and cited sources and lacks scholarly development.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Missionary_Position_%28book%29)
Another book of his, "God Is Not Great", attempts to criticize negative influences of religion in the same fundamentalist way as Karl Marx did, but he remotely doesn't reach academic precision of this unforgettable socio-economic surgeon. His books are often being criticized as overwritten, containing factual errors, at times lacking erudition which is replaced by dogmatic hyperboles. Other reviewers point out that he just rewrites ideas of old thinkers without adding anything much innovative, just stretching old views over contemporary society.
Based on what we know it is fair to assume that Hitchens is so focused on making scandalous revelations about famous personalities and getting public attention with his non-conformal opinions, that he often forgets to keep his academic sanity on a leash. Some of his books are written in style of a fascinating non-fiction thriller, to be catching and easily readable for common people, but they don't appear to have the same lasting value as many earlier atheist critical thinkers had.
Overall
Christopher Eric Hitchens looks like a fine guy, but his works are a little bit overheated by expected glorifying reception from his devouted fandom, and he seems to be speaking out too loud before thinking things through enough.
Rug Burn Junky on 5/3/2008 at 13:11
You're not telling me anything I don't already know about how his arguments are usually received, but you're the idiot who held him up as the *only* competent and objective critic, and now you're trying to say otherwise?
This is why nobody has any respect for you, you don't have any clue what you're talking about and it becomes obvious when you pull shit like that.
And yeah, I know his middle name. Nobody calls him that. Douchebag.
Rogue Keeper on 5/3/2008 at 13:13
Twat. :)
fett on 5/3/2008 at 16:53
ASSHOLE! :mad: :mad:
Wait...what were we talking about?
