[identity profile] sophia-sadek.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] talkpolitics
Science and religion appear to be at loggerheads with scientists inquiring into topics that the minions of the material Creator claim as their own domain. On the other hand, there are people who profess to advocate science, but who approach it as if it were a religion. Roman despots are not nearly as detrimental to the pursuit of inquiry as are "scientists" with an economic interest in their pet theories. The latter class of people form a caste of priests who jealously guard the magic formulas for their chemical communion wafers. Scientific inquiry that threatens their monopoly is rejected out of hand and tarred with the label of a Hollywood cult.

Imagine a group of people with little knowledge of electronics. As they investigate the operation of a computer, they discover that interfering with the circuitry causes a malfunction. They establish a "scientific" theory that all malfunctions stem from circuit failures. They find ways to "treat" a faulty machine by inducing a secondary fault that does not fix the machine, but makes the primary fault less striking. The machine malfunctions, but the "treatment" of inducing a secondary fault causes the machine to malfunction in a more graceful manner.

Another group of people approach the machine using a different tack. Rather than trying to determine its failures, they seek to determine its capabilities. These people want to know how to use the computer for higher purposes than as consumers of fault injection methods. They work with it to find ways of improving its use. They modify its programming to have it perform miraculously. Naturally, their successes are sneered at by the fault injection specialists. Improvement in capability can only occur as a result of circuit failure. These highly performing machines are to be treated with fault injections to make them more "normal."

There is more to a computer than electronic circuitry. Likewise, there is more to the nervous system than neurons. This may seem obvious to lay people who espouse the notion of a magical entity that will outlast the decay of the neurons, but it seems counter-intuitive to people who have been indoctrinated into bio-chemical dogma. Of course, there is a third group of people who buy into neither magical craft. These people are faithless in the eyes of the former and unscientific in the eyes of the latter. Some even think of them as followers of L. Ron Hubbard despite a lack of any logical connection.

The pill bottle priesthood is a powerful lobby in the halls of governance. They have ties to the military and to law enforcement as well. Do you have experience with any chemical communion?

(no subject)

Date: 28/2/12 17:54 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fornikate.livejournal.com
what theoretical turf? taking hits of LSD and staring into each others' souls?


i'm really trying to figure out what the first rant about your anti-psychiatric views and the pseudo-mystical stuff in the last paragraph have to do with whether anyone has ever undergone 'chemical communication'...

also how do you define said 'chemical communication'?
for example, lexapro isn't 'communicating' anything. it's just chemicals making your brain do things.

(no subject)

Date: 28/2/12 17:55 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meus-ovatio.livejournal.com
Meet sophia, she speaks in metaphor to communicate deep truths. As opposed to pills, which she sees as a direct competitor and threat to her brand of... enlightenment or something. She's just trying to defend her turf is all.

(no subject)

Date: 28/2/12 18:02 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meus-ovatio.livejournal.com
Well you should fear the pill bottle, seeing as how what you wrote and how you portray it... that is unless you don't actually fear it, and are lying, and simply cynical exploiting people's ignorance for rhetorical purposes.

But that wouldn't be the case, would it?

(no subject)

Date: 28/2/12 18:17 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meus-ovatio.livejournal.com
Along with "omg Nazis" and talk about "they", what we dealing with here other than pure rhetoric?

(no subject)

Date: 28/2/12 21:15 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rimpala.livejournal.com
Meh, if you ask me a pill bottle is not near as scary as a needle

(no subject)

Date: 28/2/12 18:25 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fornikate.livejournal.com
i am way too tired for this crap today

(no subject)

Date: 28/2/12 18:26 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meus-ovatio.livejournal.com
It's like watching priests fight. Except here we have sophia on one side, and the vague, bogeyman "they" of the other side.

(no subject)

Date: 29/2/12 02:27 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fornikate.livejournal.com
IT was technically a they, just FYI

(no subject)

Date: 29/2/12 17:55 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fornikate.livejournal.com
IT's actual form is a multi-bodied being incomprehensible to the human mind

(no subject)

Date: 28/2/12 21:19 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rimpala.livejournal.com
Man all this talk about being afraid of "they"...

Image

(no subject)

Date: 28/2/12 21:05 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fornikate.livejournal.com
when i confuse communication with communion, i need to bow out and nap

(no subject)

Date: 28/2/12 18:01 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fornikate.livejournal.com
oh well now that's even worse

i'm out

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