Yes. When I wrote about the dichotomies, one of the points was how St. Augustine, around 500 BCE, decided that knowledge was under the authority of the church. He proclaimed that all the people needed was faith in God; the church would take care of the rest. Although I can not say that this proclamation ushered in the Dark Ages, it certainly helped us to keep to our seats in those dark years.thedoc wrote: Less than A thousand years ago and beyond almost everyone who studied anything was associated with religion. Religion was the main repository for all knowledge, and during the dark ages it was the only place where knowledge was preserved. People who were educated were educated by the church, it has only been recently that secular education has been available.
St. Aquinas, et al, showed up almost a thousand years later and convinced the church to allow science. I believe that this was preempted by the Crusaders, as they rediscovered some of Plato's work while on crusade, creating a renewed interest in Aristotle's work.
When I stated that religion is the study of consciousness, I did not state that it only studied consciousness. I, in no way, implied that I believe religion is some repository for all the pure and good that is God and consciousness. The fact remains that there is no other study, there is no other source, religion is the only place where one can go to study consciousness. The only other source is introspective study, which is basically worthless because it has to work through the rational subjective mind.
This is what Descartes did. I listened to his Mediations on tape and thought that I had never heard a more logical, precise, eloquent argument in my life. It explained that God existed and Descartes existed; it was wonderful; it was also garbage. I think that is when I came to the realization that rationalization was worthless when dealing with an unknown. No matter how precise, logical, or elegant the argument, it is still swayed by the motivation of the rational mind making that argument. Critical thinking is better.
This discussion exemplifies my problems in discussing consciousness. The people that I have met in these forums are so involved in the debate between science and religion that they can't think anymore. If I say something that seems to respect science, then I am assumed to be on that side; if I say something that respects religion, then I am assumed to be on that side. I am on neither side, I respect both science and religion for the work that they do. I am a philosopher, who studies consciousness, and consciousness is a huge subject that is both subjective and objective. It is also a very difficult subject to comprehend, so unless one is a fool, one would look to all sources to gain an understanding of consciousness.
I'll give you an example. I was contemplating what causes a mind to be an individual entity, when someone brought up the subject of ghosts (paranormal), then I considered psychology's studies about the divisions and movement of mind (science) and compared that information to the animals that can be used as a food source in the Old Testament (religion) and the bonding that is created between minds that I know of (personal experience). From these sources, I found a common thread that may explain about the formation of a mind and may also let us learn which species have mind and which do not. Who do you think that I could discuss this with? Is there anyone who could control their biases about science, religion, and the paranormal long enough to actually think about it? So far the answer is no.
Gee
