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The Terrifying Future Threat of Nuclear Waste According to the Government
öde:
So you're saying you're critical of prescriptive institutions such as abrahamic religions and patriarchal societies, yet you want to suspend rational thinking and the scientific method to include your beliefs?
Barmymoo:
Can I take this discussion in a slightly different angle, partly to avoid any unnecessary bloodshed?
One thing that I think does link science and religion, or at least is existent in both, is the concept of there being something more important than everyday life that binds everyone together. If you are religious you may believe that this bond is the divine creator who created everything. If you are scientific you may believe that it is to do with chemicals and evolution. If you are what most people seem to be, you will believe a little of both and not worry about it too much.
In a lot of ways, I think this is something that feminism also has. The concept at the root of all forms of feminism, as far as I understand it and that is not particularly far at all, is that women are bound together by their struggle to achieve to the same extent as men or perhaps to achieve in the same way, depending what type of feminist you are. Not all feminists believe this to the same extent but there's the same basic belief of there being something beyond superficial day-to-day relationships that connects all women. So in that way, feminism, religion and science all share a characterising unifying bond. Other than that I'm finding it difficult to see anything connecting them in any meaningful way but as I said, I don't really know very much about anything to the sort of depth I would like. Like OWW I often use these boards to develop my opinions and knowledge and therefore I'm very often talking on a level that I can't even comprehend let alone command.
Something has just occured to me that may help me clarify what you're saying, OWW: are you saying that you believe feminism is about focusing on humanity and our connections and relationships with one another, whilst science and religion focus on the connection between humanity as an entity and either the creator or the planet? Because if so, I can see where you're coming from. I don't know if I agree with it or not yet though.
onewheelwizzard:
--- Quote from: öde on 26 Apr 2009, 08:17 ---So you're saying you're critical of prescriptive institutions such as abrahamic religions and patriarchal societies, yet you want to suspend rational thinking and the scientific method to include your beliefs?
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I'm critical of societies that use the standards of the scientific method in a prescriptive way because I see that as an extension, however distant, of patriarchy.
The example I keep coming back too is the Gaea hypothesis, the idea that the biosphere of planet Earth is a living thing unto itself. There is no way to approach this idea using the scientific method. No test or measurement we could apply would conclusively tell us that the biosphere is a unified and living thing or isn't. It's a question of what model we use to envision the biosphere, and from the point of view of the scientific method, it's an arbitrary and effectively meaningless distinction because it's a question with no testable or provable answer. I happen to think it's extremely important for humans to start thinking of the Earth as a living thing, so I have an issue with a society that depends on the scientific method as an arbiter of truth to the extent that it sees this question as meaningless.
This ties into feminism for me because I see the shift in priorities that would accompany a shift in the way we model the biosphere as one that would inevitably be feminist.
KharBevNor:
--- Quote from: onewheelwizzard on 26 Apr 2009, 08:08 ---(You seem pretty set on the idea that it's about drugs for me, do you think I have a drug problem?)
--- End quote ---
I don't think you're a junkie or anything. I think you have a problem dealing rationally with the effects drugs have on your mind. I think you are seeing the effects of drugs as having some sort of objective reality and revelatory validity, when in fact it is because your brain chemistry has been altered because you have taken powerful drugs to alter your brain chemistry. I think this inability or unwillingness to deal rationally with the effects of mind and mood altering substances has taken you to a dangerous place. Specifically, I believe it has taken you to a place where you are extremely susceptible to highly irrational beliefs that somehow chime with your stance on drugs. I think this could concievably lead to people manipulating you in extremely cynical ways. I think there are some things that you want to believe in so much that you are taking rash, blind, dead end roads.
McTaggart:
--- Quote from: onewheelwizzard on 26 Apr 2009, 08:29 ---The example I keep coming back too is the Gaea hypothesis, the idea that the biosphere of planet Earth is a living thing unto itself. There is no way to approach this idea using the scientific method. No test or measurement we could apply would conclusively tell us that the biosphere is a unified and living thing or isn't. It's a question of what model we use to envision the biosphere, and from the point of view of the scientific method, it's an arbitrary and effectively meaningless distinction because it's a question with no testable or provable answer. I happen to think it's extremely important for humans to start thinking of the Earth as a living thing, so I have an issue with a society that depends on the scientific method as an arbiter of truth to the extent that it sees this question as meaningless.
This ties into feminism for me because I see the shift in priorities that would accompany a shift in the way we model the biosphere as one that would inevitably be feminist.
--- End quote ---
It's not meaningless because it isn't provable or whatever, it's meaningless because it's just a matter of semantics. Wherever you put your bounds on what's part of one organism and whats not doesn't matter because the interactions between the parts of it and the parts of everything else are still there regardless. Science is entirely down with the idea that changes in one aspect will effect others, it's down with this at every scale. I think the idea that you're after is inherent in using the term 'biosphere'. I'm not seeing where any shift in priorities - 'feminist' or not - would come from or on what scale you expect them to happen.
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