A question about Jesus.

angelica wrote:

You continue to burn people at a metaphorical stake by pathologizing people and normal human capabilities (for example, ones related to feminine intelligence, characterized by the evolutionary valid brain functions of emotional and intuitive intelligence), just as the church did with the witch label back in the day. You are the modern day witch-hunter, and you don't recognize what you do. Rather than burn people at the stake for their types of awareness and brain processing, you slap a highly socially stigmatized label on them that denotes serious illness.

Witch-hunting, whether from the past or as it exists metaphorically today, comes from people wanting to persecute those who don't share their beliefs, or beliefs that are considered "good". People decide their way is the best way and look to eliminate the view of others, rather than practice tolerance.

'The first major witch hunts began in many western European countries....Historians have speculated that this religiously inspired genocide was motivated by a desire by the Church to attain a complete religious monopoly, or was "a tool of repression, a form of reining-in deviant behavior, a backlash against women, or a tool of the common people to name scapegoats for spoiled crops, dead livestock or the death of babies and children." ' http://www.religioustolerance.org/wic_burn2.htm

'Burning at the stake in public was used in Britain to punish heresy...' http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/burning.html 'The idea of burning witches, one of the cruelest forms of execution, is said to have originated with Saint Augustine (354-430), who said "that pagans, Jews, and heretics would burn forever in eternal fire with the Devil unless saved by the Catholic Church." '

Ahnimus, it looks like you, yourself, might have been burned at the stake back in the day for your ongoing "heresy" against the church and its doctrines. What kind of disorder would we now be able to label you with to explain your disobedience to the church or to social norms? Schizophrenia is known as a broad 'catch-all' term. Maybe heretics look schizophrenic* today as well.

her·e·tic (hěr'ĭ-tĭk) Pronunciation Key
n. A person who holds controversial opinions, especially one who publicly dissents from the officially accepted dogma of the Roman Catholic Church.
(American Heritage Dictionary)


*Note: I am well aware of what schizophrenia actually is and therefore any comparisons with schizophrenia and ideologies that conflict with "norms" is entirely used to illustrate a point. Mental illness labels are far too often abused, and mental health stigmas are far-reaching and painfully socially ostracizing for sufferers. When "deviant" behaviour, or behaviour that is a minority in our society, is pathologized inaccurately as illness it perpetuates the dark side and dark ages of our current understanding of mental health.

Angelica, you know sound-byte information about the brain. "Feminine Intelligence"? By this you must be referring to the larger size of the amygdala which is partially responsible for emotions, as it is a gate to the limbic system. But keep in mind that this is culturally dependant. The brain develops according to extrinsic properties, external values, such as symbolic social norms. Women aren't likely to have this innately, much like men aren't likely to have denser frontal regions allowing for better spatiality. These differences are culturally dependent, just as performance is largely affected by stereotypes.

You are comparing me to ideologies and atrocities almost 2,000 years old. That is absolutely absurd and indicative of your primative and completely ridiculous debate tactics. There is absolutely no comparison to the ideologies of 2,000 years ago, or even of 200 years ago and the concrete scientific knowledge available today. You are just too narrow-minded and one-track to bother learning about the development of the brain. You are too busy chasing down hopi prophecies and miracle water. Grab a brain and learn about brains. There is a bottomless chasm of mysterious non-sense that runs around in circles like a treadmill. You won't get anywhere with that garbage.

Your comments totally lack any kind of respect. I'm not proposing physical harm to anyone, I'm criticizing ideological beliefs. If you have a problem with criticism, find some useful data to defend your views or don't get into a debate.

Ahnimus wrote:

Angelica, you know sound-byte information about the brain. "Feminine Intelligence"? By this you must be referring to the larger size of the amygdala which is partially responsible for emotions, as it is a gate to the limbic system.

In actuality, I am referring to the fact that emotions and intuition are often considered "feminine", unreal and unrealistic in the typical patriarchical view, where "male" intelligence such as reason is considered the one valid form of intelligence. If we can't back our perception up with reason, our awareness is rendered invalid by the patriarchical biased, unrealistic and ignorant views that still hold massive power.

In the MBTI personality typing, the majority of men have a predominantly "reasoned" intelligence, and the majority of women have a predominantly "emotional" intelligence. Our society devalues the emotional intelligence, even though experts understand the high value of emotional intelligence.

Ahnimus wrote:

We've been here before. The first statement describes the point of the question and the latter describes the implications of it's truthfulness or falsity. The actual definition is implied but not explicitly stated in that description.

You've conveniently omited the following text... again!

Addressing this question requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic. The various philosophical positions taken differ on whether all events are determined or not—determinism versus indeterminism—and also on whether freedom can coexist with determinism or not—compatibilism versus incompatibilism. So, for instance, hard determinists argue that the universe is deterministic, and that this makes free will impossible.

That's because the question of Free-Will, is absolutely a question of whether or not human's have metaphysical wills that allow us to contra-causally affect ourselves. There are only three positions, determinism, compatibalism and liberatarianism as is mentioned all through the article you linked. There is no option to redefine free-will to be something else. You are talking about something completely different, completely unrelated to the philosophical inquiry of free-will.

One more time...

angelica wrote:

For me, I have no desire to talk about free-will, because spiritual/religious people apparently have a different conception for it than non-believers, and therefore much needless misunderstanding happens in such discussions.

angelica wrote:

Thank-you for this post which exactly illustrates the patriarchical and inaccurate bias I refer to.

The actual expert opinion is very different than your above opinion.

And in the psychology branch of human interactions--transactional analysis--imbalance itself stems from this bias wherein certain intelligences are denounced while others are favoured, at the expense of our balance and our literal sanity. i.e. disorders of perception stem from such a socially imbalanced and inaccurately stigmatized view.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

I've just finished reading "How brains represent" a chapter in Pat S Churchland's (a woman) (a neuroscientist) book Brain-Wise. And in it, she describes exactly how emotional representation differs from logical representations. Your experts are crackpots. Probably feminists.

She also has a paragraph referring to your "oneness"

It is often claimed that our conception of space is unified, and sometimes even that it is necessarily unified. Yet it is unclear what introspection, innocent of philosophical indoctrination, actually delivers on this point. Nevertheless, if introspection does present the "oneness" of spatial perception, then that perception is undoubtedly illusory to some degree. Various versions of "where-perceived-objects-are-in-my-body-space" can dissociate (largely without intropsective notice) as a function of precisely which perceptual modalities are involved. Pg 312

Ahnimus wrote:

You have no idea what you are talking about.

In these few posts between you and I, you've been assuming what I'm talking about, and then disputing those figments of your imagination. For example, you assume what I mean by female intelligence and then critique what you imagine. Then you assume who my experts are and then you critique your assumptions. Jumping to a conclusion and then disputing that ill-achieved conclusion doesn't work. Because you don't understand what I'm talking about is not the same as me not knowing what I'm talking about. When you insult and degrade my point of view, you show your own emotional distortions by your inability to operate on a rational and even playing field of reason.

You continue to exalt logic. And to put it above other equally valid intelligences. The proof is in the pudding. When you use logic without an understanding of the big picture (an intuitive function), without a sense of "rightness", or without a balanced perception of your own emotional intelligence and how your emotions distort/undermine your own arguments, you end up being inaccurate, no matter how logical.

So, back to the issue at hand: Those who were deemed witches were those who acted "immoral", for example as having affairs, or those who practiced heresy, or other "deviant" behaviour such as midwifery, or other abilities stemming from what are currently accepted by the experts* far and wide as valid alogical functions. Because the common codes of the day did not accept alternative belief, or types of functioning, is a far cry from schizophrenia.

You are not helping when you continue to reveal your intolerance for other views by painting everything contrary to your own view as mental illness, psychosis, stupidity, etc. You merely reveal your intolerance, bias and ignorance. You epitomize the degrading shunning and illogical emotionality** enacted in during the witch-hunts.

*As was said in another thread, you interpret your own experts and their reasoned arguments in a way that makes certain views "right/wrong" (which is a moral judgment) depending on your own moral criteria, when even the experts you interpret are responsible enough not to do so. Your own experts remain balanced and fair. Your emotional distortions fall on your shoulders.

**emotional intelligence and illogical use of emotions are completely different. One is a healthy use of emotion, the other is the shadow side of imbalanced emotional perception.