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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #phil
My first vegetable garden was in a hard-packed dirt driveway in Boulder, Colorado. I was living in a basement apartment there, having jumped at the chance to come out West with a friend in his Volkswagen Bug, fleeing college and inner-city Philadelphia. I was twenty, hungry for experience, and fully intending to be a ski bum in my new life. But it didn’t turn out that way. ↗
Molecules dissolve and pass away, but consciousness survives the death of the matter on which it rides. ↗
Sitting outside on a dark night, under the stars, invites confidences amongst people of all ages, and all walks of life. It invokes an intimacy you don’t find under most other circumstances. ↗
#connectedness #connecting #connecting-with-people #philosophy-of-life #age
Professor: "You are a Christian aren't you son?" Einstein: (as a student) "Yes sir." "So you believe in God?" "Absolutely sir." "Is God good"? "Sure." "Is God all powerful?" "Yes." "My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him. Most of us would attempt to heal others who are ill. But God didn't. How is this God good then?... You can't answer, can you? Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?" "Yes." "Is satan good?" "No." "Where does satan come from?" "From God." "Yes." "Evil is everywhere isn't it? And God did make everything. Correct?" "Yes." "So who created evil? ... Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All those terrible things exist in the world, don't they" "Yes sir." "So who created them?... Science says you have five senses. Senses you have to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me son, have you ever seen God?" "No sir." "Have you ever felt you God, tasted your God, smelt your God? Have you ever had any sensory perception of God for that matter?" "No sir, I'm afraid I haven't." "Yet you still believe in Him?" "Yes." "According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol,Science says your God doesn't exist. What do you say to that son?" "Nothing. I only have my faith." "Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has." Professor, is there such a thing as heat? "Yes." And is there such a thing as cold? "Yes." "No, sir. There isn't.... Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don't have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can't go any further than that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it. ... What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?" "What is night if there isn't darkness?" "You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it? In reality,darkness isn't. If it is, well you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you? So what is the point you are making, young man? Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed. Flawed? Can you explain how? Sir you are working on the premise on duality. You argue there is life and there is death, a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey? If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes of course I do. Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir? ... Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavour. Are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher? Is there anyone in this class who has ever seen the Professor's brain? Is there anyone who has ever heard the Professor's brain, felt it, touched or smelt it ?No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?" "I guess you'll have to take them on faith, son." "That is it sir...Exactly! The link between man and God is faith. This is all that keeps things alive and moving. ↗
#god #philosophy #science #death
One year later the society claimed victory in another case which again did not fit within the parameters of the syndrome, nor did the court find on the issue. Fiona Reay, a 33 year old care assistant, accused her father of systematic sexual abuse during her childhood. The facts of her childhood were not in dispute: she had run away from home on a number of occasions and there was evidence that she had never been enrolled in secondary school. Her father said it was because she was ‘young and stupid’. He had physically assaulted Fiona on a number of occasions, one of which occurred when she was sixteen. The police had been called to the house by her boyfriend; after he had dropped her home, he heard her screaming as her father beat her with a dog chain. As before there was no evidence of repression of memory in this case. Fiona Reay had been telling the same story to different health professionals for years. Her medical records document her consistent reference to family problems from the age of 14. She finally made a clear statement in 1982 when she asked a gynaecologist if her need for a hysterectomy could be related to the fact that she had been sexually abused by her father. Five years later she was admitted to psychiatric hospital stating that one of the precipitant factors causing her breakdown had been an unexpected visit from her father. She found him stroking her daughter. There had been no therapy, no regression and no hypnosis prior to the allegations being made public. The jury took 27 minutes to find Fiona Reay’s father not guilty of rape and indecent assault. As before, the court did not hear evidence from expert witnesses stating that Fiona was suffering from false memory syndrome. The only suggestion of this was by the defence counsel, Toby Hedworth. In his closing remarks he referred to the ‘worrying phenomenon of people coming to believe in phantom memories’. The next case which was claimed as a triumph for false memory was heard in March 1995. A father was aquitted of raping his daughter. The claims of the BFMS followed the familiar pattern of not fitting within the parameters of false memory at all. The daughter made the allegations to staff members whom she had befriended during her stay in psychiatric hospital. As before there was no evidence of memory repression or recovery during therapy and again the case failed due to lack of corroborating evidence. Yet the society picked up on the defence solicitor’s statements that the daughter was a prone to ‘fantasise’ about sexual matters and had been sexually promiscuous with other patients in the hospital. ~ Trouble and Strife, Issues 37-43 ↗
#british-false-memory #child-rape #childhood-abuse #false-memory #false-memory-syndrome-foundation
All of us,' he said, 'have hopes of being poet, artist, discoverer, philospoher, scientist; of possessing the attributes of all these simultaneously. Few are permitted to achieve any of them in daily life. But in travel we attain them all. Then we have our day of glory, when all our dreams come true, when we can be anything we like, as long as we like, and, when we are tired of it, pull up stakes and move on. Travel -- the solitude of the mountains, the emptiness of the desert, the delicacy of the minaret; eternal change, limitless contrast, unending variety.' (Eric Lang) ↗
