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It was provoked by Conversation with Neil Warren and the video interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ-ZaU6FHNw
Thanks Neil. The point of an analogy, is to illuminate the subject under discussion. The 'onion analogy' has many applications, and no doubt many more, including but not discussed, the TRUTH in any situation.
Thanks for referring me to the above. I'm a pragmatist and realist. I find the 'Guardian Alliance' rescuing anyone pretty irrational. The mind is its own place and the creator of its unique reality that may not equate with any objective assessment. There is the scientific approach and a psuedo scientific approach that may even convince the proselytizer.
Its interesting that the diagram looks like an onion ring, with resonances to the Ptolemaic but less impressive! It is sobering to think there are people that make a living out of duping others with their tosh. Meanwhile the real issues and dangers in the world are avoided. It is very possible that state agengies fund them merely to distract and to discredit all so called 'conspiracy theorists' - many with truth on their side!
Humans have always wrestled, at one level or another, with the meta-physical, usually evidenced in some form of religious belief that becomes formalised with associated ritualistic practices. These invariably lay claim to the miraculous and extra-dimensional. It's almost as if it is programmed into the human personality and psyche.
We are essentially brain in body, a combination that has set humans apart from all other creatures in immagination and creativity. 9Yet we cannot sniff as well as dog, or navigate as well as a swallow, or survive radiation as well as a beetle!) It has also made us arrogant and cruel.
We believe the 'outer' physical world is an objective reality, and indeed the experimental method supports it, because amazingly it follows set rules throughout the whole universe, but equally it can only be appreciated though our mind and senses. When they go, it goes in a personal sense at least, and permanently when death intervenes.
A deluded mind can be convinced of nonsense and nothing will persuade otherwise. This is not the same as saying that some ideas, first considered nonsense, have subsequently been supported by experiment or experience and become staples of our modern world view. All in all, as individuals, we are but passing figments of out own imagination and may even be the ultimate destruction of it. The following may be of interest.http://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/cosmological.html
Not sure you are on a sound wicket on this one Anthony. "Shuffle off this mortal coil you c**t" he is heard saying. Perhaps some might argue that as with so many millions of others, this 'c**t' was only trying to defend his country and beliefs, from invading western hoards, a position I have heard you support. So on the basis of of this alone, you might be expected to at least question the action taken by this man in a British uniform. The second angle is that if his action is defended, that warfare excuses the killing of an injured adversary, what line would you take if the roles were reversed, as undoubtedly they have been. Would you attempt to excuse the action of the enemy killing Sgt Blackman in cold blood? And then again if you excuse him, presumably you would extend the same let-out clause to the Israeli police and army shooting civilians that they assess as a danger, whether they are or not, and indeed what appears to be the new policy of western governments, to shoot alleged terrorists first and (not) ask questions afterwards. It is well known that troops, both British and German, killed captured combatents but this was largely concealed. The Americans have done the same so this is nothing new. The difference is this was up close and personal and RECORDED IN DETAIL, so there was little chance of a defense in law or practise. Sadly Blackman demonstrated the reality of a casual brutality of a mindset inculcated by military indoctrination that cannot be condoned or admitted by the Army, yet undoubtedly exists and is put there for the purpose of killing. I agree with you though, that the case highlights the hypocrisy and unfairness of a system that pillories the soldier, whilst glorifies the political leaders. I have just read Sigfried Sassoon's book about his experiences in the First World War and its futility. Sadly because we never learn, we are destined to keep repeating the same mistakes, in which it is the soldiers and innocent civilians that suffer most.
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