Australian General Semantics Society - Seminar: Dealing with Stress

	*Australian General Semantics Society Inc*.
	Saturday 30th October 2021 10am Sydney time" "Science, Religion and the 'F' Word" Facilitator: Mr Brett McDonald My "My troubles are many, they're as deep as a well I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell Swear there ain't no heaven and pray there ain't no hell, But I'll never know by living, only my dying will tell, Only my dying will tell, yeah, only my dying will tell And when I die and when I'm gone, There'll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on ... " (Blood Sweat and Tears) "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.” ― Stephen Hawking “Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.” ― Isaac Newton “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being... This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont, to be called Lord God παντοκρατωρ or Universal Ruler.” ― Isaac Newton Our Seminar on-line - missing the customary hospitality of Gavan and Pauline at Bonnet Bay, but enabling us to reach out to include our GS friends in Canada and USA :-(. Catching Up Sharing of triumphs and tragedies and miscellaneous yarns. GS Diary In the spirit of "applying general semantics principles" to our lives, as opposed to dwelling in theory, we considered members' accounts of observations and applications relating to the principles and formulations of our discipline. Discussion on "Science, Religion and the 'F'Word"... Brett's two presentation documents: Faith defined - Ways of Words Aspects of Faith “There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.” ― Stephen Hawking tags: religion, religion-and-science, science 299 likes Like “Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.” ― Isaac Newton tags: id, intelligent-design, religion, religion-and-science, science, science-and-religion 278 likes Like “Ignorance is hardly unusual, Miss Davar. The longer I live, the more I come to realize that it is the natural state of the human mind. There are many who will strive to defend its sanctity and then expect you to be impressed with their efforts.” ― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings tags: human-mind, ignorance, mind, religion-and-science, religion-vs-science, science, science-and-religion, science-vs-religion, wisdom 177 likes Like “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being... This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont, to be called Lord God παντοκρατωρ or Universal Ruler.” ― Isaac Newton, The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy tags: god, id, intelligent-design, religion, religion-and-science, science, science-and-religion, theism 157 likes Like “How came the bodies of animals to be contrived with so much art, and for what ends were their several parts? Was the eye contrived without skill in Opticks, and the ear without knowledge of sounds?...and these things being rightly dispatch’d, does it not appear from phænomena that there is a Being incorporeal, living, intelligent...?” ― Isaac Newton, Opticks tags: id, intelligent-design, naturalism, religion-and-science, science, science-and-religion 50 likes Like “Be brave. Be free from philosophies, prophets and holy lies. Go deep into your feelings and explore the mystery of your body, mind and soul. You will find the truth.” ― Amit Ray, Meditation: Insights and Inspirations tags: body, holy-lies, mind-and-soul, prophets, religion, religion-and-philosophy, religion-and-science, religion-meaning, religion-spirituality, scientist 40 likes Like “God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and everywhere, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing.” ― Isaac Newton, The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy tags: darwinism, evolution, id, intelligent-design, macroevolution, naturalism, religion-and-science, science, science-and-religion 39 likes Like “Finally, I would like to assure my many Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim friends that I am sincerely happy that the religion which Chance has given you has contributed to your peace of mind (and often, as Western medical science now reluctantly admits, to your physical well-being). Perhaps it is better to be un-sane and happy, than sane and un-happy. But it is the best of all to be sane and happy. Whether our descendants can achieve that goal will be the greatest challenge of the future. Indeed, it may well decide whether we have any future.” ― Arthur C. Clarke, 3001: The Final Odyssey tags: future-inspirational, religion-and-science 14 likes Like “Science and Truth are simple phenomenon of nature, but it is the known that is preventing us from mastering the unknown.” ― Chandrakanth Natekar tags: creativity, parapsychology, psychology, religion-and-science, spirituality, spontaneity 7 likes Like “The problem is not religion or God. The actual problem is authoritarianism, mixed with the desire to angrily impose one’s personal apparently idealistic beliefs on others.” ― Abhijit Naskar tags: authoritarianism, enemies-of-progress, faith, god, inspirational, religion-and-philosophy, religion-and-science, religion-and-war, religious-extremism, religious-violence 5 likes Like “Dare to contradict the scientist, not because of your scripture, but because of your own rational thinking.” ― Abhijit Naskar tags: brainy, brainy-quotes-life-lessons, free-thought, life-lessons, philosophy-of-life, philosophy-of-religion, philosophy-of-science, religion, religion-and-science, religious-extremism, religious-faith, religious-violence, sage, science-and-religion, science-vs-religion, scientist, scientists, scripture, wise-quotations 4 likes Like “To make science the arbiter of metaphysics is to banish not only God from the world but also love, hate, meaning” ― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air tags: religion-and-science 3 likes Like “العقل هو السبيل الوحيد لإدراك الألوهية واليقين بها” ― محمد عمارة tags: religion-and-science 2 likes Like “Quite surprisingly the majority of religious and spiritual practices actually diminishes your brain’s ability to act out of rage and fear.” ― Abhijit Naskar tags: faith-quotes, inspirational, inspirational-quotes, motivational, motivational-quotes, neurobiology, neurotheology, pearls-of-wisdom, religion, religion-and-science, religious-faith, religious-rituals, science-of-happiness, spiritual-health, spiritual-quotes, spirituality, wise-quotes, wise-sayings 2 likes Like “The Self, when finite, is Human and when infinite, is God.” ― Abhijit Naskar tags: advaita-vedanta, brainy-quotes, consciousness-mind-brain, consciousness-quotes, divine-self, god, inspiring, life, life-lessons, meditation, mindfulness, non-duality, nondual-philosophy, philosophy-of-science, religion, religion-and-science, self, self-knowledge, truth 2 likes Like “Current research in any field of Science has not yet reached the point where we could start exploring the existential question regarding God as a Supreme Entity driving causality in the universe. However, as modern Neuroscience progresses further and gets more advanced, we shall get to dive deeper into the physiological processes underneath the Qualia of God in human mind. What we have seen so far through our studies in Neurotheology, is that it is not God himself/herself/itself, rather it is people’s perception of God that influences the human life. The Qualia of God impact all aspects of human life by altering the body chemistry at a cellular level.” ― Abhijit Naskar, What is Mind? tags: causality, cosmos, god, god-quotes, god-s-plan, god-s-will, mind-body-spirit, neuroscience, religion, religion-and-philosophy, religion-and-science, religion-vs-science, science-of-mind, space-and-time, supreme-being, supreme-soul 2 likes Like “Real atheist is not the one that does not believe in an imaginary big monkey, but the one that gives the imagination more importance than the reality.” ― Abhijit Naskar, Illusion of Religion: A Treatise on Religious Fundamentalism tags: atheist, atheist-quotes, atheists, brainy-quotes, reasoning, religion, religion-and-science, truth 2 likes Like “In a darkened world no longer illuminated by the light of this center [God], technical advances are scarcely more than despairing attempts to make Hell a more agreeable place to live in. This must be particularly emphasized against those who think that by spreading the civilization of science and technology even to the uttermost ends of the earth, they can furnish all the essential preconditions for a golden age. One cannot escape the Devil so easily as that.” ― Werner Heisenberg, Across the Frontiers tags: progress, religion-and-science, science, technology 2 likes Like “Priesthood, Imamhood, Pundithood often come hand in hand with tyranny.” ― Abhijit Naskar tags: fundamentalism, imam, preist, pundits, religion, religion-and-philosophy, religion-and-science, religious-extremism, religious-violence, scripture 1 likes Like “Never question the conviction of a scientist, based on mere scriptures.” ― Abhijit Naskar tags: brainy-quotes, life-philosophy, philosophy-of-science, religion, religion-and-philosophy, religion-and-science, religion-vs-science, science-and-religion, science-and-religion-quotes, science-quotes, scientific-method, scientific-theory, scientist, scientists, scripture 1 likes Like “If to a person religion means reading books and obeying every single word from it without the slightest bit of reasoning, then such perception would only bring destruction upon the person and the world. Also there are people who use the words from those books to justify their own filthy actions. Let’s take a conservative Muslim, for example. Say, the conservative Muslim male Homo sapiens (I won’t call such creature a human, regardless of the religion, since his action here shows no sign of humanity) is found to be beating his wife. Now, if someone says to him “this is wrong”, he would naturally reply, “this is a divine thing to do, my book says so”. Now, if a Christian says “my book is older, so you should stop obeying your book and start obeying mine”, there will come the Buddhist, and say, “my book is much older still, obey mine”. Then will come the Jew, and say, “my book is even older, so just follow mine”. And in the end will come the Hindu and say “my books are the oldest of all, obey them”. Therefore referring to books will only make a mess of the human race and tear the species into pieces.” ― Abhijit Naskar, In Search of Divinity: Journey to The Kingdom of Conscience tags: brainy-quotes, excerpts, fundamentalism, fundamentalists, inspirational, religion-and-philosophy, religion-and-science, religion-philosophy, religious, religious-beliefs, religious-diversity, religious-extremism, religious-faith, religious-freedom, religious-quote, religious-tolerance, religious-violence 1 likes Like “If you don’t act now, the day is not far, that this beautiful planet of yours, which you call home, shall be turned into a dry barren wasteland by the blood-sucking fundamentalists.” ― Abhijit Naskar tags: free-thinking-quotes, fundamentalism, inspiration, inspirational, inspiring, inspiring-quotes, rational-thinking, religion-and-science, religion-philosophy, religious-extremism, religious-violence 1 likes Like “There has been more bloodshed in the name of God than for any other cause. And it is all because people never attempt to reach the fountain-head. They are content only to comply with the customs of their forefathers, and want others to do the same.” ― Abhijit Naskar, In Search of Divinity: Journey to The Kingdom of Conscience tags: brainy-quotes, god, life-lessons, life-lessons-quotations, life-lessons-quotes, philosophy-of-religion, religion-and-philosophy, religion-and-science, religion-quotes, religious-extremism, religious-quote, religious-quotes, religius-violence, sage-quotes, science-and-religion, wisdom-quote, wise-quotes, wise-sayings, words-of-wisdom 1 likes Like “The political and intellectual orders remain permanently distinct from the spiritual. They follow their own ends, they obey their own laws, and in doing so they support the cause of religion by the discovery of truth and the upholding of right. They render this service by fulfilling their own ends independently and unrestrictedly, not by surrendering them for the sake of spiritual interests. Whatever diverts government and science from their own spheres, or leads religion to usurp their domains, confounds distinct authorities, and imperils not only political right and scientific truths, but also the cause of faith and morals. A government that, for the interests of religion, disregards political right, and a science that, for the sake of protecting faith, wavers and dissembles in the pursuit of knowledge, are instruments at least as well adapted to serve the cause of falsehood as to combat it, and never can be used in furtherance of the truth without that treachery to principle which is a sacrifice too costly to be made for the service of any interest whatever.” ― John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, The History of Freedom and Other Essays tags: religion, religion-and-politics, religion-and-science 1 likes Like “The old prophets filled our imaginations with gods and commandments and holy scriptures , with glowing descriptions of life in Heaven and among the stars. Because of them, we are on our way there. Perhaps that has been their intention all along.” ― Suzanne Olsson, Jesus in Kashmir: The Lost Tomb tags: jesus, religion-and-science, spirituality 1 likes Like “Good and evil are both within us. And when our primitive ancestors humanized these natural qualities of the mind, they got two completely opposite supernatural characters. One was the merciful lord almighty and the other was the wicked devil.” ― Abhijit Naskar tags: aboriginal-culture, ancient-culture, brainy-quotes, brainy-quotes-life-lessons, evolution, evolutionary-biology, evolutionary-psychology, life, pearls-of-wisdom, primitive-human-behavior, primitive-men, primitive-psyche, primitive-religion, primitive-urges, religion-and-science, religious, social-psychology, truth, truth-quotes 0 likes Like “Pathology can indeed evoke experiences of Absolute Godliness, but not all God experiences are caused by pathology. They can also occur due to disturbance in the geomagnetic field of our planet, consumption of psychedelics, excruciatingly extreme level of stress during a near- death situation, or ultimately through a natural and healthy procedure of meditation or/and prayer.” ― Abhijit Naskar, Love, God & Neurons: Memoir of a scientist who found himself by getting lost tags: advaita-vedanta, brainy-quotes, consciousness-mind-brain, experiencing-god, god, god-quotes, godliness, inspirational, neurobiology, neurological-disorder, neurology, neuroscience, nirvana, nirvana-quotes, paranormal, paranormal-experiences, philosophy-of-science, psychedelic-consciousness, psychedelics, religion, religion-and-science, religious-faith, religious-quote, science-of-mind, truth, truth-quotes 0 likes Like “Наука і релігія - не конкуренти, це дві різні мови, які говорять про те саме. У світі є місце для них обох.” ― Dan Brown, Origin tags: danbrown, origin, religion, religion-and-science, science 0 likes Like “No matter what you say (or write) about the early chapters of Genesis, you are in a lot of trouble with a lot of people.” ― Richard Averback tags: religion-and-philoshophy, religion-and-science, religion-christianity, theology 0 likes Like “I am no more fundamentalist when I say evolution is true than when I say it is true that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere. We believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it. No real fundamentalist would ever say anything like that.” ― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion References: * ... * ... Next meeting: 10am Sydney time on Saturday 27th. November, by Zoom "100th Anniversary of Alfred Korzybski's First Major Work: 'The Manhood of Humanity' Well, has Humanity grown-up in the following 100 years - Do we see any infantil behaviour in our personal, family, comminity, national or global life? What can general semantics contribute to our maturing process ... " Led by David Hewson and Robert James. Disclaimer: This "summary" is a collection of notes derived from our discussion by a number of means. It is by no means a scholarly dissertation on the subject as presented. It does not purport to be the "policy of AGS". Comment and criticism (constructive or otherwise) is welcome. If anyone has been misquoted, copyrights infringed or confidences betrayed, please Contact us. Updated by Robert James 30th October 2021

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