Well, a thousand years ago 'reality' was that you'd fall off the edge of the Earth if you traveled far enough in the same direction and not so very long ago if you'd told somebody in Siberia that they could have an instant face to face conversation with somebody in the Rainforest in Brazil, they'd would have said that would be bollocks. Science is probably our most rigorous system of testing something to determine whether it's real or not, but you would have to include in that, that the cutting edge of science is now discovering that there is a multiverse of different 'dimensions' that exist 'between' the fabric of measurable space/time. Dark matter in fact, according to latest thinking makes up more of the 'stuff' than what we can actually see and measure. So you need to remain open to the possibilities that what you consider to be 'reality' is actually just a construct based on our current understanding
I'm framing that in scientific terms, you can't rule something out until you can disprove it. But I'm no fan of Religion as a social system and I agree with your appraisal of it.
No I can't, but as usual, when dealing with religious claptrap, common sense must take centre stage. Whenever someone talks about their soul, it's always described as being a morality tool, which is essentially a person's conscience.
I think the fact that we've had to change the subject tells you everything you need to know about Garth Crooks.
I would argue that morality comes from conscience framed within consciousness, in the context of social parameters of what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. But that's a narrow framework and only applies to our perceived existence, again framed within what we consider to be 'reality', which in turn is based upon our available perceptions and senses. It's a bit like using the analogy of a radio: Our senses, which includes our brains which makes sense of it all, are only tuned into a certain bandwith/wavelength but there's a lot more information out there which we simply don't pick up on because our senses aren't tuned into it. In simple terms we only see what's within our range, but we know that infared and ultravoilet are there all the time too, we don't dismiss it because we can't see it. But we do still base a lot of our understanding and definition of 'reality' on what we can actually see, touch, smell, taste etc - although we know that this is just a narrow frequency of all the information out there. You and I would call a table a solid object, an irrefutable fact of reality, but in actuality it is no more than a bunch of tightly packed atoms with spaces in between them, bouncing off of each other. There's nothing solid about it at all, other than what we perceive to be solid, within the context of the wavelength that our brain can sense and interpret. If you were a NanoKyle and small enough to see it, a table would look like a massive universe of floating atoms bouncing around and nothing at all like a 'normal' table The point I'm making is that reality is subjective and only specific from the point of where you are perceiving it all from.
Using other analogy, from Garth Crooks' perspective he thinks he has a point to make, whilst from every other perspective he is totally irrelevant ....
Bloody he'll PISKIE lol! Very well written btw! Garth Crooks is a prominent member of the BBC Football Journalist team & as such must undertake the task of creating a story where there is no story. I find him a strange little man, who lacks a sense of occasion & humour & as a consequence, takes himself a little too seriously. There really is no obligation for any other sentient being to do the same.
An interesting point and one worth exploring within a greater context. In regards to souls/morality it doesn't hold because as you say these are entirely man made concepts mostly based on what society deems. Its is entirely based on man made concepts and ideals and is constructed within a man made framework. There are things we can't comprehend and let alone understand. That however is not a reason to justify made up stuff - the concept of souls and divinity are man made concepts so are based entirely on reality, assigning them with an ethereal quality is just a marketing gimmick. So while your argument is generally valid, but when dealing with something entirely man made such as religion it doesn't work.
No - this is a logical fallacy. The burden of proof lies upon the person making a claim. It is not for the person who does not believe the claim to disprove it. I don't have to entertain the existence of living dragons, or Bigfoot, or believe that Zeus and Odin walk the Earth, just because I can't prove they don't exist. Scientific theory does not work by disproving every hypothesis possible to find the last remaining possibility.
Broadly speaking I agree, and I'm not saying that Soul or Divinity definitely exists. But Scientific theory does work by having to provide proof, which includes disproving a hypothesis that you believe not to be true. We're talking very much scientific framework here, but the paradigm remains that until you can disprove something, then you have to entertain that it might have some substance.
I think when discussing these things we need to be mindful of the language we use and the connotations that it has. If you ask somebody to describe 'Soul' you'd get a thousand different answers based on cultural context. For some it's a personality that lives on after death, for others it's the individual matrix pattern of brain waves, neural networks and synaptic responses that make up personality. So we have to be careful that we're all describing the same thing, otherwise the parameters for description are blurry. As I mentioned, I'm not advocating the existence of a 'Soul' as a blueprint of a personality that lives on after the body has died, but I am advocating that our understanding of the Brain and consciousness is far from complete. You might argue that once the brain dies, so does consciousness. But the scientific paradigm that all energy remains constant and merely changes form, might suggest that our 'energy' transforms into another state.
This stems from the history of Soviet regime which promoted intolerance to all kinds of "enemies" and people that differ from a stereotypical "Soviet citizen". It was a strict mono-ideological society where different ideas, norms, behaviour and appearance were not welcome. As a result Russian society still has a very low tolerance level to all kinds of minorities - gays, liberals, foreigners, punks, handicapped, Asians, Africans, neighbours, jews - you name it. Racism is just a part of it. The other side is what I call "a racial naivety". Russian racism towards black people is not as institutionalised as an American one with its history of slavery, KKK etc. It is more "naive" - you could live for many years in a big Soviet city like St. Petersburg with its 5 ml population in the 60-s,70-s or 80-s - and you would never, literally never ever meet a single black person, even in the street, never mind talk to him. I think the government could do much better in that respect, because, as I said, there is no deep-rooted institutionalised racism there outside very small but loud neo-nazi gangs, the population just need some education.
I think Garth crookes has (as usual) made himself look like a tit. Wengers logical aproach is perfectly understandable, and Mourinho's comments are pretty standard afair - "Be a man, stand up for yourself by playing and show them they are wrong" kind of thinking. That is why so many players love him. If anything i'm surprised FIFA has said nothing about the fact that Russia is banning gay. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/01/russia-rise-homophobic-violence But should we be surprised that they are doing **** all about important issues like this that wont make them any money....it's not like anyone would notice if all the gay footballers decided to boycott the world cup. I hate FIFA. I also hate FIFA 14 - not really relevant but i've come very close to throwing my controller through my TV screen so many times!
All footie games for the past several years have been dog sh!t, the last real top quality-superb football games were Pro Evolution 5 and 6, those 2 games were bloody ****ing fantastic, Fifa 2003 was also bloody good, the rest have been ****.
No (I know you are playing devil's advocate here though), you don't have to disprove other hypothesis false in scientific theory, unless that is your selected method of proof, which includes proving that there are a limited number of alternate possibilities, that can all be disproved. That proof method CAN be used, but is rarely used, because of the difficulty (generally) in proving a limited number of possibilities. Currently this is the problem with disproving God. Every time one of God's rules turns out to be false, he is redefined to be everything except the thing that was found to be false. He is the great God of the gaps, creator of, and in charge of everything that we don't we don't know for sure. This, I think, is an extension of people (in general) misunderstanding the word theory. A scientific theory is not a hypothesis, it is the framework that describes a known set of laws or facts. The proof of the individual facts or laws, are far more likely to disprove alternate laws or facts, or at least demonstrate within their justification why they better explain the evidence. When we use the term scientific theory, and relate it to a process as you have done, it still invokes (in the non-scientist) an element of conjecture or doubt. In this context, the scientific method is a better phrase to use. In the scientific method, disproving alternate hypotheses is not necessary.
