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The Forum > Article Comments > Rock bottom > Comments

Rock bottom : Comments

By Peter Sellick, published 27/11/2015

I can only conclude that the guise of intellectual openness and truth-seeking boasted of in academe is often a sham, overrun by shear prejudice and wilful blindness.

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An excellent article. Deserves to be read and thought about.
Posted by calwest, Friday, 27 November 2015 8:20:14 AM
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Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the most intellectually and wilfully disingenuous, self appointed judge of them all?

Judge not and ye shall not be judged! Get a life of your own sells!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Friday, 27 November 2015 8:30:31 AM
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Pretty much all of us have faith in something, but not necessarily some magical or supernatural Thing. Karl Popper points out the futility of trying to differentiate those who have from those who don't - we all, pretty much, have both a pragmatic and empirical approach to the real day-to-day world, AND unvalidated, unvalidatable, hopes and dreams about its possibilities.

In his own case, he pointed to his faith in reason, and perhaps in (on balance) a confidence in the future. In that vein, he hoped that, in piecemeal fashion, socialism and liberalism could be brought close enough together to create a uneasily working relationship. [Or perhaps that's just my take on his aspirations.]

Not to have faith in anything, or not to strive to find something to have faith in, smells of an adolescent tendency to cop out, curse the evil world and all its uncertainties, and get back on the teat: gutlessness, in the name of deep analysis, or deconstruction.

So how can we teach young people how to think again ? How to deconstruct deconstruction, if you like ? How to see through bullxt ? How to avoid the nihilism of their whingey cop-out teachers, and think for themselves, give up Twittering, step back into the dangerous, uncertain world, and make a difference ?

I'm sorry, have I offended anyone ?

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 27 November 2015 9:22:05 AM
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'So how can we teach young people how to think again ?'

stop allowing only tax payer money for group think. Whether it is feminism, homosexuality, gw, Indigeneous affairs, dv all you need to do is be a parrot. Our national broadcasters and universities are the worst offenders. Anyone see those fools on the Drum last night. Yeah more money will improve education, dv, aboriginal affairs. Can't these mindless people see that the more money that has been wasted for the last 50 years the worse problems have become in all these areas. The useless slogans used by regressives make Abbott look like a genius.
Posted by runner, Friday, 27 November 2015 9:38:01 AM
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It has been suggested that no one who appreciates sausage or law should ever see either of them being made. The same is true for religion. Early Christianity was riven by controversy. One source of controversy was the nature of Jesus. Philip Jenkins, professor at Penn State and Baylor, has written "The Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 years." Eventually the definition of Jesus adopted at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 won out. It won out because its supporters were able to mass the most power.

Harvey Cox, Professor of Divinity at Harvard, wrote:

"...Jenkins has revealed that doctrines and creeds do not drop from heaven but emerge in the blood and tumult of actual history."

That is also true of Peter Sellick's branch of Christianity. The founder of that denomination was a bloody-minded king with a penchant for having people beheaded. He founded a new branch of Christianity because he could not get a Catholic divorce or annulment.

Superstition backed with spears, arrows, guns and/or bombs becomes religious doctrine.

Sellick writes: "I can only conclude that the guise of intellectual openness and truth-seeking boasted of in academe is often a sham, overrun by shear prejudice and wilful blindness."

The word in the above quote should be 'sheer' not 'shear.' There is truth in what Peter wrote. However, he should apply that same critical intellect to his own field.
Posted by david f, Friday, 27 November 2015 11:07:08 AM
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Poor Sells, he keeps on flogging a very dead horse, despite the over-whelming evidence that there is no truth whatsoever in any of his propositions, including the naive (materialist) proposition that there is something called objective "truth" or "reality".
http://www.aboutadidam.org/nature_of_reality/subjective.html
This site introduces a radically different Understanding of Real God
http://www.realgod.org
This site introduces a much more nuanced Understanding of the role/function of religion in the public square. And why esoteric Spiritual religion seldom, if ever, enters the picture in the usual "debates" about the nature of Reality - it is taboo both within the academy and most, if not all, "theology" and "divinity" schools or seminaries.
http://www.firmstand.org/articles/separation_of_church_and_state.html
This reference provides a critical Understanding of the limitations of mainstream institutional exoteric Christianity
http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/davidtoddunderstandingjesus.html
Posted by Daffy Duck, Friday, 27 November 2015 11:49:35 AM
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