Saw a banner along Highway 1 in Moss Landing: “Not smart enough for science? Try religion.” I got a laugh out of it, but then, as serendipity would have it, someone sent me an article: In the United States, more people believe that houses can be haunted by the dead than believe that the living can cause climate change.
The percentage of people who believe humans are contributing to global warming has dropped to 36%, while those who believe that ghosts haunt houses stands at 37%. Also, and I didn’t make this up, the haunted house numbers are higher and the warming numbers lower among conservatives and church goers. So, we come full turn to the banner on the highway.
Now, in all fairness, the banner doesn’t have it quite right. It isn’t that these people aren’t necessarily smart. Stupidity is a condition of birth. If you are born a 40 watt bulb in a 100 watt world, you can’t do very much about it. At issue here is ignorance.
Ignorance is a personal choice made by people who want simple explanations that make them feel secure, rather than take the effort to delve into matters, think them out and try for a deeper understanding. Most issues are complex, having many shades of gray, making even many smart people uncomfortable. It’s so much easier to frame everything as right or wrong, good or evil, black or white, left or right or people like us vs. people like them. I have a sneaking suspicion that religion got its start catering to that gnawing need in people.
However, with mounting scientific evidence for global climate change, evidence that can be understood with only the application of the high school chemistry class we took, people who disbelieve that the huge amount of carbon spewing from our cars and industries is going into the atmosphere and having an effect on weather, no longer simply have their heads in the sand. Rather, they have their heads in a much darker, less pleasant place.
On the other hand, haunted houses remain a romantic notion, made lovable in films like “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.” While there is no scientific evidence for ghosts, and while it is highly unlikely that something remains after death that is capable of haunting, the possibility that there are ghosts and haunted houses can’t be totally disproved.
While ghosts are elusive and hard to prove, we can roughly measure the carbon that we, through modern industrial technology, are putting into the atmosphere. We also know how carbon combines and how it affects sunlight.
Religion doesn’t necessarily take sides against atmospheric science and for the paranormal. It does, however, predispose people to simplistic and erroneous answers.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
First successful soul transplant
The world’s first successful soul transplant was performed yesterday at the UC transplant center in San Francisco, by Dr. Les Apt.
Dr. Apt explained the difficulties involved. “The major problem was finding the soul. It is invisible under normal light. With the discovery of the ultra yellow spectrum, we were finally able to see the elusive little dickens.” Ultra yellow light was accidentally discovered at Apple’s research facility while they were trying to develop a computer so fast that it would second guess the operator, giving the human an answer minutes before he posed the question.
Dr. Apt also explained the handling of the soul. “It’s kind of a slippery, shapeless thing, so we had to develop magnetic forceps to keep it from sliding through our fingers.”
Since there were no human souls available, Apt’s team was forced to use a pig soul. “It’s a bit larger and has fewer blemishes,” said Dr. Apt. “But otherwise, it’s an almost perfect fit.”
Not everyone applauds this breakthrough. Rev. Ben Dover of the Moral Minority said, in a televised statement, “This is contrary to God’s law of one soul, one person. Also, we object to the use of a pig’s soul. If God had wanted us to have animal parts, He would have made us part of the animal kingdom.” He also added that he was afraid the godless secular humanists would start harvesting souls from aborted fetuses.
One of the problems with this procedure is that people are unlikely to leave their souls to medical science. Moral philosopher Rev. Ima Wise explained the problem. “People spend a lifetime preparing their souls for heaven. What would happen of the recipient misuses it, and the soul ends up in hell?”
We asked Dr. Apt how the patient, whose name has been withheld, is doing after the procedure. “He’s awake and alert. His family said he used to be a rather difficult fellow, but now he seems much nicer and more congenial.”
Is it possible for a person to live without a soul? Medical researcher, Martin Mink said, “It is possible for a person to exist, but he or she wouldn’t be alive and aware in the same way we are. They would be, in essence, little more than insensitive automatons. We are only aware of a couple of examples, both commentators on Fox News.”
Asked about where the soul connects to the body, Dr. Apt chuckled. “You know, Rene Descartes was right all along. We just sewed it on to the pineal gland. Only took a few minutes.”
Dr. Apt explained the difficulties involved. “The major problem was finding the soul. It is invisible under normal light. With the discovery of the ultra yellow spectrum, we were finally able to see the elusive little dickens.” Ultra yellow light was accidentally discovered at Apple’s research facility while they were trying to develop a computer so fast that it would second guess the operator, giving the human an answer minutes before he posed the question.
Dr. Apt also explained the handling of the soul. “It’s kind of a slippery, shapeless thing, so we had to develop magnetic forceps to keep it from sliding through our fingers.”
Since there were no human souls available, Apt’s team was forced to use a pig soul. “It’s a bit larger and has fewer blemishes,” said Dr. Apt. “But otherwise, it’s an almost perfect fit.”
Not everyone applauds this breakthrough. Rev. Ben Dover of the Moral Minority said, in a televised statement, “This is contrary to God’s law of one soul, one person. Also, we object to the use of a pig’s soul. If God had wanted us to have animal parts, He would have made us part of the animal kingdom.” He also added that he was afraid the godless secular humanists would start harvesting souls from aborted fetuses.
One of the problems with this procedure is that people are unlikely to leave their souls to medical science. Moral philosopher Rev. Ima Wise explained the problem. “People spend a lifetime preparing their souls for heaven. What would happen of the recipient misuses it, and the soul ends up in hell?”
We asked Dr. Apt how the patient, whose name has been withheld, is doing after the procedure. “He’s awake and alert. His family said he used to be a rather difficult fellow, but now he seems much nicer and more congenial.”
Is it possible for a person to live without a soul? Medical researcher, Martin Mink said, “It is possible for a person to exist, but he or she wouldn’t be alive and aware in the same way we are. They would be, in essence, little more than insensitive automatons. We are only aware of a couple of examples, both commentators on Fox News.”
Asked about where the soul connects to the body, Dr. Apt chuckled. “You know, Rene Descartes was right all along. We just sewed it on to the pineal gland. Only took a few minutes.”
In the Labyrinth of the mind with Hofstadter and Searle: a review of Douglas Hofstadter’s, I am a Strange Loop
Those of you who suspect that cognitive science isn’t particularly cognitive or scientific; Hofstadter’s 2007 book will confirm your suspicions. This rambling and often incoherent work is located on the “science” shelves, but would be better placed in “memoirs.”
The title made me think I’d be getting current insights into consciousness, but after he started the book with a dialog he wrote as a teen and followed it up with an account of his conversion to vegetarianism, I began to think he wasn’t going to address the subject.
Then when he blasts John Searle for a review of Hofstadter’s earlier work, The Mind’s I,
the warning lights really went off. The review was concise and clear and didn’t warrant offhand dismissal. Perhaps Hofstadter’s admitted friendship with artificial intelligence guru Marvin Minsky had something to do with the hostile attitude.
Oddly enough, there are areas of agreement between Searle and Hofstadter, such as a rejection of Cartesian dualism and thinking machines: on page 190 he agrees that Deep Blue, when beating Kasparov at chess, wasn’t really thinking.
I found his premise that the “I,” that self-consciousness we all experience, is a loop running in the brain. However, he doesn’t really dig deeply into what that means in terms of mental states and brain activity. He does go on about symbols in the brain, but that is totally unclear. It sounded to me like little name tags stuck to synapses.
He also failed to address a major issue surrounding the “I,” the obvious evolutionary forces that made self-consciousness necessary. We are social animals, and to be such we must read the goals, moods and actions of our group, and then make inferences about projected group behavior. Doing this would, naturally, be pointless if we couldn’t also read the same things in ourselves in order to decide if we were with the group, following them, deciding to lead them in another direction or deciding we were in the wrong group.
It is impossible to be a social animal without self reference.
Another puzzling part of the book is the amount of space he spends praising mathematician Kurt Gödel. He devotes one full chapter and a big part of at least two others in what appears to be blatant hero worship. He even dwells on the fact that Gödel’s name includes the letters “god.” As part of this hero worship, he reduces the work of Bertrand Russell and Alfred Whitehead to nothing more than a springboard for Gödel’s 1931 work. The most confusing part of these Gödel pages is that Hofstadter takes a convoluted route to make a connection between Gödel and the premise of his book. I finally had to skip over sections where Gödel’s name appeared. That Hofstadter is an admitted failed mathematician might have something to do with this apparent obsession.
Hofstadter’s notion that an imperfect copy of one person’s mind can be incorporated into another, say a loved one, ignores the fact that the physical experiences, not just mental ones, shape the content of the mind, thus forever leaving each mind virtually isolated. He seems to verge on the “New Age” with these notions.
At times Hofstadter attempts to be literary, but he seems to try too hard, overdoing the extended metaphors to the point where the reader thinks, “just get on with it.”
Finally, in this 360 page book, any valuable points he makes about consciousness and self-consciousness can be found in John Searle’s 161 page, Mind, Language and Society.
However, Searle is perfectly clear, while Hofstadter leaves the reader confused.
The title made me think I’d be getting current insights into consciousness, but after he started the book with a dialog he wrote as a teen and followed it up with an account of his conversion to vegetarianism, I began to think he wasn’t going to address the subject.
Then when he blasts John Searle for a review of Hofstadter’s earlier work, The Mind’s I,
the warning lights really went off. The review was concise and clear and didn’t warrant offhand dismissal. Perhaps Hofstadter’s admitted friendship with artificial intelligence guru Marvin Minsky had something to do with the hostile attitude.
Oddly enough, there are areas of agreement between Searle and Hofstadter, such as a rejection of Cartesian dualism and thinking machines: on page 190 he agrees that Deep Blue, when beating Kasparov at chess, wasn’t really thinking.
I found his premise that the “I,” that self-consciousness we all experience, is a loop running in the brain. However, he doesn’t really dig deeply into what that means in terms of mental states and brain activity. He does go on about symbols in the brain, but that is totally unclear. It sounded to me like little name tags stuck to synapses.
He also failed to address a major issue surrounding the “I,” the obvious evolutionary forces that made self-consciousness necessary. We are social animals, and to be such we must read the goals, moods and actions of our group, and then make inferences about projected group behavior. Doing this would, naturally, be pointless if we couldn’t also read the same things in ourselves in order to decide if we were with the group, following them, deciding to lead them in another direction or deciding we were in the wrong group.
It is impossible to be a social animal without self reference.
Another puzzling part of the book is the amount of space he spends praising mathematician Kurt Gödel. He devotes one full chapter and a big part of at least two others in what appears to be blatant hero worship. He even dwells on the fact that Gödel’s name includes the letters “god.” As part of this hero worship, he reduces the work of Bertrand Russell and Alfred Whitehead to nothing more than a springboard for Gödel’s 1931 work. The most confusing part of these Gödel pages is that Hofstadter takes a convoluted route to make a connection between Gödel and the premise of his book. I finally had to skip over sections where Gödel’s name appeared. That Hofstadter is an admitted failed mathematician might have something to do with this apparent obsession.
Hofstadter’s notion that an imperfect copy of one person’s mind can be incorporated into another, say a loved one, ignores the fact that the physical experiences, not just mental ones, shape the content of the mind, thus forever leaving each mind virtually isolated. He seems to verge on the “New Age” with these notions.
At times Hofstadter attempts to be literary, but he seems to try too hard, overdoing the extended metaphors to the point where the reader thinks, “just get on with it.”
Finally, in this 360 page book, any valuable points he makes about consciousness and self-consciousness can be found in John Searle’s 161 page, Mind, Language and Society.
However, Searle is perfectly clear, while Hofstadter leaves the reader confused.
Reframing the health care debate
In doesn’t matter much if you are far right, far left or near center, the current debate over health care reform isn’t working, and that’s a different issue than if health care itself is or isn’t working.
Name calling and labels, complete with all the dreaded and ambiguous “isms” only serve to further entrench personal biases and preconceptions. The louder the argument, the deeper we retreat into familiar territory. We need to abandon the notion that someone with a different political opinion is either of a different species, dishonest or morally corrupt. What we need is to reframe the issue and use that new frame to search for solutions.
In order to reframe, we need to establish as given some premises any reasonable person can agree to. Let’s take the two central issues: health and money.
Premise one: Health is a good thing both for the individual and the nation. Unless you are pathological, you would rather be healthy than sick. Also, in general, you would rather have someone you pass randomly on the street healthy, rather than sick. From a national point of view, healthy people are productive, thus adding to the economy and general prosperity. Sick people are not productive, thus drawing from the economy and reducing the general prosperity.
Premise two: Cost matters. If I promised everyone full health care coverage for a yearly fee of $100,000, most would balk at this. If I made the same offer for $1, everyone would line up to take advantage. So, most people would agree to the following, “Give me great health coverage, and give it to me cheap.”
If everyone, left, right and center is still with me, we can start to reframe the debate. We all want our medical needs taken care of, but we don’t want it to bankrupt us personally or as a society. It doesn’t matter if we carry tea bags or anti war signs, we are all the same on these basic issues. Now we can throw away the labels and see each other for what we are, humans who will eventually get sick and die, but who would like as many healthy years as possible.
Not being a doctor, politician or economist, I can’t sit here and generate the perfect frame for this debate, but I’ll bet that groups of doctors, politicians and economists can sit down armed with these basic human needs and create a frame that most people can buy into. From there, the road to health care reform is a “yellow brick” expressway.
Name calling and labels, complete with all the dreaded and ambiguous “isms” only serve to further entrench personal biases and preconceptions. The louder the argument, the deeper we retreat into familiar territory. We need to abandon the notion that someone with a different political opinion is either of a different species, dishonest or morally corrupt. What we need is to reframe the issue and use that new frame to search for solutions.
In order to reframe, we need to establish as given some premises any reasonable person can agree to. Let’s take the two central issues: health and money.
Premise one: Health is a good thing both for the individual and the nation. Unless you are pathological, you would rather be healthy than sick. Also, in general, you would rather have someone you pass randomly on the street healthy, rather than sick. From a national point of view, healthy people are productive, thus adding to the economy and general prosperity. Sick people are not productive, thus drawing from the economy and reducing the general prosperity.
Premise two: Cost matters. If I promised everyone full health care coverage for a yearly fee of $100,000, most would balk at this. If I made the same offer for $1, everyone would line up to take advantage. So, most people would agree to the following, “Give me great health coverage, and give it to me cheap.”
If everyone, left, right and center is still with me, we can start to reframe the debate. We all want our medical needs taken care of, but we don’t want it to bankrupt us personally or as a society. It doesn’t matter if we carry tea bags or anti war signs, we are all the same on these basic issues. Now we can throw away the labels and see each other for what we are, humans who will eventually get sick and die, but who would like as many healthy years as possible.
Not being a doctor, politician or economist, I can’t sit here and generate the perfect frame for this debate, but I’ll bet that groups of doctors, politicians and economists can sit down armed with these basic human needs and create a frame that most people can buy into. From there, the road to health care reform is a “yellow brick” expressway.
I deserve the Nobel Peace Prize
The news that Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize has gotten me thinking, and being self-centered, that thinking has gravitated toward myself.
I do like Obama. I voted for him, but I have to wonder if he were the best choice. We are, after all, still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the two parties in Congress are almost ready to come to blows.
Now, I could offer a wide field of alternative choices for this award, but it’s hard for me to speak to the motives of others. Besides, I’m sure my list would leave out many qualified candidates. No, the only proper thing to do is offer myself as a person eminently qualified for this award, along with the money involved.
Let me make my history known to one and all, so the world can judge my qualifications.
I was peaceful even at an early age. As a kid, when someone had a problem with me and said we’d meet after school to fight it out, I simply wouldn’t show up, opting instead to meet friends for a soda and some fries.
Then, along came the Viet Nam war. I quickly dashed out to enlist in a safe National Guard unit, where I spent my summers playing military games in the California desert and drinking copious amounts of beer.
Throughout my youth, whenever some international situation would get me angry, I would quickly make a date with some attractive young woman. I always subscribed to the idea, make love, not war.
You can check the record. I’ve never dashed off to Washington DC to sign any declaration of war. I resisted the urge when Iran held our hostages, and I didn’t get involved on either side when Israel and its neighbors had all those nasty little wars.
When we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, I didn’t rush out to re enlist. I pulled out my old National Guard uniform, found it no longer fit and thought better of the whole idea.
I don’t even kill the animals I eat, leaving that unpleasant chore to other, more violent, people.
As much as I respect our president, I have to say, in all humility, that I’m by far the better choice for the Peace Prize.
I do like Obama. I voted for him, but I have to wonder if he were the best choice. We are, after all, still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the two parties in Congress are almost ready to come to blows.
Now, I could offer a wide field of alternative choices for this award, but it’s hard for me to speak to the motives of others. Besides, I’m sure my list would leave out many qualified candidates. No, the only proper thing to do is offer myself as a person eminently qualified for this award, along with the money involved.
Let me make my history known to one and all, so the world can judge my qualifications.
I was peaceful even at an early age. As a kid, when someone had a problem with me and said we’d meet after school to fight it out, I simply wouldn’t show up, opting instead to meet friends for a soda and some fries.
Then, along came the Viet Nam war. I quickly dashed out to enlist in a safe National Guard unit, where I spent my summers playing military games in the California desert and drinking copious amounts of beer.
Throughout my youth, whenever some international situation would get me angry, I would quickly make a date with some attractive young woman. I always subscribed to the idea, make love, not war.
You can check the record. I’ve never dashed off to Washington DC to sign any declaration of war. I resisted the urge when Iran held our hostages, and I didn’t get involved on either side when Israel and its neighbors had all those nasty little wars.
When we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, I didn’t rush out to re enlist. I pulled out my old National Guard uniform, found it no longer fit and thought better of the whole idea.
I don’t even kill the animals I eat, leaving that unpleasant chore to other, more violent, people.
As much as I respect our president, I have to say, in all humility, that I’m by far the better choice for the Peace Prize.
Pedestrian stops and civic responsibility
Apparently, according to a news piece, police in major cities are stopping pedestrians, questioning them, perhaps even frisking them if they seem to be acting suspiciously. It seems that as this practice is on the rise, crime rates are falling.
Civil rights groups are naturally upset, particularly because Blacks and Hispanics are targeted more often. While about 90 percent of those stopped are soon left to go on their way, they are left shaken and indignant, afraid and angry. However, about 10 percent are found to be doing something illegal, like carrying concealed weapons, and are arrested.
This appears to be a classic case of that delicate balance we’ve tried to achieve in this country, the balance between civil rights and public safety. Clearly, no one wants innocent people stopped and searched on the streets. This makes us think of totalitarian oppression. Yet, no one can deny that crime on the streets has been and continues to be a serious problem. Added to usual street crime are the gangs, which seem to be growing larger, more numerous and more violent. Also, since Blacks and Hispanics comprise a proportionally larger percentage of criminals on the street, some degree of profiling is unfortunately taking place.
In an ideal world, people wouldn’t be stopped by the police unless they were committing or had committed a crime. Of course, in an ideal world, young men would not be gathering in gangs, carrying weapons and causing a public safety problem.
It all comes back to some bedrock assumptions about a civilized society. To the degree that people behave responsibly and civilly they are free to go about their lives and engage in any chosen activities. Our society accepts a wide latitude of behavior, and as we continue to evolve as a society, this latitude grows wider. Homosexually has been decriminalized, and I expect drug use will also be decriminalized. Behavior that once seem deviant enough to keep people out of jobs or neighborhoods is now seen as fairly acceptable.
Again, it is a question of balance. Law enforcement, faced with daily violent activity, see the streets as unsafe places, filled with real or potential criminals. Young men hanging out on the streets, to the degree that they are doing something suspicious, see the police as dangerous enemies. It’s another version of the old adage, if you are a hammer, you see everything as a nail.
We tend to frame things in terms of society’s responses. The authorities are seen as either soft on crime or accused of police brutality. We tend to view the street criminals as being hampered by unemployment and lack of education. Naturally, we need to offer education and employment opportunities, but these need to be contingent on more responsible behavior. In order to de-escalate this growing tension between the two positions, each side needs to back down incrementally. Less street violence, less police pressure and
Civil rights groups are naturally upset, particularly because Blacks and Hispanics are targeted more often. While about 90 percent of those stopped are soon left to go on their way, they are left shaken and indignant, afraid and angry. However, about 10 percent are found to be doing something illegal, like carrying concealed weapons, and are arrested.
This appears to be a classic case of that delicate balance we’ve tried to achieve in this country, the balance between civil rights and public safety. Clearly, no one wants innocent people stopped and searched on the streets. This makes us think of totalitarian oppression. Yet, no one can deny that crime on the streets has been and continues to be a serious problem. Added to usual street crime are the gangs, which seem to be growing larger, more numerous and more violent. Also, since Blacks and Hispanics comprise a proportionally larger percentage of criminals on the street, some degree of profiling is unfortunately taking place.
In an ideal world, people wouldn’t be stopped by the police unless they were committing or had committed a crime. Of course, in an ideal world, young men would not be gathering in gangs, carrying weapons and causing a public safety problem.
It all comes back to some bedrock assumptions about a civilized society. To the degree that people behave responsibly and civilly they are free to go about their lives and engage in any chosen activities. Our society accepts a wide latitude of behavior, and as we continue to evolve as a society, this latitude grows wider. Homosexually has been decriminalized, and I expect drug use will also be decriminalized. Behavior that once seem deviant enough to keep people out of jobs or neighborhoods is now seen as fairly acceptable.
Again, it is a question of balance. Law enforcement, faced with daily violent activity, see the streets as unsafe places, filled with real or potential criminals. Young men hanging out on the streets, to the degree that they are doing something suspicious, see the police as dangerous enemies. It’s another version of the old adage, if you are a hammer, you see everything as a nail.
We tend to frame things in terms of society’s responses. The authorities are seen as either soft on crime or accused of police brutality. We tend to view the street criminals as being hampered by unemployment and lack of education. Naturally, we need to offer education and employment opportunities, but these need to be contingent on more responsible behavior. In order to de-escalate this growing tension between the two positions, each side needs to back down incrementally. Less street violence, less police pressure and
Some time ago I commented on fact and opinion, and now I’d like to explore this a bit more, including the notion of belief.
In school we all learned to know the difference between fact and opinion, but belief wasn’t mentioned.
Let’s take an example, something uncontroversial like strawberries. Here’s a fact: Strawberries are an edible fruit. Agreed?
Now an opinion: I think strawberries are the best tasting fruit. Valid opinion, right?
Now here’s where the problem starts, the point where opinion becomes belief: Strawberries are the world’s best fruit. See how this statement leaves no room for disagreement. It you object, saying you prefer blackberries, the response would be something like: What’s wrong with you? How can you not prefer the world’s best fruit?
To discover the source of many human conflicts, simply replace “strawberries” with any statement about religion, politics, social issues, philosophy or even taste in music.
We seem to take our opinions, carve them in stone for all time, and they become our beliefs, even when evidence to the contrary is presented to us. When it was proved that the earth revolves around the sun, many people still believed the opposite. Even today, we have people who assert that the earth is flat.
It seems we need to pull out our beliefs from time to time, dust them off, re examine them and adjust or even discard them if needed.
In school we all learned to know the difference between fact and opinion, but belief wasn’t mentioned.
Let’s take an example, something uncontroversial like strawberries. Here’s a fact: Strawberries are an edible fruit. Agreed?
Now an opinion: I think strawberries are the best tasting fruit. Valid opinion, right?
Now here’s where the problem starts, the point where opinion becomes belief: Strawberries are the world’s best fruit. See how this statement leaves no room for disagreement. It you object, saying you prefer blackberries, the response would be something like: What’s wrong with you? How can you not prefer the world’s best fruit?
To discover the source of many human conflicts, simply replace “strawberries” with any statement about religion, politics, social issues, philosophy or even taste in music.
We seem to take our opinions, carve them in stone for all time, and they become our beliefs, even when evidence to the contrary is presented to us. When it was proved that the earth revolves around the sun, many people still believed the opposite. Even today, we have people who assert that the earth is flat.
It seems we need to pull out our beliefs from time to time, dust them off, re examine them and adjust or even discard them if needed.
Sweat Lodge fraud
The sweat lodge ordeal was in the news again, this time a survivor told her story. What caught my eye right away was that people paid $9,000 or more for this retreat. Then upon reading further, I found that for this sizable sum, the people fasted for five days, were deprived of sleep and subjected to mind altering breathing exercises, all that before they were herded into a sweat lodge that made many ill and killed two.
A spokesman for the character who ran this perverse party said that many people had “amazing experiences,” which is code for hallucinations. I might suggest any easier way to have these experiences; go pick some magic mushrooms. You can probably pick up a field guide to these for around 20 bucks, saving $8,980. But then again, you wouldn’t get to say you were at a “Spiritual Warrior” event.
What exactly does “spiritual” mean? I hate to even open that can of worms. You could probably ask a hundred people and get 99 different answers, some of them in the twilight zone of outer “new age.” One can claim to see spirits, as in ghosts. People can be in good spirits, have spirited conversations, drink distilled spirits or even believe that there is some nebulous thing within a person that is eternal and not part of the body, as in a soul.
I guess these people were spiritual seekers with money to burn, and to paraphrase P.T. Barnum, there’s a seeker born every minute. So, as much as I would like to see the organizer of the retreat, James Arthur Ray, thrown in prison, I have to put much of the blame on the people who paid for the right to be tired, hungry, disoriented and physically ill. When people are that credulous, how tempting it is to offer them some mystical song and dance and laugh all the way to the bank.
And if anyone still thinks all this “Spiritual Warrior” stuff makes sense, I have an actual recording of a choir of angels that will cause you to transcend your mundane daily lives. Just send me a check.
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