Eldon Taylor's Blog, page 12

March 8, 2018

Reason and Emotion

Today I wish to spotlight the issue of emotional verses rational thinking. At the time of Socrates, the individual was second to culture and country. The idea of subjective knowledge was literally foreign to the Greeks of that day. Oracles provided answers to questions not specifically embodied in custom, tradition, or law. The subjective experience had no place or value until Socrates, with his irony, began to question the sophists and others. Through the use of irony Socrates placed value on the subjective and today we understand this through his admonishment, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Romanticism During ...
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Published on March 08, 2018 14:21

February 22, 2018

What to Believe When Scientists Disagree

In today’s spotlight I wish to directly take on the issue of what to believe when responsible scientists disagree. This is something we have addressed in the past. However, it is also of critical importance so visiting the subject one more time from a different perspective, may be helpful. You can pick any number of subjects and find strong disagreements between fully credible scientists, experts in their field. Take for example global warming. 40% of qualified scientists doubt that global warming is man made, according to the National Association of Scholars.1 However, if I turn the page and read Skeptical ...
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Published on February 22, 2018 11:52

February 13, 2018

Relationships: Meaning and Meaningfulness

In this week’s spotlight I want to pause for a moment and reflect on the importance of relationships. In a recent newsletter Ravinder reminded me of something I wrote many years ago as a result of a dream. The next morning I wrote the dream down and ultimately it became The Little Black Book, something we sell for a mighty $2.00 just to get the message out. The bottom line, something I have referred to as the three Rs—and not for reading, writing and arithmetic. No—my three Rs can be said this way, “Reality is Relative to Relationships!” Lasting Think ...
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Published on February 13, 2018 10:40

February 9, 2018

Consensus Thinking

In today’s spotlight I wish to remind you about the herding that goes on that is intentionally designed to manipulate your actions, choices, and beliefs. I recently reviewed an article titled, Regulating Behavior in Online Communities. As you might fairly assume by the title, this article is all about the research that reveals exactly how and why folks behave and how to utilize this knowledge to orchestrate the results you may be seeking. Normative Behavior Now I should say upfront that this article is primarily concerned with organizing acceptable behavior among members of online communities and that I applaud. However, ...
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Published on February 09, 2018 08:51

February 2, 2018

Science of Nonsense?

In today’s spotlight I wish to focus some attention on the idea of science and its paradigms. In Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions we come to understand that science can be very slow, indeed rigid and resistive, to paradigm shifts. Quoting for a moment, “Kuhn challenged the then prevailing view of progress in ‘normal science.’ Normal scientific progress was viewed as ‘development-by-accumulation’ of accepted facts and theories. Kuhn argued for an episodic model in which periods of such conceptual continuity in normal science were interrupted by periods of revolutionary science. The discovery of ‘anomalies’ during revolutions in science ...
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Published on February 02, 2018 15:54

January 25, 2018

Relative Truth?

In today’s spotlight I wish to once again take up the issue of truth. It seems today that for more and more people, the idea of truth is one in the midst of a metamorphism. That is, everyone seems to have their own personal truth and very many people today insist on holding on to ideas that have been proven false. Webster defines truth this way, “The quality or state of being true; that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality; or a fact or belief that is accepted as true.” Think about that last definition, a ...
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Published on January 25, 2018 15:46

January 22, 2018

Real Self-Responsibility

In this week’s spotlight I wish to shine some light on the notion of self-responsibility. For me, self-responsibility means taking responsibility for everything in your life, even those events or people that do not in any way seem to be your problem or responsibility. Mirrors on Ourselves Often the people who most antagonize us are the ones we need most to teach us what we want to learn. My mother used to say, “Birds of a feather flock together. ” Call it that, or call it simple attraction, anger attracts anger, hostility attracts hostility, love attracts love, and so forth. ...
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Published on January 22, 2018 08:24

January 4, 2018

Fantasyland

In today’s spotlight I wish to discuss the idea of fantasyland. I recently read a book by that title that is without a doubt the best book that I have ever read, and the one that I most disliked. The author is absolutely an unmitigated atheistic know-it-all who finds anything but hard science non-sense, rubbish, and pure idolatrous fantasy! That said, his scholarship, writing ability, and arguments are very compelling. 500 Year History When his 500-year history of the Americas is boiled down to a bottom line, we live in a world where fiction and non-fiction have become indistinguishable for ...
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Published on January 04, 2018 14:42

December 27, 2017

Moral Agnosticism

In this week’s spotlight I would like to discuss cultural relativism, something I think of as very close to, if not synonymous, with moral agnosticism. For I believe that fundamentally there are certain human rights that should exist everywhere in the world, regardless of so-called customs. Further, I am convinced that when we allow or justify the deprivation of these rights, by precedent we rob ourselves of the integrity that all life deserves. Indeed, by allowing human atrocities, we invite them upon ourselves if by nothing other than our tacit consent. There are many today who insist that there is ...
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Published on December 27, 2017 14:56

December 15, 2017

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays

In today’s spotlight I would like to discuss an issue that shouldn’t be an issue in my opinion—and that’s the idea of Christmas wishes. It seems that for the past few years we have been encouraged to send holiday wishes instead of those of a Merry Christmas variety. There are reasons behind this but to me, the most interesting comes down to one of politics. According to a PRRI poll, 61% of Republicans are in favor of Merry Christmas while 66% of the Democrats favor a secular greeting such as Happy Holidays. Political Divide Why the political divide? According to ...
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Published on December 15, 2017 11:30