Mod+ 274. DR. BERNARDO KASTRUP, WHY OUR CULTURE IS MATERIALISTIC

You're mixing up the practice of culturally-sanctioned 'evils' (human sacrifice, local warfare, torture, etc.) with the global scale of Earth-murdering consumerism. There is absolutely nothing ridiculous in the original statement. No traditional culture in the history of humanity, in which non-materialist values prevailed, ever treated the Earth like a resource to be plundered; ever had so little regard for the future; ever denied so thoroughly the meaning of life.
There is a mix-up going on. Yours. What makes something so obvious such a blind-spot for you only you can choose to know. Now you launch another regressive phrase " Earth-murdering consumerism." and follow-up with statements so clearly ridiculous I have to wonder at your clarity. How you can even post such utter falsehoods with a straight-face is beyond me. I've already given more than enough proof that those sentiments are false and I have already stated the difference is that nowadays we have technology that makes similar actions from "age-old" mindsets more effective . Just because dropping an A-bomb was more effective than raining hundreds of thousands fire-arrows doesn't mean the mindsets and aims of those attacking were dissimilar.

But let's go back to that phrase "Earth-murdering consumerism"

What is Earth? It's a physical construct! IOW concern about the Earth is not - by definition - spiritual. (Please don't think I'm stating that being spiritual means one doesn't care about the Earth) Plus the Earth is far from dying. What you mean is that there is a good possibility of changes that will result in things not being the way they've been for an eon or so. Your concerns are fully and solely materialist. You even go as far as to state "denied so thoroughly the meaning of life" as if a - you know all physical life and what the "meaning of it" is and b - the physical life you know of is the sum total of spirituality.

Look, treasuring, appreciating and loving physical life, humans, animals, Earth, etc is something very key to my being in this incarnation. However it is patently and provably ridiculous to concoct the idea that materialism is somehow set against that appreciation and love.

It has been pointed out to you that most "earth pillaging" agendas/mindsets are rooted in one or the other spiritual tradition. That is simply a fact and what cause you to refuse to accept it remains puzzling.

BTW - I happen to, as anyone here knows, perceive materialism as completely false.

And a question for you - as you see it, what is spirituality?
 
In the book Gunning For God, author and mathematician John Lennox applied the criterion for evidence and witnesses proposed by Hume (a philosopher who rejected miracles) and shows that by those criteria the evidence shows that the resurrection of Christ occurred. Lee Strobel, author of The Case for Christ is a journalist and his research into the authenticity of the Gospels transformed his life. He started out as an atheist skeptic but when he used his credentials as a reporter to get access to the world's leading historians, the results of his research made a Christian out of him.
wow... very surprised you're endorsing these two weak thinkers. My favorite John Lennox quote is when he dismisses Hinduism because it has too many Gods... what a bigoted fool! I invited him to Skeptiko... he's too busy. I wish someone would help me book him.


Lee Strobel work has been pretty thoroughly trashed... Robert Price comes to mind. Another guy I'd love to get on Skeptiko... and help would be appreciated.
 
wow... very surprised you're endorsing these two weak thinkers. My favorite John Lennox quote is when he dismisses Hinduism because it has too many Gods... what a bigoted fool! I invited him to Skeptiko... he's too busy. I wish someone would help me book him.





Lee Strobel work has been pretty thoroughly trashed... Robert Price comes to mind. Another guy I'd love to get on Skeptiko... and help would be appreciated.





Forgive me Alex, But I wouldn't call John Lennox a very weak thinker, He seems to hold his own against atheists, And that has to stand for something, I consider him to be a very exceptional thinker, With all due respect to his misunderstanding of Hinduism or Vedic Philosophy as I put it, That is understandable as that its not his area of theism, He is a devout Christian, Which may I point out, is not condemned by Vedic Philosophy, But if he lacks a point of knowledge concerning the Vedas and why there are so many Gods, which I may also point out, are incarnations of the one God who is the source. Then it could be pointed out to him as a contention. But I don't think in any way that John Lennox is a weak thinker.
 
With all due respect to his misunderstanding of Hinduism or Vedic Philosophy as I put it, That is understandable as that its not his area of theism, He is a devout Christian...

Hi Johnny... I think you're being too generous/kind. There are a lot of open-minded, expansive Christian thinkers who are pushing the dialog forward (gonna publish an interview with one next), but John Lennox is not one of them. Again, would love to have the change to interview and/or debate him.
 
Hi Johnny... I think you're being too generous/kind. There are a lot of open-minded, expansive Christian thinkers who are pushing the dialog forward (gonna publish an interview with one next), but John Lennox is not one of them. Again, would love to have the change to interview and/or debate him.


I look forward to your next interview, But I also think you are being to harsh, Maybe you have your reasons, ( Such as the Christian view against re-incarnation or something like that ) and I am not really keen on taking up your time having a back and forth with you, I enjoy watching/listening to what you do. But I can't help but add that in my opinion John Lennox has contributed his fair share in the defence of believers, usually adopting arguments outside of Christianity to bolster his beliefs, Such as the Teleological argument or the argument for the foundation of morality, ect ect. Point being he is an advocate against materialism, and they are few and far between in the mainstream, But I believe John Lennox stands his ground.

Thanks.
 
lol

My apologies also. I can't help but post this quote lol.

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." - George Bernard Shaw
I like this one too:
" The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. "

:D
 
I like this one too:
" The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. "

:D


It's an ironic quote but very reasonable, or should I be unreasonable and aim for progress. :)
 
There's no proof that genetic mutations are always random. Also we see 'transgenerational epigenetics'.
That got me thinking, because I guess it might be possible to test the idea. Suppose you grew a bacterial colony from a single microbe, and sequenced the genome before and after a set amount of time. You could determine the probability of one of the point mutations that lead to antibiotic resistance happening in the absence of antibiotic. Repeating the experiment with anitbiotic present would tell you if that probability increased when resistance was 'needed'.

Of course, this could be due to some mechanism that simply increased the mutation rate as a whole, but you could check on that by looking for some other point mutation that would not confer an advantage (or disadvantage) under the experimental conditions.

David
 
That got me thinking, because I guess it might be possible to test the idea. Suppose you grew a bacterial colony from a single microbe, and sequenced the genome before and after a set amount of time. You could determine the probability of one of the point mutations that lead to antibiotic resistance happening in the absence of antibiotic. Repeating the experiment with anitbiotic present would tell you if that probability increased when resistance was 'needed'.

Of course, this could be due to some mechanism that simply increased the mutation rate as a whole, but you could check on that by looking for some other point mutation that would not confer an advantage (or disadvantage) under the experimental conditions.

David

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIC1bLederberg.shtml
 
Clearly in that experiment the antibiotic level must have been high enough to prevent the bacteria having time to evolve on the second plate - i.e. it is not analogous to the problem of antibiotic resistance that we face nowadays - where low levels of antibiotics encourage evolution - whether by NS or otherwise - to produce resistant forms of bacteria.

Put another way, the mutation events in that experiment had happened before the first plate was even prepared!

David
 
Clearly in that experiment the antibiotic level must have been high enough to prevent the bacteria having time to evolve on the second plate - i.e. it is not analogous to the problem of antibiotic resistance that we face nowadays - where low levels of antibiotics encourage evolution - whether by NS or otherwise - to produce resistant forms of bacteria.

Put another way, the mutation events in that experiment had happened before the first plate was even prepared!

David

Yes. The experiment simply demonstrates that the mutation is not "driven" by the environment.

The hypothesis for the experiment is that antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria surviving an application of antibiotics had the resistance before their exposure to the antibiotics, not as a result of the exposure.
 
That got me thinking, because I guess it might be possible to test the idea. Suppose you grew a bacterial colony from a single microbe, and sequenced the genome before and after a set amount of time. You could determine the probability of one of the point mutations that lead to antibiotic resistance happening in the absence of antibiotic. Repeating the experiment with anitbiotic present would tell you if that probability increased when resistance was 'needed'.

Of course, this could be due to some mechanism that simply increased the mutation rate as a whole, but you could check on that by looking for some other point mutation that would not confer an advantage (or disadvantage) under the experimental conditions.

David
That's a clever idea!
 
Put another way, the mutation events in that experiment had happened before the first plate was even prepared!

David

Not according to the diagrams.

The diagrams show that the original bacteria are spread out into multiple colonies.

Only two of the colonies (X, Y) survive, suggesting that the other colonies (not labelled in the diagram) did not carry the mutation - which suggests that the the original population also did not carry it.
 
Here is my summary on how materialism is woven into the culture and economic system and human history in general...

Humanity originated as a tribal system where small communities shared everything and there was little if any private material property. Material possessions were limited to what one could carry. These tribal peoples had a form of spirituality that was often very connected with nature. This was the garden state. The mind was free but uninitiated into more complex realms of consciousness.

As farming and other technologies developed, cities formed which enabled improvements in efficiency, a stratification of labor, and trade. The small communal tribal system became untenable. The ability to accumulate material possessions led to inequalities which led to increasingly predatory behavior. Groups formed for protection and in doing so ceded some of their personal liberty to leaders for more forceful coordinated action. As cities expanded hierarchical systems of authority were formed such that progressively fewer people exerted progressively more control over larger and larger groups of humans. The desire of every human to be free and return to the garden state of his origin is in conflict with this hierarchical system of control making the pyramidal structure inherently unstable. A stable pyramid requires a delicate balance of top-down control and bottom up stigmergy. Every human has varying degrees of desire for comfort, control, freedom, as well as an empathetic capacity. The pyramidal structure naturally filters certain personality types to the top: those with low empathy and high desire for control. Every so often, the pyramid becomes unstable and a flip occurs where an empathetic self-sacrificial leader finds himself at the top. This empathetic leader allows those lower on the pyramid greater degrees of comfort and freedom which stabilize the pyramid. But time passes and the empathetic leader dies or is conquered by another and once again psychopathic types begin filtering their way to the top.

This pyramidal hierarchical system of control is maintained through violence and mind control. After several thousand years of history, many combinations, flavors, and variations of violence and mind control have been tried by various elites that have risen to the top of civilizations so that a science has been developed for the maintenance of the pyramid. Technology gave rise to the first miniature city-state pyramids and as new technologies arise and allow the expansion of the pyramid to potentially encompass the entire global population, the science of pyramidal control is being continually refined and expanded.

Materialism is a philosophy which stabilizes the pyramid. Materialism increases fear of loss. Fear of loss is what initially drove people to band together and cede their personal liberty to a guardian. Fear of loss limits risk-taking ventures to overturn the pyramid. Materialism increases fear of death which makes the threat of violence more effective. Materialism limits the ability to find greater meaning beyond a single incarnation so that pseudo-meaning is derived from one's place and function in the pyramid or one's ascension within the pyramid. Materialism reduces hope for a better system leaving the inhabitants of the base layers unmotivated or self-defeated and unable to overturn the system.

The less conscious the individual, the more easily that individual is controlled. The more conscious, open, knowledgeable, enlightened, empathetic, and hopeful the individual, the more difficult that individual is to control. The expansion of consciousness is a direct threat to the control structure. Therefore, those in control seek to maintain this control by keeping people in an unenlightened barely conscious state. Materialism is a great aid to their effort. Secret societies have served a dual purpose throughout history. In some cases, they have protected and preserved knowledge about the mental nature of reality from destruction. In some cases they have created roadblocks and hierarchies of their own to prevent the common man from breaking out of materialism and into an expanded understanding of reality. Since knowledge is power, the elites in control seek to monopolize this power and are often responsible for the destruction of knowledge, which ironically spurs the formation of new secret societies to protect that knowledge.

As trade expanded, a medium of exchange was needed to increase efficiency in the economic system. As shipping technology advanced, it became feasible to transport luxury goods for trade from around the world. This expanded form of trade required new forms of technology to increase trade efficiency. Enter the merchant banker and paper currency. Merchant bankers improved trade efficiency by reducing the need to carry around the weight and liability of precious metals. They also began to engineer forms of credit expansion through the fractional reserve system. Eventually Merchants and Bankers parted ways and the merchants kept to the relatively honest side of the business in dealing with materials and the bankers took the more esoteric path of dealing in the SYMBOL of the materials: currency. Since the ultimate nature of reality is mental and symbol and not material, banking is inherently an occult business. The naturally powerful and occult business of banking attracted a certain personality type and so a few hundred years ago, the bankers rose to the top of the new hierarchical pyramid. The few at the top dominate the mass at the bottom through the monopolizing of symbol and knowledge about the mental nature of reality while steering the masses way to materialism.

The bankers' invention of the fractional reserve system enabled them to control currency, the symbol of material wealth and power. It also created a debt machine (a pyramid scheme) that would collapse unless continually fed by more credit. The requirement for exponential increase in credit led to the banker's need to create exponential demand for their credit so that their money continued to be valuable. To create this demand, the bankers developed their slave laborers' materialistic tendencies programming them to want more and more and more stuff. Eventually the exponentially expanding debt system collapses, but the bankers orchestrate these collapses and therefore still manage to consolidate wealth through them.

In short: materialism is a natural tendency of human nature that first became a force when technology made tribal living obsolete. Materialism creates and maintains hierarchical systems of control which filter psychopaths to the top. Psychopaths understand how materialism affects the human psyche and use it to maintain control. As technology increases, the potential size of the pyramid increases, and the science of maintaining control must expand to incorporate this new technology. There is a short window where this technology can spur the mass expansion of consciousness and overturn the pyramid before the elites figure out how to use this technology to further solidify control and prevent the expansion of consciousness. From a historical perspective it is certainly a very interesting time to be alive!
 
Yes. The experiment simply demonstrates that the mutation is not "driven" by the environment.

It shows that resistance was already present, bred and filtered. See the video below.
James Shaapiro's site has hundreds of citations of experiments supporting the notion of natural genetic engineering over the last few decades, extending from the work of Barbara McClintock.

This is what Lederberg et al also discovered.


This is a great little presentation.

 
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