catman

Well, what happened in my family was absolutely absurd--and I made it worse on top of that. Every time I thoiught god had to intervene, it seemed he only did so to make it worse still if he intervened at all. Well, it was a major learning experience for me--but I absolutely hated the emotional crisis that went with it. I do not ever want to go through crap like that again. Nay--I do not see how it is possible for me to go through anything like that again. Well, if any good comes out of it, besides knowing that I will never go through it again, then I guess I should be grateful. At least things are starting to look up--maybe.

Philosoft

Hmm. You'll forgive me if I remain totally confused.
However, I sincerely hope whatever it is works out, "answered prayers" or not.

philechat

Christianity has a mixed philosophy based loosely on popular Platonic and Stoic philosophy at the time in one hand, and on traditional Jewish mythos in the other hand. I would be hesitant to call say the NT texts a coherent system of philosophy until the mideval philosophers (notably Augustine and Aquinas) tried to incorperate more Greek elements into Christian worship.

However, the appeal to masses of Christianity is certainly not from its supposedly "philosophical" elements, but from the sweet promise of heaven and its easy retellings of many Pagan mythos.

There were many "superior" (i.e. aesthetically) philosophical doctrines than Christianity in ancient Greece and Rome at the time, yet they could be overly intellectual and thus exclusive in nature.

[ December 18, 2002: Message edited by: philechat ]</p>

Vorkosigan

Cat, this is pop psychological trash. There is no left-brain/right-brain dichotomy. Just googlize it and read up on it. It's a myth.

Vorkosigan

catman

Oh, I can absolutely assure you that there is this dichotomy. I have gone through the trouble of researching this beyond the two articles that I mentioned. It's really old news since we have known that the two different hemispheres act and react differently for a long time. But we are only now being able to really comprehend these differences and seeing how one side dominates the other with whatever circumstances there might be. Hallucinating and hearing voices in your head--all of us do it to some degree if we are normal--it all comes from the right hemisphere. Short term memory--left brain; long term memory--right brain. Conscious--left brain; subconscious--right brain. Logic and optimism--left brain; intuitiveness, beastly behavior, and pessimism--right brain. And so on. Go look at a model of the brain and look over some drawings and you will see that the two hemispheres are designed very independent of one another. It even looks more like two brains instead of just one--and indeed it is two brains.