Re: [Goanet] Flexible code
So it is clear that there is no such thing as a rock solid religious moral code. The code advertised in this forum is flexible because among many other things there are three versions of it. Just as an example, one version has conveniently left out the following commandment, which is present in the other two: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth Self-righteousness, intolerance and lack of any rational moral basis of some of the statements contained in the flexible code have already been demonstrated in this forum. Immorality of the malleable code stems from the prescription of death penalty for any violation of its assertions. For example, death is prescribed for failure to keep the sabbath. The following question has not been answered: 1. What personal or public consequence awaits thou if thou make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth? Also, the following questions need to be answered: 2. Which version of the flexible code provides the above commandment, and the associated public or private consequence for violating it? 3. Which modern revised version of the ancient religious text, if any, has abolished the death penalty for violating the flexible code? Cheers, Santosh Mario Goveia wrote: . This is a patently false statement. The three versions of the Ten Commandments that Santosh is slyly speaking of here all cover the same precepts, and are just numbered differently... ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Moral code - reciprocity
--- Gabe Menezes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: RESPONSE: I have read/heard that expression some where...do unto others..pray, some kind soul tell me where I may have come across the phrase? What moral code or Religion are we referring to? Many human beings have said it in different ways. Perhaps, the African tribals and Native Americans said it first. Or perhaps, the Egyptians of 1900 B.C. Manu said it, as well. Confucius say: .do not do to others as you would not wish done to yourself Socrates: Do not do to others that which would anger you if others did it to you. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Virtues of abstinence - response to Mario
--- Elisabeth Carvalho [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thereafter, it will become part of the rock-solid moral code of conduct and will be disseminated via Goanet for all Goans to religiously adhere to. Does their rock-solid code allow them to disseminate? Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] The rock solid Christian moral code
--- Gilbert Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ...Hopefully this dialogue will educate the rest of us, who may be misinformed if not ignorant of atheism or religion. Hope this exchange will educate me and others who may follow this thread.. Gilbert, It is unlikely that you or I or anybody else will be educated by idle banter on Goanet. The best you can hope for is some comic relief. And I am talking about genuine spontaneous humor not some silly disguised posts containing fake smileys. You surely find virtue in being a neurologist and a researcher. No, I dont find any virtue in being what I am, a brain scientist. Nobodys profession makes him/her virtuous. That does not make you smarter or superior than one in another field of medicine. But dont you think mailing list historians striving to revise history for righteous ideological reasons, are superior in some way to professional historians? But it does give you pride and an incentive to strive to do an even better job, which is what Belief is all about. No. People believe in different real or imaginary things for different real or imaginary reasons or for no reason at all. The chronic bebdo when he is sober is likely to say, There is no God. That's because God(religion) demands self-control and a moral value system. Why dont you conduct a survey of bebde to find out if this is a sensible belief of yours or not? Please show me your raw data on this. I have never met a bebdo who said what you are saying. My old random survey includes about 20 of them, all of whom were admitted in a hospital for variable lengths of time for hepatic cirrhosis. The bebdo, and others like him, who do not want to live the strict norms of their religion, may believe in no God / atheist as a convenient rationale. What is the religion of this bebdo? Does his religion impose a moral ban on the consumption of alcohol? There is no compelling reason to lead a moral life if one does not believe in a moral supreme being with no consequences during or after this life. Call it fear that makes believers be good. Yet, if that's what it takes, so be it. But raw data indicates that people who do not believe in a supreme being such as atheists, Buddhists, Jains, agnostics, skeptics, etc, commit no more crimes, are no more immoral, support no more illegal and immoral wars, perform no more legal abortions, use no more condoms and contraceptives, engage in no more marital and extra-marital sexual relationships, support no more tortures and executions, file no more divorces, and become no more addicted to drugs and alcohol than people who believe in one or more moral supreme beings. What is the moral force to influence or make a non-believer live within the moral norms of their society? The raw data indicates that it is the survival value of innate goodness for each individual and for the species as a whole. Rational morality is based on the practical notion of the greatest good of the greatest number. I say, with due respect, You live in a la..la land.:=)) You say all kinds of things without having any raw data to back them. Who then is living in La La Land? Even with / in spite of the moral force / religion, there are bebdos, ani tea bair more bamtulos.:=)) How come our prisons are filled to over capacity? Please answer your own question. How come? Alcoholism is not the only intoxicating agent that may lead one to be a non-believer. So are drugs, power, wealth, knowledge, greed. And then there are individuals who suffer from Delusional Grandeur - pathological or pseudo intellectual.:=)) Do you have raw data to support these comical claims? A sensible atheist like a sensible believer is one who for a minimum lives the moral norms of society they belong to. And perhaps tries to be even better. Arent you contradicting your earlier assertion? You told us earlier that there is no compelling reason to be moral without believing in a moral supreme being. So how come both atheists and believers now have to be similarly sensible in order to lead a moral life? Once again if there is no philosophy to life, there is no guidance to rationalize one's thoughts consistently. One ends with the situation, as an example, I believe in abortion but not in female feticide. How about an immoral philosophy such as that of Charles Manson, and rationalization of bad behavior? And why is it good to have a large following? Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] The rock solid Christian moral code
--- Gilbert Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you call Buddhist and Jains as atheists, then we definitely have a semantic problem. You would not have had a semantic problem if you knew the meaning of the word atheist. Buddhists and Jains are atheists because they do not believe in a deity. What is your definition of an atheist, and according to which dictionary? I am not interested in a theological or theoretical dissertation on what is religion. What are you interested in in the context of this discussion? Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Evidence regarding moral conflicts
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. --- As I have said before, I find no reason to respond to personal insults, or to the many obviously biased and aggressive mischaracterizations of my views recorded in the responses to my posts on fake morality. Unbiased and impartial Goanetters who have no hostility towards me would pay no heed to some random persons emotional outbursts against me or anybody else. It is unlikely that anybody would have any sympathy for someone who demands evidence in support of unpleasant conclusions, and then turns around and demonizes the person who presents such evidence. In this post I will therefore only present factual evidence in support of my earlier statements about present day moral conflicts between religion and secular law while addressing the very few points of M. Goveia that do not contain biased distortions and personal aggression. Trade unions and lobbies are null and void in a discussion of moral codes as these are not organizations based on moral principles as the Buddhists and Jains are. Trade unions, lobbies and secular humanists are non-religious groups that are subject to mob psychology and herd mentality. They have their own moral codes. For example, here is the moral code of one secular humanist group: http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?sectionfiltered=mainpage=affirmations Here is the moral code of one trade union group, the National Union of Journalists: http://www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=59 Another convenient label to hide behind. Rational independent thinking can mean anything the rational independent thinker wants it to be, and we would not know what it is unless the person gets arrested. Nonsense. A rational independent thinker uses the rational moral principle of universalizability or the utilitarian principle of the greatest good of the greatest number in arriving at all moral decisions. Rational morality was discussed in great detail by Immanuel Kant. His Critique of Practical Reason can be read here: http://philosophy.eserver.org/kant/critique-of-practical-reaso.txt These are fringe sects, as you surely know, not recognized mainstream religions or moral organizations. The Apostle Church of God whose members were arrested has at least 50,000 members. The Northern Nigerian Muslims, The Church of Christ (Christian Science) and Jehowahs Witnesses have many more members. Also one of the largest religious groups opposes certain vaccines on the basis of the claim that they come from aborted fetuses. Here is a document stating that opposition: http://www.immunize.org/concerns/vaticandocument.htm Moreover, calling a religious group whose teachings one disagrees with, a fringe group, is a standard ploy. Making such arbitrary exceptions reveals a basic inconsistency and weakness in the moralistic position in question. Regarding some religious groups as worse than others is classic religious chauvinism. Can you cite any evidence that Hindus are practicing sati and human sacrifice? The most famous recent case of sati is that of Roop Kanwar. Here is a report on another more recent one in 2002: http://www.blonnet.com/2002/08/09/stories/2002080900090900.htm Here is a case of human sacrifice reported just a couple of weeks ago: http://www.hinduonnet.com/holnus/002200606251448.htm Mormons banned polygamy over a hundred years ago? Here is a news report on the recent prosecutions of polygamous Mormons of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona: http://www.sltrib.com/polygamy/ci_4055713 Nudism, in and of itself, violates only civil laws, not any moral code. Nudism is part of the Digambara Jain moral code. Here is a link to an article discussing this: http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/jainism/digam.html Here is a specific quote about the importance of nudity in their moral code: The name Digambara means literally 'clothed in the quarters of the sky' and they are called 'atmosphere-clad' or 'sky-clad.' Nudity is the main doctrinal difference between the Shvetambaras and the Digambaras. Outward appearance is seen by the Digambaras as an index of proper understanding of the doctrine. The Digambara view on ascetic nakedness was put by Aparajita in the eighth century. The true monk must be completely naked; even a loincloth is a compromise. He must abandon all possessions and be no longer subject to the social considerations of pride and shame. And to obey the vow of ahimsa, non-violence, dirty clothing must be
Re: [Goanet] Fake questions about morality/to Santosh
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. --- Dear Elisabeth, Thanks for your assurances. Good to know that people recognize the distortions of my views. I enjoy your erudite and courteous contributions on Goanet. Please keep them coming. Cheers, Santosh --- Elisabeth Carvalho [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear Santosh, Please be assured that Goanetters do not have any hostility towards you. Please also be assured that Goanetters do not place any stock in distortions of the views expressed by you. Hence, please do not feel that you have to save face with Goanetters, although at times one feels one must. I urge you to participate in other topics, since most Goanetters have long stopped reading this one. In Arabic, we have a saying please do not argue with a camel. It frustrates the camel. Elisabeth ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Response to Aitaracho sermaum
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. --- --- Gilbert Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Aitaracheo Sermaum Hi Santosh, Thanks for you clarification of Hinduism. I hesitate to debate you on the religion of your birth. However, for the benefit of the Catholics on the goanet, it is my understanding that modern Hindus believe in one God, who is called Brahman. Sorry Gilbert, Brahman is not God. It stands for ultimate reality. The Upanishads describe it as such. In other contexts they discuss the unity of self with Brahman as the ultimate nature of reality. Sometimes Brahman may be personified, perhaps, to make this fuzzy concept palatable to people who are familiar with the much-bandied model of theism. However, the day to day practice of Hinduism that my family, my relatives and their priests engage in is worship of many gods. Goa has literally hundreds of temples of such gods. There is not a single temple of Brahman or Upanishadic ultimate reality. There are a small number of temples of the god Brahma in some parts of India who is one member of the Hindu pantheon, and along with Vishnu and Shiva may occupy a slightly higher rank than the other gods. But Brahma is not the same as the abstract cosmological concept of Brahman. As usual you parse your words. Jains also BELIEVE in God. They call their God - Bhagavan or Jina. And their venerated pictures depict many of his messengers. In Jain philosophy and theology, God did not to create the universe. That does not mean, they do not believe that there is a God. I have already provided you with articles on Jainism by a recognized Jain scholar and a responsible News organization which clearly state that Jains do not believe in any kind of god. Those articles and other Jain writings also say that Jinas are not gods. There are countless Jinas, and their number keeps increasing everyday because any human being can become a Jina. A Jina is a person who has conquered normal humanly passions such as greed and hatred. As far as bhagavan is concerned, it is a generic Hindi word for a god. Did you read those articles? Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Absolute majority
I think the electronic voting so far shows that Elisabeth and RKN together are speaking for 4900 Goanetters i.e. approximately 70% of the Goanet subscribership. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Serious pedophilia allegations cavalierly dismissed
Testimony containing very serious allegations made by unfortunate pedophilia victims was cavalierly dismissed in this forum, ostensibly, for ideological and emotional reasons, and the messenger viciously attacked, as usual, instead. The seriousness of the allegations have caused the U.S. State department to issue a travel advisory, and the UNESCO to issue a media advisory regarding cancellation of support for a conference. It has also led to a motion in the U.K. House of Commons and an official response from Tony Blair. Here are the relevant documents in support of these statements: U.S. State Department Travel Advisory http://tinyurl.com/od3fe UNESCO Media Advisory http://tinyurl.com/o25cq U. K. House of Commons Motion http://www.saipetition.net/motion.htm Letter from Tony Blair http://www.saipetition.net/letter.htm Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
[Goanet] The beauty of a secular public forum
The beauty of a secular public forum like Goanet is that any ordinary person like me can express his views without fear and intimidation. No amount of petulant outbursts and abusive attacks, whining and complaining, distortions and fabrications, bombardment with spam and hate mail, and ranting and raving directed against one, can deter one from expressing oneself freely, frankly and courageously in this forum. Restating what Elisabeth said earlier in a slightly different way, one has to stand up for one's convictions at all costs. How sweet it is that on a free, open, non-communal and non-partisan Goanet one can! Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Apparently we have spokespersons on Goanet
Please disregard the following individual's biased opinion about my views and writings. He bears a long standing hostility towards me. Cheers, Santosh --- Joe Vaz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Elizabeth: Just so you know, there is tons of evidence of the blatant abuse by the first individual you mention above. Only one has to visit the Goanet archives, to get a gist of how disrespectful this individual has historically been toward peoples religion and their religious beliefs. It is amazing how netters can be oblivious and allow that kind of abuse on the forum. I dont think Gilbert and Mario are the only people who are alarmed by the ignominious tirade perpetuated by such individuals. Joe Vaz _ How good are you in a Formula One car? Play now http://server1.msn.co.in/sp05/tataracing/onlinegame.asp ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
[Goanet] Amateur Goan history
It is quite possible that Gilbert is joking when he suggests that Goan inquisition was an administrative, judicial or police action against criminals, spies and people with loose morals. But on the other hand, it might be a new insight into our history. The same is true with regard to his suggestion that temples were not razed to build churches. The chapel near the Dhovi Khopti in IRC might not actually be the temple of Chimolkaann from Marcel. But the burden is on others, especially the professional historians, to prove Gilbert wrong, if, indeed, he has not been joking all along. Unless they do so one would have to assume that he is right. Cheers, Santosh --- cornel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am not aware that anyone on Goanet has really attacked Catholicism as you imagine. In contrast, however, you seem to have gone on and on dismissively arguing with little firm evidence that, only exceptionally might temples have been destroyed and Catholic Churches built on them in Goa. Also, your position on the Inquisition in Goa is highly questionable to me and others but I was definitely not dismissive of your position on these issues. I even politely suggested that you may indeed be right but that the issue should be left to professional historians to resolve rather than perhaps an amateur 'historian' like your good self. ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
[Goanet] My challenge
--- Joe Vaz [EMAIL PROTECTED], to my great delight, copied and pasted, as usual, the following: Santosh Helekar wrote: On Thu Aug 14, 2003 10:39 pm Subject: [Goanet]Satanic Verses A lot of people, including I, would strongly object to any censorship or ban of Satanic Verses or any other religious parody in this public forum. --Santosh Helekar. I am happy and proud to say that I firmly and vehemently stand by my above assertion. I challenge the above character or any other member of this forum who advocates censorship of this nature to have the courage to speak out and defend himself/herself here, now. Let us see how many Goanetters out of the ~7000 or ~1 support such action, and on what basis. Let us see what kind of freedom we want for ourselves. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Questions about hypocrisy
--- Joe Vaz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you are asking - is it improper to pose questions on any religion, (as a learning exercise,) my answer would be no. However, it is improper to make mockery of *any* religion, God/Jesus. That constitutes clear abuse and is an indication that such individuals derive intense pleasure in religion bashing, -- mocking *religion* and *peoples religious beliefs*. The above statement leads one to ask a couple of interesting questions about hypocrisy. Is it OK to circulate a chicken crossing joke about the Buddha on Goanet? How about copying and pasting on this list another one ridiculing the beliefs of a professor who does not belong to any religion adequately represented here? Do these actions represent clear abuse? Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
[Goanet] Myths about ancient and modern societies
I submit that the hackneyed notion that today's society is spinning out of control from a moral standpoint is not grounded in fact. Basic human rights, civil rights, rights of women and children, rights of the under-represented, and even rights of other animals, are much more valued and respected today than at any time in the entire history of our civilization. Contrary to the hollow cliches propagated here and elsewhere, our morality has indeed advanced with our technological and socio-economic advancement. Cheers, Santosh --- Gilbert Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So society (youth and adults) in many respects is spinning out of control, in spite of our increased academic and social-economic advancements. Partly because of these advancements, we think we are smart to pick and choose what is good / convenient for us - for NOW! This is the argument between Mario and Santosh, and what The rock solid moral code signifies for current and future Goan society. ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Pro-science and logical - really?
Hi Frederick, Thanks for poking some fun at my cost. But seriously, I think your post shows how different individual perceptions can be. One can even make up one's own definition of fundamentalism. Mainstream moderate convictions can be portrayed as extremist ones by simply redefining them according to one's own idiosyncratic tastes. Cheers, Santosh --- Frederick \FN\ Noronha [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To jump into this unholy fray -- sorry, I can't resist it -- this is just to remind all that I have argued in the recent past that Santosh's religion is Science (and he has a disproportionate-to-reality belief in it). In addition, he is quite communal over that. ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Dr helekars challenge...
Dear Vivek, You make very reasonable points. One has to exercise individual restraint on all occasions. The trouble is though that a secular public forum has people with diverse tastes, perceptions and backgrounds. People also hold different types of prejudice and misunderstanding. Some might believe in the moral strictures codified in the blasphemy laws of the 16th century, and in the literal interpretation of the scriptures. Others might see nothing wrong with resorting to name-calling, innuendo, abusive personal attacks and use of vile language against individuals who disagree with them. So what is considered sensible might differ from person to person, irrespective of whether one is allied to a particular group or not. Regarding your question of whether I agree that religious extremists have a right to free speech or not, I would answer in the affirmative. Everybody has a right to free speech. The only place I would draw the line is on the subject of incitement or support of violence against people and property. But as for incitement of hatred, again, I think it depends on the varied, and often, idiosyncratic tastes and perceptions of each individual or group member. As I am sure you know very well, hatred has been and is being incited against individual members of this forum by other members. Do you want to ban their hate-filled writings? I dont. Of course, as always, these are only my views. Cheers, Santosh Vivek wrote: Dear dr. helekar, Though I totally support your views regarding free speech and he dight to express ones views without censorship, I also believe that sometimes it is sensible not to exercise our right given the situation. I would also like to know if you agree that Bal thackeray or a Pravin Togadia has the right to free speech whcih they use to incite hatred? -vivek ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] The beauty of a secular public forum
I am glad that M. Goveia has finally agreed to expose and counter his petulant outbursts, fabrications, etc. Cheers, Santosh --- Mario Goveia [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree with Santosh on the usefulness of this forum since it gives even a lowly member of a mob or a herd like myself an opportunity to expose and counter the ...petulant outbursts and abusive attacks, whining and complaining, distortions and fabrications, bombardment with spam and hate mail, and ranting and raving... that pollute this excellent forum from time to time. ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Dr helekars challenge....
--- Peter D'Souza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When one wants to censor someone and still hold to the high principle of opposing censorship, all one needs to do is threaten a lawsuit against perpetrators of hate-filled writings and those who engage in name calling. It's an old little trick commonly practiced in North America. I think this is a good point. The fact that we have the right to sue someone for defamation is a good thing. This is the only recourse available to us against malicious false accusations and libelous innuendo being resorted to on a daily basis in this forum. So Vivek, this is a good option available to us against incitement of hatred against individuals and groups by religious and ideological extremists. This individual right is not regarded as censorship by any great democratic constitution such as that of the U.S. and India. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] The secret of a goanetter's moral superiority
I think we finally know the secret of this Joe Vaz guy's good character and moral superiority over me, and perhaps a few other Goanetters (not Gilbert). It is his good upbringing. So I guess it is not just me. My parents were also morally inferior to this guy's parents. How many other Goanetters besides Gilbert are this special Joe's moral equal? Cheers, Santosh --- Joe Vaz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... I can only attribute that to their upbringing and self-respect, where sensibility and sensitivity for others are deeply ingrained. ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Christian Goanet?
Hi Eddie, Thanks for your courteous response to my post. Having read your posts on Goanet and elsewhere, I knew that you would not support somebody just because of his religion. That is why I included this caveat in my prior post on this thread. But this may not be the case with others. Therefore, I am genuinely interested in knowing how people feel about making this a Christian Goanet, and not a secular one where religion does not receive special treatment. Cheers, Santosh --- Edward Verdes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Santosh...this is not the subject I wrote on..however as you write abt majority..the names that I see of posters, are mostly Goan Christian Names, who would not like their religion to be put down. ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Myths about ancient and modern societies (Gilbert Lawrence)
Goanetters visiting Viva Goa 2006 in Toronto, Canada on July 29, can use the BMX booth as a meeting point. Please list your name on the message board that will be provided, courtesy of BMX. http://bmxgoa.com --- velho [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dr Helekar do you accept that many many people(a very significant portion worldwide) are happier and more content with their lives because of organised religion/written codes. If not...please list ur reasons.( A Yes or No answer to a specific question) Yes. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Of Castes, Religion and Gulf Goans
Goanetters visiting Viva Goa 2006 in Toronto, Canada on July 29, can use the BMX booth as a meeting point. Please list your name on the message board that will be provided, courtesy of BMX. http://bmxgoa.com --- velho [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mr. Helekar, your past views on this forum(and through some debates on this list a long time ago when I was a teenager) have influenced me greatly and I count you as one of the most balanced and intelligent individuals I have ever come across, but you have to stop denigrating organised religion and its followers( whatever way you look at it word like mob/herd mentality even if true are hurtful). For the record I am an atheist myself. Dear Sunith, Thanks for your kind words. Regarding denigration and the mob/herd mentality reference, please do not be misled by other people's characterization of my writings. The mob/herd reference was made in connection with a general distinction between an unorganized individual and an organized group, religious or otherwise. My views about religion have not changed at all over the last 30 years. I have always maintained that there is good and bad in all religions, and that most people need it for their psychological well being. Indeed, I have always spoken against the elimination of religion from our society, when people have made such suggestions in this forum in the past. Finally, for the record I am not an atheist - never been one. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Christian Goanet? Religion-bashing Bigotry
Goanetters visiting Viva Goa 2006 in Toronto, Canada on July 29, can use the BMX booth as a meeting point. Please list your name on the message board that will be provided, courtesy of BMX. http://bmxgoa.com I would like to thank the Joe Vaz character for copying and pasting one of my President Pandurang Fernandes posts. I hope he posts all the Pandurang posts once again. It would give people an idea of what this Joe regards as ridiculing other people's religious beliefs. They would be able to decide for themselves whether the problem lies with me or with Joe Vaz. Cheers, Santosh P.S. Regarding his bogus charge that I have cced or bcced Elisabeth, I have done no such thing. --- Joe Vaz [EMAIL PROTECTED] copied and pasted: Dear Bhatcar Satyamevajayate, Thanks for your email. We have already filed for protection in the bankruptcy court. If you are asking for donation for a religious cause, we have no money to contribute in your pot-shot. We can only provide you moral saapport against the forces of evil. These evildoers have to be punished. ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Christian Goanet vs Secular Goanet ?
Goanetters visiting Viva Goa 2006 in Toronto, Canada on July 29, can use the BMX booth as a meeting point. Please list your name on the message board that will be provided, courtesy of BMX. http://bmxgoa.com Frederick and Vivian, Good points! Frederick, I would vote for the following type of Goanet as long as it does not ban the contributions of President Pandurang Fernandes and Aunty Ponty: * A Goanet which is neutral towards all, and allows non-insulting, non-offensive and polite questioning, criticism or debate of any idea Vivian, not entirely in jest, but just stirring the pot to see how many people hate the freedom and democracy of the Independent Republic of Chimbel, this summer. The previous attempts to oust President Pandurang have all been miserable failures. Cheers, Santosh --- Frederick \FN\ Noronha [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I hold much respect for Santosh Helecar and most of his views (except for his excessive and almost fanatical faith in 'Science'). But in this case, it seems that he is veering the debate in a direction of his choice by using terms such as Christian and secular, as if these are two polar opposites or the only options available! ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
[Goanet] Religious heterodoxy in Thomas More's Utopia
Goanetters visiting Viva Goa 2006 in Toronto, Canada on July 29, can use the BMX booth as a meeting point. Please list your name on the message board that will be provided, courtesy of BMX. http://bmxgoa.com Elisabeth wrote: Goanet is not Thomas Moore's Utopia. It's a microcosm of the world that we live in. I have no doubt that Hindu fundamentalists, Muslim fanatics and Christian bigots lurk in the corridors of Goanet. Elisabeth, I had not read More's Utopia. Since it was written in the 16th century, your above quote piqued my curiosity. I wanted to know whether some form of secularism and religious pluralism was practised in Utopia. So I looked it up. Not only were there several religions in Utopia but a special law was made to enforce religious freedom and heterodoxy. There were, however, a couple of problems, such as slavery. I copy and paste below some relevant quotes that are quite illuminating, and I emphasize that they are not my words, but those of Thomas More, written in 1516, in a fictional novel entitled Utopia): BEGIN QUOTE There are several sorts of religions, not only in different parts of the island, but even in every town; some worshipping the sun, others the moon or one of the planets. Some worship such men as have been eminent in former times for virtue or glory, not only as ordinary deities, but as the supreme god. Yet the greater and wiser sort of them worship none of these, but adore one eternal, invisible, infinite, and incomprehensible Deity; as a Being that is far above all our apprehensions, that is spread over the whole universe, not by His bulk, but by His power and virtue; Him they call the Father of All, and acknowledge that the beginnings, the increase, the progress, the vicissitudes, and the end of all things come only from Him; nor do they offer divine honours to any but to Him alone. And, indeed, though they differ concerning other things, yet all agree in this: that they think there is one Supreme Being that made and governs the world, whom they call, in the language of their country, Mithras. They differ in this: that one thinks the god whom he worships is this Supreme Being, and another thinks that his idol is that god; but they all agree in one principle, that whoever is this Supreme Being, He is also that great essence to whose glory and majesty all honours are ascribed by the consent of all nations.. ..Those among them that have not received our religion do not fright any from it, and use none ill that goes over to it, so that all the while I was there one man was only punished on this occasion. He being newly baptised did, notwithstanding all that we could say to the contrary, dispute publicly concerning the Christian religion, with more zeal than discretion, and with so much heat, that he not only preferred our worship to theirs, but condemned all their rites as profane, and cried out against all that adhered to them as impious and sacrilegious persons, that were to be damned to everlasting burnings. Upon his having frequently preached in this manner he was seized, and after trial he was condemned to banishment, not for having disparaged their religion, but for his inflaming the people to sedition; for this is one of their most ancient laws, that no man ought to be punished for his religion. At the first constitution of their government, Utopus having understood that before his coming among them the old inhabitants had been engaged in great quarrels concerning religion, by which they were so divided among themselves, that he found it an easy thing to conquer them, since, instead of uniting their forces against him, every different party in religion fought by themselves. After he had subdued them he made a law that every man might be of what religion he pleased, and might endeavour to draw others to it by the force of argument and by amicable and modest ways, but without bitterness against those of other opinions; but that he ought to use no other force but that of persuasion, and was neither to mix with it reproaches nor violence; and such as did otherwise were to be condemned to banishment or slavery. This law was made by Utopus, not only for preserving the public peace, which he saw suffered much by daily contentions and irreconcilable heats, but because he thought the interest of religion itself required it. He judged it not fit to determine anything rashly; and seemed to doubt whether those different forms of religion might not all come from God, who might inspire man in a different manner, and be pleased with this variety; he therefore thought it indecent and foolish for any man to threaten and terrify another to make him believe what did not appear to him to be true. And supposing that only one religion was really true, and the rest false, he
Re: [Goanet] Pandurang Fernandes
Happy Birthday: St Britto's, which is 60 years old. Celebrations at St Jerome's Church Mapusa 11 am on July 30, 2006. Football match Loyola's vs. Britto's 11 am on July 31, 2006 at the school grounds. http://bmxgoa.com Dear Frederick and Cipriano, Thanks for sharing this wonderful information and perspective on my childhood friends and acquaintances from Chimbel. I would love to meet Shaila on my next visit to Goa, and learn more about what she has found out from a historical and socio-cultural standpoint. Adding to what Cipriano said, the older folk who visited us had both Catholic and Hindu first names. For example, a grand old lady who was my grandmother's soulmate was named Generosa. Her Hindu name was Laximi ( Laxeem). Generosa was what she was called before the reconversion, and Laxeem after. I will gather all my thoughts together, and see if I can write a fuller account on this issue some time later. Once again, thanks very much. Cheers, Santosh --- Frederick \FN\ Noronha [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: For those wanting to know more about this subject, check Shaila de Souza's interesting paper which refers to this communit(ies)y http://wapurl.co.uk/?QJDCFX8 (HTML) or http://www.lusotopie.sciencespobordeaux.fr/desouzaS.rtf (PDF/RTF format) Shaila is at the Goa University, and has an interesting perspective to researching Goa. FN The Community Studied The Gauda community were earlier a tribal community as social, cultural and religious indicators will prove, although the Government of Goa does not consider the community as such7. Today they are demanding tribal status to claim discriminatory privileges from the State. ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Myths about ancient and modern societies
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. --- Gilbert Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Look forward to the re-submission. Then we can decide about the hackneyed notion ani hollow cliches ani tea bhair more! Or if this post is Pro-science and logical - really? Aum / Ami rautam tujea borea respostak. Aum tujo Goenkar bhau, GL Gilbert, Sorry, I will not respond in kind to your innuendo in the above post. Regarding the list you provided, it appears you have not looked at any of the actual numbers, because they do not support your case regarding deterioration of morality at all. Plus, some of the items in your list are absurd e.g. medical problems in adults, psychological problems, stress, depression, single-family homes, children brought up in single-family homes, and ADS in children. Most common medical problems have causes that have nothing to do with morality e.g. heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer and stroke. What is the relationship between morality and psychological problems, stress and depression? People living in multi-family housing such as apartment buildings are no more moral than those living in single-family homes. Don't you live in a single-family home? Now if you are referring to single-parent homes then the one of the most common reasons for single parenthood is death of one parent, especially in India, which nobody would consider immoral. Another non-immoral reason is adoption of a postnatal child or a frozen human embryo that would otherwise have been discarded. A third non-immoral reason from the standpoint of the parent would be a child born as a consequence of rape, the single parent being the victim in this case. The three reasons that might be regarded as immoral but only by a puritanical mind focussed on certain notions of sexual morality, are single unwed heterosexual parents, divorced or separated parents, and single homosexual parents. Do you regard these latter reasons as immoral? Also, do you regard divorce because of a failed marriage as immoral? Why is ADS in children immoral? Is it their fault or their parents fault? The inclusion of teenage motherhood actually backfires from your standpoint because before the 1950s, especially in India, every mother was a teenage mother. My great grandmother had 4 kids before the age of 20. Regarding statistical data on the other items you listed, I could not find continuous 100-year data on any of them, except homicide rates. Here are the available statistics on the items you listed for the U.S. I dont have access to Indian data as yet. We can certainly compare the present generation with the prior one, viz. 2000 2004 with 1970 1980. I also have values for the 1930s, 40s or 50s for some of them. I am curious as to why you did not include homicides, rapes and the number of executed prisoners. But here are the actual numbers for your list and more: 1. Divorce rates: 1945 18 per 1000 married women; 1973 23 per 1000 married women; 2001 18 per 1000 married women. 2. Single family homes: Please see above for why this is silly and/or confusing. But regarding single-parent homes: 1970 15% of children live in such homes; 1996 28% of children live in such homes; 3. Unwed and teenage mothers: Unwed mothers: 1957 15.8 live births per 1000 women; 1977 25.1 live births per 1000 women; 2004 23.7 live births per 1000 women. Teenage mothers: 1957 - 97.3 live births per 1000 women; 1970 69.5 live births per 1000 women; 2004 41.9 live births per 1000 women. 4. Children brought up in single family homes: Please see above for why this is silly and/or confusing. 5. Teenage sex: My grandmothers, and all my ancestors, especially the females, had teenage sex. But here are the numbers that I could find: 1982 46.9% females ever had sex, 55.2% (1988) males ever had sex; 2002 45.5 % ever had sex, 45.7 % males ever had sex. Teenage pregnancies: 1976 101.4 per 1000 women; 2000 84.5 per 1000 women. STDs: Syphilis/gonorrhea/chancroid 1950 342 per 100,000; 1970 343 per 100,000; 2003 128 per 100,000. 6. Drug abuse in adults and children: Drug abuse in high school seniors Cigarettes: 1980 - 30.5%; 2004 25% Marijuana: 1980 33.7%; 2004 19.9% Cocaine: 1980 5.2%; 2004 2.3% Inhalants: 1980 1.4%; 2004 1.5% Alcohol: 1980 72%; 2004 48% 7. Abortions on demand: 1976 - 24.2 per 1000 women; 2002 20.8 per 1000 women. 8. Psychologic problems in children including ADS
[Goanet] Generalization of Aristo's questions
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. I think it might be worthwhile to generalize Aristo's questions regarding religious beliefs and ask the following question to everybody, especially to those who are perceived to be self-righteous and comptemptuous of other people's views in this forum: Do you sincerely believe that the world would be better off if everybody possessed your beliefs, thought like you, and subscribed to your ideology? My answer to the above question is NO. Also, I think it would be good to have answers from all Goanetters, not just Gilbert and Kevin, to Aristo's questions. Aristo might be surprised by the answers of some people that he appears to think, hold a consistent, clear-cut position on this issue. Here are my answers. --- Aristo [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 1) Do you sincerely believe that Theists (which, since you clearly failed in theology, means those who believe in God,including non-religious Agnostics), ARE MORE LIKELY THAN ATHEISTS to be morally good, or commit less crimes? In other words, are criminals in prisons MORE LIKELY TO BE Atheists? My answer is NO. 2) Do you sincerely believe that the world requires more Theists rather than Atheists? My answer is NO. 1) Do you believe that Theists are ignorant and everyone should convert to Atheism for the greater good of humanity? My answer is NO. 2) Do you intend on enlightening Goanet in the future about how Atheism is better than Theism? Atheism is NOT better than Theism and vice versa. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Generalization of �. questions
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. I have no idea why this Joe Vaz character keeps copying and pasting repeatedly the following link of someone else's response from an exchange 3 years ago: Joe Vaz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Whereas, in a post from the Goanet archieves: http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2003-July/003514.html If anybody sees any contradiction between what I said in my quoted posts upthread and downthread at that time, and what I say now (in my quoted excerpt below), please let me know. This Joe character's logic and understanding is incomprehensible to me. Here are the links to my quoted upthread post and downthread response at that time: http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2003-July/003511.html http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2003-July/003518.html As would be clear from the above links, the assertion that I was referring to was the following: Evil is simply the state where God is not present, like cold without heat or darkness without light. And I was stating that the second part of this quoted (above) assertion was a scientific fact. In other words, cold without heat or darkness without light is a scientific fact. Most sensible people would recognize that I am not responsible for other people's misunderstanding of my writings. Cheers, Santosh --- Joe Vaz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Santosh Helekar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think it might be worthwhile to generalize Aristo's questions regarding religious beliefs and ask the following question to everybody, especially to those who are perceived to be self-righteous and comptemptuous of other people's views in this forum: Santosh Helekar writes: There are many God-fearing people who have turned out to be evil, and many Godless people who are nothing but good. The second part of the above assertion is a scientific fact. [Pat wrote: Satosh, can you please prove that the second assertion is a scientific fact?] -- I agree with Pat. Santoshs argument that the second part of his above assertion is a scientific fact (?)is a claim as convincing as those three blind men and the elephant. :) Passing off opinions as facts (such as the above second assertion to be a scientific fact) has by and large become a norm in this forum. Best wishes, Joe Vaz ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Myths about ancient and modern societies
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. Gilbert wrote: I am a bit tired of Goanetters who preach one thing (to appear intellectual) and personally practice another philosophy. I do hope you and others do not reap what you preach. Yet it is useful to remember that a seed does not fall far from the tree. Gilbert, Almost everything you have written in response to the data that I provided in reply to your own request, is inconsequential, erroneous or trite (Please see the above quote for example). I will just point out some misrepresentations and misconceptions in it. You started by saying you were not going to respond to innuendo (good). Then you went on to provide a whole bunch of innuendos (not good). In supplying the statistics, you intermixed the US data with India data. The latter appeared to be a combination of contemporary data with what existed 100 years ago (grandmother's era). I suspect you dont understand the meaning of the word innuendo. Please look it up in a standard English dictionary. Your assertion that I mixed Indian data with U.S. data is utterly bogus. I only provided U.S. data. I do not have access to Indian data as yet. The statements regarding my grandmother and great grandmother were made because you asked for information about India, and what I have stated is common knowledge among Indians. They are also pertinent facts with regard to morality because child-marriage is now regarded as inappropriate, immoral and abusive. As an example you refer to US data on teen-age mothers (likely school dropouts) who have children out of wedlock (some with multiple fathers) living in single parent homes surviving on the government's safety net. This is compared (favorably) to our (Indian) grandmother's social structure where the young girls were married and living in a joint-family system with an immense amount of near and extended family and social support system. Pure garbage. I have made no such comparison. I provided actual numbers only for the U.S. You also find a good similarity of single-parent homes (mistakenly termed single family homes) due to divorce in modern society to widowed parents in traditional societies. Hogwash. There are widowed parents in all societies. Divorce is also present in all societies. Some old religions have allowed divorce (indeed, made it easy to obtain a divorce) for the past hundreds of years e.g. Islam. In the U.S., according to the 2001 census, 10.6% of the women are currently widowed and 10.8% divorced. I did not include rape etc as a separate end-point because I had to stop somewhere to make it easier on you. Sorry that the actual numbers I provided are harder for you to digest. Sorry for making things uncomfortable for you. Yet that and other social situations would be reflected under prison population. This statistic (per thousand population) is much higher in the modern / western world that in traditional societies. Nonsense. The incarceration rates are much lower for all other western or technologically advanced countries. U.S. is an exception. Here are the incarceration rates for several developed countries. U.S. 714 per 100,000 population Canada 116 per 100,000 population England and Wales 142 per 100,000 population France 91 per 100,000 population Germany 96 per 100,000 population Spain 140 per 100,000 population Netherlands 123 per 100,000 population Denmark 70 per 100,000 population Norway 65 per 100,000 population Sweden 75 per 100,000 population Japan 58 per 100,000 population Australia 117 per 100,000 population - These are February 2005 numbers obtained from the International Centre for Prison Studies Kings College London School of Law (Sunith Velho had nothing to do with this information). So with due respects, using your pro-science and logical bent, your comparative statistical conclusions, have little meaning. You have on purpose chosen to make sarkem goddxem zalam. Gilbert, Do you remember that the numbers I provided were requested by you? Are you now disappointed that they do not support your case? Contrary to your understated numbers, in contemporary western societies, the divorce rates is close to 50% of all marriages. A bogus assertion even from the standpoint of the U.S. The numbers I obtained were from a graph provided by the U.S. Census Bureau and National Center for Health Statistics. The commonly misreported and misconceived 50% value refers to the annual
Re: [Goanet] Subject: Generalization of . questions (Correction of Distortion)
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. What I wrote 3 years ago in this forum has now been misrepresented two times in this thread. Here is the original full quote of mine whose meaning has been deliberately distorted, and the distortion repeated circulated in this forum out of malice: I wrote 3 years ago: [ Evil is simply the state where God is not present, like cold without heat or darkness without light. The above assertion is false in many respects. The first part of the assertion is simply a religious belief. It has been shown to be false time and again. There are many God-fearing people who have turned out to be evil, and many Godless people who are nothing but good. The second part of the above assertion is a scientific fact. It has never been shown to be false, and it has been proven true countless number of times.] The above quote is taken from: http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2003-July/003511.html Here is my explanation of why like cold without heat or darkness without light is a scientific fact provided at that time in response to a direct question from another gentleman: I wrote 3 years ago: [ Satosh, can you please prove that the second assertion is a scientific fact? Hundreds of scientific experiments have demonstrated that heat is a measure of the motion of molecules, and visible light electromagnetic radiation of a certain range of wavelengths. Both these physical quantities can be objectively measured, and their behavior can be predicted with high precision. If you want to know more about the experiments and mathematics that describe heat and light and their absence, I would be happy to refer you to some very good books.] The above quote is taken from: http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2003-July/003518.html The gentleman who asked me that question at time then graciously acknowledged his misunderstanding as follows: [Dear Chimbelcho: Thanks for your gracious response :-) I thought the second part of your assertion concerned many Godless people who are nothing but good: There are many God-fearing people who have turned out to be evil, and many Godless people who are nothing but good. The second part of the above assertion is a scientific fact. Attribute it to my aging process :(] The above quote is taken from: http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2003-July/003519.html Cheers, Santosh --- Mario Goveia [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- Joe Vaz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Exposure of misconceptions with examples
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. --- Jose Colaco [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It is my belief that NO God fearing person will NEVER commit violence against another ... except in self-defence. And ... there are specific guidelines to determine what Self Defence really means. Dear Josebab, Sarcasm aside, you make a good point. Slippery definitions can be conveniently invoked for words such as god-fearing, anti-semite, terrorist sympathizer, hater of freedom and democracy, etc. A swami, a mullah or a priest who is defined as god-fearing one moment can be conveniently re-defined as godless the moment he commits a crime. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Myths about ancient and modern societies
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. --- Gilbert Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You make me do a lot of research. This is because, as I have discovered, that you present only part of the data to support your agenda. But goanetters are lucky. I love to look at data. :=)) Gilbert, Did you read the rest of what you wrote, and notice your double standards? Did you notice that you have not changed the luck of Goanetters at all because you have provided extremely selective and limited data, even less than me? Moreover, you have claimed that Japan is a traditional country as opposed to a modern one. You have also made up your own rules, and modified them with each post according to your convenience. But since you imply that traditional societies have lower incarceration rates than modern ones, why stop at only 3 countries, namely India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka? Why not take the mean of the incarceration rates of all traditional countries and compare it with that of all modern countries? The mean incarceration rate of all 183 traditional countries for which these data are available is 167.8 per 100,000 people. The mean incarceration rate of all 25 modern countries for which these data are available is 126.2 per 100,000 people. The standard errors of the mean for the two sets of countries are 9.5 and 25.8, respectively. These data should settle the question of whether traditional countries have a lower incarceration rate than modern countries or not. Unless, of course, you want to move the goal post further, and modify the definitions again, or claim something else. Now regarding the apples and oranges confusion that you have presented with regard to divorce rates, here is the U.S. divorce rate trend for the last 34 years again, this time denoted as rate per 1000 people. 1972 4.1 divorces per 1000 people 1981 5.3 divorces per 1000 people 2000 4.1 divorces per 1000 people Furthermore, in 1946 the divorce rate had peaked at 4.3 divorces per 1000 people. I have also noted earlier that divorce is not considered immoral by modern secular society, and by at least one ancient religion, namely Islam. You are indeed a friend. So you continue to refuse to name your religious or non-religious path. I told you to refer to the 10-year Goanet and Goa-Goan archives to find out about my views on religious issues. If you had done that you would have noticed that my path is that of a naturalist and a realist. You would have also noticed that I do not claim to have any reason to either disbelieve or believe in innocuous spiritual beliefs, and that I practice desirable practices and expose harmful ones. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Exposure of misconceptions with examples
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. The various opinions expressed under this thread have been very instructive. We have been able to witness some very good examples of squirming, straining and double-dealing. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Exposure of misconceptions with examples
Are people who cannot write a single paragraph on Goanet without abusing others god-fearing? Also, is being god-fearing considered to be opposite of being beneath contempt? Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Hitler as definitely a Catholic: apropos the Goanet debate on the rock solid Christian moral code.
Mervyn wrote: Cornel, Thanks for a great post. It has opened my eyes to an era that used to be almost pre-historic to me. Hopefully, Peter D'souza is going to present his views of the same. Indeed, Cornel's post was an excellent exposure of bogus propaganda. It is unlikely that courteous rational arguments would be forthcoming to refute the historical facts that he has so lucidly presented in this forum. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Soul and after-life
Gilbert, Sorry to say this. But I think all your responses in any thread on this and other issues stem from an inattention to or lack of understanding of the specifics of simple arguments. They invariably involve substitution of adhoc idiosyncratic views and cliches, in place of a cogent argument. Let me illustrate what I mean by pointing out the absurdities in your last post in this thread. --- Gilbert Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And thanks for telling us that atheism covers a wide range from being a religion to a belief in nothing. As Mario said, we do not really know the exact situation till the atheist is arrested and questioned under oath. The above is nothing but gratuitous parroting of idiosyncratic prejudice against people with differing views to gain cheap sympathy from like-minded elements. The whole world concurs and has always concurred with your second paragraph below. There is very little scientific connection to God or a soul. Garbage. Those who have understood what I have written would note that I have stated quite explicitly that science has a lot to say about the soul, but nothing to say about god. I have made a clear distinction between a belief in God and a belief in soul. You once again lump them together, and now claim that I have done such lumping. As our resident scientist ani pro-logical expert, should you not just stay mum about Religion and God? No. I have every right to express my views on any matter under the sun. Trust me, there are many who wish that you would stay mum on almost every issue discussed on Goanet, but that would not be fair to you as a human being. With due respect, the only contribution of good scientists to a religion thread should be: There is no scientific link to religion and its theology. What should be the contribution of radiation oncologists? Shouldn't they shut up by stating that there is no radiation oncological link to goanet and its discussions? And let the religionists continue to dialogue religion in peace and on occasion ad nauseam, ... though perhaps not on Goanet. Who are the religionists? Do you consider yourself as one of them? Do you want to express your and your co-religionists' parochial views in a secular public forum without being challenged about your factual inaccuracies, self-righteousness, bigotry, etc.? Why are we inserting our scientific-selves into something of which the scientific knowledge is non-existent? I have already pointed out that there is a lot of scientific knowledge that speaks to the non-existence of a soul. I have also provided statistical facts that refute your hackneyed notions about moral decay in the modern age. The conceptual foundations of constructs such as the soul and morality are well within the purview of mainstream biological and psychosocial sciences. That is why I am inserting myself in these specific discussions. Ani... yes, Pure Nonsense is also when agnostics start writing about religion, and when believers write about atheisms and their variants. What about amateurish revised Goan history written by a radiation oncologist? Is that pure sense or nonsense? Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Mario, Marx, Mao, Cornel and antiCatholic MisRepresentation
--- Jose Colaco [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I also submit that any reasonable person would realise that BELIEF is a purely subjective (personal) process. Only close confidants are likely to really KNOW what another person's BELIEF truly is. I think Josebab makes a good point here. It is impossible to know what someone's beliefs are unless you know him/her personally. It is impossible to know whether he/she is a Catholic or a Hindu or a theist or an atheist. This is especially so in the case of a criminal. Who can trust a criminal when he/she makes any kind of claim about his beliefs? Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
[Goanet] The rule about names
--- Frederick \FN\ Noronha [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On the other hand, the 'Use your real name as the sender, not an alias' rule still stands. This rule that stands is as follows: *Use your real name as the sender, not an alias. *The Goanet Admin team reserves the right to ask members for proof of identity or contact details, if it has any reason to suspect their identity. Members suspected of using an alias may be suspended until satisfactory proof of identity is provided. Let us look at what this rule means. The rule asks people to use their name, not necessarily their full name. So it leaves open the option of using only the first or the last name. Furthermore, it requires that the proof of identity or contact details be provided to the Goanet Admin team, and not necessarily announced publicly on Goanet. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] The rule about names
--- Frederick \FN\ Noronha [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Santosh, That's *your* interpretation of the rule. To my mind, it seems a very clear re-intrepretation of the rule :-) Frederick, I think the rule can be made less subject to interpretation, and unnecessary grief to people like Vivek, Aristo and Bernado Colaco, by simply requiring folks to state their full name and identity at the outset, i.e. when they subscribe. A fine lady such as Elisabeth would not have used a pseudonym, and be subjected to embarassment, backbiting and outrageous innuendo from Gilbert and other like-minded elements of the subscribership of this forum. But speaking about interpretation of rules, are the following rules being properly interpreted, or are they being re-interpreted differently from my own interpretation of them? Could you tell us whether they have ever been enforced? RULES THAT MIGHT HAVE AN INTERPRETATION DIFFERENT FROM MINE Do not use foul, offensive or abusive language. Maintain a level of decency and respect to fellow Goanetters at all times. Flame-baits and flame-wars will be rejected. Goanet will also reject all posts which are derogatory or offensive to any group based on gender, religion, caste, class, nationality, race or other such grounds. This does not mean that Goanet disallows discussion and debate on these issues; but all discussion should be conducted in a polite, non-derogatory and non-offensive manner. Do not engage in personal attacks. This includes name-calling of any sort. Discussion should focus on the facts and ideas being discussed, and not the person posting the same. Do not post spam. Goanet treats repeated postings, commercial posts, lengthy reposts of an original email, cross posts, among other things, as spam. If you're replying to an email and quoting it, quote the minimum and delete the rest. Do not forward private emails to the list without permission from the author. Do not forward copyrighted material to the list in a manner that could lead to objections from the copyright holder. Cheers, Santosh P.S. My questions are addressed more out of curiosity than criticism of the thankless job you are doing. ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] benign neglect from My reasons for a nom de plume
--- Jose Colaco [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I see nothing wrong with the above quoted from Gilbert Lawrence. All he says (in effect) is that he (Gilbert Lawrence) would IGNORE an atheist, as also someone who smokes, divorced, lives a homosexual life style or cheats on his spouse. I find Gilberts statement bigoted because of the following reasons: 1. Under all democratic constitutions an atheist is no different from a person of any other faith. He/She should not be treated differently from others because of his/her religious beliefs or lack thereof. Nobody would dare to announce in this forum that he/she reacts to a Catholic with benign neglect. 2. The lumping of a smoker, a divorcee, a homosexual and an atheist with someone who cheats on his/her spouse reveals how contemptuous and discriminatory Gilbert is towards the former four types of individuals. Nobody would dare to claim in this forum that his benign neglect towards a Catholic or a Goan is no different from that towards someone who cheats on his/her spouse. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] The rule about names
--- Frederick \FN\ Noronha [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Santosh, I am glad that a section of Goanetters are speaking out in favour of a stronger interpretation of Goanet's rules. Hi Frederick, Thanks. Anybody who violates the rules more than 50% of the time is a burden on the Goanet administrators. I am in favor of suspension or even expulsion of such a character if he does not stop the serial abuse forthwith. But to ease the burden, I think each of us ought to help in the proper enforcement of the rules. We ought to point out instances of rule violation whenever we spot them, without being concerned about further abuse in retaliation. I think Gabe, Bosco and you have done this in the past. I have tried to do this as well. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] The rule about names
--- Frederick \FN\ Noronha [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Do you guys remember the time when Herman suspended a member, sometimes in 1996 or so? I recall though most of us were angry with that person who got suspended (I don't recall who it was). But after the suspension, there was a whole lot of sympathy for him. If I am not mistaken, the poor guy reacted strongly in private to bigoted private hate-emails from a internet troll called Nguyen or Nyugen, and the latter character then posted his expletive-laced private email on Goanet. The Nguyen guy was really nasty, but he did all his serial abuse in private. Several of us with Hindu-sounding names, or with some affinity towards India or things Indian, were targeted by him. Perhaps, he is still around as a silent netter. He may even have been posting under his real name or another pseudonym. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Benign Neglect
--- Gilbert Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is the reason why I find Goanet so hilarious. I have fallen of my chair laughing. This post exposed the hypocrisy and the pseudo-intellectuals. Gilbert appears to have now found refuge in name-calling, while going through some kind of twisting and turning to rationalize his statement of moral equivalence between practices that are not regarded by modern society as immoral, namely atheism, homosexuality, divorce and atheism, and that which is regarded as immoral, namely cheating on a spouse. It is hard to understand, as usual, what he is trying to say, but a couple of questions that I have, in addition to the ones that Aristo has asked are: 1. Is Gilbert claiming that cheating on a spouse should be considered moral because a relatively high percentage of people engage in this behavior? 2. Is he claiming that more people cheat on their spouses now than in ancient times? If so, does he have statistics to back this statement? Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Gilbert's Benign neglect
--- Gilbert Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In light of what you wrote below, and your high sounding standards you espoused for Goanet on another thread, should you not be apologizing and retracting your statement on me: reveals how contemptuous and discriminatory Gilbert is? No. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Putting Catholic prejudices in context
Selma, I congratulate you on these beautiful posts of yours. I have witnessed the transformation of many of my older friends and relatives who had harbored bigoted notions during my childhood. My experience has been that most rational people are very receptive to reason, even without the benefit of an advanced education. My grandparents in their old-age realized that most of the prejudices of their childhood and youth were in fact horrible. All of them, but especially my maternal grandmother, appeared to have conducted a thorough re-examination of their beliefs, and perhaps, a humbling self-evaluation. Cheers, Santosh --- Carvalho [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My father used to be a bigot. The word immediately conjures up images of burning trains and frenzied mobs but anyone who knows my father knows him to be a most congenial soul. So let me put his Catholic prejudices into context. My paternal great-grandmother must have been at best a second-generation convert. ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
[Goanet] Curious personalities on the internet
Those who are new to internet forums should know that such forums are frequented by curious personalities. Here is a standard description of an internet troll, which might be more generally applicable and might ring a bell in your mind. Trolls are utterly impervious to criticism (constructive or otherwise). You cannot negotiate with them; you cannot cause them to feel shame or compassion; you cannot reason with them. They cannot be made to feel remorse. For some reason, trolls do not feel they are bound by the rules of courtesy or social responsibility. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Was Hitler Pro-Catholic?
--- Peter D'Souza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I found the comments below at: http://www.answers.org/apologetics/hitquote.html They should put to rest some of the notions put forth by the Freedom From Religion Foundation and some agnostic Goanetters that Hitler was a devout Roman Catholic. I guess selective hearsay quotes from a fundamentalist religious website are all it takes to put anybody's notions to rest. No need to read any book on history, not even the book from which the selective hearsay quotes are taken. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Why Condoms Will Never Stop AIDS in Africa
I think ideological propaganda is unconscionable, irresponsible and dangerous, especially in regards to a grave public health-related issue such as this one. Abstinence, fidelity and condoms are all very important in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. The roles played by these commonsensical measures are quite obvious, as are their limitations. Advice to abstain from sexual activity outside of marriage would be great if followed, but is quite obviously impractical because of low compliance. It is also utterly impractical, and perhaps, cruel, within marital relationships, wherein one spouse is HIV-positive, as Josebab has pointed out elsewhere. In such a case, use of the condom is a very valid option. Condoms and other forms of contraception are also useful in preventing pregnancies when a woman has AIDS, and maternal-to-fetal transmission is a possibility, irrespective of whether her male partner has HIV/AIDS or not. Please see one of the links below for information about the scientific evidence for condom effectiveness in AIDS prevention. Here are some important links regarding HIV/AIDS from a responsible public health agency, namely U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and not some narrow extraneous agenda-driven ideological or religious organization: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/prep.htm http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/projects/perinatal/materials/OptOut.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/od/condoms.pdf http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/hcwprev.htm http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/pdf/oralsex.pdf Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] GOANET ANNIVERSARY
Happy anniversary! I have nothing but the deepest gratitude to all Goanet administrators and contributors, present and past. On this day I especially offer my tribute to several past contributors who do not post here anymore, and whose posts I have thoroughly enjoyed because of their literary value, clarity of thought, linguistic beauty and/or graciousness, in spite of strong disagreements. They are, in alphabetical order: James Almeida Joel Almeida Ben Antao Alfredo de Mello Teotonio de Souza Filomena Giese Bambino Martins Damodar Mauzo Vivek Menezes (VM) Sunila Muzawar Peter Nazareth Venantius Pinto Tariq Siddiqui Ivo Souza Jay Vaidya I may have inadvertently left out a few. I wish I had saved some absolute gems from VM and Jay Vaidya. Some day I might want to wade through Josebab's old zip drives, if he still has them. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Was Hitler Pro-Catholic? / response to Peter
--- Peter D'Souza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sometimes I wonder whether our professional researchers really think they can pull the wool over our eyes with their total distortions of commonse positions and ad hominem attacks against our sources. Quite predictably, we are provided here with a very creative definition of an ad hominem attack specially invented for the purpose of this ad hominem attack against me. The standard definition of an ad hominem attack conforms to its Latin meaning, which is against the person, not against a source of information, as suggested above. A good example of an ad hominem attack is the following quote from the above post, wherein my full name is invoked, and my statement of a simple indisputable fact that www.answers.org is a fundamentalist religious website is being characterized as my throwing mud on that source: Santosh Helekar is convincing no one, I suspect, by throwing mud on my source (answers.org) or me (by suggesting that I have not read the sources that I refer to). He could have simply refuted the actual quotes from Hitler, if he knew them to be false, but his ostensible obsession for facts hasn't yet make a perfunctory appearance in the Hitler debate. The fact that the quotes of Hitler's secret conversations are specially selected hearsay quotes is evident to anybody who has read the book, and especially, H. R. Trevor-Roper's Introduction to the 1953 edition of that book. The Introduction states that the quotes were selected and edited from the transcripts of two scribes (Hitler opposed the use of a voice recorder) by Hitler's aide and deputy, Martin Bormann. One of the scribes, Dr. Henry Picker has in fact disputed the authenticity of the quotes, alleging that they were altered by Bormann. Independent translations of the secret conversations by others, including Picker apparently show many discrepancies. Furthermore, anybody who has read the 1953 edition of the book, and does not have a biased agenda, would have noted the following quotes from it, and offered them as a caveat, because they reveal Hitler's religious beliefs and concordat with the Catholic Church: We do not forget the influence of the churches. There will definitely be no Vatican crusade against us. We know Monsignor Pacelli since he was the Vatican's diplomatic representative in Germany for twelve years; as Secretary of State and adviser to Pope XI it is greatly in his interest that the German Catholics should at last have a statute. --- Adolph Hitler in Secret Conversations with Hitler, page 79 We do not judge merely by artistic or military standards or even by purely scientific ones. We judge by the spiritual energy which a people is capable of putting forth, which will enable it in ten years to recapture what is has lost in a thousand years of warfare. I intend to set up a thousand-year Reich and anyone who supports me in this battle is a fellow-fighter for a unique spiritual-- I would say divine-- creation Rudolf Hess, my assistant of many years standing, would tell you: If we have such a leader, God is with us. --- Adolph Hitler in Secret Conversations with Hitler, page 68 Unbiased folk who have read the book would have also noted that other quotes revealed that Hitler claimed to have the highest respect for Jesus Christ and his teachings. As far as the bogus claim that I have not yet contributed any facts to this debate, let me just provide the following link to my contribution 4 years ago in this forum. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/goa-net/message/19527 I suppose that when Santosh alludes to fundamentalist sources, we're all supposed to step back and discard any facts presented by such sources. I have already provided evidence to support my assertion that www.answers.org is a fundamentalist religious site. The fact that Fundamentalism is a well-recognized sect of Christianity is explained very nicely by another Christian religious website, namely the Catholic Answers site. Please see: http://www.catholic.com/library/Fundamentalism.asp As far as the authenticity and factual accuracy of the selective hearsay quotes (and the conclusions that can be drawn from them) are concerned, I would ask people to read the book from which they are taken, actual historical records such as Hitlers speeches, and other historical books, which provide different facts and perspectives, before putting to rest their notions about Hilters religious views. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
[Goanet] Fake quotes
Can someone who lies about others and makes up fake quotes to malign them be a Catholic in good standing? Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Fake quotes
--- Frederick \FN\ Noronha [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: PS: Lighten up, we all tend to take cyberspace too seriously. Sometimes. Sorry, Frederick. You wasted your time at writing something that did not answer my question. I had asked a simple question with a yes or no answer based on some observations. Cheers, Santosh P.S: Please note that I did not respond to a couple of unprovoked flame baits that you directed at me recently. ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Immunization Status of Children in Goa
--- Frederick \FN\ Noronha [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In our study we found that children with high birth order, Muslim religion, those residing in rural areas, children with low parent education and socioeconomic status and those from high household size had significantly low immunization coverage levels compared to children from other groups (P 0.05). Also a trend analysis showed improvement in immunization status with improvement in parent education, socio-economic status and decreasing family size. The above conclusions are at best premature. The variables assessed are not at all independent of each other. In other words, for example, there may be significant differences in the socioeconomic status, parent educational level, household size, etc. between the Muslims, Christians and Hindus sampled in this study. In this case, the low immunization coverage may be explained by one or more of these other factors, and not the Muslim religion per se. The same rationale can be applied to each of the other variables. The study, as presented, is flawed. Either the whole study needs to be redone, or if the requisite data are available, they need to be properly re-analyzed to control for or assess the inter-dependencies or interactions between the different variables. Short of that, very limited meaningful conclusions can be drawn from this study. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Was Hitler Pro-Catholic? / response to Peter
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. Peter has completely misunderstood my attitude, positions and views with respect to Hitler and religion, in general. I provide below brief responses to his misstatements. --- Peter D'Souza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, and the source of information is a fundamentalist or a group of fundamentalists. Unless, of course, answers.org is a google-like bot that generates articles via computer programs. Here is a definition of an ad hominem attack provided by Gilbert: Argumentum ad Hominem (abusive and circumstantial): the fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument. Often the argument is characterized simply as a personal attack. I did not attack the character or circumstances of an individual who was advancing a statement or an argument. The source is a website. Pointing out the easily verifiable fact that it is a fundamentalist religious website is not a personal attack on an individual who was advancing a statement or an argument. Moreover, Fundamentalism is a well-recognized sect of Christianity, just like Catholicism. Nice attempt at deflection. Why mention that it is fundamentalist at all if you're only concerned with facts? Because it is a pertinent fact, as I have demonstrated. Does this quote prove the influence of Catholic teaching and doctrine on Hitler or, instead, Hitler's influence with the Vatican hierarchy? The quote was provided to show that the selective quotes which the website provided did not tell the whole story. In other words, one could not rest one's notions about the issue based on those selective quotes, as Peter exhorted us to do. One had to read the whole book, and other books on the subject. I'm still trying to figure out how someone so self-obsessed and concerned about leaving his imprint on history can be construed as a devout Catholic, based on the above quote. That quote was also provided to show that the selective quotes which the website provided did not tell the whole story. In other words, one could not rest one's notions about the issue based on those selective quotes, as Peter exhorted us to do. One had to read the whole book, and other books on the subject. Unbiased folk examine Catholic teaching on the one hand, and Hitler's actions (and words) on the other, and conclude that his alleged devotion to the church of Rome was pure. Correct? No. Hitler was a criminal with a devious, psychopathic mind. His religious beliefs or lack thereof had nothing to do with his atrocious actions. You almost make me think that I have a bias in favour of Catholicism! Does Gilbert know that Peter is not in favor of Catholicism? I have a perfectly fine understanding of what fundamentalism is. I don't know why you bring it up when the conversation is about Hitler. Because Peter claimed that merely pointing out that a website is a fundamentalist religious one is tantamout to an ad hominem attack. SanTosh, you have clearly missed the entire point. On the contrary, I think it is Peter who has missed the point. If he had read my post 4 years ago on Hitler, the link to which I provided in my last post, and my recent response to Jose in the present debate, he would have realized what my views on this issue have always been. Good luck to you on your crusade againt organized religion. The above statement is a clear demonstration of how Peter has completely misunderstood my position with respect to religion. People who know me or have understood (with intellectual honesty and without prejudice and/or malice towards me or towards what I am perceived to represent) everything I have written in this and other forums, know that I merely write in defense of the non-religious and religious minorities who are being targeted by the self-righteous, ideologically-driven crusaders. In every single case, I have only defended against the bogus charge that non-religious people are immoral solely by virtue of the fact that they are non-religious. Towards this end, I have also demonstrated the falsity of the underlying self-righteous, chauvinistic notion that followers of a particular religion are unquestionably moral simply because they are religious people. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Fake quotes and multiple posters
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. --- Frederick \FN\ Noronha [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 3. There's no point in arguing with a baiter who has demonstrated very little sense. Thanks for agreeing with me. BTW, I have three simple questions for you and other Goanet administrators, motivated by an observation. Are you allowing multiple posters to post from one email address? If so, have all of them disclosed their identities to you? Shouldn't you insist that they state their full names on Goanet? This would be especially of concern if these posters are using an identified proxy email address to abuse those who disagree with them. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Fake quotes
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. --- Peter D'Souza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: SanTosh, given your truncation, modification and distortion of quotes you will never be a Catholic in good standing. The above accusation is quite revealing about the problem of ideological prejudice and self-righteousness that I have referred to earlier. The obvious questions that I have to ask this poster are: How about you? Are you a Catholic or Christian in good standing? Have you ever truncated, modified and distorted quotes? Do you consider yourself more moral than me? Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Fake quotes - Stale advice instead of action
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. --- Frederick \FN\ Noronha [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Now, how about giving up on flogging this dead horse, since were're actually getting no-where on it? Frederick, Forgive me for being direct with you. Instead of dispensing stale advice and cliches, how about enforcing the existing Goanet rules? When is the last time you have suspended or expelled anybody for repeatedly violating them? If my views and posts violate the rules, please kick me out? I for one will not complain. This is a moderated forum where the moderators are supposed to be in charge. Don't worry about being accused of censorship. Please have some courage for a change. Why are you wasting time trying to be fair to everybody? You may think you are fair, but in a lop-sided world there is no fairness. Habitual violators of the rules will always get away if the moderators are weak. So please have the courage to kick me out. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] The Anjuna flea market and the Rock solid moral code
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. --- George Pinto [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 3. 5 homosexuals came along and were looking for protection. You have come to the right place I told them, here is Gilbert's wisdom sheet to protect you from sin and eternal damnation. They took the paper and since this is a family friendly forum I cannot disclose how they used it for protection. I was one of the homosexuals that George gave Gilbert's sheet to, and I will tell you what I did with that piece of paper. I folded it neatly and took it to a Hindu priest in the nearby temple of Kamadeva, the God of Love and Sex. I wanted a second opinion from a religious expert on Gilbert's morality of benign neglect, to find out if it was benign or malignant. I also wanted to know whether this highly questionable rock solid moral code was based on genuine rock solid facts or on the arbitrary flimsy opinion of Gilbert's relatives and fellow campers. Bhotmaam took the paper and promptly scribbled something on the back of it in Romi Sanskrit. Then without saying a word he handed it to me. I have just translated what he has written with my handy-dandy Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary of Vaman Shivram Apte. This is what the Bhotmaam had written: Ask Shri Gilbert these questions, which signify the highest form of morality known to man. And be sure to elicit from him a yes or no answer for each question. If he answers no to these questions, then this man is truly a moral man, and I would offer him Kamadeva's choicest blessings. If he answers yes then his morality is relative morality, and we might as well call his moral code a rock-and-roll moral code. Here are my questions: 1. Have you visited a foreign country? 2. Do you eat beef and pork? 3. Do you drink alcoholic beverages? 4. Do you listen to rock-and-roll music? 5. Have you married outside your caste or religion? 6. Have you killed a lizard? I hope Gilbert answers these questions. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Goanet and religion bashing
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. Joe Vaz wrote: Notably among the religion bashers were Santosh Helekar and company, as the archives will abundantly reveal. I am surprised that this Joe is so charitable to me this time around. But what is interesting is he only resorts to name-calling against me here. To me it is quite clear why he mentions my name, and is afraid to name anybody else in the company? Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] The New Goanet
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. I think the advent of Aristo, Selma, Francis, Roland, Jerry and Kevin, and the re-emergence of Sunith has been great for Goanet. Their arguments have been extremely cogent, mature, well-articulated and beautiful. Nobody has been able to refute them. I am very confident that these good people will continue to express their views without fear, and I hope that many more like them become active on Goanet. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Hitler as a fascist
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. --- Gilbert Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If Cornel was a professor of English at one of the American schools or colleges, his remarks would be cause for his dismissal from the staff, due to demagoguery of the religion. Not true. bush and his diminishing minority of supporters routinely refer to terrorists and their supporters as Islamofascists. They have not been dismissed from their offices. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] The New Goanet/response to Santosh
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. Dear Selma, That was beautiful, and thanks for the sage advice. You have expressed my point of view better than I can imagine myself doing. The only thing I would add is that I am not really interested in converting people to my point of view. I believe in unabashed individualism - the idea that every person ought to educate himself or herself, think for himself or herself, and arrive at his or her own convictions about the world. Nothing moves me more into thought and action than my high school prayer - one of the most sublime compositions ever conceived by any poet, living or dead: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, Where knowledge is free, Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls, Where words come out from the depth of truth, Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection, Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit, Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action, Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. I am certain you know who this great poet is. Cheers, Santosh --- Carvalho [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear Santosh, To be honest, I am always fearful when I voice an opinion. Sometimes, it is taken as an affront on someone's deeply held beliefs. Sometimes, it is regarded as absurd and ridiculed. When I was more Catholic, I would bring to mind the words of Charlotte Bronte's Mr Rochester, I know my God approves of what I do, for the world's opinion, I care not. Now that I am more secular, I remember Desmond Tutu's words in a documentary about Thomas Mann, there is no black and white in life. One must believe by the skin of one's teeth that what they are doing is right and then do it. That is how I generally operate, by the skin of my teeth and to damnation with my detractors. I enjoy your posts on religion. To me they are just your personal hypotheses and not a reflection and assault on anyone's faith. If, we as Christians in our Quixotian desire to defend our religion, see you as a Christian basher, we really are tilting at windmills. If you want my opinion, write what you have to. Don't bother defending your views. Let the chips fall where they may. For every one person, you offend, there will be two that you will educate and perhaps convince to your point of view. We are all adult enough to discern for ourselves exactly what we want to believe. All this defending the faith by self-appointed crusaders, is self-serving aggrandisment at best. Selma -- --- Santosh Helekar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think the advent of Aristo, Selma, Francis, Roland, Jerry and Kevin, and the re-emergence of Sunith has been great for Goanet. Their arguments have been extremely cogent, mature, well-articulated and beautiful. Nobody has been able to refute them. I am very confident that these good people will continue to express their views without fear, and I hope that many more like them become active on Goanet. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] THE NEW GOANET !
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. Dear Francis, You are the Francis that I am referring to. You have a formidable intellect and an ability to articulate your ideas, rivaled only by your son Gary. Goveia is an insignificant speck compared to you. You did notice, didn't you that he was not able to refute your arguments, and chickened out with some feeble excuse. Cheers, Santosh --- Francis Rodrigues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear Santosh, I know you are referring to someone else with a similar name. My presence on Goanet is merely to be educated. I stand humbled before giants of our time of Cyclopeian proportions like Goveia. Who can resist his mighty intellect ? We never fail to be continually amazed by his encyclopedic knowledge of our universe - an avowed expert even on theories and matters that will be discovered far into the future. ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] The New Goanet
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. Hi Aristo, Let me first object strongly to your making a very unfair statement about TGF. TGF is a free and open secular public forum. You may be mistaking it for some other forum or network. And of course, I hope the arsonist thought is taken in jest by others, as intended. As I have stated before on countless occasions, nobody's perspective, however extreme and disagreeable to someone, ought to be blocked from a free and secular public forum such as Goanet. However, the rules of Goanet have to be strictly enforced by the Goanet administrators. Otherwise, they might as well rescind them. Why waste electrons? Frederick's excuses and rationalizations simply don't wash. I, Santosh Helekar, must be banned from Goanet if the administrators determine that my e-glow of pure evil or some other infraction violates the Goanet rules. But I think that they should grant a special exemption from the rules to Goveia, and give him unlimited chances to refute your arguments, and those of Selma, Francis, Sunith, Roland, Albert and Kevin, which he has failed to do so far. You have already realized that your arguments are impenetrable as long as one follows the direct and honest, rational approach. Regarding your arguments not being worm-out proof, let me submit to you that anybody can worm out of an argument or demean and demonize its proponent. But most people do not resort to such evasive and abusive tactics out of fairness and respect. An argument which is countered only with such an illicit approach stands unrefuted. Nasci has not violated the Goanet rules so far, so he should not be banned. He has simply vented his righteous prejudices in an enlightened sort of way. I think he cannot help doing that because he is one of those rare individuals (but perhaps, fortunately, more abundant on Goanet) who are endowed with the e-glow of enlightenment. I am pleasantly surprised to note that we share an alma mater. I must say, indeed, we are the children of a lesser goddess. Cheers, Santosh --- Aristo [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Santosh Frederick, Santosh, I thank you for the compliments and for reminding me of my High School prayer! Perhaps it is from that poem of Tagore that I subconsciously lifted the first line and made my own corny quote that I abide by: When the conscience is clear, you have nothing to fear. But I must admit that my arguments, although sometimes cogent, may not be worm proof, as they still give way for one to worm out of! ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Selma's Diagnosis
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. Hi Selma, I think you have made the right diagnosis regarding this Joe Vaz character. The question is does anyone have the right treatment. Cheers, Santosh --- Joe Vaz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Selma: And what is a fine lady like you doing dispensing advice without diagnosing the issues? It is like passionately telling a story, without reading the book that relates it. It would be illuminating if you first studied Santosh Helekars provocative posts, rampant incitement and abuse documented within the Goanet archives, before coming to his defense and hastily jumping to conclusions. ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
[Goanet] A Puzzling Question
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. I am quite impressed by the fierce, furious and dishonest abusive campaign launched by the Joe Vaz and Mario Goveia characters in defense of religion because of all the perceived and imagined threats that emanate from me. But one thing still puzzles me. Why do these troubled personalities not mount such an attack against Nasci Caldeira for bashing the innocuous religious beliefs of the followers of Hinduism? Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Hitler as a fascist
* G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. --- Aristo [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: However, don't confuse it with the word ISLAMO-FASCIST, which is NOT an Oxymoron. Also, notice the duplicity and religious bigotry of Goveia in claiming that Osama Bin Ladin is an Islamo-fascist, even though according to his own logic Osama should not be a Muslim in good standing. Such is the credibility of the guy who has now stooped to using obscenities on Goanet. Cheers, Santosh ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Take your supporters, and your religious wars, elswhere
I think there already are some yahoogroups and cc lists that restrict the membership and discussion to be in strict conformity with their own ideology, religion or political agenda. Those who are privileged by birth, upbringing or indoctrination, to have the door to these enclaves opened for them, and/or want to live within their walls, are free to do so. I, for one, am not interested in being in the confines of any religion, ideology or political agenda. I am here because I believe this is a free, open and secular public forum, as are TGF and GX. Yes, this is a Catholic dominated forum. But that is fine as far as I am concerned because it is not so by enforcement. My only regret now, however, is that I am beginning to suspect, which I had never done before, that there are some here who prefer it to be that way. Cheers, Santosh --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Miguel, Cecil and others, Ever since the Portuguese foisted Christianity on our little corner of the world, religion has been a vibrant part of our Goan heritage, passing from the polytheism of our Hindu ancestors, the atheism of their Buddhist derivatives onto the current monotheistic, Catholic dominance of this forum. Many of the divergent views expressed here reflect the varied make-up of the members of this list and add to the value of this forum. ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Goanet and religion bashing
Every summer this Joe Vaz character performs an annual exercise of verbal abuse against me on Goanet. This time around he has ostensibly taken precious time off from his busy schedule to write a total of 5 trashy posts with the sole purpose of abusing me. Neither Selma nor I had directly provoked him in any way, nor written anything that would make him feel personally offended or threatened. There was absolutely no need for him to exercise his right to self-defense and abuse another human being. But once again he chose to do exactly that. I ask myself, why would any man do such a thing? Cheers, Santosh --- Joe Vaz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: * G * O * A * N * E * T C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. Santosh Helekar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think Goanet administrators should count all the instances of name-calling by Joe and me, and castigate, suspend or expel the guy who has called the most number of names. -- Now how can one Not agree with Santosh and his self-assumed qualitied names. Perhaps, his complaint about name-calling is his self-assumed name of Pandurang Fernandes etc. (see link below): http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2006-September/048024.html Or his recently revelation being homosexual (See link below.) Santosh Helekar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2006-August/047967.html Goanet is a free forum and there are no objections on being either a Pandurang Fernandes or homosexual all are welcome. Cheers! Joe I urge the administrators, once again, to take action. PS: Wonder why Santosh wants the Admin to account for the name-calling -- Santosh can do that himself and provide the statistics, which would of course be interesting information. _ NRIs: Send Money FREE! Go ahead and register now! http://ads.mediaturf.net/event.ng/Type=clickFlightID=20273AdID=65989TargetID=11172Targets=11172Values=202,414,1093,1264,3122Redirect=http:%2F%2Fwww.icicinri.net%2Fmoney2india%2F%3Fm2i%3DBAC-MSN%26att%3DMSNTLM2I18CHAR%26rfr%3DMSNTLM2I18CHAR ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org ___ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
Re: [Goanet] Evaluating the past
--- On Fri, 7/18/08, Gilbert Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Did I read you right, that the Greeks like Hippocrates or Galen were not practicing and teaching what they (and we) call scientific medicine? (see below) Gilbert, Yes, you read me right. Their medicine was pre-scientific. They practiced Aristotlean philosophy and common sense. The scientific method was not fully developed until the 13th century A.D. when Roger Bacon described it, although the Arabs were using its precursor as early as the 8th century. It was first applied in a systematic and comprehensive manner by Galileo in the 16th century. It was first introduced into medicine by Semmelweis and Pasteur in the 19th century. Modern medicine did not become fully scientific in the sense of using the evidence-based approach until the second half of the 20th century. In fact, surgery started relying on this approach only in the 1980s and 1990s. As far as your nonsense about scientific fads is concerned, perhaps you are referring to some pre-scientific or pseudoscientific opinions and impressions. Real science does not have fads. It only has hypotheses that become established principles or have to be modified based on objective evidence. BTW, I noticed that you were not able to defend your moral equivalence of inquisition and medicine, with anything you wrote in your latest post in the Evaluating the past thread you created for that purpose. Cheers, Santosh
Re: [Goanet] Evaluating the Past
--- On Sun, 7/20/08, Miguel Braganza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It is a pity that Dr. Santosh Helekar, a professed atheist/agnostic rationalist, should actually bring home the point of what is essentially a CHRISTian belief:REPENTENCE , not punishment, as the first option. No one can claim to be Christian and justify Inquisition at the same time. That is akin to storing ice-cubes in Hell. I am neither interested in correcting the path of a wayward Christian nor that of an estranged agnostic. My intent was simply to point out the absurdity of drawing a parallel between the crimes of the inquisition and the errors of pre-scientific medicine. To illustrate this by using Gilbert's latest spurious distraction, the robber who makes off with Gilbert's family jewels has nothing in common with the patient who goes home with his treatment. Cheers, Santosh
Re: [Goanet] Mirrorless house
--- On Sun, 7/20/08, George Pinto [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It is clear from Gilbert's post above that he lacks a mirror in the house, hence all the warts belong to others. But Gilbert lives in a glass house. So everybody else can see what is going on inside. Cheers, Santosh
Re: [Goanet] Evaluating the Past
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Mario Miranda Festival, July 24-26, 2008 Old GMC Building, Panjim. June 24, 4.30 pm Children's Day (with Bookworm). June 25, 5 pm Mario's medium analyzed. Short films on Mario. Featuring the first public appearance in Goa by Amruta Patil, graphic novelist and Goa Art College graduate. Her recent graphic novel, 'Kari' (Harper Collins) earned wide acclaim. July 26, original play by the Mustard Seeds Arts Company (5pm) * * * 2008 Goan International convention currently on at Mississauga University of Toronto (UTM), July 23-27, 2008. http://2008goanconvention.com/index.php * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * --- On Mon, 7/21/08, Miguel Braganza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear Dr.Santosh, Well, if a debate on the infamous Inquisition can generate some humour ... and an invite from Bosco to the Goan Convention then all is not lost. What was that about spurious distraction with family jewels? Dear Hr. Miguel, As I am sure you know, I am only trying to understand the relationship between all the disparate strands of wisdom that Gilbert is imparting to us through the several threads he has weaved into the fabric of Goanet, in response to your post under this thread. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I think Gilbert is trying to tell us why the inquisition was nothing but dispensation of justice against robbers, burglars, adulterers, polygamists, polyandrists and polygynists. All of these criminals received the appropriate grade of punishment that they deserved depending on how far they had strayed from the righteous path - the thoroughfare of rectitude that had been single-handedly paved by his own religion. There is also a hint that today's divorcees who remarry deserve to be sentenced under the statutes of the inquisition for the crime of serial monogamy. Such a fate might also be appropriate for Hollywood personalities. Cheers, Santosh --- http://www.GOANET.org --- Tri Continental Film Festival 2008 July 25 - 30, 2008 Goa, India http://www.moviesgoa.org/page/tri_continental/ http://www.moviesgoa.org/tricon/schedule_2008.pdf ---
Re: [Goanet] An !dea can change your life!
--- http://www.GOANET.org --- Tri Continental Film Festival 2008 July 25 - 30, 2008 Goa, India http://www.moviesgoa.org/page/tri_continental/ http://www.moviesgoa.org/tricon/schedule_2008.pdf --- This is a very inspiring anecdote. A minor point, however, is that the description of visual learning given in it is not very accurate. Visual learning is generally understood to mean making use of pictures and graphs in the learning process, and visualizing words, descriptions, and the concepts/events being described. The latter process, in particular, does not make use of the eyes. It bypasses the eyes and directly engages the part of the brain that processes visual information. So the camera-like mechanism of the eyes themselves does not play much of a role in visual learning. One can visualize quite well, indeed better, with eyes closed. One would not learn anything visually if one is not attentive and one does not make use of one's imagination, no matter how long one exposes a book to one's wide open eyes. Cheers, Santosh --- On Mon, 7/28/08, Tony de Sa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As a student in school, while learning the chapter 'light' in school, her teacher had emphasised that the human eye works like a camera. Just as a camera records all that it is made to 'see', so does the human eye. It only depends on the amount of 'exposure' - the time that we give to the matter we are studying. She decided to put this principle to test. It was tough initially. You can't just decide to try this principle and expect it to work. If you persist, eventually over a period of time, you will succeed. This is called 'visual learning'. In course of time, with a lot of trial and error, she found that it worked.
Re: [Goanet] REVISED OATH FOR DOCTORS by Dr. Leo Rebello of India
--- http://www.GOANET.org --- Tri Continental Film Festival 2008 July 25 - 30, 2008 Goa, India http://www.moviesgoa.org/page/tri_continental/ http://www.moviesgoa.org/tricon/schedule_2008.pdf --- --- On Mon, 7/28/08, Dr. Leo Rebello [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I shall not rape tiny tots with mercury laced innoculations or vaccinations, for they pollute the blood stream of small children leading to serious diseases like AIDS, Cancers, Autism, etc.; I hope people realize that this oath is a joke. Taking silly statements like the above seriously might be dangerous to your health. Cheers, Santosh
Re: [Goanet] Visual Learning
--- http://www.GOANET.org --- Tri Continental Film Festival 2008 July 25 - 30, 2008 Goa, India http://www.moviesgoa.org/page/tri_continental/ http://www.moviesgoa.org/tricon/schedule_2008.pdf --- Hi Tony, Wikipedia information is not always trustworthy. There are many beautiful books written on the subject of use of visual imagery in learning. One of the best is Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin, a highly accomplished high functioning autistic. Cheers, Santosh --- On Mon, 7/28/08, Tony de Sa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Santosh, Thanks for the information. Patrice Riemens also pointed out the same and pointed me to the wikipedia site for it. I hadn't checked it out.
Re: [Goanet] REVISED OATH FOR DOCTORS by Dr. Leo Rebello of India
--- http://www.GOANET.org --- Tri Continental Film Festival 2008 July 25 - 30, 2008 Goa, India http://www.moviesgoa.org/page/tri_continental/ http://www.moviesgoa.org/tricon/schedule_2008.pdf --- --- On Tue, 7/29/08, Mervyn Lobo [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: He has also claimed to be, on several occasions, on the short list for the Noble Prize and also on the short list for the next President of India. President Leo Rebello has a very good track record of entertaining people in Goan cyberforums. Cheers, Santosh
Re: [Goanet] Betrayal by GBA and the Task Force farce
--- On Thu, 7/31/08, Miguel Braganza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Had Reboni adopted the surname of her Goan husband, Francis would not have even said what he wrote. Gender equality does have its hassles! ;-) It is true that Francis would not have said what he did if her name was Reboni Saldanha. But this madness about Goans and non-Goans has gone too far. It is making otherwise smart people rely on the superficial facades of pictures and posts sent to Goanet as the basis for deciding who is fighting for Goa, and who is an armchair critic. Cheers, Santosh
Re: [Goanet] Betrayal by GBA and the Task Force farce
--- On Fri, 8/1/08, Francis Rodrigues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't believe that the umbilical cord that inexorably links a child of Goa to its motherland, can ever be duplicated by a non-native. It's simply a fact of life. Argue what you will. Hi Francis, I would argue that the surname is a poor indicator of whether someone's umbilical cord is buried in Goa or not. I also know that while there is no doubt that Rajan is fighting for Goa with his camera, on another front he is fighting with other Goan fighters from his armchair. I hope both fights yield positive results. Cheers, Santosh --- On Fri, 8/1/08, Francis Rodrigues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Rajan puts his neck on the line without the benefit of a monolith or a mass movement to shield him. If I might remind you once more (ad nauseam) of the concluding lines of Milton's immortal On His Blindness?
Re: [Goanet] Notes from the Goan Convention
I too was disappointed by the critique referred to by George, and also by the infighting that is going on between all the Goan fighters and organizations. It is hard to understand why people rely so much on pure gossip, misunderstanding and personal bias. Cheers, Santosh --- On Sat, 8/2/08, George Pinto [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear Eugene I am disappointed by your Notes from the Goan Convention posts. They are vinegar posts. So much hard work, goodwill, positive accomplishments all from very fine people in the Toronto Goan community and you have overlooked that, instead we are presented negatives. I know from personal experience how difficult and time-consuming these ventures are to undertake and pull-off. Goans must be encouraging and grateful. In the near future, I will post a write-up from one of the attendees.
Re: [Goanet] Notes from the Goan Convention
--- On Sun, 8/3/08, Gilbert Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I wish to add my two cents to this debate. How come the same individuals that take Eugene to task have not / do not practice what they are preaching to Eugene? I hope at least in the future, they will practice what they preach; or they can be part of the 'crab-codi'. Perhaps, out of some kind of fear of naming names, Gilbert does not say that he is referring to George, Selma, Frederick and/or myself in the above excerpt. His derogatory remarks and innuendo directed at me and/or them are utterly baseless. Speaking for myself, I want to say I have always believed that a sound critique based on facts is essential to any form of honest discourse. In accordance with this conviction, I have tried to practice the use of facts, and facts alone, to support my critique of any post on Goanet. I have never relied on gossip or hearsay, and I have never revealed private personal information about others in a public forum. Furthermore, it is clear from what Gilbert has written in his quote below that his assessment of critiques is not very sound. He fails to recognize what is based on gossip, hearsay and personal opinion, and what is based on fact. He also seems not to recognize the principle of not divulging private information about others in a public forum. As evidence for these points, please note that he does not seem to have a problem with the following from the critique in question: I am informed that Kevin gave Al the award because Al is not keeping good health. Al informed me that he underwent lung surgery a couple of months earlier and that the top lobe of his right lung has been removed. He said he was feeling fine and the doctors have assured me that there no traces of cancer are left. Cheers, Santosh --- On Sun, 8/3/08, Gilbert Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I did not attend the meeting. I thought Eugene's write up was factual without malice or never- ending and personal opinions that Goanetters are prone to dwell upon. I think Gabe's comments were as usual very insightful. I met Ben Antao once and he is a fine man. I know some other organizers via Goanet. What I find interesting now that it is their turn to deliver, (instead of critiquing the work of others on Goanet), they appreciate how hard real success is. It is so much easier to critique others in the past ... way past (prior generations) ... or way way past (history).
Re: [Goanet] Young Jesuit Saints
Gilbert Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Any religion honoring individuals as 'saints' is no different from other scientific fields which honors those who made a major contribution to the particular field; or fundamentally inspired others; or shifted the line of thinking leading to a paradigm shift in perspective. The above equation of religion and science is absolutely wrongheaded. In no way is religion a scientific field nor is it in any way like a scientific field. Science does not revere any scientist as a saint, no matter how eminent. It simply recognizes his or her scientific contribution, and fully expects others to modify or improve upon it. For example, unlike a religious committee that recognizes a saint, a Nobel prize committee does not have to certify that a new science prize winner has performed two miracles. The contributions of scientists are supported by objective evidence. They do not rely on supernatural entities and mechanisms, and they can always be confirmed or falsified by others. If falsified, the natural explanations that were inferred from them have to be modified or replaced by better supported ones. This is not true of supernatural explanations and miracles, which are accepted entirely based on faith. As for the rest of the assertions made in the above quoted post, none of them make any sense in the context of either the issue of recognition of religious saints in general, or of young Jesuit saints in particular. The need to bring up personal idiosyncratic misconceptions about science and medicine in this unrelated thread is thoroughly inexplicable. Cheers, Santosh Gilbert Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Some of the perspectives may not stand the test of time. Yet, regard is given to those who dedicated their life for a cause. The fact that their work may not stand the test of time is not a discredit. It is amazing how a few decades later, the same thinking may come full circle, with the work (and the individual's fame) resurrected once again. As in many scientific fields, as we know more and more about less and less, we loose sight of the important issues. Led to its logical conclusion, one ends up knowing everything about nothing. In medicine, the issue is how does any information presented practically benefit CURRENT practice (patient care). Or is what is being presented 'basic scientific research', which at least theoretically may be useful at a later date? When listening to the history of medicine, we are often feted with useful anecdotes; which served as the catalysts for stumbling on the right thing. Anything else is considered gossip on some of the fore-runners of the field, who are not around to defend themselves.
Re: [Goanet] Young Jesuit Saints
--- On Thu, 8/7/08, Fr. Ivo C da Souza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ***Let me correct the statement: Miracles are assessed by scientific procedures as being extraordinary events, beyond the reach of of physical laws. The above statement is wrong. No scientific procedure is followed by anybody to assess any miracle. No genuine scientific field or study has ever certified any event as extraordinary, and proclaimed such a certification to be a valid scientific procedure. Cheers, Santosh
Re: [Goanet] Young Jesuit Saints
As you can see, the procedure described below is clearly not a scientific procedure of any kind. A committee meeting chaired by a Bishop deciding by a 2/3 majority vote whether something is unexplained or inexplicable based on current knowledge, is possibly the farthest one can get from a scientific procedure. What's more, the fact that the committee members are presumed to be pious Christians, as stated below, with a strong ideological conflict of interest, and a vested desire to continue their hallowed traditions, makes this exercise not even a nominally objective one. The deck is undoubtedly loaded and stacked in favor of affirming their preconceived beliefs. The claim that this is a scientific procedure is therefore laughable by any standard. Cheers, Santosh --- On Fri, 8/8/08, Fr. Ivo C da Souza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This Committee is chaired jointly by the Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes and one of its members nominated by the Bishop for a set period of time which can be renewed. The doctor of Lourdes is the secretary to this committee. This committee makes a judgement about a case. One or more of its members are them charged with examining it in detail and informing himself on all the medical literature published on related subjects... The person charged with the case may consult with colleagues on the outside. Normally the person concerned is not summoned to be present. The Committee meets once a year, in the autumn. They examine the current files. When everything is in place (this can take some time) the Committee decides by way of a vote whether to declare or refuse to confirm that this cure is inexplicable according to present scientific knowledge. A two-third majority is required for an affirmative vote. The medical result is sent to the bishop of the diocese where the cured person lives. The bishop would, naturally, have been kept up to date with the proceedings. If it appears that the result is going to be positive the bishop is advised, in advance, to set up locally a small medical committee who can, at the given moment, consider the conclusions of the Committee. In the light of current events, the Bishop can decide or abstain from recognising the miraculous character of this cure. As Christians, the physicians know that a miracle is a spiritual sign. They don't want to be judges on this matter. Moreover, for a modern mentality, it is difficult to say that something is inexplicable. They can only say that it is unexplained. +Jacques Perrier Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes 17 March 2003
Re: [Goanet] Lourdes Miracles
Many years ago I had written why the bureaucratic procedure of certification of a miracle described in the post below is not a scientific procedure at all. A modified and updated version of my write up is give below: Simply put, any scientific procedure requires that properly blinded and objective researchers obtain quantitative data about the probability of occurrence of the phenomenon under observation in the special condition under study, and then compare this probability with that of its occurrence in a control (properly matched) group of people under appropriately controlled conditions. Since the so-called miracles are by definition rare events, this is a monumental task. In a real scientific procedure one would have to track down at least a large random sample of people suffering from the specific type of disease in question, who have ever made a pilgrimage to Lourdes, and investigate what happened to them. This is obviously extremely difficult to do. But if one could do this, and it turned out that all these other 167,323 individuals were dead or dying from the disease, in spite of undergoing an intensive regimen of prayer or immersion in holy water, then one would have to find out if the tiny probability (let us say 2 out of 167,323) of miraculous recovery from the dreaded disease was significantly higher than the probability of this recovery occurring in a comparable sample of control (properly age-matched, gender-matched, etc) people who had the same disease but did not go to Lourdes for treatment. It should be obvious to those of you who have followed the logic here that if it turns out that two or more individuals from this latter group had also recovered spontaneously from the disease, then no particular benefit from the pilgrimage would be deemed to have occurred. Well, the actual situation is even more complicated than what I have just described, as those with some statistics background would realize. However, the impossibility of performing the above simplified, yet massive, project to scientifically demonstrate that anything extraordinary has occurred, should be fairly plain to most people. The descriptions provided by Fr. Ivo in his last two posts, and all other published information on this miracle business, show that nothing of this nature has ever been done. But suppose you undertake such a genuine scientific project, and it turns out that there are 50 other cases of spontaneous cures in the Lourdes group and only 10 in the control, and the difference is statistically significant. Would we then conclude that we have witnessed extraordinary events or miracles? Would it entail any kind of supernatural explanation at all? Absolutely not! There is a much more parsimonious explanation for this observation. This explanation has been codified in several decades of clinical trial literature as the Placebo effect. It is an umbrella term that groups together all possible psychological and social factors that might emanate from the self-knowledge that something is being done to cure your disease, and from the personal self-confidence that this ritual will cure it. The biological basis of this phenomenon is being currently unraveled, and it won't be long before we know how this occurs exactly, unless the guardians of the unsupported belief in the constricted potential of the human intellect attain their vindication, and this indeed turns out to be their last impenetrable bastion of complacency - of being content with living in a state of blissful ignorance. Cheers, Santosh --- On Fri, 8/8/08, Fr. Ivo C da Souza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Fr.Ivo wrote: Miracles are assessed by scientific procedures as being extraordinary events, beyond the reach of the physical laws. I am giving more information about Lourdes Miracles. Regards. Fr.Ivo Cures and Miracles Near the busy medical bureau is a fascinating photographic display of pilgrims who have been cured, with notes about their conditions.
Re: [Goanet] Fw: Lourdes Miracles
As you can see from the post quoted below, contrary to earlier claims not even a bureaucratic committee meeting was called to certify these incredible miracles, let alone follow any kind of genuine scientific procedure. The supernatural claims made by an individual and her priests were accepted without any independent verification by unbiased expert observers or by any kind of actual tests to ascertain whether real flesh and blood had materialized. Nobody bothered to investigate whether they were human flesh and blood. No samples of the flesh and blood were preserved for a subsequent thorough scientific examination to rule out the very likely possibility of pious fraud, and to establish the validity of not just the immediate extraordinary claims, but indeed the tenability of the entire belief system surrounding them. A real scientific procedure would demand one to find out if the tissue and blood in question matches that of anybody connected with this event, primarily Julia Kim. Scientists would want to know if both X and Y chromosomes were present in the cells from the flesh and in the white blood cells, because of the claim of virgin birth. They would ask that nuclear and mitochondrial DNA be sequenced, so Korean ancestry could be ruled in or out, and the correct geneology be determined. The level of gullibility displayed in the quoted post indicates that the people involved in propagating such miracles do not want their claims to be subjected to real scientific tests, and face the prospect of disillusionment. Cheers, Santosh --- On Sat, 8/9/08, Fr. Ivo C da Souza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ***I am giving here the report of the Eucharistic miracle. We believe in the real presence of the Risen Lord in the Eucharist under the species of bread and wine. Christian faith is not based on miracles. The miracle confirms it. What would be Dr.Santosh's scientific procedure? For my neuroscience this can never happen!... This is laughable! Let us humbly accept the reality. We know how much we do not know! Regards. Fr.Ivo The Eucharistic Miracles
Re: [Goanet] Lourdes Miracles
I was taught that wisdom lies in not saying or making claims about what one does not know. For example, contrary to what the post quoted below says, physicists and cosmologists know that there indeed is chaos in the universe. But more importantly, modern science teaches us that it is foolish to draw premature conclusions from lack of knowledge about something at any given time. Science certainly does not think it is very wise to resort to supernatural or miraculous explanations for the natural universe. Instead, it demands that we continue our honest and dispassionate quest for natural explanations. Cheers, Santosh --- On Sun, 8/10/08, Dr. Ferdinando dos Reis Falcão [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is a saying :A wise man knows what he says, a fool says what he knows. We as medical doctors mostly say what we know from books, literature, journals, and broadcasted news. But do we know what we say? We say if you smoke, it causes cancer, but do we know why Curchill, FidelCastro, and many others never got cancer? We say coconut oil is bad for the heart; did all from the Konkan and Malabar coast die of heart disease for all these centuries? Do scientists know why there is no Chaos in the movement of the Universe.? It is also said : A fool may easily find more faults than a wise man can easily mend.
Re: [Goanet] Fw: Lourdes Miracles
--- On Sun, 8/10/08, Fr. Ivo C da Souza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: How can it be pious fraud? Has Julia Kim done it in the presence of so many people? Has she put hen's meat in her mouth? Is this the scientific explanation? I think as of January 21, 2008 Julia Kim and her followers have been excommunicated by the Archbishop because of the possibility of fraud, and the embarrassment these unruly miraculous events that she is staging, might be causing the Church. He has also forbidden his subordinates and co-religionists from propagating these fake miracles on the internet and through the print media. I guess that would apply to Fr. Ivo as well. Cheers, Santosh --- On Sun, 8/10/08, Fr. Ivo C da Souza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ***The host is turned into flesh and blood as soon as she receives the sacred bread into her mouth. How can it be of Julia Kim? Magic? Common sense would exclude this scientific hypothesis of Dr.Santosh. This has been repeating itself several times in the presence of so many people. The Bishop is a witness. Julia Kim is not a magician, but a simple believer. She believes in the dogma of transsubstantiation. Here is a sign.
Re: [Goanet] Lourdes Miracles
--- On Sun, 8/10/08, Fr. Ivo C da Souza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: His study confirmed that the flesh and blood were of human origin. The flesh was unequivocally cardiac tissue, and the blood was of type AB. The type AB blood means that the owner of the blood was born out of the normal biological union of a man and a woman. The possibilities of pairing of blood types of the father and mother, respectively, were as follows: A and B, A and AB, B and A, B and AB or AB and AB. Cheers, Santosh
Re: [Goanet] Airport Bomb Scare (By Remo Fernandes, The Navhind Times)
--- On Sun, 8/10/08, Rajan P. Parrikar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bravo, Remo, Bravo! I, too, have felt the rage Remo writes about, watching the viral degradation of Goa at the hands of migrants, builders, land sharks, miners - all facilitated by our politicos. What do you expect from a third-rate country that is India? My reaction like that of a few others was exactly the opposite. It is shameful that a prominent Goan is trying to justify his breaking of the law by inciting hatred against non-Goan Indians. I hope there is a groundswell of opposition to such uncivilized activism. Cheers, Santosh
Re: [Goanet] Goan Tolerance
Good to see this thoughtful opposition to the continuing incitement of hatred against non-Goan Indians in all its forms. The solution to Goa's problems is law-abiding Goans. There should be a grass roots campaign to promote honesty in public affairs, and respect for the law, for each other, and for our heritage, rather than whine and complain day in and day out, and blame others for our problems. Cheers, Santosh --- On Tue, 8/12/08, Mario Goveia [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't see increasing numbers - just a small handful of Goans, dreaming of days gone by. The increasing numbers more correctly describe the new-Goans who have discovered the beauty and charm of Goa. There are, in fact, several Goan Identities, each in the eye of its beholders, some of which, like the caste system, continue the damage they have done for centuries and need to be abolished by being shunned in day-to-day decisionmaking.
Re: [Goanet] Goan Tolerance
--- On Tue, 8/12/08, Arwin Mesquita [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Can you put your Anti-Goan identity views on the Goan newspapers; lets see what Goans in Goa have to say about it? I am sure you have the addresses. Arwin, I have copiously expressed my views on Goanet about our many Goan identities and the need to promote the wholesome aspects our culture among Goan Indians and non-Goan Indians. I have also spoken out against your misguided notion of insulating Goa from the rest of the world by inventing a non-existent singular Goan identity. I find Goanet a more convenient medium for public expression. Newspapers are slow. BTW, I am still waiting for you to provide me with a definition of your unique Goan identity. Cheers, Santosh
Re: [Goanet] Goan Tolerance
--- On Wed, 8/13/08, Rajan P. Parrikar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm afraid you will have to wait until the unique Goan cows come home after copiously depositing their their 'views' at the base of electric poles. I guess this is an admission that there is no unique singular Goan identity. This is further clear from the following quote from http://www.parrikar.org/misc/Insiders-Outsiders.pdf; Consider the Goan Identity as a starting point. We may zoom down into this parent Identity and within it locate islets of constituent Identities threaded to it: the Goan Hindu Identity, the Goan Catholic Identity, and so on. We further break down the Goan Hindu Identity into, say, the Bamon Identity, the Daivadnyas, the Gomant Maratha Samaj Identity, etc. You can slice it in directions other than caste or religion. For instance, within the Goan Identity you could tease out the Sashtikaar Identity, the Bardezkaar Identity, etc. Still more Identities may be extracted from these sub-Identities. ...Rajan Parrikar So when he zooms the camera on Arwin's identity, Rajan's identity and Romlo's identity, he finds that they are all very different. The real question is which of these casteist identities Arwin and Rajan want to preserve. Cheers, Santosh
Re: [Goanet] Goan Tolerance
--- On Wed, 8/13/08, Rajan P. Parrikar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So while he rambles on about how there is no unique Goan Identity, he simultaneously seeks comfort here in the embrace and warmth of the very Identity he professes doesn't exist uniquely, namely the Goan Identity. Ignoring the inconsequential emotional remarks in the rest of Rajan's latest post, in the above excerpt, he appears to be confused about the meaning of the words unique and identity! It should be obvious to anybody that there is nothing unique about being part of a mailing list whose members have some association with your place of birth, and there is nothing unique about being born in any place on earth. We also know that the 10,000 or so members of Goanet have tens, if not hundreds, of different identities. Now, as for what he says below, we know that no Kannadiga, Bihari, Andhra or Tamilian has ever been laughed out of town on Goanet, despite being abused by a few Goans like Rajan who happen to believe that they are unique. Cheers, Santosh P.S. I ask Rajan to tell me what similarities (in their many identities) does he see between him and Arwin when he zooms his camera on them, and why is he more different from Vidyadhar than from Arwin. --- On Wed, 8/13/08, Rajan P. Parrikar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Santosh Helekar is here on Goanet and not on BihariNet or AndhraNet or BongNet or TamilNet or KannadaNet for no other reason other than he identifies himself with Goans and the Goan milieu. On all those other *Nets he would be quickly laughed out of town as an outsider.
Re: [Goanet] Take a look...
--- On Fri, 8/15/08, Rajan P. Parrikar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Let me also dispose of another matter - this jejune claim about India becoming a superpower. Are the software supercoolies going to turn us into one? Ha ha ha. This biased emotional utterance is countered by the informed analysis of Goldman Sachs. Please see: http://www2.goldmansachs.com/ideas/brics/book/99-dreaming.pdf Cheers, Santosh
Re: [Goanet] Take a look...
--- On Fri, 8/15/08, Rajan P. Parrikar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a prediction for 1000 years from now - I shall give you a 20% discount if you are interested. Looks like you are easily impressed with Powerpoint charts, graphs and tables. The least you could have done is peddle the latest piddle from Goldman Sachs instead of the one taken in 2003. Here - http://tinyurl.com/6x6dys Leaving the anger management issue aside, it is really amazing that Rajan knows so much about so many things in which he has never been interrogated by a committee of experts - making 1000 year economics predictions, judging the expertise of investment banking consultants, zooming his camera in and out on the identities of insiders and outsiders, etc. And all this without reading, looking at graphs and tables or doing a single google search. He can even get links to internet articles like the ones he has provided above and below without using a search engine. Cheers, Santosh --- On Fri, 8/15/08, Rajan P. Parrikar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What did you do, frantically search Google and shovel the first link that came up? Your trust in the consultants at Goldman Sachs to predict our economic future 5 decades from now is touching. .. A critique by economist Atanu Dey (Atanu works in India, has considerable field experience there. i.e. he doesn't simply blow hot air from distant places like Houston on things he knows nothin' about) - http://www.deeshaa.org/2008/06/22/goldman-sachs-10-point-reform-package-for-india/
Re: [Goanet] Lourdes Miracles
--- On Fri, 8/15/08, Fr. Ivo C da Souza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ***Studies on the blood of Christ have revealed that Jesus had only 23 chromosomes plus one for a male or the additional Y determinant making a total of 24. It would be interesting to find out what it would take to strain the credulity of most people in this forum. It is impossible for a man with 22 autosomes and 2 sex chromosomes to have type AB blood, because the gene (alleles) for A and B antigens are on the 9th pair of chromosomes, each chromosome in the pair being inherited from each parent. So who is lying here? The man who claims Christ had type AB blood or the man who claims he was haploid? BTW, it is not possible to detect chromosomes in old dried blood, and the Shroud of Turin has been repeatedly shown to be a fake. To keep a count of tales that fail the laugh test, we have three so far in this thread, one of whose failure has been certified by Church authorities, namely the Julia Kim fiasco mentioned earlier. Cheers, Santosh --- On Fri, 8/15/08, Fr. Ivo C da Souza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: d. The Flesh and the Blood have the same blood type, AB, which is also the same blood type found on the Shroud of Turin and all other Eucharistic Miracles.
