Best of Luck to All!

[Nicolay]

As many of you are nearing the end of the application season and entering a period of waiting -- to be followed by a flurry of acceptances and rejections and often another long period of waiting -- I wanted to wish each and every one of you the best of luck. I hope your plans and dreams for furthering your education will be fulfilled. While wishing that our applications pay off, I hope we all can also keep in mind that there are many kinds of success and lots of interesting paths in life, many of which we haven't discovered yet.

Best wishes!

[Dreams]

Aren't you nice. All of us will need all of the luck we can get if this turns out to be a very competitive season.

[dans595]

It's a zero sum game: wishing us all luck has no net effect!

Just kidding. Thanks for the friendly wish of luck, and my best to you also.

[Minnesotan]

It's a zero sum game: wishing us all luck has no net effect!

Just kidding. Thanks for the friendly wish of luck, and my best to you also.

You forget about karma. Wishing the competition luck should propel the wisher ahead of the game.

[frankdux]

It's a zero sum game: wishing us all luck has no net effect!

that's not necessarily true. if we are all applying to different programs and/or different schools so that we are not in direct competition with each other, then its a positive effect.

[seunghwane]

Well, technically speaking, since we are all educated people here, there is no evidence supporting the validity of things like wishing good will (e.g. praying) having any effect or a even more fuzzy concept such as karma.

But the OP and the readers may feel good from this thread, which has to count for something.

[Minnesotan]

How is karma fuzzier than prayer? I officially pooh-pooh that stance!

[seunghwane]

How is karma fuzzier than prayer? I officially pooh-pooh that stance!

Belief in a universal force that seeks justification?

Come on! What are we, 5?

[Minnesotan]

Belief in a universal force that seeks justification?

Come on! What are we, 5?

Haha!

Genuflecting to a jealous universal force that seeks justification?

Come on! What are we, 4?

[seunghwane]

Haha!

Genuflecting to a jealous universal force that seeks justification?

Come on! What are we, 4?

Come again?

I didn't realize I genuflected to anything.

[Minnesotan]

Prayer is genuflection, submission, groveling to an invisible friend. It's only because religious people have low self-esteem that they make their invisible friends more important than themselves. Suckers!

[storiaitaliana]

Even a simple well-wishing to others has to turn into snotty snark. Jeez.

[miratrix]

"Educated people" = having a BA = knowing religion is stupid? We didn't go over this in college!

[Minnesotan]

Heh... it's always the religious majority who are the first to scream "Persecution!"

I was merely playing along with the comment about karma. If it's okay to denigrate an "exotic" religion or philosophy but not xianity, then forgive me. I didn't realize I had offended the agents of the Grand High Theocrat, once again.

So that I'm straight about the rules, Abrahamic religious rituals cannot be mocked, but Buddhist concepts are fair game?

lol

[miratrix]

Who specified anything about Abrahamic religions vs. Buddhism, or "majority" vs. "exotic'? For all you know, I'm Hindu or Wiccan or Muslim (which is an Abrahamic religion that is a minority, considered exotic, and sometimes subject to persecution in Western countries). Or maybe I'm not religious at all. I'm annoyed by both "those elitist intellectuals!" and "uneducated religious morons!" attitudes because the world is full of religious intellectuals and nonreligious morons, so I couldn't keep my mouth shut about the "we're all educated people...." comment. (And yeah, I know it's all in jest...I'm just arguing for fun here myself!)

[UKbound]

HA! How is a religion that boasts 1.5 billion members a minority? You want an Abrahamic minority religion, go with Judaism (we're sitting pretty at whopping 13 million or so). Of course, we don't waste a lot of time praying for favors--we know that if there is a God, it's not very nice.

Sorry for the digression...I just find it funny that Islam is considered a minority faith.

[seunghwane]

I'm actually an atheist (or a very strong agnostic) so all religion is fair game for criticism as far as I am concerned.

[UKbound]

I'm actually an atheist (or a very strong agnostic) so all religion is fair game for criticism as far as I am concerned.

Likewise. While I certainly consider myself an ethnic Jew (I'm genetically an Ashkenazi Jew and I respect the traditions), the whole God question is just not something I feel any rational person should devote too much time to. I don't, personally, know any Jews who even bother with this issue. Most are basically agnostic, or like my mother, full-blown, hard-core atheists. Frankly, I don't care enough about the God question to even bother with committing to atheism (saying there is NO god opens us up to as many difficulties as saying there is one...you just shift the burden of proof, as in "hey atheist, prove there isn't a God"). I do not, however, have a problem with or feel a need to disabuse persons of faith of their myths. All religion is just a form of collective action at bottom.

[seunghwane]

HA! How is a religion that boasts 1.5 billion members a minority? You want an Abrahamic minority religion, go with Judaism (we're sitting pretty at whopping 13 million or so). Of course, we don't waste a lot of time praying for favors--we know that if there is a God, it's not very nice.

Sorry for the digression...I just find it funny that Islam is considered a minority faith.

Nearly every religion has an inferiority complex.

Everyone wants to be THE persecuted one.

The only valid case, as far as anyone can tell, is in the case of the Jewish people... but then as you explained, to be a Jewish person is also about belonging to an ethnicity.

[UKbound]

Everyone wants to be THE persecuted one.

There certainly do seem to be a lot of not-so-persecuted religions/persons that fall into that category. On the other hand, those that do have a history of genuine religious persecution often just want to put it behind them and move on. With the exception of a handful of extremists, I think most people who have had it bad in the past would prefer to make sure things are better in the present and future, than whine (or kvetch as we say) about being persecuted. Even most modern-day Jews of the kooky variety are more likely to embrace slogans like "never again" than "vengeance is mine."

[Minnesotan]

the world is full of religious intellectuals

I disagree. I think the idea of faith undermines any attempt at being a genuine intellectual. Intellectuals base their conclusions on evidence, whereas faith is the systematic dismantling of systems of evidence and reason. The two are mutually exclusive. You cannot subject knowledge to belief and still consider yourself an intellectual.

The religious intellectual cannot, by definition, exist. More likely, we have a whole lot of misled intellectuals who claim to be religious and misled religious folks who claim to be intellectuals.

[UKbound]

What about those images of the blessed virgin in your toast?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4034787.stm

In all seriousness though, the claim that religious people are not intellectuals is patently ridiculous. In addition to Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, Renee Descartes, Immanuel Kant, and William James who were all religious men, one of the greatest intellects of the 20th century, Einstein, was a man of faith ("God doesn't play dice" ring a bell?). For many, such as William Paley and Blaise Pascal (nevermind all the ID proponents) it is the "evidence" that leads them to God. I think you need to be very careful, and a bit more precise, with your use of the term evidence. For believers, it's all around them. As non-believers, we're really not in much of a position to dispute it. It just doesn't work for us. But to say religious people aren't intellectuals is ....ugh there's not even a moderately polite way to describe what a bigoted and misinformed position that is.

Also, where the heck did you come up with that definition of faith?? Faith is not

the systematic dismantling of systems of evidence and reason.

Are we supposed to simply take that definition on faith? If so, you've basically created a nice little Liar's Paradox for yourself. You certainly can't prove that that is what faith is. Faith is just the belief in ideas that may not be empirically 100% verifiable. Ironically, all of the empirical sciences, being based on induction (there's always the possibility that a purple/black/green swan may show up), rely on faith to some extent. I personally have a great deal of faith... in things like the theory of evolution, quantum mechanics (certainly need a great deal of faith with this one), and the existence of minds.

[storiaitaliana]

I'm with you, miratrix. I don't think a hypertrophied intellect and a withered heart is something to feel superior about, anymore than the opposite would be.

Who specified anything about Abrahamic religions vs. Buddhism, or "majority" vs. "exotic'? For all you know, I'm Hindu or Wiccan or Muslim (which is an Abrahamic religion that is a minority, considered exotic, and sometimes subject to persecution in Western countries). Or maybe I'm not religious at all. I'm annoyed by both "those elitist intellectuals!" and "uneducated religious morons!" attitudes because the world is full of religious intellectuals and nonreligious morons, so I couldn't keep my mouth shut about the "we're all educated people...." comment. (And yeah, I know it's all in jest...I'm just arguing for fun here myself!)

[storiaitaliana]

In all seriousness though, the claim that religious people are not intellectuals is patently ridiculous. In addition to Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, Renee Descartes, Immanuel Kant, and William James who were all religious men, one of the greatest intellects of the 20th century, Einstein, was a man of faith ("God doesn't play dice" ring a bell?). For many, such as William Paley and Blaise Pascal (nevermind all the ID proponents) it is the "evidence" that leads them to God. I think you need to be very careful, and a bit more precise, with your use of the term evidence. For believers, it's all around them. As non-believers, we're really not in much of a position to dispute it. It just doesn't work for us. But to say religious people aren't intellectuals is ....ugh there's not even a moderately polite way to describe what a bigoted and misinformed position that is.

Oh, UKbound, don't you know? You should never let the facts get in the way of good dogma...

[miratrix]

If you think there's no such thing as a religious intellectual, you might find Alister McGrath interesting as a highly educated, intelligent, scientifically trained and accomplished...non-intellectual.

Arguing about religion is one way to while away the time waiting for results....