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Originally posted by ebor:
The OT Prophets and the 12 Apostles were supposed to be servants not members of an elite club. The Apostles were considered the refuse of the earth.

The fact that Bishops sometimes do not act like servants is an anathema to the Gospel, but that is a topic for another thread...

ebor

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Originally posted by Erin

But to pretend that it's all for the good of humanity and they get nothing out of it... shyeah, as IF.

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but when asked to provide just one little teeny shred of evidence, no one can or is willing to do it.

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Originally posted by musician:
Come on Erin,
you can't seriously believe that extending the brain doesn't make for a more thinking person??

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Actually, along that line, Psyduck's completing a PhD, off his own bat, not for more money, nor a title, but because he reads voraciously, because god's given him an enquiring mind and he wants to set himself a target by using it AMDG.

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Originally posted by Papio:
Do you believe that Bill Gates, Richard Branson, J.P Morgan, Rockefeller and all the other super-rich capitalists you can think of had/have purely altruistic motives? Nor do I. Yet you have frequently stated your belief that their existence and the existence of capitalism in general benifits most people?

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Originally posted by Erin:
I believe that spirituality is much, much more vibrant and alive in the US than it is in the UK,

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.. simply because the state hasn't taken it over and turned it into yet another bureaucracy.

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I believe that forced spirituality is neither beneficial nor valid.

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One thing that I do regret is that you Americans don't either have (relatively) free education, thus opening up more to the less well off or an equivalent to the Open University.

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Where did I say this? I never said this.

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Originally posted by musician:
You asked for specific examples, but when they were given, you trotted (do crocs trot?) to another angle.

What Fr G. said. Why does it have to come to a direct, quantifiable benefit to Me?
There may be many folk with whom you come in contact who are the people they are because of some "obscure degree", although you may not know it, but which shifted their centre away from their own self to give you space to be you.

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Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
It makes social capital a matter of personal consumer choice.

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Father Gregory wrote: I am sorry that you haven't gotten hold of the sublety of my previous post Presleytarian. Do a Google search on the phrase and ask yourself what connections I was trying to make between Sankrit and nuclear war.

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A few points, Fr. G:

1) I've been a professor for 19 years. I'm familiar with The Bhagavad-Gita. I'm familiar with Dr. Robert Oppenheimer. The difference is that I learned about both without picking the taxpayer's pocket.

2) Sweetie, your posts are many things, but "subtle"? I think not.

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Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
Well, that's the end of the debate then.

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My problem, Father Gregory, isn't that your study of Sanskrit doesn't help me. My problem is that your study of Sanskrit doesn't help anybody but you.

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Fr. Gregory wrote: OK professor, then you were being oblique perhaps in not picking up on my allusion which was actually so clear to you (but not evident to me from your reply).

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Papio wrote: There is nothing sinister or immoral about society paying for a service to it's itself (esp as student and profs. are part of society) but to price intelligent people out of education because of some misguided atomistic view is both sinister and immoral.

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Lovin' ya more than lunch, Papio Dear, but a few comments nonetheless:

1) True, there is nothing sinister or immoral about society paying for services. We pay for mail service, trash pick-up, and police protection, just to name a few. What we get in return are our letters delivered, our refuse disposed of, and our 911 (999) calls answered. But what service is being rendered to society by a professional student who expects the rest of us to pick up the tab for his personal indulgence in Sanskrit?

2) Nobody is talking about pricing intelligent people out of an education. It may take some elbow grease, but in the US at least, there are numerous public colleges that students can attend at a low cost. Work-study programs make it even easier to pay one's own way -- which is what I did.

3) How 'bout doing society the service of grasping the difference between "it's" and "its"?

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then you're a drain on society and your ivy-league security blanket

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Originally posted by musician:
In the UK, you'd only ever get state help for a first degree, and that help's diminishing rapidly.

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
But then, maybe people are saying my PhD had no value to society either.

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Originally posted by Presleyterian:
It seems to me, Dr. A, that the benefit of an advanced degree isn't in the various research skills it imparts. It's what one can actually do with it <snip> You may save lives by detecting radioactivity after a Three Mile Island-type episode or by making existing plants safer.

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Originally posted by Erin:
I'd have to go with Presleyterian on this one. The value of the contributions of a nuclear physicist and a Sanskrit expert are several orders of magnitude apart.

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Originally posted by Erin:
Right. Fine, then, don't tell me.

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So, it's now alright for me to branch out once you're interested?

OK, a translation of "experimental investigation of many-body quantum mechanics" into something closer to English. Quantum theory produces equations with exact solutions for two bodies (say, an electron orbiting a nucleus). But as the number of bodies increases the complexity of the equations makes an exact solution impossible. As a result a variety of approximations to these many-body problems are used. To test how good these models are, and when is the best situation to use each, it's necessary to collect some experimental data from many-body systems described by quantum mechanics. One of these systems is the atomic nucleus, composed of a large number of bodies (protons and neutrons). My PhD involved collecting a very small amount of data for such purposes, though not enough to conclusively prove much.

Did this benefit society in any great way?

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Originally posted by Erin:
At any rate... I think that knowledge for knowledge's sake IS a luxury. That is not a value judgment, it's a statement of fact. Food, clothing, shelter -- those are needs. Going a bit up the food chain, anything that has as its ultimate goal the physical saving of humans or humanity (be it medicine or geology or whatever kind of science will determine whether or not we ever stand a chance of getting off this rock before the sun dies) is a need. Not an immediate need in some cases, but a need nonetheless.

While the study of humanities may enrich our lives (and I don't think anyone has denied that), I can't see where we would literally die without them. Yeah, life would blow if I could never read another book or listen to another piece of music, but life will END if I don't eat or get in out of the cold or get vaccinated.

That's where I draw the distinction. To be honest, I don't think study of humanities or most subjects, for that matter, are as important as the study of medicine, biology and ecology. We currently have SO MUCH physical suffering in this world that I believe that should be society's highest and chief priority.

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I think I may have found part of the problem we are having. Erin, you have drawn the distinction in a different place from Fr. G and myself, as well as several others. The problem, for you, is that we have modern psychology to back us up (since it is a social science I am hoping that you are not discounting it as well ).

Maslow's Hierarchy of needs states that the basics you described: food, drink, shelter, etc., are the essentials. However, once those needs are met, there becomes a need for safety, after that belongingness and love, and then self-esteem. Each of these must be met before moving on to the next level. And they are all needs. The highest need, according to Maslow's model, is the need for Transcendence.

Yes, there are a lot of people in the world that lack those basic needs, but they are not the only needy ones. Just by being participants on this forum we all demonstrate the need to know and understand. Those of us who have met the basic needs have an obligation to help those who don't (as Jesus pointed out so eloquently). However, the fact that we have these higher order inate needs indicates that in some way we are intended to meet them. The Humanities are a part of how we do that. This is where the discussion of elitism comes in. It is easy, and entirely too common, for people pursuing such higher order needs to place themselves on a pedestal and claim superiority. However, without the people working and supporting them by making sure their lower level needs are met, these people would not have leg to stand on, let alone a pedestal. Society needs both types of people in order to make sure that the needs of all people are met. In fact, society as we know it would not exist without people pursuing the higher order needs (i.e. the "Founding Fathers" of the US) as well as the more basic needs (i.e. the soldiers fighting for the more basic need of freedom (no offense to my friends across the pond)).

I would hope that knowledge is never for knowledge's sake. For me knowledge is for the sake of my relationship with God, and springing from that, my realtionship with the rest of humanity. You are right that our chief priorities must be meeting the basic physical needs of the people that lack the basics, but in order to do that, some of the higher order needs must be met. I would cite history as an example, but that's boring .

[Edited UBB in quote for clarity]

[ 11. January 2004, 23:23: Message edited by: Duo Seraphim ]

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"Preach the gospel to the whole world, and if necessary, use words." -St. Francis of Assisi

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Originally posted by Louise:
Please tell me what's arcane about producing books, exhibitions, training and history programmes for an eager public who take a keen interest in their country?

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