No More Gods

Ref # 12.
Thanks for the beautiful insights.
Yes our Dr.Sohail is brilliant.
Another psychologist-Sigmund Freud had this to say about
Leonardo- We honor him by trying to learn from him.
Prashant

#11 Posted by jrabamind on
Prashant, If Leonardo did indeed performed surgery of either human body or even just head/skull in search of seat of soul then his case goes to a psychologist, we have one on board here, Sohail:-) Otherwise he might have been interested in anatomy of body or brain and his main interest was not seat of soul.

Technically, people have been capable of understanding that such a search will be futile just by thinking properly and we have had such people in all ages starting from at least 700-800BC in Indian traditions.

But in the same context as the statement -- "those who talk about religion need not be religious" -- it is possible that even if he was sure he won't find anything, he might have attempted such a thing to explain this to people.


[[
You have made me indestructible, for I no longer end in myself.
]]

This is a great statement and an excellent extension of it exists for long, the hindu stuff of "atma" and "paratma" attempts to define this feeling of "no end" for individuals. The whole idea that "soul is neither born nor dies but it comes from an infinite soul and goes back to it", was to give individuals this feeling of "no end" and "infinitely shared existence". At the same time it is beyond reason to refute it, because even if there is no soul, no god, the existence itself has to be infinity and things simply come from it and go back to it.

Unfortunately a good idea is always quite humble and will not need people to fight for it but for the same reason those who need reason to fight will be against such simple ideas.

=====================

To your question
[[
What is it that unites us, what is it that divides us?
]]


one word answer is "ego" (for both unite and divide),


the next question will be, how can you force it to unite only and not to divide, I can answer that probably, but the execution of plan will be a bit difficult and will take long time..

Reference # 10

Thanks to Pinku for having motivated me to do some cross referencing on Leonardo

Well the man did talk about the Soul of things. Here are some excerpts.

Source: Complete Works of Leonardo Da Vinci:
Coordination and introduction by Carlo Pedretti.

Clearly Leonardo was echoing here a famous piece of advice in Dante’s Convivio.
“He who paints a figure, if he cannot be that figure he cannot paint it�

Leonardo the painter is thus capable of being both actor and director, and as the cinema teaches us, an actor or director who interprets a great religious personage or a great religions subject may not necessarily be religious himself. So there is also room for those who continue to maintain that Leonardo was not religious. Their argument is based on a testimony as persuasive as that of Vasari, the principle that is no less than a text by Leonardo himself. On a folio of anatomical studies at Windsor dating from 1510, Leonardo-then approaching the ago of 60-defined the human body as an admirable machine invented by Nature, while instills into it:

‘the soul of which the body is the container, that is the soul of the mother, who first composes in her womb the figure of the man and in due time wakens the soul of which it is the inhabitant, which before remained sleeping and protected by his mother’s soul’

(which he had already hinted at around 1493 –“Avicenna contends that the soul gives birth to the soul, and the body to the body and every other member’). Leonardo concludes with a confession that has become famous:

“This discourse does not belong here, but concerns the composition of animated bodies. And the rest of the definition of the soul I leave to the minds of the friars, fathers of the people, who by inspiration know all of the secrets.�

To which he immediately adds,
“leave the crowned letters alone, because they are the highest truth.�

What has all this got to do with surgeons and their flesh-and-blood worlds, science and life today? Come and see the blood in the streets, Come and see the blood on the streets.(Pablo Neruda).

The perverted interpretation of religion, God, has caused a lot of innocent blood to be spilled, not in the operation theatres but the Streets.

What is it that unites us, what is it that divides us?

In today’s world, the national, religious, regional, linguistic identities have tended to divide and caused a lot of needless suffering. What is it that unites us Workers..?

Talking about the “Soul of Things� ending with the words of Neruda

You have given me brotherhood towards the man I do not know
You have given me the added strength of all those living.
You showed me how one person’s pain could die in the victory of all
You have made me indestructible, for I no longer end in myself.

***

In the present stage of Human development we can be spiritual and caring without being divisive and cruel.

No More Gods!

Prashant Bhatt

#3 Posted by jrabamind on

Thanks for your answer on socrates. But till you mention this extra attachment ofsurgeons to "socratese", a general reader of this general-website may endup feeling that socratese is jumping into context too often and without a warning.


The point about leonardodavinci was, that it might be a fake story as a genius like him would have known that he can'tfind a thing "physically" if he can't define it physically (else anything can be a seat of a non-physical thing, who knows). But more importantly thiests need more convincg statements than what you gave in that para. I normally use the "certainty" thing that i said in earlier post but it goes against athiests as much as it goes against thiests.

Even the statement about ganges can be refuted by any stupid non-verifiable claim, for example "the so called seat of soul - that leonardo da vinci failed to find- when dips in so called holy water of ganges, receives a wave-slap (which is not in radio-wave) which cleans the imprint of old sins and this mechanism is found only in humans as so many other (like extra intellect)". You can add more non-verifiable logic to show why it happens in ganges only...

On another note entirely, patients whinge all the time. If it's not one thing, it's another.

Ref # 7: The patient complained..You can go through the
whole article in suggested link as I did not want to reproduce in to-to what is written somewhere else.

This was the second such complaint against this staff nurse.
Follow-up- She has been reinstated

A thoughtful article. I don't know that I have a lot of sympathy for the nurse you mention although she certainly doesn't deserve suspension, I thought the only doctors and nurses who pray for their patients (and not just as in "Please help me care for and look after all my patients") existed in Hindi films.
I wonder who complained about her?

Ref#4: That was what the HOD of Surgery used to say.
But the second part of the quote is more important
..i.e. A good physician cannot be a good surgeon.
Surgery is not everybody's cup of tea

cheema sahib: "a surgeon is the physician who can operate"

i thought a sturgeon was a fishian that could ovulate.

[[A good surgeon CAN be a good physician.]] CAN?? ... sacrilege!!

actually the old adage goes something like: "a surgeon is the physician who can operate".

I always held that view firmly and never wanted to be anything else

loved your response to the "socrates" question below .. LOL!

Ref #2:You may read-Collected works of Leonardo Da Vinci
to know further.

Regarding Socrates-The word is used as the word SOCRATES has
another meaning for surgeons.
It is the acronym for what to look for pain

S-Site
O-Onset
C-Character
R-Radiation
A-Associated symptoms
T-Timing
E-Exacerbatting/relieving factors
S-Surgical history

But I did not mention it in the main article, as
this is a General Website.

Hope that solves your querry for why Socrates was used.

Scientific spirit is part of the scientific process in which we follow the process of hypothesis, experiments to check or refute the hypothesis and then try to come to a result or conclusion.

Regards
Prashant

First socrates was neither the first nor the last of philosophers but let's assume that socratism is in current context as good as wisdom (though not at all valid, and you used word "socrates" a bit too often)


The para that i reproduced below also seem to be disconnected.

A sure atheist is as good or bad as sure theist as certainty about God doesn't exist and is beyond human reasoning. Basically a good definition of God doesn't exist, except for a definition which assumes the whole thing is God.
Similarly the example of "Leonardo Da Vinci.." stuff doesn't make any sense (almost ridiculous). He might not have attempted any such thing as you can find only a thing that you can define and he would have found it impossible to define seat of spirit (what was he trying to find??).

Further even 2000 years back people did understand that defining God is impossible and any certainty about God is non-existent.

Precisely speaking, there is no scientific spirit, there is only one thing which is truthful approach. You can conclude wrongly even after following observation/hypothesis/repetition stuff of so called scientific spirit. Truthful spirit is as good as not being certain but always willing to explore truths and still accepting what is most reasonable current understanding about anything.


[[

“So you do not believe in God� he asked me one evening, a bit disturbed. He loved reading the wall-magazines which I put up in the department. But now, that he came to realize that appreciating them would somehow mean being ‘atheistic’ he became a bit guarded.

“I would have believed in him 500 or 1000 years ago. But unfortunately, I was born in the 20th century and now live in the 21st.� I smiled.

“Leonardo Da Vinci started dissecting the human brain to find the seat of the soul. He could not. Neither has any radiologist been able to tell me where it is. And I know some very brilliant neuroradiologists who can see subtle sulcation anomalies and heterotopias very well.�

I tapered off the discussion as I knew it would disturb him, just as it used to disturb my father, a doctor, army veteran and pious man who prayed regularly without fail, two times a day when I used to ask him-

“If taking a dip in the river Ganga was going to make you attain purity and heaven, why are the fishes and tortoises of the Ganga not the purest of us all and not already in ‘heaven’?�

When you are in your twenties, you think the whole life is ahead of you and there are many a rebel. But as one reaches mid-fifties, one tries to come to terms with one’s mortality, it is natural that one can try to seek solace in ‘God’.

But I would rather talk about the Human Scientific spirit, which made Darwin discover the Species concept rather than the Genesis theory which suddenly created Adam.

]]

dear prashant...what a wonderful article. full of medical and surgical wisdom. for a surgeon to know when not to operate is great.
a wise therapist knows what not to say and a wise writer knows what not to write.
all the best...sohail