One of those illuminating voices that I have recently discovered is Dr Rupert Sheldrake, an eminent molecular biologist and free thinker. I would like to briefly share his views with you on the Dogmas inherent in our current Materialistic world view and then offer you a challenge.
Dr Sheldrake decided that there are 10 main dogmas that modern science accepts that when put to Scientific inquiry do not stand up as truths. These dogmas are so inherent in our collective worldview (belief system) that even when we are faced with contradictory evidence or personal experience, we maintain this worldview in order to appear rational and educated. Whereas what is happening in actual fact is that by maintaining a belief that has no basis in fact, we are in actual fact being illogical and stupid.
Here are his ten dogmas and what he likes to do is turn these statements into questions and then see if there is irrefutable scientific evidence to back them up. In his book, The Science Delusion, he demonstrates how each of these dogmas fail to stand up to inquiry.
1. Nature is mechanical or machine like
2. All matter is unconscious
3. The laws or constants of nature are fixed
4. The total amount of matter and energy is always the same
5. Nature is purposeless
6. Biological heredity is material
7. Memories are stored inside your brain
8. Your mind is inside your head
9. Psychic phenomena like telepathy is not possible
10. Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that works
The issue with these dogmas are that they are inhibiting science from being a method of inquiry based on hypothesis, reason, evidence and collective investigation. As science is based solely on the assumption that nature and the universe and everything in it are matter and matter is everything, they are struggling to maintain their dogmatic beliefs in the face of new lines of inquiry into consciousness, quantum theories and para-normal phenomena. Therefore instead of accepting that perhaps the dogmatic belief is incomplete, they fudge data, statistics, experiements, research and hypotheses to justify their beliefs. In this regard science is crippling and constricting itself to discover a more accurate portrayal of reality. A wonderful example of this that Dr Sheldrake shares in his controversial TEDx talk, which you can watch below, is the conversation he had with the head of Metrology in the UK on the subject of the speed of light. This refers to dogma 3 which states that the laws or constants of nature are fixed. Sheldrake discovered on examining raw data that the speed of light dropped significantly (20m/s) during the years 1928 - 1948. When asked how this could happen and if this meant that the constant could actually evolve or change according to variables, he received the answer that he had uncovered a rather emabarrassing event in this Science modality and that they had now fixed the problem by defining the speed of light by definition in 1972. This means that now if the speed of light does change, we will never know becasue the measurements are calibrated to the defined measurement of the speed of light rather than its actual measure. DOH! I find it incredulous that a highly educated and esteemed Science Professor can believe that this solves the problem. This is belief programming at its highest and most stupid!
I have found the same problem when I talk to people about current issues such as cancer treatments, the birth paradigm and the food industry and I find people trotting out programmed beliefs of which there is actually no basis in fact. The most common one that I get about cancer treatments is that there isn't any alternative to Chemo, Radio or Surgery when in fact there are a mulittude of highly effective alternative cancer treatments. I asked one highly educated, highly successful female friend who had breast cancer 5 years ago, whether she changed her diet and her response was "oh no I am not one of those", what does that mean, I am not one of those hippie looney's who thinks that diet has something to do with the health of my body??????? Currently she still takes a highly toxic, highly controversial drug everyday to keep the cancer at bay! Birth is another classic example and when I talk to people about the brilliance of natural home birth, I regularly hear back oh that is ok for you, but hospitals have made birth much safer! Really? My research shows otherwise as maternal and infant mortality rates are on the rise! If I had listened to the birth professionals I would have had three hospital surgical births rather than three natural homebirths! I know that I am grateful everyday that I listened to myself! Most of us know that drugs have many side effects AND we still willingly take them rather than a homeopathic treatment which has no side effects! Why? We have been programmed to believe that mechanistic, chemical medicine is the only one that works, see Dogma 10. The food industry, don't get me started! We see that obesity levels and chronic diseases have risen to epidemic proportions in the last 30 years and we still accept the food industry's disclaimer that it is because we don't do enough exercise rather than all the hidden sugars, chemical additives and unnatural processes that change the quality of the food we eat.
As we say goodbye to another year, I challenge you to examine the boxes that define your beliefs? Do you follow without questions the predominant worldview dominated by unsubstantiated dogmas or do you step outside the box and empower yourself with alternative knowledge?
Go on! You can do it!
STEP OUTSIDE THE BOX
