Ellis, good points: I think you are talking about the philosophy of ideas and beliefs, which I agree are there to guide and help us, not to be imposed on us. This why I like the following:
PHYSICIST CUM PHILOSOPHER--Thomas Kuhn. He popularized the term "paradigm shift". I am not sure who first used the term or where I first heard it. But I vaguely remember using this "notable idea" in the mid 1960's. This was, when, with the help of other pioneers of the Family Life Foundation, flfcanada.com, I first started giving a series of lectures (1964.... & Now being podcast), which I soon began to call, PNEUMATOLOGY).
The lectures were based on my university studies about the philosophy and psychology of religion(s) and how they relate, holistically, to what makes us ill, or helps keep us well in body, mind and spirit.
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Quote:
Professor Thomas Kuhn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thomas Samuel Kuhn
Born July 18, 1922
Cincinnati, Ohio
Died June 17, 1996 (aged 73)
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Era 20th-century philosophy
Region Western Philosophy
School Analytic
Main interests Philosophy of science
Notable ideas Paradigm shift
Incommensurability
"Normal" science
Influenced by[show]
Influenced[show]

Thomas Samuel Kuhn (play /ˈkuːn/; July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American historian and philosopher of science whose controversial 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was deeply influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term "paradigm shift," which has since become an English-language staple.

Kuhn has made several notable claims concerning the progress of scientific knowledge: that scientific fields undergo periodic "paradigm shifts" rather than solely progressing in a linear and continuous way; that these paradigm shifts open up new approaches to understanding that scientists would never have considered valid before; and that the notion of scientific truth, at any given moment, cannot be established solely by objective criteria but is defined by a consensus of a scientific community.

Competing paradigms are frequently incommensurable; that is, they are competing accounts of reality which cannot be coherently reconciled. Thus, our comprehension of science can never rely on full "objectivity"; we must account for subjective perspectives as well.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kuhn#Polanyi.E2.80.93Kuhn_debate
About Kuhn's very influential book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions

Last edited by Revlgking; 05/16/12 06:17 PM. Reason: Always good to do
G~O~D--Now & ForeverIS:Nature, Nurture & PNEUMA-ture, Thanks to Warren Farr&ME AT www.unitheist.org