Conceptual Framework?

My dear friend, Colonel MNT always reminds me of the importance of having our own clear conceptual framework before involving in any serious discourse especially on matters nebulous and ambigious; examples being psychiatry, spirituality and religion. Otherwise "it can get acrimonious and full of verbal embuggerances."

To paraphrase Colonel MNT from one of his inspired postings:

"We have to exercise extraordinary caution, if I may say, in posting on religiosity or spirituality on our network. Personally, I don’t have any hard feeling on the subject because I am a secular humanist who believes that all religions are sick men’s dreams, false – demonstrably false – and pernicious.

To a lot of believers, religion is a compelling primordial sentiment – it stems from the “givens”. It’s self-standing. The others are language, race - a biological concept but in reality its colour of skin, blood ties, region and culture.

If we discuss religion without declaring our conceptual framework, it can get acrimonious and full of verbal embuggrances. The bottom of the network will fall off.

In our conceptual construct, we need to frame what is logos – rational thinking – and mythos – myth, mythology and superstition that embellish a religion to make it viable to those who need it. Are our thoughts from the contexts of the “revealed scriptures” or from philosophies for instance, Buddhism? Can the belief system of God be debated? If there is no God, are we likely to invent Her or Him? Is the monotheistic God rational? In essence, what is your belief system?

At the moment we are facing the dread and mayhem of those who believe without second thought with instantaneous obedience to the twisted precepts of dogmas allegedly from God. This is a strange phenomenon – HE must be a cosmic Saddam Hussein!! The most incredible rationale is to murder yourself so that you will be accepted to a cosmic bordello. Their astral journey to the erotic paradise full of salacious houris creates primordial sentimental conflicts.

If we, like robots obey every single edict of the sacred texts, the world would be full of Christians who love their enemies and turn the other cheek when attacked. When a shithead of whatever religion has decided to do something harmful and murderous, he can find scriptural texts that seem to endorse his bloody action. It’s easier to hoist into his nut a lot of bullshit by an alleged religious teacher if the goon is mentally weak, a marginal man or a deviant.

Pardon me, this network is better off to indulge in the flotsam and jetsam of school nostalgia. It is more hilarious to read that Ms Mary Nallakutty who taught English in Form 2 had thin hairy legs and you cannot balance your tooth-brush on her projection where female’s milk is secreted.

Let’s have love, virtue and compassion and the rest of the wonders of life will cum."

What then is a conceptual framework? Taken separately, the two words seem simple enough. The following is as good as any (though a bit elaborate) that I have been able to trawl from the Net:

What is a conceptual framework?

There are many ways to explain a conceptual framework. It can be any or all of the following:

- A set of coherent ideas or concepts organized in a manner that makes them easy to communicate to others.
- An organized way of thinking about how and why a project takes place,and about how we understand its activities.
- The basis for thinking about what we do and about what it means, influenced by the ideas and research of others.
- An overview of ideas and practices that shape the way work is done in a project.
- A set of assumptions, values, and definitions under which we all work together.

Why do we need a framework when doing research?

A framework can help us to explain why we are doing a project in a particular way. It can also help us to understand and use the ideas of others who have done similar things.

We can use a framework like a travel map. We can read a map, because others before us have come up with common symbols to mark streets, lakes, highways, cities, mountains, rivers, etc...The scale on a map tells us how far apart different places are, so we will get an idea how long it might take us to get from one point to the next. A map also shows us that there may be many different paths that can be taken to get to the same place.

A framework can help us decide and explain the route we are taking: why would we use certain methods and not others to get to a certain point. People might have tried a similar path before and have had different experiences using one road versus another. Or, there may be paths that have never been explored. With a conceptual framework, we can explain why we would try this or that path, based on the experiences of others, and on what we ourselves would like to explore or discover.