HEADLINE: Thief Steals Poop From Woman Walking Dog
"The hunt is on for a turd burglar. Police in San Diego are searching for a gunman who swiped a bag of poop from a woman out walking her dog.
The woman told police that she was out walking her dog, Misty, on Monday night when a man in his 20s ran up behind her and grabbed the bag she was holding.When the gunman discovered what was in it, he threw it down in disgust, pointed his gun at the 32-year-old woman and demanded money, San Diego police detective Gary Hassen said.He then aimed his .22-caliber semiautomatic at Misty and pulled the trigger twice but the gun didn't fire, Hassen said.The robber ran to a waiting small, silver car and fled the scene, police said."
(Associated Press
March 31, 2005 Thursday 7:41 AM Eastern Time
SECTION: DOMESTIC NEWS)
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Cool...
"A paralysed man in the US has become the first person to benefit from a brain chip that reads his mind. Matthew Nagle, 25, was left paralysed from the neck down and confined to a wheelchair after a knife attack in 2001.
. . . .pioneering surgery at New England Sinai Hospital, Massachusetts, last summer means he can now control everyday objects by thought alone.
The brain chip reads his mind and sends the thoughts to a computer to decipher.
He can think his TV on and off, change channels and alter the volume thanks to the technology and software linked to devices in his home.
. . . ."
(The BBC News)
It sounds so simple in their report. But technology and software like that cannot be very simple.
. . . .pioneering surgery at New England Sinai Hospital, Massachusetts, last summer means he can now control everyday objects by thought alone.
The brain chip reads his mind and sends the thoughts to a computer to decipher.
He can think his TV on and off, change channels and alter the volume thanks to the technology and software linked to devices in his home.
. . . ."
(The BBC News)
It sounds so simple in their report. But technology and software like that cannot be very simple.
Shhh....
Is that the mysterious frog-bird? This avian ancestor may have evolved from a population of frogs jumping away from predators. It may have happened a little like this, "Once upon a time there were some frogs hopping around. They had to hop away from some herons who ate frogs. In the process, some got eaten and some did not. Those that did not get eaten began to grow one lil' feather , then another! Their lungs began to change, one little cell at a time, into an avian lung. Well, let's just skip the details...eventually they morphed into birds and flew, flew on away!"
Just look at the picture of frog-bird, it is like ape-man.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Two books I plan to read sometime.
The first,
(Eugenics and Other Evils: An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized Society
By G.K. Chesterton
(With Additional Articles by his Eugenic and Birth Control Opponents
Edited by Michael W. Perry)
I have never read one of Chesterton's books. I've only seen various quotes. So I think I may read it soon.
From the foreword of that book,
"If you haven’t already, you’ll soon discover that Chesterton was a marvelous writer and that this book ranks among his masterpieces. When it first came out, his foes were forced to concede, through clenched teeth, that in him they faced an opponent who knew how to use pen and humor with great skill.
[. . . .]
Why have I chosen to devote a quarter of this book to the writings of his opponents? Because I want Chesterton to get proper credit for his great achievement. He wrote in the heat of battle, when the debate over eugenics was at its fiercest. And it is easy to suspect that he wrote much of this book in drafty rail stations rather in the warmth of a well-equipped study. Yet no scholar alive has done as much to expose that strange blend of silliness, scientific bigotry and politically correct arrogance which once went by the proud name of eugenics. It will also help you understand why, when Chesterton suggests to eugenists that they study mixtures of races, he is taunting their bigotry and pretensions of racial superiority.
Even more important, as a writer he stood virtually alone against a juggernaut that threatened to sweep all before it. In 1924, a eugenist could speak proudly of a scholarly bibliography listing thousands of articles on eugenic-related topics (see Appendix D). Today, eugenics has few open friends (though many secret admirers). But when Chesterton wrote its ranks were a virtually ‘who’s who’ of the respectable and powerful. Apart from him, almost no one of importance spoke out against it. If you doubt that, visit any university library and look for other book-length criticisms of eugenics from his era.
When two friends of yours marry or when they become proud parents, you should thank Chesterton that neither of those wonderful events required the approval of experts. Think I am exaggerating? Then read this book’s nine appendices. And if you feel that nothing they were advocating would have become law, look at the United States during the 1920s. In 1924, our immigration laws were revised to exclude from our shores the very groups that birth controllers and eugenists were blasting as biologically inferior—Eastern and Southern Europeans (particularly Jews and Italian Catholics). And in 1927, to deal with an alleged threat from those already here, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a vote of eight to one, ruled that forced sterilization was constitutional."
How surprising!
From the back cover,
"The thing that really is trying to tyrannise through government is Science. The thing that really does use the secular arm is Science. And the creed that really is levying tithes and capturing schools, the creed that really is enforced by fine and imprisonment, the creed that really is proclaimed not in sermons but in statutes, and spread not by pilgrims but by policemen--that creed is the great but disputed system of thought which began with Evolution and has ended in Eugenics."
Chesterton, 1922
His critics,
"His tendency is reactionary, and as he succeeds in making most people laugh, his influence in the wrong direction is considerable."
Birth Control News, Oct. 1922
"The only interest in this book is pathological. It is a revelation of the ineptitude to which ignorance and blind prejudice may reduce an intelligent man."
Eugenics Review, Apr. 1923
Another book I plan to read sometime.
(War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's
Campaign to Create a Master Race
By Edwin Black)
I just finished this book,
(The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth
By Gerald L. Schroeder)
It was a good book. I guess I can't recommend it unless you are already familiar with terms used in science and philosophy.
(Eugenics and Other Evils: An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized Society
By G.K. Chesterton
(With Additional Articles by his Eugenic and Birth Control Opponents
Edited by Michael W. Perry)
I have never read one of Chesterton's books. I've only seen various quotes. So I think I may read it soon.
From the foreword of that book,
"If you haven’t already, you’ll soon discover that Chesterton was a marvelous writer and that this book ranks among his masterpieces. When it first came out, his foes were forced to concede, through clenched teeth, that in him they faced an opponent who knew how to use pen and humor with great skill.
[. . . .]
Why have I chosen to devote a quarter of this book to the writings of his opponents? Because I want Chesterton to get proper credit for his great achievement. He wrote in the heat of battle, when the debate over eugenics was at its fiercest. And it is easy to suspect that he wrote much of this book in drafty rail stations rather in the warmth of a well-equipped study. Yet no scholar alive has done as much to expose that strange blend of silliness, scientific bigotry and politically correct arrogance which once went by the proud name of eugenics. It will also help you understand why, when Chesterton suggests to eugenists that they study mixtures of races, he is taunting their bigotry and pretensions of racial superiority.
Even more important, as a writer he stood virtually alone against a juggernaut that threatened to sweep all before it. In 1924, a eugenist could speak proudly of a scholarly bibliography listing thousands of articles on eugenic-related topics (see Appendix D). Today, eugenics has few open friends (though many secret admirers). But when Chesterton wrote its ranks were a virtually ‘who’s who’ of the respectable and powerful. Apart from him, almost no one of importance spoke out against it. If you doubt that, visit any university library and look for other book-length criticisms of eugenics from his era.
When two friends of yours marry or when they become proud parents, you should thank Chesterton that neither of those wonderful events required the approval of experts. Think I am exaggerating? Then read this book’s nine appendices. And if you feel that nothing they were advocating would have become law, look at the United States during the 1920s. In 1924, our immigration laws were revised to exclude from our shores the very groups that birth controllers and eugenists were blasting as biologically inferior—Eastern and Southern Europeans (particularly Jews and Italian Catholics). And in 1927, to deal with an alleged threat from those already here, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a vote of eight to one, ruled that forced sterilization was constitutional."
How surprising!
From the back cover,
"The thing that really is trying to tyrannise through government is Science. The thing that really does use the secular arm is Science. And the creed that really is levying tithes and capturing schools, the creed that really is enforced by fine and imprisonment, the creed that really is proclaimed not in sermons but in statutes, and spread not by pilgrims but by policemen--that creed is the great but disputed system of thought which began with Evolution and has ended in Eugenics."
Chesterton, 1922
His critics,
"His tendency is reactionary, and as he succeeds in making most people laugh, his influence in the wrong direction is considerable."
Birth Control News, Oct. 1922
"The only interest in this book is pathological. It is a revelation of the ineptitude to which ignorance and blind prejudice may reduce an intelligent man."
Eugenics Review, Apr. 1923
Another book I plan to read sometime.
(War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's
Campaign to Create a Master Race
By Edwin Black)
I just finished this book,
(The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth
By Gerald L. Schroeder)
It was a good book. I guess I can't recommend it unless you are already familiar with terms used in science and philosophy.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
A reply to a liberal on the Shiavo case...
Not that sound history and philosophy matter, as far as liberals go. They are too narcissistic to understand much of the metaphysical, as are most Americans. The reaction of most Americans to such a case is to personalize it all and make it subjective. "Well I would not want to live that way." And so on. It's all about them. Radical individualism has always been an American tradition...
"Second, tragic though it is, Terri’s mind died that day."
Neuroscientists have not mapped all of consciousness to the physical brain. Instead what is observed is that the metaphysical mind can rewire the physical brain to make new connections, sometimes even working around damage. It's true that the brain is to some degree hard wired. But your brain is also up to you, to a degree. To a degree you are in charge of wiring it. This is what is observed empirically. And fundamentally, at the quantuum level there is an indeterminacy to matter itself, that which the physical brain is made of. The pretense by any neuroscientist that they can make fundamental determinations about a brain is false to a degree and plainly wrong at a fundamental level.
Note in this case that there are many doctors who have the same tendency of the Nazi doctors (See: The Nazi Doctors: Medicine and the Psychology of Genocide, by Robert Lifton). They have a policy motivation in pretending that they can determine all things with respect to cognition, consciousness and what "life" is. In the end it is pretty simple, proto-Nazis want to kill the cognitively disabled. They always have, always will. That is all there is to it. Thus, their various contradictions. It is not as if Nazi ideas appeared with Nazism, or disappeared with its defeat. Subpaganism goes back much farther and has always been based on a crass naturalistic view of man leading into survival of the fittest.
"Third, there have been no less than 34 legal proceedings."
They were all based on the first finding of facts under judge Greer, who received campaign contributions from George Felos, Michael Shiavo's attorney. And so on. This case is dark and reeks of corruption. How is it that so many affidavits keep getting signed, more testimony provided as to Terri's condition? Why does the Old Press try to deconstruct Terri's parents by pointing to their religious motivation yet they fail to point to the motivations of the "experts" and doctors? It seems that is the way the Old Press fits things into their scripts, science on one side (doctors, supposed experts) and religion (her religious parents, family) on the other. How many times will they mention that her parents are Roman Catholic? Yet they fail to highlight the proto-Nazi tendencies of the bioethicists, "experts" and the like. They accept their views and do not challenge them.
It's possible to go on in deconstructing the supposed case made on the Left for starving and dehydrating the cognitively disabled to death in this instance. Yet it seems that American "liberals" have won in this case. Perhaps they have won in general too. One has to wonder about the polls of Americans on this case, if they are really so stupid and ignorant. Still, politically it is doubtful that liberals will get anything out of their "success" in this case. They may establish a few precedents about killing the disabled by defining the disabled in certain ways through the Judiciary so that they can then be starved. One might think that people for disabled rights will rise up and prevent that. How absurd, they will do so in the same way that the pro-life movement has risen up and overcome the entire Judicial branch. I.e., they won't. It is not so easy to do. And in the end, one has to wonder if there is any way to overcome textual degenerates who will say a text means pretty much anything.
Well, Congress will check them....no, they won't either. They're in the same situation. Most Americans think they are just politicians, all just a bunch of grandstanding and corrupt politicians while at the same time many Americans are stupid and igorant enough to have a high opinion of the Judiciary. There are enough that seem content to have a new oligarchy make all their discriminations for them. There are enough to drag the rest into the tyranny of the Judiciary that Jefferson predicted.
(Original reply edited...and now edited again...)
"Second, tragic though it is, Terri’s mind died that day."
Neuroscientists have not mapped all of consciousness to the physical brain. Instead what is observed is that the metaphysical mind can rewire the physical brain to make new connections, sometimes even working around damage. It's true that the brain is to some degree hard wired. But your brain is also up to you, to a degree. To a degree you are in charge of wiring it. This is what is observed empirically. And fundamentally, at the quantuum level there is an indeterminacy to matter itself, that which the physical brain is made of. The pretense by any neuroscientist that they can make fundamental determinations about a brain is false to a degree and plainly wrong at a fundamental level.
Note in this case that there are many doctors who have the same tendency of the Nazi doctors (See: The Nazi Doctors: Medicine and the Psychology of Genocide, by Robert Lifton). They have a policy motivation in pretending that they can determine all things with respect to cognition, consciousness and what "life" is. In the end it is pretty simple, proto-Nazis want to kill the cognitively disabled. They always have, always will. That is all there is to it. Thus, their various contradictions. It is not as if Nazi ideas appeared with Nazism, or disappeared with its defeat. Subpaganism goes back much farther and has always been based on a crass naturalistic view of man leading into survival of the fittest.
"Third, there have been no less than 34 legal proceedings."
They were all based on the first finding of facts under judge Greer, who received campaign contributions from George Felos, Michael Shiavo's attorney. And so on. This case is dark and reeks of corruption. How is it that so many affidavits keep getting signed, more testimony provided as to Terri's condition? Why does the Old Press try to deconstruct Terri's parents by pointing to their religious motivation yet they fail to point to the motivations of the "experts" and doctors? It seems that is the way the Old Press fits things into their scripts, science on one side (doctors, supposed experts) and religion (her religious parents, family) on the other. How many times will they mention that her parents are Roman Catholic? Yet they fail to highlight the proto-Nazi tendencies of the bioethicists, "experts" and the like. They accept their views and do not challenge them.
It's possible to go on in deconstructing the supposed case made on the Left for starving and dehydrating the cognitively disabled to death in this instance. Yet it seems that American "liberals" have won in this case. Perhaps they have won in general too. One has to wonder about the polls of Americans on this case, if they are really so stupid and ignorant. Still, politically it is doubtful that liberals will get anything out of their "success" in this case. They may establish a few precedents about killing the disabled by defining the disabled in certain ways through the Judiciary so that they can then be starved. One might think that people for disabled rights will rise up and prevent that. How absurd, they will do so in the same way that the pro-life movement has risen up and overcome the entire Judicial branch. I.e., they won't. It is not so easy to do. And in the end, one has to wonder if there is any way to overcome textual degenerates who will say a text means pretty much anything.
Well, Congress will check them....no, they won't either. They're in the same situation. Most Americans think they are just politicians, all just a bunch of grandstanding and corrupt politicians while at the same time many Americans are stupid and igorant enough to have a high opinion of the Judiciary. There are enough that seem content to have a new oligarchy make all their discriminations for them. There are enough to drag the rest into the tyranny of the Judiciary that Jefferson predicted.
(Original reply edited...and now edited again...)
Monday, March 28, 2005
Windsurfing
It is getting to be about that time. An index of old pictures,
Water start
Coming into jibe
Jibing, with rainbow
Jibe, finish
Jibe, blog profile picture
Trying to get photographer
Picture and small video
Windsurf, then dinner!
Water start
Coming into jibe
Jibing, with rainbow
Jibe, finish
Jibe, blog profile picture
Trying to get photographer
Picture and small video
Windsurf, then dinner!
Sunday, March 27, 2005
George Washington, on Providence and purpose...
"It is not a little pleasing, nor less wonderful to contemplate, that after two years Manoeuvring and undergoing the strangest vicissitudes that perhaps ever attended any one contest since the creation both Armies are brought back to the very point they set out from and, that that, which was the offending party in the beginning is now reduced to the use of the spade and pick axe for defence. The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations, but, it will be time enough for me to turn preacher, when my present appointment ceases...."
(George Washington to Thomas Nelson Jr., August 20, 1778)
An alternative....
Liberals for Terri, I wanted to point out that there are some liberals that do not immediately fall into typical liberal scripts and emotional conditioning.
Saturday, March 26, 2005
The compassion of American liberals...
Watch out, it may kill you. But don't worry, according to liberals you will be better off dead! It's all about you and your welfare, don't you know?
"What am I going to do Cheryl, I am watching them kill my daughter and I am not allowed to help her?" Terri Shiavo's mother
Doesn't she understand that Terri would want her to have to stand by as she is starved to death? For the liberals and their Judiciary it is all about what Terri would want and choose. Apparently it is obvious to them that she would want and choose the rejection of the love of her mother and family in favor of a dignified death of starvation. These choices that liberals protect are reminiscent of their protection of pregnant teenagers from their parents. For how the liberals know that they must protect the right to choose, lest a mother impose her personal views of love and compassion in favor of her daughter's or grandaughter's life!
I did not think they would win on this case. But it seems that they did.
Ah, these American "liberals," mostly effeminate men or masculine women. Often, the men are feminists and the women are masculinists. In such inversions and perversions "love" comes to be little more than the moral vanity of narcissists. That is their sort of effete compassion.
(Don't read a bunch of feelings into these words. I am not angry, etc., although perhaps I should be! I am only trying to call that which is this, this and that which is that, that. That way Good and Evil can become clear for all who have the eyes to see. If you think you see something wrong in what I write, try to correct it. I could be wrong.)
"What am I going to do Cheryl, I am watching them kill my daughter and I am not allowed to help her?" Terri Shiavo's mother
Doesn't she understand that Terri would want her to have to stand by as she is starved to death? For the liberals and their Judiciary it is all about what Terri would want and choose. Apparently it is obvious to them that she would want and choose the rejection of the love of her mother and family in favor of a dignified death of starvation. These choices that liberals protect are reminiscent of their protection of pregnant teenagers from their parents. For how the liberals know that they must protect the right to choose, lest a mother impose her personal views of love and compassion in favor of her daughter's or grandaughter's life!
I did not think they would win on this case. But it seems that they did.
Ah, these American "liberals," mostly effeminate men or masculine women. Often, the men are feminists and the women are masculinists. In such inversions and perversions "love" comes to be little more than the moral vanity of narcissists. That is their sort of effete compassion.
(Don't read a bunch of feelings into these words. I am not angry, etc., although perhaps I should be! I am only trying to call that which is this, this and that which is that, that. That way Good and Evil can become clear for all who have the eyes to see. If you think you see something wrong in what I write, try to correct it. I could be wrong.)
Friday, March 25, 2005
Supernatural?
"I have known only one person in my life who claimed to have seen a ghost. It was a woman; and the interesting thing is that she disbelieved in the immortality of the soul before seeing the ghost and still disbelieves after having seen it. She thinks it was a hallucination. In other words, seeing is not believing. This is the first thing to get clear in talking about miracles. Whatever experiences we may have, we shall not regard them as miraculous if we already hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural. Any event which is claimed as a miracle is, in the last resort, an experience received from the senses; and the senses are not infallible. We can always say we have been the victims of an illusion; if we disbelieve in the supernatural this is what we always shall say. Hence, whether miracles have really ceased or not, they would certainly appear to cease in Western Europe as materialism became the popular creed. For let us make no mistake. If the end of the world appeared in all the literal trappings of the Apocalypse, if the modern materialist saw with his own eyes the heavens rolled up and the great white throne appearing, if he had the sensation of being himself hurled into the Lake of Fire, he would continue forever, in that lake itself, to regard his experience as an illusion and to find the explanation of it in psycho-analysis, or cerebral pathology. Experience by itself proves nothing. If a man doubts whether he is dreaming or waking, no experiment can solve his doubt, since every experiment may itself be part of the dream. Experience proves this, or that, or nothing, according to the preconceptions we bring to it.
This fact, that the interpretation of experiences depends on preconceptions, is often used as an argument against miracles. It is said that our ancestors, taking the supernatural for granted and greedy of wonders, read the miraculous into events that were really not miracles. And in a sense I grant it. That is to say, I think that just as our preconceptions would prevent us from apprehending miracles if they really occurred, so their preconceptions would lead them to imagine miracles even if they did not occur. In the same way, the doting man will think his wife faithful when she is not and the suspicious man will not think her faithful when she is: the question of her actual fidelity remains, meanwhile, to be settled, if at all, on other grotmds. But there is one thing often said about our ancestors which we must not say. We must not say ‘They believed in miracles because they did not know the Laws of Nature.’ This is nonsense. When St Joseph discovered that his bride was pregnant, he was ‘minded to put her away’. He knew enough biology for that.
. . . . .
The experience of a miracle in fact requires two conditions. First we must believe in a normal stability of nature, which means we must recognize that the data offered by our senses recur in regular patterns. Secondly, we must believe in some reality beyond Nature. When both beliefs are held, and not till then, we can approach with an open mind the various reports which claim that this super- or extra-natural reality has sometimes invaded and disturbed the sensuous content of space and time which makes our ‘natural’ world. The belief in such a supernatural reality itself can neither be proved nor disproved by experience. The arguments for its exist ence are metaphysical, and to me conclusive. They turn on the fact that even to think and act in the natural world we have to assume something beyond it and even assume that we partly belong to that something. In order to think we must claim for our own reasoning a validity which is not credible if our own thought is merely a function of our brain, and our brains a by-product of irrational physical processes. In order to act, above the level of mere impulse, we must claim a similar validity for our judgments of good and evil. In both cases we get the same disquieting result. The concept of nature itself is one we have reached only tacitly by claiming a sort of super-natural status for ourselves.If we frankly accept this position and then turn to the evidence, we find, of course, that accounts of the supernatural meet us on every side. History is full of them---of ten in the same documents which we accept wherever they do not report miracles. Respectable missionaries report them not infrequently. The whole Church of Rome claims their continued occurrence. Intimate conversation elicits from almost every acquaintance at least one episode in his life which is what he would call ‘queer’ or ‘rum’. No doubt most stories of miracles are unreliable; but then, as anyone can see by reading the papers, so are most stories of all events. Each story must be taken on its merits: what one must not do is to rule out the supernatural as the one impossible explanation."
(The Timeless Writings of C.S. Lewis: God in the Dock :312-313)
This fact, that the interpretation of experiences depends on preconceptions, is often used as an argument against miracles. It is said that our ancestors, taking the supernatural for granted and greedy of wonders, read the miraculous into events that were really not miracles. And in a sense I grant it. That is to say, I think that just as our preconceptions would prevent us from apprehending miracles if they really occurred, so their preconceptions would lead them to imagine miracles even if they did not occur. In the same way, the doting man will think his wife faithful when she is not and the suspicious man will not think her faithful when she is: the question of her actual fidelity remains, meanwhile, to be settled, if at all, on other grotmds. But there is one thing often said about our ancestors which we must not say. We must not say ‘They believed in miracles because they did not know the Laws of Nature.’ This is nonsense. When St Joseph discovered that his bride was pregnant, he was ‘minded to put her away’. He knew enough biology for that.
. . . . .
The experience of a miracle in fact requires two conditions. First we must believe in a normal stability of nature, which means we must recognize that the data offered by our senses recur in regular patterns. Secondly, we must believe in some reality beyond Nature. When both beliefs are held, and not till then, we can approach with an open mind the various reports which claim that this super- or extra-natural reality has sometimes invaded and disturbed the sensuous content of space and time which makes our ‘natural’ world. The belief in such a supernatural reality itself can neither be proved nor disproved by experience. The arguments for its exist ence are metaphysical, and to me conclusive. They turn on the fact that even to think and act in the natural world we have to assume something beyond it and even assume that we partly belong to that something. In order to think we must claim for our own reasoning a validity which is not credible if our own thought is merely a function of our brain, and our brains a by-product of irrational physical processes. In order to act, above the level of mere impulse, we must claim a similar validity for our judgments of good and evil. In both cases we get the same disquieting result. The concept of nature itself is one we have reached only tacitly by claiming a sort of super-natural status for ourselves.If we frankly accept this position and then turn to the evidence, we find, of course, that accounts of the supernatural meet us on every side. History is full of them---of ten in the same documents which we accept wherever they do not report miracles. Respectable missionaries report them not infrequently. The whole Church of Rome claims their continued occurrence. Intimate conversation elicits from almost every acquaintance at least one episode in his life which is what he would call ‘queer’ or ‘rum’. No doubt most stories of miracles are unreliable; but then, as anyone can see by reading the papers, so are most stories of all events. Each story must be taken on its merits: what one must not do is to rule out the supernatural as the one impossible explanation."
(The Timeless Writings of C.S. Lewis: God in the Dock :312-313)
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Mind and matter...
"The easy part of that question deals with the brain. Wiggle your toes. Feel them? But where do you feel them? Not in your toes. Toes feel nothing. You feel them in your brain. Anyone who has had the misfortune of having a limb amputated can tell you how the missing limb continues to be felt—in the brain. The brain has within it maps of the body that record every sensation and then project that sensation onto the mental image of the relevant body part. But it certainly feels like I’m feeling my toes in my toes. And it is not just the toes. The entire reality, what we see and what we feel, what we smell and what we hear, is mapped in the brain and then those recorded sensations reach out to our consciousness from within the two-to-four-millimeter (about one-eighth-inch) thin wrinkled gray layer, the cerebral cortex, that rests at the top of each of our brains. There is a reality out there in the world, but what we experience—every touch and every sound, every sight, smell and taste—arises in our heads. All our mental images, fantasy or factual, are built on our life’s experiences and these are totally physically based. Pure abstraction, even in mathematics, is more than difficult. It is impossible. Even numbers and symbols of calculus take on mental forms.
Through the dedicated and precise work of extraordinarily skilled scientists we now know how and where in the brain each of our sensations is processed and stored. That has been mapped to near perfection. And I explore those maps in the coming chapters. The processes are nothing less that mind-boggling.
And then comes the hard part of the hard question: the sound of music. The waves of sound impinge upon my eardrum and in a beautifully complex path become converted to bio electrical pulses that are chemically stored in the cortex of my brain. (We’ll look at that path in detail.) But how do I hear the sound? Up to and including the storage of the data in the brain, it’s all biochemistry. But I don’t hear biochemistry. I hear sound. Where’s the sound generated in my head? Or the vision; or the smell? Where’s the consciousness? Just which of those formerly inert atoms of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and on and on, in my head have become so clever that they can produce a thought or reconstitute an image? How those stored biochemical data points are recalled and replayed into sentience remains an enigmatic mystery.
Organization separates living matter from what we perceive as inert, lifeless matter. But there is no innate physical difference between the atoms before and after they organize, learn to take energy from their surrounding environment, and become, as a group, alive. However there is what appears to be a qualitative transition between the awesome biochemistry by which the brain physically records the incoming data and the conscious ness by which we become aware of that stored information. In that passage from brain to mind we may be looking for a physical link that does not exist."
(The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth
By Gerald L. Schroeder :5-6)
Through the dedicated and precise work of extraordinarily skilled scientists we now know how and where in the brain each of our sensations is processed and stored. That has been mapped to near perfection. And I explore those maps in the coming chapters. The processes are nothing less that mind-boggling.
And then comes the hard part of the hard question: the sound of music. The waves of sound impinge upon my eardrum and in a beautifully complex path become converted to bio electrical pulses that are chemically stored in the cortex of my brain. (We’ll look at that path in detail.) But how do I hear the sound? Up to and including the storage of the data in the brain, it’s all biochemistry. But I don’t hear biochemistry. I hear sound. Where’s the sound generated in my head? Or the vision; or the smell? Where’s the consciousness? Just which of those formerly inert atoms of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and on and on, in my head have become so clever that they can produce a thought or reconstitute an image? How those stored biochemical data points are recalled and replayed into sentience remains an enigmatic mystery.
Organization separates living matter from what we perceive as inert, lifeless matter. But there is no innate physical difference between the atoms before and after they organize, learn to take energy from their surrounding environment, and become, as a group, alive. However there is what appears to be a qualitative transition between the awesome biochemistry by which the brain physically records the incoming data and the conscious ness by which we become aware of that stored information. In that passage from brain to mind we may be looking for a physical link that does not exist."
(The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth
By Gerald L. Schroeder :5-6)
Sunday, March 20, 2005
The Beings, the Creatures and....the Beast? Eh, who can say...
Part I
So the creative beings created some little creatures in a special place, on that special planet. They were based in some small way on the beings' own pattern of existence. So the creatures could be creative by using their creativity and ingenuity in their own sort of technology and art. The key to these things was their capacity for language. In the beginning, their language had a rhythm and rhyme that was a union of art and existence, the symbol and the symbolized. They could talk to the Creator who came as being of light to the creatures and taught them about the place that had been made. Such perfection would be an echo and just remnants soon, stories to become legends to myths unto vague intuitions, as the rebellious beings came to the planet and began to fight what was happening there. They began to try to set things in motion that would cause created life to fail. Yet all that they did was redeemed into more life, there and then.
The creative beings had set aside a special garden on the planet where their creatures could learn from the Creator of their universe. One day the little creatures of the Creator were told to take over the planet, to civilize and subdue it. The fallen beings had begun to concentrate all their efforts on overcoming this new threat, these little redeemers. They managed to represent their type of being in some plants and then in some reptilian life too. The beings that represented themselves with light told the creatures not to eat that type of plant, lest they come to know the fallen. The leader of the fallen ones represented himself in reptilian life to tell the creatures that they would be as the beings of light if they would only eat its type of plant, a symbol of knowing its being. It was successful, as the little redeemers ate that which it represented itself with. The creatures did not used their capacity for language against it. That which was their closest link to the creative beings. Instead, they only listened.
After coming to know it, the creatures saw things differently and saw themselves differently, although not much in their garden had changed yet. They did not have the same eyes to see that they once had. There was something eating away at them faster than before. It was not being turned back to good there and then as it had been. It was winning more and more. It was the very thing they were meant to subdue which they had now let into themselves.
The Creator told them that they had killed themselves by eating it. But in their failure, the pattern of the Creator's redemption would only go farther and deeper. He said that some things would change because of their decision, yet they were still the type of creature through which he would destroy and redeem the work of the fallen. And for their sake he killed some animals, then showed them how to make use of the sacrifice by using the skins for clothing.
Although the beings of light were still active in the world they would be separate from the creatures now. The creatures left their garden and remembered the mercy of the Creator toward them through the sacrifice of animals, which symbolized his mercy to them and would come to symbolize more.
They remembered, yet were separated from the Creator and the beings of light now.
Index I
Index II
Index III
So the creative beings created some little creatures in a special place, on that special planet. They were based in some small way on the beings' own pattern of existence. So the creatures could be creative by using their creativity and ingenuity in their own sort of technology and art. The key to these things was their capacity for language. In the beginning, their language had a rhythm and rhyme that was a union of art and existence, the symbol and the symbolized. They could talk to the Creator who came as being of light to the creatures and taught them about the place that had been made. Such perfection would be an echo and just remnants soon, stories to become legends to myths unto vague intuitions, as the rebellious beings came to the planet and began to fight what was happening there. They began to try to set things in motion that would cause created life to fail. Yet all that they did was redeemed into more life, there and then.
The creative beings had set aside a special garden on the planet where their creatures could learn from the Creator of their universe. One day the little creatures of the Creator were told to take over the planet, to civilize and subdue it. The fallen beings had begun to concentrate all their efforts on overcoming this new threat, these little redeemers. They managed to represent their type of being in some plants and then in some reptilian life too. The beings that represented themselves with light told the creatures not to eat that type of plant, lest they come to know the fallen. The leader of the fallen ones represented himself in reptilian life to tell the creatures that they would be as the beings of light if they would only eat its type of plant, a symbol of knowing its being. It was successful, as the little redeemers ate that which it represented itself with. The creatures did not used their capacity for language against it. That which was their closest link to the creative beings. Instead, they only listened.
After coming to know it, the creatures saw things differently and saw themselves differently, although not much in their garden had changed yet. They did not have the same eyes to see that they once had. There was something eating away at them faster than before. It was not being turned back to good there and then as it had been. It was winning more and more. It was the very thing they were meant to subdue which they had now let into themselves.
The Creator told them that they had killed themselves by eating it. But in their failure, the pattern of the Creator's redemption would only go farther and deeper. He said that some things would change because of their decision, yet they were still the type of creature through which he would destroy and redeem the work of the fallen. And for their sake he killed some animals, then showed them how to make use of the sacrifice by using the skins for clothing.
Although the beings of light were still active in the world they would be separate from the creatures now. The creatures left their garden and remembered the mercy of the Creator toward them through the sacrifice of animals, which symbolized his mercy to them and would come to symbolize more.
They remembered, yet were separated from the Creator and the beings of light now.
Index I
Index II
Index III
Friday, March 18, 2005
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Time..
Such a faith in time people have, sometimes, to accomplish the sublime and all of Life. It is as if they believe that all will just happen by happenstance, all in good time. So from happenstance and time to time you can have the time of your Life. Yet one may wonder if to have a good time, someone has to make some good times?
Is there a way to make up for lost time? Perhaps only time will tell, time after time, until one is out of time.
Is there a way to make up for lost time? Perhaps only time will tell, time after time, until one is out of time.
Life and Death
It's interesting to note of Life and Death that Christianity seems not so human and humus centered as to be all about the physical existence and the health of humans. As far as I understand it contains humanistic values based on the Creator, not the creation. It seems to contain humanistic values, yet not on humanistic terms.
It is an odd position, yet typical, for a gardener to be fighting dying but then using Death as an opportunity for things to be born again. Does redemption make the degenerative the generative or that which is evil that which is good? Of course it does not, no more than the spring makes the winter any less cold. Yet there will be those who support Death who will try to use even redemption to pretend that evil is something other than what it is. The most pointed point of Judaic law is that there be no blurring of categories, such as Life and Death. So what of Death? There is a time to die and one must die to be born again. Death where is thy sting?
If a Snake must eat its own tale then does it really have one?
It is an odd position, yet typical, for a gardener to be fighting dying but then using Death as an opportunity for things to be born again. Does redemption make the degenerative the generative or that which is evil that which is good? Of course it does not, no more than the spring makes the winter any less cold. Yet there will be those who support Death who will try to use even redemption to pretend that evil is something other than what it is. The most pointed point of Judaic law is that there be no blurring of categories, such as Life and Death. So what of Death? There is a time to die and one must die to be born again. Death where is thy sting?
If a Snake must eat its own tale then does it really have one?
Reincarnation....
Reincarnation, it seems that just about everyone should believe in it. Christians believe in the incarnation and that they will be reincarnated again once, to be born again. The Naturalist seems to make a habit of believing that all things are possible given enough time while they are always giving themselves quite a lot of time. So who is to refute the notion of Nietzchean recurrence? Given the eternal, the matter in motion of all that is and supposedly all "you" are can recur, as patterns can repeat. The Naturalist has gotten around the impossibility of their existence by (ab)using notions about time once, so why not make it forever?
The Shiavo case...
If this article at the National Review is true then there is little more to add. I wonder how things will go tomorrow.
The more I read, the more this case is clear cut. There are others that may not be. Yet I think this one is and few people from the Left are even attempting to debate it, as far as I know.
The more I read, the more this case is clear cut. There are others that may not be. Yet I think this one is and few people from the Left are even attempting to debate it, as far as I know.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Anti-euthanasia voices from early last century...
“. . . .Think of the intense, natural interests which urge the extinction of many lives; the money there would be in it; the bribe to domestic treason, selfishness, rapacity; the class of physician it would develop. Think of the gloom and horror which it would cast over old age and sickness; the pressure on minds of those anxious to relieve others of a burden; the voluntary suicide of wronged wives and husbands; the suspicions which would poison hears and eyes; the gossip of survivors; the bitterness, the feuds.
The care of children, of the helpless and the old has been the moral educator of mankind, and has raised it above the beasts. The race can never dispense with this stern instruction nor dismiss its Instructor.” L.M.N.
(Euthanasia
Editorials, L.M.N.
The New York Times; Feb. 11, 1906, pg. 6)
“Will. . . .the ultimate result of the practice of euthanasia. . . .not be the destruction of all the finer feelings and of all the softer virtues? Perhaps they are useless and ought to disappear? Perhaps humanity has been on a wrong tack altogether for the past nineteen hundred years?
. . . .Though I am still by far on the bright side of forty, and in no danger of being chloroformed, I am old-fashioned enough to see in this bedlam of modern print a rapid tendency toward savagery, down from the unfortunate phrase about the ‘survival of the fittest’ through the labyrinths of Nietzsche’s actual madness. . . .
. . . .I thank God for every new author who gives us an oasis in the desert, or an eddy from the rapids where the blue sky is mirrored, and we may still dream of love, charity, humility, and compassion.”
(Euthanasia
Editorial, S.A.Y.
The New York Times; Feb. 13th, 1906, pg. 6)
(Some Euthanasiatic Thoughts
By John Kendrick Bangs
The New York Times, Feb. 18th, 1906, pg. 3)
The care of children, of the helpless and the old has been the moral educator of mankind, and has raised it above the beasts. The race can never dispense with this stern instruction nor dismiss its Instructor.” L.M.N.
(Euthanasia
Editorials, L.M.N.
The New York Times; Feb. 11, 1906, pg. 6)
“Will. . . .the ultimate result of the practice of euthanasia. . . .not be the destruction of all the finer feelings and of all the softer virtues? Perhaps they are useless and ought to disappear? Perhaps humanity has been on a wrong tack altogether for the past nineteen hundred years?
. . . .Though I am still by far on the bright side of forty, and in no danger of being chloroformed, I am old-fashioned enough to see in this bedlam of modern print a rapid tendency toward savagery, down from the unfortunate phrase about the ‘survival of the fittest’ through the labyrinths of Nietzsche’s actual madness. . . .
. . . .I thank God for every new author who gives us an oasis in the desert, or an eddy from the rapids where the blue sky is mirrored, and we may still dream of love, charity, humility, and compassion.”
(Euthanasia
Editorial, S.A.Y.
The New York Times; Feb. 13th, 1906, pg. 6)
(Some Euthanasiatic Thoughts
By John Kendrick Bangs
The New York Times, Feb. 18th, 1906, pg. 3)
The mythological narratives of Naturalism
"This is merely a rough sketch of the origins of modern science. But it’s enough to expose the received version as so much mythology. The centrality of Earth in pre-Copernican cosmology meant something entirely different to the pre-Copernicans from what it means in the textbook orthodoxy we’ve all learned. There is no simple inference from central location to high status any more than a modern person would privilege the center of our Earth as the ideal terrestrial place to be. Geocentrism did not imply anthropocentrism. As Dennis Danielson puts it, “The great Copernican cliché is premised upon an uncritical equation of geocentrism with anthropocentrism.” Denying either or both did not automatically disprove the existence of purpose or design in nature. The official story gives the false impression that Copernicus started a trend, so that removing Earth from the “center” of the universe led finally, logically, and inevitably to the scientific establishment of our insignificance. By sleight of hand, it trans formed a series of empirical discoveries with ambiguous metaphysical implications into the Grand Narrative of Naturalism."
(The Privileged Planet: How Our Place
in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery
By Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards :120)
The grand ol' mythological narratives of naturalism, I am glad that more scientists are critical of them. Insignificance? That is but a failure to read the signs of design. Ironically, no writer actually believes that their own symbols and signs are really insignificant, including the Naturalist.
The modern Naturalist is often creating narratives around men who did not believe as they do about the insignificance of all that is written. As it is written! As it is written all over your face, that which cannot be written off.
“The holy Bible and the phenomena of nature proceed alike from the divine Word.”
Galileo Galilei, Laws of Dynamics,
astronomical confirmation of the heliocentric system
“How exceedingly vast is the godlike work ofthe Best and Greatest Artist!”
“The Universe has been wrought for us by a supremely good and orderly Creator.”
Nicolaus Copernicus, Heliocentric
Theory of the Solar System
(The Wonder of the World: A Journey from Modern Science
to the Mind of God
by Roy Abraham Varghese :103)
(The Privileged Planet: How Our Place
in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery
By Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards :120)
The grand ol' mythological narratives of naturalism, I am glad that more scientists are critical of them. Insignificance? That is but a failure to read the signs of design. Ironically, no writer actually believes that their own symbols and signs are really insignificant, including the Naturalist.
The modern Naturalist is often creating narratives around men who did not believe as they do about the insignificance of all that is written. As it is written! As it is written all over your face, that which cannot be written off.
“The holy Bible and the phenomena of nature proceed alike from the divine Word.”
Galileo Galilei, Laws of Dynamics,
astronomical confirmation of the heliocentric system
“How exceedingly vast is the godlike work ofthe Best and Greatest Artist!”
“The Universe has been wrought for us by a supremely good and orderly Creator.”
Nicolaus Copernicus, Heliocentric
Theory of the Solar System
(The Wonder of the World: A Journey from Modern Science
to the Mind of God
by Roy Abraham Varghese :103)
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Monday, March 14, 2005
Life unworthy of life...
That was how the Nazis put it. The progressive Eugenics movement from the Left in America did not disappear after Nazism, it was far too much of a broad based movement for that. Instead, eugenics seems to have been exchanged for euthanasia based on the same pattern of principles. Sometimes one must wonder at a repeating pattern of transphysical principles...but that is another issue. Euthanasia is in the news now because of one high profile case, although starving and dehydrating people to death is legal in all fifty states. It is not as if every story gets reported as the case of Terri Schiavo has been.
E.g.
"As she slowly dehydrated, Marjorie began to ask the staff for food. “She was saying things like, ‘Please feed me.. . . I’m hungry. I’m thirsty, and I want food,” says attorney William F. Stone, who briefly represented Marjorie as a court-appointed guardian.’ In response to her pleas, members of the nursing staff surreptitiously gave her small amounts of food and water. One eventually blew the whistle on the death watch, leading to a state investigation and a brief restraining order requiring that Marjorie Nighbert be nourished.
. . . .the judge decided to allow the dehy dration to be completed, apparently on the bizarre theory that Marjorie was not competent when she requested the “medical treatment” of food and water. Nighbert died on April 6, 1995.
The dehydration bandwagon usually runs smoothly. . . ."
(Culture of Death: The Assault on
Medical Ethics in America
By Wesley J. Smith :71)
It is important to remember if you talk with your spouse about this issue exactly what you are talking about. Many people will say something like, "Oh, just let me die if that happens!" But do you want to be starved and dehydrated to death? Maybe you should be more specific, for the experts in their white lab coats may not work the way that you may think they do. They have proven themselves willing to kill for "society" and socialism in the past. They even do so currently in the abortion industry. The beady little eyes of some cold toads are cold, so very cold indeed! They will render their verdicts and decide what life is worth, and so what life is worthy of life. So it seems that PVS (Persistent Vegitative State) is now to be blurred into cognitive disability. If history is any measure cognitive disability will be blurred into some other medical diagnosis. Although I expect it will not be racial, as it was in the past.
This issue is so broad that there are many tangents to go on. Instead, here are some tangible facts about what you are saying when you put yourself in the hands of the cold toads, the "scientific" experts who render their verdicts by seeking a lack of judgment.
“A recent article on palliative medicine makes all too clear what this suffering entails:
Dr. William Burke, a professor of neurology at St. Louis Univer sity Medical Center, has summarized the suffering caused by dehydration in conscious, nondying people in even blunter terms:
Even Dr. Cranford admitted during the trial that the lips, eyes, and tongue of a person being dehydrated “get extremely dry,” but claimed it is rare for them to crack and bleed, while acknowledging that “anything that is dry for a long period of time may crack. And anything that may crack may bleed.” He also testified that it is rare for dehydrating patients to go into seizures. Still, Cranford’s description of the dehydration process, which he testified usually takes between ten and fourteen days but in some cases up to twenty-one, reveals its awfulness:
And do attempts at palliation really control the suffering? In Robert Wendland’s case, Dr. Cranford testified that the amount of morphine he would be given would be “arbitrary” because it would “be hard to tell whether he’s suffering or not,” due to Robert’s inability to communicate effectively. If that is true for Robert Wendland, it is also true for other conscious, cognitively disabled people who are dehydrated in nursing homes and hospitals throughout this country.”
(Culture of Death: The Assault on
Medical Ethics in America
By Wesley J. Smith :77-78)
Actually, this issue is probably worth a few tangents and maybe a parable or two.
America...the beautiful? For such a beautiful people the technocratic barbarians of the American Empire can make, will make us!
E.g.
"As she slowly dehydrated, Marjorie began to ask the staff for food. “She was saying things like, ‘Please feed me.. . . I’m hungry. I’m thirsty, and I want food,” says attorney William F. Stone, who briefly represented Marjorie as a court-appointed guardian.’ In response to her pleas, members of the nursing staff surreptitiously gave her small amounts of food and water. One eventually blew the whistle on the death watch, leading to a state investigation and a brief restraining order requiring that Marjorie Nighbert be nourished.
. . . .the judge decided to allow the dehy dration to be completed, apparently on the bizarre theory that Marjorie was not competent when she requested the “medical treatment” of food and water. Nighbert died on April 6, 1995.
The dehydration bandwagon usually runs smoothly. . . ."
(Culture of Death: The Assault on
Medical Ethics in America
By Wesley J. Smith :71)
It is important to remember if you talk with your spouse about this issue exactly what you are talking about. Many people will say something like, "Oh, just let me die if that happens!" But do you want to be starved and dehydrated to death? Maybe you should be more specific, for the experts in their white lab coats may not work the way that you may think they do. They have proven themselves willing to kill for "society" and socialism in the past. They even do so currently in the abortion industry. The beady little eyes of some cold toads are cold, so very cold indeed! They will render their verdicts and decide what life is worth, and so what life is worthy of life. So it seems that PVS (Persistent Vegitative State) is now to be blurred into cognitive disability. If history is any measure cognitive disability will be blurred into some other medical diagnosis. Although I expect it will not be racial, as it was in the past.
This issue is so broad that there are many tangents to go on. Instead, here are some tangible facts about what you are saying when you put yourself in the hands of the cold toads, the "scientific" experts who render their verdicts by seeking a lack of judgment.
“A recent article on palliative medicine makes all too clear what this suffering entails:
Confusion and restlessness; dry mouth, impaired speech, thirst, increased risk of bedsores, circulatory failure, renal failure,.., cardiac arrest,... confusion, constipation, nausea, myoclonus [uncontrollable muscle spasms], seizures.
Dr. William Burke, a professor of neurology at St. Louis Univer sity Medical Center, has summarized the suffering caused by dehydration in conscious, nondying people in even blunter terms:
A conscious person would feel it just as you or I would. They will go into seizures. Their skin cracks, their tongue cracks, their lips crack. They may have nosebleeds because of the dryness of the mucus membranes and heaving and vomiting might ensue because of the drying out of the stomach lining. They feel the pangs of hunger and thirst. Imagine going one day without a glass of water! Death by dehydration takes ten to fourteen days. It is an extremely agonizing death.
Even Dr. Cranford admitted during the trial that the lips, eyes, and tongue of a person being dehydrated “get extremely dry,” but claimed it is rare for them to crack and bleed, while acknowledging that “anything that is dry for a long period of time may crack. And anything that may crack may bleed.” He also testified that it is rare for dehydrating patients to go into seizures. Still, Cranford’s description of the dehydration process, which he testified usually takes between ten and fourteen days but in some cases up to twenty-one, reveals its awfulness:
After seven to nine days [commencing dehydration] they begin to lose all fluids in the body, a lot of fluids in the body. And their blood pressure starts to go down.
When their blood pressure goes down, their heart rate goes up. Their respiration may increase and then the patient experiences what’s called a mammalian’s diver’s reflex where the blood is shunted to the central part of the body from the periphery of the body. So, that usually two to three days prior to death, sometimes four days, the hands and the feet become extremely cold. They become mottled. That is you look at the hands and they have a bluish appearance.
And the mouth dries a great deal, and the eyes dry a great deal and other parts of the body become mottled. And that is because the blood is now so low in the system it’s shunted to the heart and other visceral organs and away from the periphery of the body. Proponents of dehydration claim that these symptoms can be pallated by the proper use of eye drops and ice chips for dryness, and morphine for pain; Cranford also testified that he sometimes puts his dehydrating patients into a coma. But theirs is a circular, not to mention deeply ironic, argument. The patient would not require strong drugs to palliate suffering except for being denied the basic humane provision of food and water.
And do attempts at palliation really control the suffering? In Robert Wendland’s case, Dr. Cranford testified that the amount of morphine he would be given would be “arbitrary” because it would “be hard to tell whether he’s suffering or not,” due to Robert’s inability to communicate effectively. If that is true for Robert Wendland, it is also true for other conscious, cognitively disabled people who are dehydrated in nursing homes and hospitals throughout this country.”
(Culture of Death: The Assault on
Medical Ethics in America
By Wesley J. Smith :77-78)
Actually, this issue is probably worth a few tangents and maybe a parable or two.
America...the beautiful? For such a beautiful people the technocratic barbarians of the American Empire can make, will make us!
Thursday, March 10, 2005
March 10th, 1876
"Alexander Graham Bell's notebook entry of 10 March 1876 describes his successful experiment with the telephone. Speaking through the instrument to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, in the next room, Bell utters these famous first words, 'Mr. Watson -- come here -- I want to see you.'"
(Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers,
Manuscript Division,
the Library of Congress)
...and now, here you are on the internet. It's interesting to think that technology is accelerating here and now in a way that it has not before. Some ancient civilizations were actually more advanced than those who think that ancients were just a bunch of primitives seem to believe. Yet it is interesting that they had indoor plumbing, books and so on thousands of years ago, yet did not advance technologically at the exponential rate that has taken place in under a few hundred years.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
The Beings, the Creatures and....why, I haven't decided yet!
I just wanted to get a start on something and see how it goes. Just to start, you know....
Once upon a time there were some beings that could create. They were creative. So they made a physical world to put some beings from their universe in. They had the knowledge and power to make galaxies and planets. So they made some heavens, then made more. They used power and technology that nothing else in all existence had, neither in their universe nor the new one they made. The beings that they put in the new universe had rebelled against the powerful and creative beings. They had fought a war in the old universe and lost. They had been creative beings once too. But now much of what the rebellious ones once were was stripped from them. This new world would be like a communication to the fallen ones. The message was simple, all that they had meant for their own ends would now be turned back, back again to the creative. Not only had they accomplished nothing, now they would be used for something. There was one original Creator of both universes and that ultimate Being knew that its creation was good and the fallen ones were evil. There would be many to question why that was so. Yet no mind would ever have the same knowledge, none would know all reasons why. The Being was what it was, above all, that was all.
The creative beings kept creating and the fallen ones kept trying to break things apart, to eat things up, yet even as they did they were being used back for good. They tried to break the new cosmos, yet around black holes they made a new galaxy might spiral. This continued for some time, in as much as it makes sense to speak of time where there is none.
Eventually the creative beings began to work on one planet, one that would be a special place. They kept the fallen ones away and there the beings began to have their own orchards, gardens and various types of creatures that they had created. The special planet began to team with Life of all sorts. Then one day they decided to make some creatures that could in a small way think and be creative like they were.
(Well, it's a start I guess. Later...I'll probably include elements from other stories.)
Index I
Index II
Index III
Once upon a time there were some beings that could create. They were creative. So they made a physical world to put some beings from their universe in. They had the knowledge and power to make galaxies and planets. So they made some heavens, then made more. They used power and technology that nothing else in all existence had, neither in their universe nor the new one they made. The beings that they put in the new universe had rebelled against the powerful and creative beings. They had fought a war in the old universe and lost. They had been creative beings once too. But now much of what the rebellious ones once were was stripped from them. This new world would be like a communication to the fallen ones. The message was simple, all that they had meant for their own ends would now be turned back, back again to the creative. Not only had they accomplished nothing, now they would be used for something. There was one original Creator of both universes and that ultimate Being knew that its creation was good and the fallen ones were evil. There would be many to question why that was so. Yet no mind would ever have the same knowledge, none would know all reasons why. The Being was what it was, above all, that was all.
The creative beings kept creating and the fallen ones kept trying to break things apart, to eat things up, yet even as they did they were being used back for good. They tried to break the new cosmos, yet around black holes they made a new galaxy might spiral. This continued for some time, in as much as it makes sense to speak of time where there is none.
Eventually the creative beings began to work on one planet, one that would be a special place. They kept the fallen ones away and there the beings began to have their own orchards, gardens and various types of creatures that they had created. The special planet began to team with Life of all sorts. Then one day they decided to make some creatures that could in a small way think and be creative like they were.
(Well, it's a start I guess. Later...I'll probably include elements from other stories.)
Index I
Index II
Index III
Nazism and Christianity
Grundmann’s continuous efforts to obtain the permission for a periodical were treated in a dilatory way, and an internal note of the Propaganda Ministry gave the following reasons for this attitude:The endeavors of this organization and its leading men such as Prof. Grundmann are well meant. But there is no interest either in assimilating (angleichen) Christian teaching in national socialism or in proving that a re-shaped (umgestaltetes) Christianity is not fundamentally Jewish (keine judische Grundhaltung aufweist) .
On a specific occasion, even a more negative attitude was revealed. When several persons of the Ministry of Propaganda were invited to a meeting of the Institute in Berlin on January 15, 1942, at which Professors Grundmann and Werdermann were to lecture, a high official of the Ministry noted in pencil on the invitation: ‘If such lectures at present are considered desirable at all, they should be watched.’ Another of Goebbels’ officials contemplated asking the Party Chancellery, i.e., the supreme authority of the Party, for a decision on how to treat the Jena Institute, but whether such a request was ever made is not known.
(Hitler's Professors: The Part of Scholarship in
Germany's Crimes Against the Jewish People
By Max Weinreich
(New York:The Yiddish Scientific Institute, 1946) : 67)
Sunday, March 06, 2005
The reptilian, Good and Evil
I already wrote about the symbol of the reptile and Nazism. It's odd that modern Nazis repeat the pattern.
E.g.,
"Take away the Holocaust and the Jews are seen for what they are, a sneaky and snakey little reptilian people, liars and land-thieves and sneak-killers...." "....I think it would probably cheer me up to think that at least some of those reptiles in human form who caused it all got theirs."
cf. Nizkor.org (An anti-Nazi site, keeping tabs on these fellows.)
It is odd to find the same pattern. They probably read it in Nazi writings.
A similar instance,
"If we do not succeed in destroying the biological substance of the Jews, the Jews will some day destroy the German people.' As Höss recalled, he had been “suddenly summoned” by Himmler in the summer of 1941 and told, “The Führer has ordered that the Jewish question be solved once and for all and that we, the SS, are to implement that order.” ."
(The Nazi Doctors; Medical Killing and the Psychology
of Genocide, By Robert Lifton :157)
How about this:"Jews are the eternal enemies of [me, Satan] and [so] must be exterminated."
"If [I] do not succeedin destroying the biological substance of the Jews, the Jews will some day destroy [...me! They are the snakes, not I!]."
The snake used to have a lot of followers and worshippers, in fact reptilian symbols and an association with a malevolent sort of wisdom are, or were, pretty much universal.
". . . .It is an interesting fact that in that remarkable sculpture—the oldest surviving representation of the fall—which was found in the temple of Osiris at Phila, Eve is seen offering the fruit to Adam, the tree is between them, and the serpent stands by in an upright posture (Pember).
. . . .Ophiolatreia has characterized the universal race of man over the whole globe, to an extent without a rival; unless perhaps, the worship of the sun, which was generally identified with it. Deified as the serpent has been all over the world, it has always been the emblem of the evil principle in nature, and its worship was inspired rather to avert evil than to express reverence or gratitude. A god it might become in the perverted judgment of fallen men, but the feeling of antipathy and aversion with which it was regarded has never abated. It might be feared, but loved it never was nor could be. Thus, we are told that while many Hindus pay religious homage to the serpent at the present day, they regard it, notwithstanding, “as a hideous reptile, whose approach inspires them with a secret awe, and insurmountable horror.” Worshipped universally, the serpent was still “cursed above all and above ever beast of the field.” In the symbolic language of antiquity the serpent occupies a conspicuous place.
. . . . It was an ancient belief of all peoples that the serpent was endued with a large share of sagacity. The eating of its flesh, it was supposed, imparted it. In Egypt, as late as the second century, there was a sect of Gnostics who connected it with their Christianity; and under the name of Ophites (i. e., serpent-worshippers), had a living serpent which was let out to glide over the sacramental elements to consecrate them, it being the source of wis dom; exactly as was done with Isis, the great object of serpent- worship; and exactly as was done in the serpent-temple at Abury and other places, as recorded in British bards, writings of that day.
. . . .In Brittany, where the remains of dragon-temples are abundant, it is curious to see the mounts (“barrows,” as they are called) where the sun was worshipped with the serpent, now all dedicated to St. Michael, whom the Revelation presents to us as the destroyer of Satan’s power.
. . . . Interwoven with the ophiolatry which once so generally prevailed are dim and distant notions of a redemption which resembles that revealed in the Bible, and which can be distinctly traced. Thus, in Greek mythology, Apollo (the sun) established his worship at Delphi by slaying Python, an immense serpent, who was also said to have been cast down from heaven by Jupiter. He then gave oracles in his place. Still the serpent was sacred to him, and was otherwise associated with the Delphic worship. Of the ophiolatry of Mexico Humboldt says, “Other paintings exhibit to us a feather-headed snake cut in pieces by the great spirit Tezcatlipoca, or by the sun personified, the god Tonatiuh. These allegories remind us of the ancient traditions of Asia. In the woman and serpent of the Aztecs we think we perceive the Eve of the Semitic nations; in the snake cut in pieces, the famous serpent Raliya, or Kalinaga, conquered by Vishnu, when he took the form of Krishna.” Hercules, and other such mystic personages, destroy serpents in all manner of fables.
The most striking illustration of Scripture redemption, as embodied in serpent-worship, is found in Norse mythology. . . . . Among its supernatural beings is one called Loke, a subtle demon, who is always characterized as mischievous, deceitful, treacherous, malicious, in short, the father of lies. His dreadful brood. . . . are the Fenris-wolf the huge Midgard-serpent and the woman monster Hel (English Hell)! . . . ."
(Universality of Serpent-Worship
By W. G. Moorehead
The Old Testament Student, Vol. 4,
No. 5. (Jan., 1885), pp. 205-210)
On the scripts of mythologies, there can be only one script that is Scripture. Whether you believe that to be the mythological narratives of naturalism or something else, you will have a script that you treat as a sort of Scripture.
"A curious parallel appears in America, where among certain Indians the medicine tree-that is, the tree of knowledge rather than of healing-is inhabited by a serpent."
(The Serpent in the Old Testament
By Ross G. Murison
The American Journal of Semitic Languages
and Literatures, Vol. 21, No. 2. (Jan., 1905), pg 128)
(Snake Stones
By M. D. W. Jeffreys
Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol.
41, No. 165. (Oct., 1942), pp. 250-253)
(The Serpent Mound of Adams County, Ohio
By Charles C. Willough
American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 21,
No. 2. (Apr. - Jun., 1919), pp. 153-163)
Etc....it seems to have been a universal symbol, perhaps more so B.C. than A.D. It would not surprise me, not much does anymore. I would not be surprised to learn of UFO cults that believe in aliens who are "reptilian" shape shifters, for instance. But never mind....a lot of this is just food for thought.
E.g.,
"Take away the Holocaust and the Jews are seen for what they are, a sneaky and snakey little reptilian people, liars and land-thieves and sneak-killers...." "....I think it would probably cheer me up to think that at least some of those reptiles in human form who caused it all got theirs."
cf. Nizkor.org (An anti-Nazi site, keeping tabs on these fellows.)
It is odd to find the same pattern. They probably read it in Nazi writings.
A similar instance,
"If we do not succeed in destroying the biological substance of the Jews, the Jews will some day destroy the German people.' As Höss recalled, he had been “suddenly summoned” by Himmler in the summer of 1941 and told, “The Führer has ordered that the Jewish question be solved once and for all and that we, the SS, are to implement that order.” ."
(The Nazi Doctors; Medical Killing and the Psychology
of Genocide, By Robert Lifton :157)
How about this:"Jews are the eternal enemies of [me, Satan] and [so] must be exterminated."
"If [I] do not succeedin destroying the biological substance of the Jews, the Jews will some day destroy [...me! They are the snakes, not I!]."
The snake used to have a lot of followers and worshippers, in fact reptilian symbols and an association with a malevolent sort of wisdom are, or were, pretty much universal.
". . . .It is an interesting fact that in that remarkable sculpture—the oldest surviving representation of the fall—which was found in the temple of Osiris at Phila, Eve is seen offering the fruit to Adam, the tree is between them, and the serpent stands by in an upright posture (Pember).
. . . .Ophiolatreia has characterized the universal race of man over the whole globe, to an extent without a rival; unless perhaps, the worship of the sun, which was generally identified with it. Deified as the serpent has been all over the world, it has always been the emblem of the evil principle in nature, and its worship was inspired rather to avert evil than to express reverence or gratitude. A god it might become in the perverted judgment of fallen men, but the feeling of antipathy and aversion with which it was regarded has never abated. It might be feared, but loved it never was nor could be. Thus, we are told that while many Hindus pay religious homage to the serpent at the present day, they regard it, notwithstanding, “as a hideous reptile, whose approach inspires them with a secret awe, and insurmountable horror.” Worshipped universally, the serpent was still “cursed above all and above ever beast of the field.” In the symbolic language of antiquity the serpent occupies a conspicuous place.
. . . . It was an ancient belief of all peoples that the serpent was endued with a large share of sagacity. The eating of its flesh, it was supposed, imparted it. In Egypt, as late as the second century, there was a sect of Gnostics who connected it with their Christianity; and under the name of Ophites (i. e., serpent-worshippers), had a living serpent which was let out to glide over the sacramental elements to consecrate them, it being the source of wis dom; exactly as was done with Isis, the great object of serpent- worship; and exactly as was done in the serpent-temple at Abury and other places, as recorded in British bards, writings of that day.
. . . .In Brittany, where the remains of dragon-temples are abundant, it is curious to see the mounts (“barrows,” as they are called) where the sun was worshipped with the serpent, now all dedicated to St. Michael, whom the Revelation presents to us as the destroyer of Satan’s power.
. . . . Interwoven with the ophiolatry which once so generally prevailed are dim and distant notions of a redemption which resembles that revealed in the Bible, and which can be distinctly traced. Thus, in Greek mythology, Apollo (the sun) established his worship at Delphi by slaying Python, an immense serpent, who was also said to have been cast down from heaven by Jupiter. He then gave oracles in his place. Still the serpent was sacred to him, and was otherwise associated with the Delphic worship. Of the ophiolatry of Mexico Humboldt says, “Other paintings exhibit to us a feather-headed snake cut in pieces by the great spirit Tezcatlipoca, or by the sun personified, the god Tonatiuh. These allegories remind us of the ancient traditions of Asia. In the woman and serpent of the Aztecs we think we perceive the Eve of the Semitic nations; in the snake cut in pieces, the famous serpent Raliya, or Kalinaga, conquered by Vishnu, when he took the form of Krishna.” Hercules, and other such mystic personages, destroy serpents in all manner of fables.
The most striking illustration of Scripture redemption, as embodied in serpent-worship, is found in Norse mythology. . . . . Among its supernatural beings is one called Loke, a subtle demon, who is always characterized as mischievous, deceitful, treacherous, malicious, in short, the father of lies. His dreadful brood. . . . are the Fenris-wolf the huge Midgard-serpent and the woman monster Hel (English Hell)! . . . ."
(Universality of Serpent-Worship
By W. G. Moorehead
The Old Testament Student, Vol. 4,
No. 5. (Jan., 1885), pp. 205-210)
On the scripts of mythologies, there can be only one script that is Scripture. Whether you believe that to be the mythological narratives of naturalism or something else, you will have a script that you treat as a sort of Scripture.
"A curious parallel appears in America, where among certain Indians the medicine tree-that is, the tree of knowledge rather than of healing-is inhabited by a serpent."
(The Serpent in the Old Testament
By Ross G. Murison
The American Journal of Semitic Languages
and Literatures, Vol. 21, No. 2. (Jan., 1905), pg 128)
(Snake Stones
By M. D. W. Jeffreys
Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol.
41, No. 165. (Oct., 1942), pp. 250-253)
(The Serpent Mound of Adams County, Ohio
By Charles C. Willough
American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 21,
No. 2. (Apr. - Jun., 1919), pp. 153-163)
Etc....it seems to have been a universal symbol, perhaps more so B.C. than A.D. It would not surprise me, not much does anymore. I would not be surprised to learn of UFO cults that believe in aliens who are "reptilian" shape shifters, for instance. But never mind....a lot of this is just food for thought.
Saturday, March 05, 2005
Babyface....
I sometimes have wondered what it would be like to have one. Besides that, I think that people begin to recognize or fit into social scripts based on less. Example, something like hair color, there are actually scripts for it.
Given a social context people are fairly adept at recognizing types, creating the text, etc. For after all, how can that girl with blond hair and a babyface be a vindictive and manipulative person?
One study "...[o]btained physical measurements and subjective ratings from 80 undergraduates of various facial features for 20 adult male stimulus faces, and these faces were also rated on 5 personality dimensions, physical attractiveness, age, and "babyfacedness" by Ss, to investigate components and consequences of a babyface. The personality dimensions were designated as warm-cold, honest-dishonest, irresponsible-responsible, kind-cruel, and naive-shrewd; physical measurements included narrow-wide nose, full-thin cheeks, close set-wide set eyes, narrow-broad chin, low-high eyebrows, angular-soft face, long-short nose, high-low forehead, round-narrow eyes, small-large eyes, and not attractive-attractive designations.
Results show that large, round eyes, high eyebrows, and a small chin yielded the perception of a babyish facial appearance. A weighted linear composite derived from the measures of eye size and chin width accounted for 57% of the variance in ratings of babyfacedness. Both measured composite and subjective babyfacedness ratings were positively correlated with perceptions of the stimulus person's naivete, honesty, kindness, and warmth. ....."
(Some components and consequences of a babyface (Abstract)
By Berry, Dian S.; McArthur, Leslie Z.
The Journal of Personality & Social Psychology
Vol 48(2), Feb 1985, pp. 312-323)
It seems to me that although there are exceptions, most people live by their scripts. I do not see much wrong with it. I just find it funny, and interesting to think about various types and stereotypes.
Given a social context people are fairly adept at recognizing types, creating the text, etc. For after all, how can that girl with blond hair and a babyface be a vindictive and manipulative person?
One study "...[o]btained physical measurements and subjective ratings from 80 undergraduates of various facial features for 20 adult male stimulus faces, and these faces were also rated on 5 personality dimensions, physical attractiveness, age, and "babyfacedness" by Ss, to investigate components and consequences of a babyface. The personality dimensions were designated as warm-cold, honest-dishonest, irresponsible-responsible, kind-cruel, and naive-shrewd; physical measurements included narrow-wide nose, full-thin cheeks, close set-wide set eyes, narrow-broad chin, low-high eyebrows, angular-soft face, long-short nose, high-low forehead, round-narrow eyes, small-large eyes, and not attractive-attractive designations.
Results show that large, round eyes, high eyebrows, and a small chin yielded the perception of a babyish facial appearance. A weighted linear composite derived from the measures of eye size and chin width accounted for 57% of the variance in ratings of babyfacedness. Both measured composite and subjective babyfacedness ratings were positively correlated with perceptions of the stimulus person's naivete, honesty, kindness, and warmth. ....."
(Some components and consequences of a babyface (Abstract)
By Berry, Dian S.; McArthur, Leslie Z.
The Journal of Personality & Social Psychology
Vol 48(2), Feb 1985, pp. 312-323)
It seems to me that although there are exceptions, most people live by their scripts. I do not see much wrong with it. I just find it funny, and interesting to think about various types and stereotypes.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
A dialogue...
The atheist and the theist, where was I. I put some history about a witch hunt on here because some of the facts will enter the dialogue.
So, the atheist was saying,
"....my empirically based criticism and demand for observation remains because we must use the visible formation to judge information. Come to think of it, that's the point of science. So you can see why I would note that God ought to come to dinner, then by observation I could know."
"So you would agree that information is invisible but award primacy to the visible. Actually, it seems to me that all the things we really care about are invisible such as mercy, hope, love, duty and honor. Insight is not sight, yet you seem to say that it ought to be. Perhaps it ought to be, and our sense of what is right should comport with what actually is. Perhaps it was meant to be, for us to have a sense of everything being in its right form instead of the universal perception that things are deformed or 'wrong.' But instead, there seems to be a difference between our conception and perception."
"I guess what I am saying is very simple, seeing is believing. Sight...yes I know about insight. But what is that, really? I know something when I see it."
"To be clear, I also have the desire to see. For instance, I would like for God to role back the sky as a scroll and come down as some type, some manifested, 'real' form....and then say, 'Yes, I exist. So shall we garden my garden the way I made it to be?' The thing about that is, what if God is going to do that but not yet? And what if the pattern in ancient stories is true? I mean true the same way you do, an actual observation beings of light creating or setting things right. Let's say for the sake of argument that ancient stories are true to one degree or another. Perhaps some were changed with the re-telling, yet they are not all superstition....and there were beings from the sky, like the tales of UFOs and so on. How would we know, having not experienced anything of the sort? How would we know about any type of anomaly, for that matter? Do you have to experience everything or see it, to know it? Again, I do want to see, just as you do. But in dealing with the things we are talking about much is insight, historical types of arguments and philosophical. It is not as if you can put such an experience in a test-tube to test it. The time of its observation, whatever it was, has come and gone. It is not amenable to observation and testing. Yet that is what you demand. I should note that we do not live by sight, not at all. There is space in us for the invisible reality of everything we cannot visibly see at the moment."
"Okay, some things are invisible....and we do base a lot of our lives on things that are invisible, I suppose. If I turn my back on you, then you are invisible. I suppose what I am saying is along the same lines of God letting suffering happen. It's a bit much to believe that God is powerful enough to stop evil and manifest before us, yet does not. Hmmm, I said if I turn my back on you, then you are invisible to me. What if God has turned his back on us?"
"Maybe he has."
"Then why do you support God?"
"Look at us and the great mass of humanity, its selfishness, greed, murder and envy. Its gluttony as it eats itself to death. Its narcissistic hedonism as it loves itself to death. The human spirit is capable of overcoming, being creative, beautiful, charitable and noble. Yet it is also marred and scarred. Look at Nature, it is red in tooth and claw. It degenerates and falls apart. One creature lives as a parasite on another, it cannot live on its own. Viruses, disease and Death make their home in Nature. Creatures are going exctinct as one tiny speck of a planet that is such a tiny isolated garden of green plants and blue waters where Life yet lives, awaits its ultimate extinction event. Shall I support and have faith in the Good or the Evil? In Nature as in man, there are also the remnants of something good adapting to degeneration and Death. Each spring, things are born again and the generation of the generations continues. So I support being born again as Jesus said, because it is Good. Good has not totally turned its back, unless you overlook a lot of Good. Besides, shall I support Evil? I think a better question than why do I support God is why do you support Evil?"
"I don't support evil! Didn't I just get through questioning God because he does not do something about it? He's the one who let evil happen, not me."
(Well, no time to continue...I did some writing on Right2Left today too. It's just obvious things like the complementarity of men and women, the Yin and the Yang and Romance. But sometimes people cannot admit to the obvious for reasons that are not so obvious.)
So, the atheist was saying,
"....my empirically based criticism and demand for observation remains because we must use the visible formation to judge information. Come to think of it, that's the point of science. So you can see why I would note that God ought to come to dinner, then by observation I could know."
"So you would agree that information is invisible but award primacy to the visible. Actually, it seems to me that all the things we really care about are invisible such as mercy, hope, love, duty and honor. Insight is not sight, yet you seem to say that it ought to be. Perhaps it ought to be, and our sense of what is right should comport with what actually is. Perhaps it was meant to be, for us to have a sense of everything being in its right form instead of the universal perception that things are deformed or 'wrong.' But instead, there seems to be a difference between our conception and perception."
"I guess what I am saying is very simple, seeing is believing. Sight...yes I know about insight. But what is that, really? I know something when I see it."
"To be clear, I also have the desire to see. For instance, I would like for God to role back the sky as a scroll and come down as some type, some manifested, 'real' form....and then say, 'Yes, I exist. So shall we garden my garden the way I made it to be?' The thing about that is, what if God is going to do that but not yet? And what if the pattern in ancient stories is true? I mean true the same way you do, an actual observation beings of light creating or setting things right. Let's say for the sake of argument that ancient stories are true to one degree or another. Perhaps some were changed with the re-telling, yet they are not all superstition....and there were beings from the sky, like the tales of UFOs and so on. How would we know, having not experienced anything of the sort? How would we know about any type of anomaly, for that matter? Do you have to experience everything or see it, to know it? Again, I do want to see, just as you do. But in dealing with the things we are talking about much is insight, historical types of arguments and philosophical. It is not as if you can put such an experience in a test-tube to test it. The time of its observation, whatever it was, has come and gone. It is not amenable to observation and testing. Yet that is what you demand. I should note that we do not live by sight, not at all. There is space in us for the invisible reality of everything we cannot visibly see at the moment."
"Okay, some things are invisible....and we do base a lot of our lives on things that are invisible, I suppose. If I turn my back on you, then you are invisible. I suppose what I am saying is along the same lines of God letting suffering happen. It's a bit much to believe that God is powerful enough to stop evil and manifest before us, yet does not. Hmmm, I said if I turn my back on you, then you are invisible to me. What if God has turned his back on us?"
"Maybe he has."
"Then why do you support God?"
"Look at us and the great mass of humanity, its selfishness, greed, murder and envy. Its gluttony as it eats itself to death. Its narcissistic hedonism as it loves itself to death. The human spirit is capable of overcoming, being creative, beautiful, charitable and noble. Yet it is also marred and scarred. Look at Nature, it is red in tooth and claw. It degenerates and falls apart. One creature lives as a parasite on another, it cannot live on its own. Viruses, disease and Death make their home in Nature. Creatures are going exctinct as one tiny speck of a planet that is such a tiny isolated garden of green plants and blue waters where Life yet lives, awaits its ultimate extinction event. Shall I support and have faith in the Good or the Evil? In Nature as in man, there are also the remnants of something good adapting to degeneration and Death. Each spring, things are born again and the generation of the generations continues. So I support being born again as Jesus said, because it is Good. Good has not totally turned its back, unless you overlook a lot of Good. Besides, shall I support Evil? I think a better question than why do I support God is why do you support Evil?"
"I don't support evil! Didn't I just get through questioning God because he does not do something about it? He's the one who let evil happen, not me."
(Well, no time to continue...I did some writing on Right2Left today too. It's just obvious things like the complementarity of men and women, the Yin and the Yang and Romance. But sometimes people cannot admit to the obvious for reasons that are not so obvious.)
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Witch Hunt
(Petition for bail from accused witches, ca. 1692
(John Davis Batchelder, Collection
cf. The Library of Congress)
"....more than 150 men and women in and around Salem were jailed on sorcery charges. Nineteen people eventually hanged on Gallows Hill and an additional victim was pressed to death.
....Cousins Abigail Williams and Betty Parris began entering trance-like states and suffering from convulsive seizures in January. By late February, prayer, fasting, and medical treatment had failed to relieve the girls' symptoms and quiet the blasphemous shouting that accompanied their fits. Pressured to explain, they accused three local women of sorcery.
A recent epidemic of small pox, heightened threats of Indian attack, and small town rivalries, primed the people of the Salem area for the mass hysteria that characterized the witch trials."
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