Evolution and Exorcisms
July 2, 2008
EVOLUTION: More surprising to me as I consider where my intellectual head-space has been on this issue, which is central to theological ideal; is the fact that I have become more of a creationist. Skeptics may say that God doesn’t exist and I am inclined to agree he/she isn’t within our purview to limit and say we know; HIM, or even what it is that really goes on, in the world about us. It would be difficult to say there is any one humanistic discipline or theology that fits with my perception. Teilhard de Chardin’s ‘templates’ and ‘quantum many worlds’ join Lamarckian science, that requires uncertainty and values mystery and uncertainty principles with purpose. In the final analysis you can put me in whatever ‘cubby-hole’ you want and there’ll be agreement and respect for the truth therein expressed. I see a lot of people sounding like they disagree and yet I see little difference except when they seek personal gain by it. Surely science has given a great deal of support to the concept of consciousness existing in the very smallest parts of energy, and in the ways it performs what was once considered miraculous, or magical. Here are the thoughts of two very scientifically oriented people from MIT in a book called Darwinism Evolving:
Guerrilla Mythbusting: 5 Snappy Rules For Spotting and Exposing Popular Nonsense
June 16, 2008
College students tend to wax enthusiastic about the lessons they pick up in class. Curiously, this very admirable trait, a thirst for knowledge, has a downside to it. When one learns at a rate best described as “alarming,” which college students often must do, little time exists to sit and sift through all that new material carefully. And this burdensome task would mandate yet more study time, which luxury few students can afford.
This means that, for very practical reasons, they will tend to accept readily the sermons that echo from academic pulpits. Consumers of media information have nearly the same problem — a large flow of information thrust at them, and little time to sort through it. Election years only magnify this problem, and political candidates can grind axes with the best of them. When a scandal breaks out, the media blitz can sometimes blind even the more critical viewers. So we have done some of the extra homework for these groups to help them make the best of this unhappy situation. Here, we offer a clear-headed set of rules to disperse the fog quickly, adding daylight to the topic at hand.
Viewing from Anothers Perspective Sets Humans Apart?
June 1, 2008
Recently I discussed what sets humans apart from other animals and species. The basic question, which has been kicked around for centuries is what makes man so unique? So, different than the other species we see? Many immediately take their religious doctrine and use it to answer the question; they say things like "God made us in his image." The animals were put here for us to use, eat, fish and etc; they are indeed here to serve man? After kicking around such notions which cannot be proved either way; a gentleman, David, came up with an interesting concept.
Of course he too borrowed the concept from his readings and learnings and made it part of his belief system. Here is how it goes; "empathy is what sets us apart" basically that is it. Here is David’s longer version:
"Empathy: If anything, the ability to see from another’s perspective is what sets humans apart from the rest of the animals. It is the basis of many of the qualities that we hold in highest regard: kindness, charity, mercy, welfare, forgiveness. Far from being irrational, empathy confers a distinct advantage in any social situation. It provides a foundation for promises, contracts, and deals. To a large extent it is the glue that binds society."
Why Im Glad Im Not a Minority Writer
May 17, 2008
I’ll admit that I used to be jealous of my compadres who were minorities in my BFA Creative Writing program. The rest of us were just crusty white kids with no rhythm.
So, I used to be a little jealous of the amount of anger material these minority writers had access to. There is a lot of inspiration in one’s cultural identity but if that inspiration doesn’t allow the artist to create works that break past the illusory bonds of time and space to that oneness that unites us all then the art won’t last and won’t have quite the impact the artist hopes it will. In fact, here is a definition of good art you can copy paste into your brilliant quotes file. This one comes from yours’ truly, Uncle Josh:
“Art (with a capital A) is all about using the contemporary forms of time and space (people, objects and their relationships) to blow apart the phenomenal differences that keep us each locked into what appears to be an inescapable prison (our own egos which are composed of our experience and emotional and intellectual reactions to the present moment, from which we project the future).”
Critical Thinking To Go: Dodging The Pepperoni Pizza Fallacy
May 2, 2008
Today we commonly hear in the news journalistic items about religion and politics, or faith and something else, where the suggested “duo du jour” usually sit in opposition to one another. One could do this, of course, just as easily with other areas of human thought, as with sociology vs. history, or economics vs. psychology. But most people do not seem nearly as interested in this exercise as they seem anxious to set “religion” over against whatever other area they might find interesting.
But this represents quite an odd way to view things (at the very best), and one might rightly call it propaganda (at the worst) in many instances. You see, life does not come at us in slices, as though it were one very large pepperoni pizza to go. When humans experience an event, we do not encounter it in a parade of neatly snipped segments, as though the civil war first showed us its psychological effects, then came its economic aspects, only after which we then got a look at its technological innovations.
Darius and the US Postal Service
April 16, 2008
DARIUS: - Coins bearing his visage are found in the Americas but we would never expect to see normal academic overviews mention this for public consideration. And I was not surprised when I read many other things about Aryans and supposed first Empires, as I read the following part of a far larger presentation. Was the US support of the Shah connected to a larger and long term plan to manage the plebs or serfs who think they are free?
"Cyrus recognized that the “known world” he wished to conquer included Egypt, Carthage, Ethiopia, and Greek colonies on the Mediterranean coast as far as Gibraltar, but for the time being he thought he had better seize the known world to the east (except for distant, legendary China). In about a year he took lands as far away as what are now the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. He rushed west again and fell upon Babylon by diverting the unfordable Gyndes River, a tributary of the Tigris which protected the city, into many shallow hand-dug channels. There he freed the forty thousand Jews held in the Babylonian captivity. A few years later, putting down a revolt in the east, Cyrus died in battle. His troops brought his body back to Pasargadae, and laid it to rest in the tomb with the Nordic roof. {N.B.}
Archetypes
April 1, 2008
DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY (ARCHETYPES): - “All material bodies are condensations of frozen bodies.” (2) Jung is becoming ‘in vogue’ again, I hear. Perhaps this time around it won’t just involve so little real appreciation for all that he meant and understood. Dream interpretation and projected Western values can be a Freudian gambit - Jung grew to see things few will ever admit to in the present ideologies of the West. He was able to contact the future before the First World War and it almost convinced him he was mad, until he saw his visions were right - then he knew it wasn’t himself who was mad - it was the world he lived in! His archetypes may be a contact with the genetic ‘history book’ that the Director of the Human Genome Project talked about recently when he announced that only 2.8 centimetres of 1.8 metres of a gene are required to make the human being. It might be a collective ‘tap-in’ or even the ‘medulla oblongata’ has the ability to record the knowledge of previous evolutionary experience of man’s development. Personally I feel it is a matter of some of each of these things and the factors relating to chaos and the interference of conflicting vibrations or wavelengths in the confusing array of bandwidths and personalities.
From Experience: Is It the Circle of Life?
March 17, 2008
All of it in one way or another a part of my lifetime and not an analytical study of the way that business has changed but a comparison that is not at all hard to follow or see. What happened to our country now seems to be subtle changes that occurred as the years passed by.
Always a reason behind a wage difference always because of the area of the country or because of the actual company I was working for.
Basically it has all boiled down to the ultimate understanding that it was just the standard of living country wide had taken a turn for the worse and no one, definitely not me?wanted to admit it or look at it.
Yes, beyond my capability to actually crunch numbers and really see what was happening somehow the American way of life has changed and it is harder than ever to do what needs to be done financially.
Beyond my want to know at all of what has really happened, and understand it. Because the country that I grew up in, the country that was so fair to all was slowly changing. So much that it wasn’t really noticeable immediately and if you were too busy trying to make ends meet possibly you didn’t even think about it or find it unusual or sad. It really is sad, but real.
The Earth Energy Grid
March 2, 2008
EARTH ENERGY GRID: - Sedona, Arizona is not only my own personal special place in nature - almost all spiritual organizations have conventions, churches or offices near all these vortices of earth energy and nature. There is a secret government base in a valley to the north and under a swamp some engineers found signs similar to the Nazca Lines and other natural spirit forms from ancient peoples. That was after a dry spell and I no longer have the article from a local paper to quote for you. Few people who aren’t totally dead from the neck up can say there is no earth energy. It has a wavelength of 7.8 cycles and intersects in ways that make numerous things happen. Personally I think ‘crop circles’ that aren’t made by debunkers like those who’ve found three different confessors to the Kensington Runestone, have something to do with the Earth Energy Grid. We will go into Ley lines and other related studies as well as ‘Feng shui’, later. For now, suffice it to say that the earth can conduct energy as Tesla showed in Colorado Springs when he lit the town up in the early 20th century before J. P. Morgan shelved the design (after paying a cool million for it).
Its Not Your Fault!
February 16, 2008
Saying goodbye is easy for the traveler. I am a person who traveled so much that I had no roots except ‘within’ and I learned to be connected to ‘What IS’.
In the movie Good Will Hunting there are many great insights about the rat race and cycle of violence. I never was beaten but I had a horror show caused by the social system due to a schizophrenic mother. But I empathized with the Psychologist played by Robin Williams because I have always been there to counsel those in need or trouble. I had studied just like Will Hunting a lot of the books on philosophy and psychology. Before I was ten I dare say I had read more than the average Doctor of Psychology.
It was good to see both the main characters get on with their life and do the right thing. The ‘Right Thing’ is what I have been doing ever since I decided to fulfill my purpose. That meant I had to face the music and the rat race or bureaucracy again. You could say I am determined to be ‘historical’ like Gertrude Stein ? or die trying. But I don’t have a salon in Paris. I live in a group home for the flotsam of society called insane. I write my books in hopes that someone some day will decide to join me in a quest beyond fighting City Hall. Just like Gertrude’s unwillingness to see the politics that lead to war I am moved to see what really causes these behaviors.
