Next Phase of Religious Descent
Lt. Aoclazteuq
USING CHRISTIAN ZOMBIES (e.g. Sister Sarah, et al.)
IN THE SERVICE OF THE ELITES:
CREATING A CRUSADER ARMY IN THE SERVICE OF BABYLON
THE NEXT PHASE OF CHRISTIANITY'S DESCENT INTO
MADNESS: THE ISLAMIZATION OF THE WAR ON TERRORISM
AND FINANCIAL SHENANIGANS OF CULTURE WAR PROPOGANDA!
http://www.cephasministry.com/nwo_next_phase.html
The Baptist Faith and Message:
http://www.sbc.net/bfm/bfm2000.asp
"The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired
and is God's revelation of Himself to man. It is a
perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God
for its author, salvation for its end, and truth,
without any mixture of error, for its matter.
Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and
trustworthy. It reveals the principles by
which God judges us, and therefore is,
and will remain to the end of the
world, the true center of Christian
union, and the supreme standard by
which all human conduct, creeds,
and religious opinions should be
tried. All Scripture is a testimony
to Christ, who is Himself the
focus of divine revelation."
http://www.sbc.net/bfm/bfm2000.asp
Pastor Ted Haggard
NEW LIFE CHURCH
11025 State Highway 83
Colorado Springs, CO 80921-3602
ques...@newlifechurch.org
http://www.newlifechurch.org/
James C. Dobson, Ph.D.
Focus on the Family
8605 Explorer Drive
Colorado Springs, CO 80920
http://www.focusonthefamily.com/
719-531-3400
An Anti-Christ:
http://www.focusonthefamily.com/about_us/dr_james_dobson.aspx
Mike Haley
Exodus International
PO Box 540119
Orlando, FL 32854
http://exodus.to/exodus_links.shtml
Apologetics Press
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=www.apologeticspress.org
What We Believe
1.)The following principles of truth are accepted
by those who actively participate in this work:
2.)God is, and man can know that God is, by means
of His manifold revelations, both in nature and
through the inspired Word of God, the Holy Bible.
3.) The entire material Universe was specially created
by this Almighty God in 6 days of approximately
24-hours each, as revealed in Genesis 1 and Exodus 20:11.
4.) Both biblical and scientific evidence indicate a
relatively young Earth, in contrast to evolutionary
views of a multi-billion-year age for the Earth.
5.) Both biblical and scientific evidence indicate that
many of the Earth's features must be viewed in light
of a universal, catastrophic flood (to wit: the
Noachian deluge as expressed in Genesis 6-8).
6.) All compromising theories such as theistic evolution,
progressive creationism, threshold evolution, the gap
theory, the modified gap theory, the day-age theory,
the non-world view, etc., shall be denied and opposed
as patently false.
7.) Jesus Christ is the only divine Son of God, born of
the virgin Mary, miracle-working, resurrected Lord
and Savior of all who lovingly obey Him.
8.) The 66 books of the Bible are fully and verbally
inspired of God; hence, they are inerrant and
authoritative, and a complete guide for moral and
religious conduct.
9.) Salvation is by means of obedience to the Gospel
system, involving faith in God and Christ, repentance
from sin, confession of faith, and immersion in water
for remission of past sins, coupled with a life of
growing consecration and dedication.
Those enjoying salvation are members of the one true church,
which is the body of Christ
For general inquiries, questions of a doctrinal
or scientific nature, etc.,
Call or write us at
230 Landmark Drive,
Montgomery, AL 36117-2752
Phone:
800-234-8558
334-272-8558
Fax:
800-234-2882
334-270-2002
For other inquiries of a biblical or scientific nature,
please e-mail Apologetics Press atm...@apologeticspress.org
http://www.apologeticspress.org/
"God Hates America" by Westboro Baptist Church
of Topeka, Kansas - The Reverend Fred Phelps -
"GOD HATES FAGS!" http://www.godhatesfags.com/
http://www.godhatesamerica.com/
Mail: 3701 Sw 12th St.
Topeka, KS 66604-1730
The African Witch Hunter Anoints Sister Sarah Palin:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/the-witch-hunter-anoints_b_128805.html
Rev. Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson - CBN
977 Centerville Turnpike
Virginia Beach, VA 23463-1001
Another Anti-Christ: http://www.patrobertson.com/
http://www.cbn.com/700club/showinfo/staff/patrobertson.asp
Professor John Ashcroft
Center for Law and Justice
1000 Regent University Drive
Virginia Beach, VA 23464-5037
http://www.regent.edu/news/ashcroft.html
HTTP://WWW.ChristianityToday.com
465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188
T 630.260.6200F 630.260.0114
CEO: Harold L. Myra
Christianity Today International Statement of Faith
http://www.christianitytoday.com/help/features/faith.html
The [HORRIBLE!] Truth About Yoga[!]
Yoga led Laurette Willis into a New Age lifestyle.
Now she's warning others of the spiritual pitfalls--and
offering an alternative - her new exercise program,
PraiseMoves, which she calls "a Christian alternative
to yoga." .... Exercise Plus Praise
After giving her life to God, Laurette began
devouring the Bible. She burned her New Age books
and disengaged from everything associated with her
turbulent past--including yoga.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/tcw/2005/002/14.40.html
Pastor Thomas Muthee kills WITCHES!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Thomas+Muthee+kills+witches
Mr. Tony Perkins
Family Research Council
801 G Street NW
Washington, DC 20001-3729
http://www.frc.org
Heritage Foundation
214 Massachusetts Ave NE
Washington DC 20002-4999
http://www.heritage.org
Mathew D. Staver, Esq.
Liberty Counsel
Post Office Box 540774
Orlando, FL 32854
(407) 875-210
(800) 671-1776
http://www.lc.org/
Rev. Moon is the head of the Unification Church
http://www.unification.net/
and the founder of the Washington Times.
Rev. Sun Myung Moon spent a billion dollars of
church funds to support the conservative,
influential Washington Times, which in 2002 he
called "the instrument in spreading the truth
about God to the world".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Myung_Moon
"... Moon said the reformed Hitler and Stalin vouched
for him from the spirit world, calling him "none other
than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord
and True Parent".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rev_Moon_crowned.jpg
John Lind: The President's Prayer Team
http://www.presidentialprayerteam.org/
Teletubby & Rev. Jerry Falwell's reconciliation!
http://jackanapes.ws/ani/tinkysrevenge.gif
FAITH AND VALUES COALITION
http://www.falwell.com/
President G.W. Bush's Dark-Ages-esque: "Just-Say-N0-to-SEX,"
faith-based funded [and U.S. Tax $$'s!] abstinence-only,
public school re-education programs!)) Can you say:
"Silver Ring Thing?!" http://www.silverringthing.com/
Third Reich Spiritualism
http://www.markswatson.com/skulls2.jpg
"Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know,
it's a hell of a hoot . . . It's fun to shoot some people.
I'll be right up front with you. I like brawling.
You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap
women around for five years because they didn't
wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no
manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun
to shoot them."
--Marine Lieutenant General James N. Mattis
[His comments were met with laughter and applause...]
http://www.usmc.mil/
PRAISE JEEEEEEZUSSUH! [and pass the superior firepower!]
Schedule of Upcoming Extremist Events: 2008
http://www.adl.org/learn/Events_2001/events_2003_flashmap.asp
"The Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party
a public information project from TheocracyWatch.org"
http://www.theocracywatch.org
http://www.cresp.cornell.edu/projects/theocracy_watch.php
Fade to Center
While the religious right broadens its campaign to
undermine reproductive freedom, what's left of the left
prefers to repeat history. By Kathryn Joyce
http://www.therevealer.org/
The Revealer - A Daily View
of Religion & The Press
Publisher: "Jay Rosen"
the.re...@nyu.edu
http://www.therevealer.org/
Planet Jupiter
> http://www.therevealer.org/
"Everybody understands Mickey Mouse.
A few people understand Herman Hesse.
Hardly anybody understands Einstein.
And nobody understands Emperor Norton."
-- Malaclypse the Younger
http://www.hermetic.com/browe-archive/index.htm
Betrayed (1988)
Directed by: Costa Gavras
Featuring: Debra Winger, Tom Berenger
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094731/
The Handmaid's Tale (1990)
Directed by: Volker Schlondorff
Featuring: Natasha Richardson, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099731/
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
Directed by: Michael Radford
Featuring: John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087803/
Mr. K. Rupert Murdoch Chairman & CEO of:
News Corporation
1211 Avenue Of The Americas, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10036-8701
FOXNEWS
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/youare.swf
What ever happened to the
Knights of National Security's
"Brother Blue"?
PSI & ...
The One/True 'GENUINE' Historical
"The B:.B:. (c)"
http://bleujefe.com/BB/index-2.html
SEE:
::: The City of Light :::
http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=21384
The Ritual of the Rising Sun
http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=21324
SEE: "[::: Ingo and the Martians! :::]" BELOW...
::: Ingo and the Martians! :::
"Blue Resonant Human"<brothe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.magick/browse_thread/thread/c8e94ddcc9f3ba62?utoken=qWDXGS0AAAD9sroAhExLQ2XXYES9jkguCSNNf8L_mQ3yfsHgSBFdgAYu3X9jCJF6FCGEwuDLXpo
Penetration: The Question of Extraterrestrial
and Human Telepathy by Ingo Swann
220 pages in soft cover [Sold Out!]
[ http://www.biomindsuperpowers.com/Pages/PenetrationOrdering.html ]
[...]
Greetings!
How intriguing.Lets compare notes if you like,
as I've accumulated a good bit on Hal P (who, unlike
Ingo, left scientology in abject disgust) and,
of course, some of our friends in the DIA.Well,
some stuff on Kit and Ron and Uri, too, because
they're sorta tied up in the whole deal as well,
you know.Anyway, might flesh out a couplea
chapters for you or something.
It was really strange ... yesterday, just a
few hours after posting this msg (to an interesting,
specially selected cross-cultural group) I was
standing there just kind of spacing out and all
of a sudden I caught Ingo Remote Viewing(tm) me
to see what I was up to with the post.
I just told him that I certainly bear him
no malice and that when it comes to selling
books and stuff, there's no such thing as bad
publicity.I told him telepathically, of
course -- I didn't even move my lips when I
said it in my brain.Remote Viewers are
good at doing that sort of thing, you know.
But then I was thinking on the way in to
work this morning that it would be really
cool if a sort of tactical alliance was formed.
I mean, just think about it for a minute here:
Jack Sarfatti could build a time machine to
take a couple platoons of Delta Force troops
back in time to about 1946 so that when the grey
aliens are about to crash at Roswell in 1947,
the troops would be ready for them and pretty
much kick their spindly little asses right
into the next galaxy.
Hal Puthoff is getting really good with all that
zero-point energy stuff so he could probably make
some really cool batteries for the time machine.
Plus, he's almost broken through with his calcs on
wormhole creation (because you'd pretty much have
to have a decent sized wormhole prepared if you
wanted to ship those little grey alien bastards
the hell out of here, right?)
John Alexander could equip the Delta Force
troops with a bunch of non-lethal weapons,
like that gooey stuff that you spray on people
to get them all clogged up and stuff.
This way the greys would be all gooey and
they wouldn't be able to retaliate.
Ingo Swann could be a kind of navigator because
he could use his telepathic contact with the
Martian Mind Matrix to find the best place to
connect the other side of the wormhole to.Plus,
he could pretend like the greys are not in any
trouble by broadcasting telepathic messages to
the mothership like, "Hey -- it's OK.We're about
to crash at Roswell just like we planned.
Everything is proceeding right on schedule,"
even though the Delta Force troops were really
running the little bastards out of town
(and the HELL out of our timeline, dammit).
Ed Dames and Dave Morehouse could write some
books and articles and stuff that were totally
exaggerated -- even laughably so, at times -- and
this would serve to adequately disinform the public
as to the true mission objectives of the
Delta Force troops.
And finally, Bob Bigelow could fund the
entire op while Schnabel, of course,
would keep The Company informed.
What do you think?
Pretty cool idea, huh?
And hey -- see you on MindNet(tm)!
-Brother Blue, B:.B:. (aka BlueBird)
Interdimensional Intelligence Analyst
Brotherhood of Galactic Science & Magick
[ = MindNet(tm) = cf: aav archives for the Brother Blue MindNet post]
http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=F7RWkhkAAACt22t6OPcEBCr3fcK6RZfbbadRkHY8izvoWSZmz-9hFg
Or:
http://tinyurl.com/2xto46
!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!
[As of Feb 26, 2007]
::: The Elusive and Enigmatic Brother Blue :::
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.alien.visitors/browse_thread/thread/80f7698a6e1a8e31/201a8dc2e484dca5#201a8dc2e484dca5
Or:
http://tinyurl.com/ypa54k
Or:
http://tinyurl.com/2xto46
!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!
Koyaanisqatsi Fahrvergnugen
> On Sep 27, 11:52 pm, "Lt. Aoclazteuq" <snake_4...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > The Next Phase of Religion's Descent Into Madness
>
> > USING CHRISTIAN ZOMBIES (e.g. Sister Sarah, et al.)
> > IN THE SERVICE OF THE ELITES:
> > CREATING A CRUSADER ARMY IN THE SERVICE OF BABYLON
> > THE NEXT PHASE OF CHRISTIANITY'S DESCENT INTO
> > MADNESS: THE ISLAMIZATION OF THE WAR ON TERRORISM
> > AND FINANCIAL SHENANIGANS OF CULTURE WAR PROPOGANDA!
> > http://www.cephasministry.com/nwo_next_phase.html
>
> !i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!
>
> [As of Feb 26, 2007]
> ::: The Elusive and Enigmatic Brother Blue :::
>
> Or:
> http://tinyurl.com/2xto46
>
> !i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!
WACKY 'Hawking Radiation' DIALOGUE$:
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=233768
"Your ++++++++++ [Text - Physics Forums Library]
Thoughts on Black Hole Production at CERN
http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-233768.html
[|||]-[|||]-[|||]
SEE ALSO:
Black Holes at Future Colliders and Beyond: a Review
by Greg Landsberg
Brown University, Department of Physics,
182 Hope St, Providence, RI 02912, USA
E-mail:land...@hep.brown.edu
Abstract
As was suggested about a year ago, one of the
most dramatic consequences of low-scale
(~ 1 TeV) quantum gravity is copious production
of mini black holes at future accelerators and
in ultra-high-energy cosmic ray collisions.
Hawking radiation of these black holes
is constrained mainly to our (3+1)-dimensional
world and results in rich phenomenology.
With the original idea having been cited over
a hundred times since its appearance, we review
the current status of astrophysical observations
of black holes and selected topics in the mini
black hole phenomenology, such as production
rates at colliders and in cosmic rays, Hawking
radiation as a sensitive probe of the
dimensionality of extra space, as well as an
exciting possibility of finding new physics
in the decays of black holes.
(Submitted on 26 Jul 2006)
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0607297v1
[|||]-[|||]-[|||]
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/
CDF, DZero reach 5 inverse femtobarns of luminosity
Fermilab's Tevatron collider experiments, CDF and DZero,
both reached 5 inverse femtobarns of luminosity this week.
The experiments have been taking data since March 2001.
DZero reached its integrated luminosity record on Sunday,
Sept. 23. CDF reached its 5 inverse femtobarns on Thursday.
Physicists count the number of collisions produced in the
Tevatron in units of inverse femtobarns.
Three years ago, on June 24, 2005, Fermilab
celebrated 1 inverse femtobarn for CDF and
DZero. Read more about that milestone here:
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive_2005/today05-06-27.html
[|||]-[|||]-[|||]
We at 'THE HOME' [for dis-phased temporalnauts -ed.]
watched in awed silence as our waffle toaster
reached temperatures comparable to the
surface of the sun burning right through
the granite kitchen table top.
Needless to say we had to go to K-Mart for
a new toaster, and to Home Depot for a new
kitchen counter. We dearly missed our waffles.
If the LHC were a high performance race car,
then it just "threw a rod" requiring the car
to be towed back to the garage for rebuilding,
and/or replacing the entire engine. ["Locally" speaking. -ed.]
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10049188-76.html?tag=nl.e703
LHC shut down until early spring
Posted by Michelle Meyers
http://news.cnet.com/8300-11386_3-76.html?authorId=1303 comments
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10049188-76.html?tag=nl.e703#comments
Professor Peter Higgs
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7608342.stm
will have to wait at least a few additional seasons to
find out whether his long-held theory on how
matter has mass is right.
That's because officials announced Tuesday
that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
http://news.cnet.com/2300-1008_3-6245225-1.html
which could confirm the existence of a theoretical
particle name after Higgs, will remain shut down
until at least early spring.
The LHC, the world's largest particle collider,
is located in a nearly 17-mile-long circular
tunnel along the French-Swiss border about 330
feet underground. Built by the European Organization
for Nuclear Research (or CERN), it promises to push
forward theories of particle physics, such as
the Higgs Bosonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson ,
and the fundamental building blocks of all things.
The collider was officially launched on September 10
http://news.cnet.com/cerns-big-collider-now-in-action/
when the first particle beam was successfully sent
around the full circuit. However, it hit a major glitch
last week when a mechanical failure triggered a
helium leak and forced a shutdown for what was initially
reported to be at least two months.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10047185-76.html
Now it looks like the investigation and repairs
won't be finished in time to restart the LHC before
CERN's obligatory winter maintenance period, pushing
the restart date back to early spring 2009,
officials said.
CERN Director General Robert Aymar said
in a press release
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2008/PR10.08E.html
that the delay was "undoubtedly a
psychological blow," but added that
the success with the first beam operation
was testimony to the years of
preparation and the skills of teams involved.
"I have no doubt that we
will overcome this setback with the same
degree or rigor and application."
It appears the helium link was caused by
a faulty electrical connection between two
of the accelerator's magnets. But the magnets
involved can't even be opened up for investigation
until the sector is brought to room temperature,
which will take three or four weeks, CERN said.
Peter Limon, who was responsible for
commissioning the Tevatron superconducting
accelerator in the U.S., offered perspective
by adding that such problems are to be expected
given the size and complexity of the LHC.
"Events occur from time to time that temporarily
stop operations, for shorter or longer periods,
especially during the early phases," he said
in the press statement.
The LHC experiments involve accelerating
two beams of subatomic particles--called
hadrons--in opposite directions to more
than 99.9 percent the speed of light.
Smashing the beams together will create
showers of new particles for physicists
to study using special detectors. On a
microscale, it will re-create conditions
that existed during the first billionth
of a second of the Big Bang.
Antediluvian Patriarch wrote:
We at 'THE HOME' [for dis-phased temporalnauts -ed.]
watched a Discovery Channel documentary
a-couple-a-weeks-ago about the LAAAAAAARGE HADRON
COLLLLLLLIDERRRRRR that, near the end of the broadcast,
described the exact scenario of the possibility of
a "Quench," which has indeed happened as the
Discovery Channel accurately described it.
Curiously, the Discovery Channel once-upon-a-time
ran a documentary about the possibility of New Orleans'
French Quarter flooding PRIOR to the Katrina Hurricane
hitting the Gulf! Does this mean that other DC
documentaries about errant asteroids, exploding comets
and horny aliens having intercourse with the Planet
Earth are soon to transpire with nefarious and/or
paradigm-shifting results?!
WHAT evil lurks in the heart of The Discovery Channel's
Programming 0verlords, and might they also be in control
of that pathologically neo-NUTZOID "Rense.com" site
so beloved by certain entities connected with this
tripartite email list of "To:", "Cc:", & "Bcc:" ??!!
[O WOE IS WE!!!!! -ed.]
http://www.rense.com/general83/IncidentatCERN.pdf
Maybe it was THE HISTORY CHANNEL [run by the same evil 0verlords! -
ed.]
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=LHC+QUENCH+%2BTHE+HISTORY+CHANNEL
http://dsc.discovery.com/space/my-take/lhc-atom-smasher-james-gillies.html
"A superconducting magnet is an electromagnet that
is built using superconducting coils. They must be
cooled to cryogenic temperatures during operation.
Their advantages are that they can produce stronger
fields than ordinary iron-core electromagnets, and
can be cheaper to operate, since no power is lost
to ohmic resistance in the windings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnet
A quench occurs when part of the superconducting coil
enters the normal (resistive) state. This can be
because the field inside the magnet is too great,
the rate of change of field is too great (causing
eddy currents and resultant heating in the copper
support matrix), or a combination of the two.
More rarely a defect in the magnet can cause a
quench. When this happens, that particular spot is
subject to rapid joule heating, which raises the
temperature of the surrounding regions. This pushes
these into the normal state as well, which leads to
more heating. The entire magnet rapidly (can take
several seconds, depending on the size of the
superconducting coil) becomes normal. This is
accompanied by a loud bang as the energy in the
magnetic field is converted to heat, and rapid
boil-off of the cryogenic fluid. Permanent damage
to the magnet is rare, but components can be damaged
by localised heating or large mechanical forces.
Practical magnets usually have safety devices to
remove the current or limit it when the beginning
of a quench is detected."
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=LHC+QUENCH+%2Bwikipedia
Lisa Randall
http://physics.harvard.edu/people/facpages/randall.html
Theoretical physicist, 46 Ã,· Cambridge, Massachusetts
http://www.esquire.com/print-this/lisa-randall-1008
ds2 = ^e -- k r (dx^2 + dy^2 +dz^2 -- c^2dt^2) + dr^2
LISA RANDALL'S WARPED model of the universe (expressed
mathematically, above) could irreversibly change the
way we understand the cosmos. And in an era when much
of theoretical physics is so abstract as to be
unprovable, it represents a new age in which testing
will become as important as postulating.
According to her model, which Randall developed with
Johns Hopkins physicist Raman Sundrum, the reason
gravity on Earth appears to be so weak compared with
the other natural forces is that our universe is
actually warped by a hidden fifth dimension; any
gravity we get could just be leftovers from the
imperceptible dimension next door.
When the Large Hadron Collider in Europe begins
collecting data later this year [NEXT year! -ed.],
one of the things it will be looking for is gravitons,
theoretical particles of gravity. If as protons are
slammed together in the collider a graviton were to
appear and then instantaneously disappear, it would
be a strong indication that Randall is correct.
If that happens, it will not only go a long way
toward solving one of physics' biggest mysteries--why
gravity appears to be relatively weak--but prove a
much-needed boon to string theorists, whose models
depend upon heretofore unproven hidden extra dimensions.
It would also offer the first hard data to support the
even wilder possibility that our four-dimensional
universe is just one of an infinite number of universes,
all floating freely in space.
Yet even if she's wrong, Randall's impact and
influence will help drive physics for many years
to come. Her emphasis on not just developing
mind-bending scenarios but finding ways to make
them testable will set the stage for how the study
of physics will be conducted in the future.
[AND she's a hottie! -ed.]
www.esquire.com/features/75-most-influential/lisa-randall-1008
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/Cooldown_status.htm
I wonder if the 100 C number can be checked. The original BBC report
I saw ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7626944.stm ) said
"by as much as 100 degrees [C]", which I took to be the temperature
rise, in degrees C. I changed this to 100 kelvin in the Wikipedia
LHC article, thinking "degrees C" is inappropriate in a cryogenic
context, though kelvin degrees and degrees C are of identical size.
But if the truth is really /*to*/ 100C, not */by/* 100C, then I was
misled. There must be some other source, probably at CERN, that can
resolve the question.
OutreZoneD
"This year Ananda will talk about:
The extraterrestrial presence
Exopolitics and the development of
worldwide concepts for the interaction
with an extraterrestrial Intelligence (ETI)"
http://www.schweibenalp.ch
http://phoenix.akasha.de/~aton/AOHM1.htm
Wooly Mammoth Dusty MindGland Supersymmetry
Dwarf Spheroidal Galactic Data Stream......
http://pweb.netcom.com/~mthorn/mindland.htm
LHC NEWS http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/News.htm
September 23, 2008 3:26 PM PDT
LHC shut down until early spring
http://www.news.google.com/news?hl=en&suggon=0&safe=off&q=LHC%20CERN
*************************************************************
Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 - March 2, 1982)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick
*************************************************************
Philip K. Dick's Reality by Tessa Dick
http://tinyurl.com/48pozq
(Tessa Dick was the late science fiction writer
Philip K. Dick's 4th wife. Dick's most famous
book is probably "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"
published in 1968, which was made into the film
"Blade Runner." Note that he also had "visitors.")
One of the last substantial conversations that I had
with my husband Philip K. Dick entailed a synopsis of
all the speculation in which Phil had engaged since his
visionary experience of 1974, when he saw the world of
ancient Rome superimposed on the landscape of
southern California.
Phil agreed with Plato that we see only the shadows
on the wall of the cave, and not the real objects
which cast those shadows. Those real objects, the
archetypes, stand outside of space and time, but
occasionally they bleed through and some people catch
a glimpse of them. Thus, the Rome that he saw was not,
strictly speaking, the Roman empire of early Christian
times, but an archetype of that kind of reality.
Hints of these philosophical ideas can be found
throughout Phil's writing, even in works from before
he experienced the visions. He always suspected that
we have made some kind of Faustian pact, that we
agreed to live, suffer and die in this illusory world.
Thus, when a character tries to purchase a cola from a
vending machine, he might find himself in an empty
room holding a piece of paper on which the words
"vending machine" are printed. The visitors who came
to Phil showed him alternate histories stacked like
dominoes above our time line, in what he called
"orthogonal time"--a time and space perpendicular to
our own, where we cannot perceive them any more than
the point in Flatland can see the sphere who comes to
visit him. He sees only the circle that appears in his
flat world when the sphere passes through.
Those visitors seemed to be moving chunks of
alternate history and dropping them into our
time line, trying to achieve a result that would
satisfy their goals. They sometimes leave behind
artifacts, which might explain why many ancient
societies which we have labeled "primitive" left
evidence of advanced technology, including electric
light bulbs and flying machines. It would also
explain records of ancient nuclear war, such as
we find in the Vedas.
The time travelers, or time meddlers, sometimes
enter our reality to observe us, and they appeared
quite shocked whenever they realized that Phil
could see them. They did occasionally communicate
with him. They claimed to come from a time that is
neither the past nor the future, but outside of
our time. Phil most often thought that they were
humans, not aliens, but genetically altered in
some way. He felt that they wanted to help us
avoid some global disaster that happened in the
1970s and which negatively affected their world.
The longer I live, the more I see that this world
is not quite real. To some extent, we have distanced
ourselves from reality with our technology, but the
illusory quality goes deeper than that. Some things
simply do not make sense. The next time you say,
"This can't be happening" or "I don't believe it,"
you just might be right.
http://www.unknowncountry.com/mindframe/opinion/?id=228
*************************************************************
"The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick"
by R. Crumb:
http://www.philipkdickfans.com/weirdo.htm
*************************************************************
"Communion" Twenty [Two] Years [Nine Months] On
"James [Gilliland] also has extensive
documentation of the appearance of
Spiritual Masters and other Off World
Visitors as well."
http://www.eceti.org/Eceti.James.html
Kooky [Dr. Michael E. Salla, M.A., Ph.D.]
"cites evidence of as many as sixteen
different extraterrestrial races
currently interacting with humanity in
a variety of ways, with a number of
other races simply monitoring the Earth."
http://www.exopolitics.org/Director.htm
"They do not find us nearly as important
as we find ourselves, and they can therefore
be cruel in the pursuit of their goals.
But when you connect with them, the rewards
are very, very great. Stupendous, actually.
Beyond measure." -- Whitley Strieber
Monday, 1:15 AM, December 26, 2005 CE
http://www.unknowncountry.com/journal/?id=213
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/
CDF, DZero reach 5 inverse femtobarns of luminosity
Fermilab's Tevatron collider experiments, CDF and DZero,
both reached 5 inverse femtobarns of luminosity this week.
The experiments have been taking data since March 2001.
DZero reached its integrated luminosity record on Sunday,
Sept. 23. CDF reached its 5 inverse femtobarns on Thursday.
Physicists count the number of collisions produced in the
Tevatron in units of inverse femtobarns.
Three years ago, on June 24, 2005, Fermilab
celebrated 1 inverse femtobarn for CDF and
DZero. Read more about that milestone here:
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive_2005/today05-06-27.html
On Sep 28, 12:25 am, Koyaanisqatsi Fahrvergnugen
> E-mail:landsb...@hep.brown.edu
> will have to wait at least a few additional seasons to
> find out whether his long-held theory on how
> matter has mass is right.
>
> That's because officials announced Tuesday
> that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
> http://news.cnet.com/2300-1008_3-6245225-1.html
> which could confirm the existence of a theoretical
> particle name after Higgs, will remain shut down
> until at least early spring.
>
> The LHC, the world's largest particle collider,
> is located in a nearly 17-mile-long circular
> tunnel along the French-Swiss border about 330
> feet underground. Built by the European Organization
> for Nuclear Research (or CERN), it promises to push
> forward theories of particle physics, such as
> the Higgs Boson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson ,
Prescott Sheldon Bush
AIG's pioneering devlopment of "captive" reinsurance
companies to launder profits and evade taxes
http://ftrsummary.blogspot.com/2005/11/ftr-531-interview-with-lucy-komisar.html
FTR #531 Interview with Lucy Komisar about Offshore
Recorded October 30, 2005
http://spitfirelist.com/?p=157
Featuring the brilliant investigative journalist Lucy Komisar,
this program highlights the use of "Offshore" entities to
evade taxes, maximize corporate profits and finance a
variety of criminal enterprises. Much of the first
side of the program consists of analysis and
discussion of insurance giant AIG and its
prolific use of "offshore" scams.
In addition to presenting AIG's pioneering
devlopment of "captive" reinsurance companies
to launder profits and evade taxes,
the program highlights AIG's use of
Coral Reinsurance for a variety of
illegal gambits. It should be noted
that AIG's illegal operations have
been aided by a number of powerful
and influential people. Much of the
second side of the program consists
of review of the pivotally important
Clearstream network, and its use by
intelligence agencies, corporations,
criminal syndicates and
terrorist organizations.
Program Highlights Include:
A working definition of "Offshore;"
the links of AIG to the intelligence community;
assistance given to AIG's scams by luminaries
such as Henry Kissinger and former Secretary of
the Treasury Richard Rubin; Clearstream's use
of unregistered accounts; the role of the
Clearstream network in the Banco Ambrosiano,
October Surprise and BCCI scandals; the role
of the Clearstream network in the financing
of Al Qaeda and 9/11; the role of the Clearstream
network in the machinations of the Russian criminal
networks of Mikhail Khordokovsky; discussion of
the "Bermuda Inversion" gambit; discussion of
"Transfer Pricing;" discussion of an organization
formed by Lucy Komisar that is working to
eliminate corporate tax evasion through the
use of "offshore."
1. In this return appearance by the formidable
Lucy Komisar, we begin the discussion of "Offshore"
with a functional definition:
"DAVE: 'Define 'Offshore' for us, Lucy.'
LUCY: 'Offshore financial centers are, mostly,
confidential and parallel financial systems
segregated from the traditional banking structure
of the jurisdiction and restricted to non-residents.
There are more than 4000 offshore banks thought to
exist in about 70 offshore jurisdictions.
They lack the regulation and supervision of
banks found in developed onshore jurisdictions.
In many OFCs, a bank can be formed, registered
and its ownership placed in the hands of nominee
directors via the Internet. There are few, if any,
disclosure requirements, bank transactions are
free of exchange and interest rate restrictions,
there are minimal or no capital reserve requirements,
and transactions are mostly tax-free. Some OFCs
permit the licensing and registration of 'shell banks'
that exist only on paper and do not have a
physical presence. They generally have legal
frameworks designed to obscure the identity of
the beneficial owner. Some OFCs offer the ability
to form and manage secretly a variety of
international business companies (IBCs), trusts,
investment funds and insurance companies, many with
nominee - that is front -directors, nominee
officeholders and nominee shareholders.'
2. Much of the program focuses on the scandals
surrounding the insurance giant AIG. We begin
with an introductory discussion of this
enormous corporation and its position in the
corporate landscape.
"DAVE: 'Now, let's turn to the subject of
insurance giant AIG, the focal point of two
of your Alternet articles. Tell us about the
company's size and importance in the industry
and the corporate landscape in general.'
'LUCY: 'AIG is the world's second largest
financial conglomerate and the largest
underwriter of commercial and industrial
insurance. In 2003, AIG reported net income
of $10 billion. It has $648 billion in assets,
a market value of $195 billion, $77 billion in
sales and $6.5 billion in annual profits.
It has operations in 130 countries and nearly
77,000 employees. It ranks third on Forbes'
list of the world's biggest companies, after
Citigroup, and General Electric."
(Note that the material on AIG was drawn from
Lucy Komsar's two articles written for AlterNet:
"The Fall of a Titan" by Lucy Komisar; AlterNet;
3/17/2005; "Take the Money and Run Offshore"
by Lucy Komisar; AlterNet.)
3. AIG and its CEO Maurice ["Hank"] Greenberg
are very closely related with the
intelligence community.
"DAVE' 'Tell us about AIG chief Maurice [Hank] Greenberg,
and his relationship to the intelligence community.'
'LUCY: 'The American International Group at its origins
was linked to the OSS (Office of Strategic Services)
the forerunner of the CIA.
It grew from the Asia Life/C. V. Starr companies
founded by Cornelius Starr who started his insurance
empire in Shanghai in 1919, the first westerner to
market insurance in China. Starr served with the OSS
during World War II, and the Starr Corporation,
located in the same building as the OSS in New York,
provided intelligence on shipping, manufacturing and
industrial bombing targets in Asia and Germany.
When Casey became CIA director in the Reagan
Administration, he wanted Greenberg to be his deputy,
but Greenberg decided to stay with AIG. After the
Ames scandal, Sen. Spector floated his name as a
replacement of Woolsey, but the job went to Tenet.'"
(Idem.)
4. AIG features a number of luminaries on its
board of directors and international
advisory boards:
"DAVE: 'Tell us about some of the prominent
people on the board of directors and international
advisory boards of AIG.'
LUCY: 'Henry Kissinger chairs AIG's
International Advisory Board. Its board of
directors includes William S. Cohen,
Former United States Secretary of Defense
and Senator, Caria A. Hills, Former United
States Trade Representative,
Richard C. Holbrooke, Former United States
Ambassador to the United Nations.'' (Idem.)
5. AIG's illegal and/or unethical stratagems
feature a pioneering use of "captives."
"DAVE: 'Let's turn to the subject of what AIG does.
What are 'captives' and how does AIG use them?'
LUCY: 'A captive is an insurance company that
is owned by the company it insures - and has
that company as its only client. Reinsurance
is insurance that an insurance company buys
so that if it has to pay out a claim, it doesn't
take all the risk. I discovered and reported on
a case where AIG used a reinsurance company
secretly owned by its client's CEO to help him
evade taxes, and by the way, to increase AIG
profits in a way that cheated the client's
stockholders. I wrote about the case on Alternet,
but it has not been reported in the corporate press.
Victor Posner, who died in 2002, was a crook known
as the original 'corporate raider,' famed for
engineering hostile takeovers of companies and
looting them. He had a history of corrupt dealings.
He owned a Delaware factory called NVF that made
Vulcan rubber. NVF had a workers compensation policy
with an AIG company, which reinsured it with
Chesapeake, a reinsurance company based in Bermuda,
an offshore center. It turned out that Chesapeake
was owned by Posner. In the early 90s, a Delaware
insurance investigator discovered that NVF was
paying twice the market rate to AIG for the insurance.
The transaction meant all the parties came out
ahead: AIG would keep a portion of the inflated
NVF premium before sending the rest to Chesapeake,
which meant AIG would have a higher commission.
Posner would write off the entire amount as a
business expense and enjoy the extra cash in
Bermuda, tax free. A former Delaware insurance
regulator told me, 'This was not an isolated
case with Vulcan. AIG did that a lot.' He said,
'AIG helped companies set up offshore captive
reinsurance companies. AIG would then overcharge
on insurance and pay reinsurance premiums to the
captives, giving the captive owners tax-free
offshore income.' However, the Delaware
Insurance Department took no action against
the insurer. When I gave AIG the details of
this scam, company spokesman Andrew Silver
told me, 'We don't have any comment on that.'
AIG declares on its website that it 'pioneered
the formation of captives almost 60 years ago,'
and it offers management facilities to run the
captives in offshore Barbados, Bermuda,
Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Isle of Man,
and Luxembourg - all places where corporate and
accounting records are secret and taxes minimal
or nonexistent.'' (Idem.)
6. AIG also used offshore insurance interests
to move debt off its books, thereby making the
company appear to be more profitable than it
actually was. Of course, this did nothing to
damage the price of its stock.
"DAVE: 'What else did [does] AIG engage in
that was illegal?'
LUCY: 'In the late 90s, four state insurance
departments New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania
and California were aware that AIG was moving
debt off its books via the use of an offshore
insurance company it secretly set up and
controlled. But despite clear evidence of
wrongdoing, no sanctions were ordered.
State laws require insurance companies to
keep a certain amount of capital available
to pay out claims. If they have reinsurance,
that amount can drop. The reinsurer, of
course, has to be an independent company;
the risk isn't reduced if it's just moved
to another division of the same company.'"
(Idem.)
7. The program turns to the subject of
AIG's Coral Re gambit, and the considerable
assistance provided by investment firm
Goldman Sachs to the furtherance of this
scam: "'In the mid-80s, two of AIG's reinsurers
failed. AIG now was going to show unacceptably
high levels of debt on its books from claims
it would now have to pay out itself.
So Hank Greenberg decided to set up Coral Re,
a reinsurance company, to move his bad debts
off AIG books. It set up a shell company in
Barbados, where capital requirements and
regulation was minimal compared to the U.S.,
where American regulators couldn't readily
discover AIG's involvement and where, as an
added incentive, it could move money out of
reach of U.S. taxes. The scam company was
arranged with the help of Goldman Sachs then
headed by Robert Rubin, who would become
President Clinton's Treasury Secretary and
is now chairman of the executive committee
of Citigroup. It got some high-level corporate
executives to front for this supposedly
independent company. But I have a confidential
memorandum by Goldman Sachs which told why the
company was formed. 'AIG's interest in
creating the company is to create a reinsurance
facility which will permit its U.S. companies
to write more U.S. premiums. For a U.S.-domiciled
company, a high level of surplus is required to
support insurance premiums in accordance with
U.S. statutory requirements. The statutory
requirements in Barbados are less restrictive.'
The people who got this memo were corporate
executives who, in exchange for their names,
were offered a guaranteed return of $25,125
in the first year and $45,225 each subsequent
year. They didn't have to put up any money:
they got financing from Sanwa Bank of Chicago
secured by the Coral Re shares, a guarantee
of enough dividends from Coral Re to cover
the interest, and agreement they could hand
off the shares and debt whenever they chose.
Who got this no-lose so-called investment?
They included serving or former chairmen of
Reynolds Metals; Kraft; Itel, Mennen Company;
Morton Thiokol. The Arkansas Finance and
Development Authority, headed by a man who
went to work in the Clinton White House,
became lead investor, although state law
banned it from buying stocks. Clinton was
then governor of Arkansas. He would make
Rubin his Treasury Secretary. The new company
was not a legitimately independent business.
For investors, there was no money at risk;
the board of directors never made a decision;
and Coral Re had no office of its own but was
managed by American International Management,
a subsidiary of none other than AIG.
Eventually, the scheme unraveled.
In 1992, Delaware examiners smelled a rat,
AIG initially refused to provide Coral Re
documents to the examiners, and it took
them a couple of years to nail the connection.
When AIG finally supplied Coral Re's financial
papers, the regulator was incredulous.
He told me, 'The books were definitely cooked.'
But the cowardly regulators in Delaware,
Pennsylvania, New York and California, though
they agreed in 1996 that AIG owned Coral Re
and that there was no transfer of risk, did
not act to punish AIG, just told it to stop
using Coral Re. If Coral Re was an AIG affiliate,
it would have to pay taxes on its income.
If it was 'independent,' that money came tax-free.
But the IRS didn't have the guts to go after
them, either. AIG spokesman Andrew Silver simply
denied the validity of what all the insurance
commissions found. He told me that 'AIG was not
involved in the offer and sale of Coral Re's shares.
That was done by Goldman Sachs, which approached
potential investors with which it had relationships.
AIG did not control or have an equity interest
in Coral Re.' That of course it completely untrue.
Goldman Sachs failed to respond to inquiries about
its role in setting up Coral Re. In May this
year (2005), New York State Attorney General
Eliot Spitzer filed suit against AIG and Greenberg,
charging a pattern of fraud through the use
of 'sham transactions' that bolstered the
conglomerate's financial statements." (Idem.)
[CONTINUED] http://spitfirelist.com/?p=157
http://ftrsummary.blogspot.com/2005/11/ftr-531-interview-with-lucy-komisar.html
Sagetea
chaz...@embarqmail.com
> Sponge bob squarepants rules.
Yea, thanks for reminding me. I got the munchies and not a crabby
patty in sight. Bummer....
Zen
dh
> 3.) The entire material Universe was specially created
>by this Almighty God in 6 days of approximately
>24-hours each, as revealed in Genesis 1 and Exodus 20:11.
Paste a quote and let's see.
azwhi...@gmail.com
> On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 23:52:26 -0700 (PDT), "Lt. Aoclazteuq" <snake_4...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > 3.) The entire material Universe was specially created
> >by this Almighty God in 6 days of approximately
> >24-hours each, as revealed in Genesis 1 and Exodus 20:11.
>
> Paste a quote and let's see.
"Eat S**t and die young" ~ Most folks who are tired of Bible
(or other) Thump'in Dusch-bags who come a'knock'in.
RumpelStiltSkin
<azwhi...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:5c745544-3fde-474b...@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 29, 7:45 am, dh@. wrote:
> On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 23:52:26 -0700 (PDT), "Lt. Aoclazteuq"
> <snake_4...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > 3.) The entire material Universe was specially created
> >by this Almighty God in 6 days of approximately
> >24-hours each, as revealed in Genesis 1 and Exodus 20:11.
>
> Paste a quote and let's see.
Sure was a dirty trip of God to trick us by
burying all those dinosaur bones and making
all those rock strata test as 4 billion years old.
And what was he thinking of when he created
200 billion galaxies consisting of 200 billion stars each.
What good is this stuff to his chosen few?
Maybe it took him that long to get earth right.
Ya gotta wonder.
Ichabod Ilk
> <azwhist...@gmail.com> wrote in message
fuk 4 god, jerk
Hugh Gibbons
"RumpelStiltSkin" <fabl...@abc.gov> wrote:
> And what was he thinking of when he created
> 200 billion galaxies consisting of 200 billion stars each.
> What good is this stuff to his chosen few?
> Maybe it took him that long to get earth right.
> Ya gotta wonder.
And what was he up to when he put most of those stars more than 6000
light years away? Very tricky of him. I thought God was supposed to be
honest. If God wanted us to believe that He created the visible
universe 6000 years ago, He would have made it credible.[2] Surely He
can't insist that only those who believe that can go to heaven, because
that implies that He only wants idiots to go to heaven and has no use
for people who can process facts. So why did He make intelligent people
in the first place? The Devil needs more help?
Meltdarok
> In article <JAdEk.1857$ZP4....@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com>,
> "RumpelStiltSkin" <fabl...@abc.gov> wrote:
>
>> And what was he thinking of when he created
>> 200 billion galaxies consisting of 200 billion stars each.
>> What good is this stuff to his chosen few?
>> Maybe it took him that long to get earth right.
>> Ya gotta wonder.
>
Here's the real kicker- what if with over 200 billion galaxies
consisting of 200 billion stars each, Earth is the only place
where life developed? Heh.
> And what was he up to when he put most of those stars more than 6000
> light years away? Very tricky of him. I thought God was supposed to be
> honest.
She *is* honest.
> If God wanted us to believe that He created the visible
> universe 6000 years ago, He would have made it credible.
Or maybe She assumed that we would change with the times.
> [2] Surely He
> can't insist that only those who believe that can go to heaven, because
> that implies that He only wants idiots to go to heaven and has no use
> for people who can process facts.
> So why did He make intelligent people
> in the first place?
Made in Her own image?
> The Devil needs more help?
What a temptation.
--
meltdarok, 6.02*10^23=1
The careless mind makes problems where
there actually aren't any.
Then it struggles to change the world,
and not the mind itself.
http://hometown.aol.com/meltdarok/
http://www.mediafire.com/?9bmgyggtlx7
Absorbed
> Hugh Gibbons wrote, On 9/30/2008 1:15 AM:
>> In article <JAdEk.1857$ZP4....@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com>,
>> "RumpelStiltSkin" <fabl...@abc.gov> wrote:
>>
>>> And what was he thinking of when he created
>>> 200 billion galaxies consisting of 200 billion stars each.
>>> What good is this stuff to his chosen few?
>>> Maybe it took him that long to get earth right.
>>> Ya gotta wonder.
>>
>
> Here's the real kicker- what if with over 200 billion galaxies
> consisting of 200 billion stars each, Earth is the only place
> where life developed? Heh.
You don't know that Earth is the only place where life has developed.
There may be life elsewhere in the universe of which we're unaware.
Essentially, you're making an argument from ignorance: you're assuming
that there isn't life elsewhere in the universe because at present we
have no evidence that there is life elsewhere in the universe. This is
the same as claiming that there are no black swans because you've never
seen any.
Meltdarok
> Meltdarok wrote:
>> Hugh Gibbons wrote, On 9/30/2008 1:15 AM:
>>> In article <JAdEk.1857$ZP4....@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com>,
>>> "RumpelStiltSkin" <fabl...@abc.gov> wrote:
>>>
>>>> And what was he thinking of when he created
>>>> 200 billion galaxies consisting of 200 billion stars each.
>>>> What good is this stuff to his chosen few?
>>>> Maybe it took him that long to get earth right.
>>>> Ya gotta wonder.
>>>
>>
>> Here's the real kicker- what if with over 200 billion galaxies
>> consisting of 200 billion stars each, Earth is the only place
>> where life developed? Heh.
>
> You don't know that Earth is the only place where life has developed.
> There may be life elsewhere in the universe of which we're unaware.
>
Gee. . . Did you read what I wrote?
">>>> Ya gotta wonder.
>>>
>>
>> Here's the real kicker- -->what if<-- with over 200 billion galaxies
>> consisting of 200 billion stars each, Earth is the only place
>> where life developed? Heh."
> Essentially, you're making an argument from ignorance:
No. Essentially, you are making a Pavlovian response.
--
meltdarok
Sanity
> Meltdarok wrote:
> > Hugh Gibbons wrote, On 9/30/2008 1:15 AM:
> >> "RumpelStiltSkin" <fables...@abc.gov> wrote:
>
> >>> And what was he thinking of when he created
> >>> 200 billion galaxies consisting of 200 billion stars each.
> >>> What good is this stuff to his chosen few?
> >>> Maybe it took him that long to get earth right.
> >>> Ya gotta wonder.
>
> > Here's the real kicker- what if with over 200 billion galaxies
> > consisting of 200 billion stars each, Earth is the only place
> > where life developed? Heh.
>
> You don't know that Earth is the only place where life has developed.
> There may be life elsewhere in the universe of which we're unaware.
>
> Essentially, you're making an argument from ignorance: you're assuming
> that there isn't life elsewhere in the universe because at present we
> have no evidence that there is life elsewhere in the universe. This is
> the same as claiming that there are no black swans because you've never
> seen any.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
How about criticisms from ignorance? The questions were rhetorical;
statements in question form which do not beg answers.
“rhetorical” = 1. used for, belonging to, or concerned with mere style
or effect.
Thimk.
Sanity
Absorbed
> Absorbed wrote, On 9/30/2008 8:36 AM:
>> Meltdarok wrote:
>>> Hugh Gibbons wrote, On 9/30/2008 1:15 AM:
>>>> In article <JAdEk.1857$ZP4....@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com>,
>>>> "RumpelStiltSkin" <fabl...@abc.gov> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> And what was he thinking of when he created
>>>>> 200 billion galaxies consisting of 200 billion stars each.
>>>>> What good is this stuff to his chosen few?
>>>>> Maybe it took him that long to get earth right.
>>>>> Ya gotta wonder.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Here's the real kicker- what if with over 200 billion galaxies
>>> consisting of 200 billion stars each, Earth is the only place
>>> where life developed? Heh.
>>
>> You don't know that Earth is the only place where life has developed.
>> There may be life elsewhere in the universe of which we're unaware.
>>
>
> Gee. . . Did you read what I wrote?
>
> ">>>> Ya gotta wonder.
> >>>
> >>
> >> Here's the real kicker- -->what if<-- with over 200 billion galaxies
> >> consisting of 200 billion stars each, Earth is the only place
> >> where life developed? Heh."
Okay, lazy reading on my behalf, but still you're trying to suggest that
there isn't life anywhere except Earth, while covering yourself with an
"if".
dh
>
><azwhi...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:5c745544-3fde-474b...@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>On Sep 29, 7:45 am, dh@. wrote:
>> On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 23:52:26 -0700 (PDT), "Lt. Aoclazteuq"
>> <snake_4...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> > 3.) The entire material Universe was specially created
>> >by this Almighty God in 6 days of approximately
>> >24-hours each, as revealed in Genesis 1 and Exodus 20:11.
>>
>> Paste a quote and let's see.
>
>Sure was a dirty trip of God to trick us by
>burying all those dinosaur bones
My guess is that if God exists he either evolved life
along that design line until he became convinced it
wasn't be best way to go for what he wanted to
accomplish in the long run so he changed climate
to change design, or, they were already around
when he got here and he got rid of them.
>and making
>all those rock strata test as 4 billion years old.
The sad part is some people can't accept that
the Earth is as old as it is, and the Universe countless
times older. It could be best for them though, now that
you mention it.
>And what was he thinking of when he created
>200 billion galaxies consisting of 200 billion stars each.
If he did it, then he was probably thinking he wanted
200 billion galaxies consisting of 200 billion stars each.
>What good is this stuff to his chosen few?
Whatever good it is, if any. Maybe the rest of the
Universe doesn't really have anything to do with those
you're referring to. He could be multi-tasking.
>Maybe it took him that long to get earth right.
>Ya gotta wonder.
If God exists then science--when people get it right--is
teaching us how he did things. So far it tells us that he
began everything with a bang, and then let gravity go
to work for a while. Later when things started shaping
up the way he wanted them to he began to alter climates
and make whatever direct tweaks he needed to in order
to get to the final product. We may be no closer that now
than earlier hominids are to us.
dh
>In article <JAdEk.1857$ZP4....@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com>,
> "RumpelStiltSkin" <fabl...@abc.gov> wrote:
>
>> And what was he thinking of when he created
>> 200 billion galaxies consisting of 200 billion stars each.
>> What good is this stuff to his chosen few?
>> Maybe it took him that long to get earth right.
>> Ya gotta wonder.
>
>And what was he up to when he put most of those stars more than 6000
>light years away? Very tricky of him. I thought God was supposed to be
>honest. If God wanted us to believe that He created the visible
>universe 6000 years ago, He would have made it credible.[2] Surely He
>can't insist that only those who believe that can go to heaven, because
>that implies that He only wants idiots to go to heaven
It implies that he wants people who accept him as their Lord even
when it's not easy. Some people do it by rejecting information that conflicts
with their own interpretation. I try to do it by altering my interpretation to
go along with what seems most likely to me.
>and has no use for people who can process facts.
That's your interpretation. You would have to change it in order to
think about how it could be different, apparently.
>So why did He make intelligent people in the first place?
You would have to change your interpretation in order to even think
about it realistically.
>The Devil needs more help?
Doing what? Do you think God would create "intelligent" people to
help the beast convince them that he doesn't exist? You might think
about changing your interpretation of that one too.
dh
The odds certainly are more than in favor of there being other life
in the Universe--a *lot* more considering the fact that the only star
system we're really familiar with has life in it. Chances are best that
some of that life has become good at traveling and existing in space,
and has influenced the development of life on various planets. Such
beings would be Gods to whatever extent. Whether or not any of them
had influence on this planet we can only guess. Do some of them have
influence over the entire Universe? Does one being have supreme
influence? Maybe there is such a being who doesn't even know we
exist...we're just a by-product that developed in a universe he put together
for something that has nothing to do with us. There are lots of possibilities,
including the one that God exists, had influence on the development of
Earth, still has influence today, and will continue to for millions or billions
of years to come...
Meltdarok
Christ.
What I am suggesting is:
If there is a God, why the Hell did She need to create all that other stuff?
Could it be that all that other stuff is what was necessary for
conditions to be just right for life here?
--
meltdarok, 6.02*10^23=1
Bassos
"Absorbed" <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:gbt83i$sck$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
This actually demonstrates your problem quite succintly.
You fail to read before drawing conclusions all over the actual imput.
As in even after it has been pointed out to you, you still fail to
appreciate the irony.
His actual point being that it is highly unlikely that earth is the only
planet capable of sustaining life.
Which you completely missed.
As i wrote :
Long way to go dude.
RumpelStiltSkin
<dh@.> wrote in message news:bn44e4ls3b620scm7...@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:15:56 -0600, Hugh Gibbons
> <hugh_g...@dontsendmeemail.net> wrote:
>
>>In article <JAdEk.1857$ZP4....@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com>,
>> "RumpelStiltSkin" <fabl...@abc.gov> wrote:
>>
>>> And what was he thinking of when he created
>>> 200 billion galaxies consisting of 200 billion stars each.
>>> What good is this stuff to his chosen few?
>>> Maybe it took him that long to get earth right.
>>> Ya gotta wonder.
>>
>>And what was he up to when he put most of those stars more than 6000
>>light years away? Very tricky of him. I thought God was supposed to be
>>honest. If God wanted us to believe that He created the visible
>>universe 6000 years ago, He would have made it credible.[2] Surely He
>>can't insist that only those who believe that can go to heaven, because
>>that implies that He only wants idiots to go to heaven
>
> It implies that he wants people who accept him as their Lord even
> when it's not easy. Some people do it by rejecting information that
> conflicts
> with their own interpretation. I try to do it by altering my
> interpretation to
> go along with what seems most likely to me.
What seems likely to me is if there is a god,
he's got no affiliation with any human religon.
Maybe he started the big bang,
but after that, it's all laws of nature.
There are millions, if not billions, of
earths with life forms in the universe.
Religon is for the feable minded
and used by those in power to control the unwashed masses.
Comm
free book called "Mystery of the Ages" distributed (free) from the
Philadelphia Church of God. The book is by Herberg Armstrong. It's insane,
and laughable.
"RumpelStiltSkin" <fabl...@abc.gov> wrote in message
news:JAdEk.1857$ZP4....@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com...
Absorbed
It's an error I sometimes make, and one I'll happily admit to if I've
done it. You'd like to take this one instance of lazy reading and from
it assume that I don't read anything properly. You're the one who
consistently fails to read before drawing conclusions. I'll provide a
few examples for you:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.magick/msg/6dc876d95933299f
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.magick/msg/7fd95dd1b96ca7c7
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.magick/msg/5ac9383018264e3c
Bassos
> Bassos wrote:
>
>>> Okay, lazy reading on my behalf, but still you're trying to suggest that
>>> there isn't life anywhere except Earth, while covering yourself with an
>>> "if".
>>
>> This actually demonstrates your problem quite succintly.
>> You fail to read before drawing conclusions all over the actual imput.
>
> It's an error I sometimes make, and one I'll happily admit to if I've done
> it.
So, gonna ask a question ?
I mean, the initial being too scared to ask a question should have subsided
by now.
> You'd like to take this one instance of lazy reading and from it assume
> that I don't read anything properly.
Well, you might conclude that.
Interesting isn't it, this continuous red thread ?
> You're the one who consistently fails to read before drawing conclusions.
> I'll provide a few examples for you:
You consistently fail to actually understand what conclusion i present.
And i have on several occasions pointed this out to you.
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.magick/msg/6dc876d95933299f
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.magick/msg/7fd95dd1b96ca7c7
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.magick/msg/5ac9383018264e3c
Three examples of me pwning noobs.
Good show.
You did not actually think that just posting links would get you anywhere,
did you ?
Tom
"Meltdarok" <melt...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:cUnEk.163638$1p1....@en-nntp-08.dc1.easynews.com...
>
> Here's the real kicker- what if with over 200 billion galaxies
> consisting of 200 billion stars each, Earth is the only place
> where life developed? Heh.
Ands what if, out of all the asses in the world, monkeys flew out of only
yours? What then, eh? Thats's the kicker, alright.
>> And what was he up to when he put most of those stars more than 6000
>> light years away? Very tricky of him. I thought God was supposed to be
>> honest.
>
> She *is* honest.
Here's another kicker. What if she's not?
Absorbed
> "Absorbed" <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:gbteog$7o9$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
>> Bassos wrote:
>>
>>>> Okay, lazy reading on my behalf, but still you're trying to suggest that
>>>> there isn't life anywhere except Earth, while covering yourself with an
>>>> "if".
>>> This actually demonstrates your problem quite succintly.
>>> You fail to read before drawing conclusions all over the actual imput.
>> It's an error I sometimes make, and one I'll happily admit to if I've done
>> it.
>
> So, gonna ask a question ?
> I mean, the initial being too scared to ask a question should have subsided
> by now.
This is a good example of your consistent lazy reading. I'll quote for you.
You wrote:
>> About the beliefs questioning :
>> Fine, ask me something, i will indulge you here, for one question, but i
>> will ofcourse also present my idea about the question involved.
I replied:
> I don't wish to ask you a question; I'm suggesting that you attempt to
> clearly express your opinions so they can be questioned, and thereby you
> might learn something.
Apparently, you still fail to understand this point.
>> You'd like to take this one instance of lazy reading and from it assume
>> that I don't read anything properly.
>
> Well, you might conclude that.
> Interesting isn't it, this continuous red thread ?
It is interesting: you like to assume all sorts of things in order to
prop up your ego.
>> You're the one who consistently fails to read before drawing conclusions.
>> I'll provide a few examples for you:
>
> You consistently fail to actually understand what conclusion i present.
> And i have on several occasions pointed this out to you.
You've just repeatedly stated that I'm wrong. I've already explained
this to you: "You constantly proclaim that no one understands the deep,
mysterious wisdom of your posts, give obfuscated explanations that
supposedly reveal that wisdom, or just don't give any explanation at
all. You're unwilling to question the validity of the supposed wisdom
you present."
>> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.magick/msg/6dc876d95933299f
>> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.magick/msg/7fd95dd1b96ca7c7
>> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.magick/msg/5ac9383018264e3c
>
> Three examples of me pwning noobs.
> Good show.
>
> You did not actually think that just posting links would get you anywhere,
> did you ?
I didn't think it would "get me anywhere" with you, no. This isn't
something that's going to change any time soon, if it ever does change
at all.
Ichabod Ilk
> Bassos wrote:
> > "Absorbed" <purestdeform...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> >news:gbt83i$sck$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
> >> Meltdarok wrote:
> >>> Absorbed wrote, On 9/30/2008 8:36 AM:
> >>>> Meltdarok wrote:
> >>>>> Hugh Gibbons wrote, On 9/30/2008 1:15 AM:
>
> - Show quoted text -
duh ah yeh, dare AssOrbed ,ah wut duh hell, wewllcome.
Hugh Gibbons
Meltdarok <melt...@aol.com> wrote:
It's much more credible to believe all that stuff exists for reasons
that have to do with humans only in that we're an infinitessimal portion
of all that stuff.
To put it in perspective, Earth comprises about 1 part in 3x10^59 of the
observable universe and about 1 part in 10^20 of what we can see with
our own eyes.
Hugh Gibbons
> On Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:15:56 -0600, Hugh Gibbons
> <hugh_g...@dontsendmeemail.net> wrote:
>
> >In article <JAdEk.1857$ZP4....@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com>,
> > "RumpelStiltSkin" <fabl...@abc.gov> wrote:
> >
> >> And what was he thinking of when he created
> >> 200 billion galaxies consisting of 200 billion stars each.
> >> What good is this stuff to his chosen few?
> >> Maybe it took him that long to get earth right.
> >> Ya gotta wonder.
> >
> >And what was he up to when he put most of those stars more than 6000
> >light years away? Very tricky of him. I thought God was supposed to be
> >honest. If God wanted us to believe that He created the visible
> >universe 6000 years ago, He would have made it credible.[2] Surely He
> >can't insist that only those who believe that can go to heaven, because
> >that implies that He only wants idiots to go to heaven
>
> It implies that he wants people who accept him as their Lord even
> when it's not easy. Some people do it by rejecting information that conflicts
> with their own interpretation. I try to do it by altering my interpretation
> to
> go along with what seems most likely to me.
You do it by ignoring facts that conflict with your notion that God did
those absurd things. Assuming God exists and wants to be worshipped by
human beings, it is ridiculous to accept a theology that implies that he
hides his existence and produced fake evidence to trick people into not
believing in him, or not believing the truth about him. The God you
profess to believe in would be dishonest, if he made the world the way
you say he did. Therefore you must be wrong about at least some of
those things. You paint a picture of a God that is a trickster.
> >and has no use for people who can process facts.
>
> That's your interpretation. You would have to change it in order to
> think about how it could be different, apparently.
I can imagine an intelligent person believing in the existence of a God,
but that person would have to reject much of what the Bible says about
God, in the light of what he can observe and reason for himself.
I cannot credit that any person who persists in believing the nonsense
that biblical literalists claim is firing on all cylinders.
> >So why did He make intelligent people in the first place?
>
> You would have to change your interpretation in order to even think
> about it realistically.
Realistically, people who are biblical literalists refuse to think about
the inconsistencies between their story and their theology.
> >The Devil needs more help?
>
> Doing what? Do you think God would create "intelligent" people to
> help the beast convince them that he doesn't exist? You might think
> about changing your interpretation of that one too.
Well he certainly spotted the Devil a lot: the entire body of scientific
knowledge and the evidence written in the bones of the Earth and in our
own cells. What for, if not to help the Devil out?
Tom
"Hugh Gibbons" <hugh_g...@dontsendmeemail.net> wrote in message
news:muqdnWupNs2vnn7V...@comcast.com...
>
> To put it in perspective, Earth comprises about 1 part in 3x10^59 of the
> observable universe and about 1 part in 10^20 of what we can see with
> our own eyes.
While I'm quite able to grasp the notion that the Earth is a very, very tiny
portion of the universe, I don't know where you're getting your figures.
The "observeable universe" is the universe we can observe. I do not think
that the earth is only a tiny part of what we observe. In fact, I think
that the whole earth is far more than what we can observe. What we can see
with our own eyes comprises considerably less that the entire earth. Yet,
here you are, trying to claim that the entire planet is only a small
fraction of what you see with your own eyes. Your eyes must be very
different from mine, then, because I can barely see beyond the confines of
the room I'm in. I can imagine a lot more, but I'm not in the habit of
confusing what I can imagine with what I can see. Are you?
Meltdarok
> of all that stuff.
>
Hmmm, feeling kind of humble now are you?
> To put it in perspective, Earth comprises about 1 part in 3x10^59 of the
> observable universe and about 1 part in 10^20 of what we can see with
> our own eyes.
So?
Even people who claim there is no Creator entity, only have an
anthropomorphized version in their thoughts that they are rejecting.
Self awareness is very sweet, no matter the size.
--
meltdarok
RumpelStiltSkin
"Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1oednQekLqGgj37V...@comcast.com...
At a dark site you can see many things with the naked eye.
You can see 2 million light years away ... Andromeda our closest galaxy.
Join an astronomy club.
RumpelStiltSkin
Even easier is to see our own galaxy of 200 billion stars.
Its that white band across the entire sky called the "milky way".
Governor Swill
>Gee. . . Did you read what I wrote?
>
>">>>> Ya gotta wonder.
> >>>
> >>
> >> Here's the real kicker- -->what if<-- with over 200 billion galaxies
> >> consisting of 200 billion stars each, Earth is the only place
> >> where life developed? Heh."
>
>> Essentially, you're making an argument from ignorance:
>
>No. Essentially, you are making a Pavlovian response.
Actually he's quite right. Because you don't know about any other
life in God's Universe, you assume there isn't any.
Swill
--
Liberal: I like the puppet on the left.
Conservative: I like the puppet on the right.
Independent: Hey! There's one guy holding both puppets!
Centrist: I hope he knows which puppet's on which hand.
Picture of the day: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/
Governor Swill
>If there is a God, why the Hell did She need to create all that other stuff?
>Could it be that all that other stuff is what was necessary for
>conditions to be just right for life here?
Because the entire universe was created as part of an experiment to
create life and most of those experiments seem to have failed?
In any case, when we look at the stars, we're looking at the past.
When we look at a star or planet that's a million light years distant,
we're seeing it as it looked a million years ago.
Tom
"RumpelStiltSkin" <fabl...@abc.gov> wrote in message
news:4eLEk.1402$pr6...@flpi149.ffdc.sbc.com...
>
When I look at the sky at night, I see a dark field with little points of
light in it. I then remember what I've been told about those little points
of light and my imagination conceives of vast distances and cataclysmic
events. I don't see those vast distances, though. The stars look quite
close, actually. Of course, that is only what I see right now. Later I will
look at other things and try to figure out some integrated story that
reconciles the similarities and differences between what I saw then and what
I see now. Our eyes let us see just a few things, but our minds allow us to
string together our experiences and imagine that we see a lot more.
Yes, indeed, I do believe that the stars are very far away, so far that even
the measurements of them are difficult to understand. Yet, I do not see all
that. I see only a tiny fraction of that. The rest is my imagination.
What we see is very small. We cannot see the whole earth, let alone the
whole universe. We can only see an extremely tiny fraction of it. Yet, we
can conceive of what this tiny fraction represents. There is a difference
between what we see and what we think it means. I'm not discounting
scientific investigation, far from it, but I am making a distinction between
what I see and what I believe about what I see.
RumpelStiltSkin
Apparently that distinction doesn't include science.
Tom
>
> Even easier is to see our own galaxy of 200 billion stars.
Have you counted them? I don't think you've had time. 200 billion is a
very big number.
> Its that white band across the entire sky called the "milky way".
Yes, it's a vague white band I can see in the sky at night. It looks sort
of like somebody spilled milk, hence the name. At different times people
have had different explanations for what it is. Currently, you espouse the
belief that it's 200 billion stars, although you haven't actually counted
them yourself. You simply took somebody's word for it. I keep telling you:
What you see and what you believe about what you're seeing are not the same
thing.
Now, I don't think that, simply because you believe in something you cannot
see, you must be completely wrong about it. Beliefs are not evil things to
be avoided. However, it is not a good idea to let your beliefs become so
firm that you cannot even bring yourself to admit they are beliefs. That
leads to a rigidity of thinking that is counterproductive to new learning.
On the other hand, if you believe absolutely nothing, then you have to keep
checking everything all the time, which tends to keep you from getting
anywhere or learning anything at all. The Greeks who were not in favor of
skepticism used to tell stories of old Pyrrho having to be led around by his
disciples because he was utterly unable to believe the evidence of his own
senses enough to take care of himself and get from place to place reliably.
Human beings seem to work best when they apply varying portions of belief
and skepticism to their lives. One's adaptability to change depends on just
how easily one can move from belief to non-belief and back again. So I
think it's best not to become too fond of either one or the other and not to
confuse what we see with what we believe.
Tom
>> whole universe. We can only see an extremely tiny fraction of it. Yet,
>> we can conceive of what this tiny fraction represents. There is a
>> difference between what we see and what we think it means. I'm not
>> discounting scientific investigation, far from it, but I am making a
>> distinction between what I see and what I believe about what I see.
>
> Apparently that distinction doesn't include science.
Of course science is included in the distinction between what we see and
what we believe. In fact, science is a constant interaction between what we
see and what we believe. We observe some phenomenon. We imagine some
explanation for it. We check that explanation against other observations.
Then we revise our imaginary explanation to fit the new observations, to
make it more believeable. This goes on ceaselessly.
At the heart of science is the refusal to make the assumption that any of
our explanations are absolutely correct and unquestionable. Our
explanations are what we imagine that our observations mean. The difference
between science and scientism is that science questions its own beliefs and
scientism simply regards them as facts.
RumpelStiltSkin
scientism ... never heard that word before.
sort of like ... creationism?
Meltdarok
> This is Meltdarok's brain on drugs:
>> Gee. . . Did you read what I wrote?
>>
>> ">>>> Ya gotta wonder.
>>>> Here's the real kicker- -->what if<-- with over 200 billion galaxies
>>>> consisting of 200 billion stars each, Earth is the only place
>>>> where life developed? Heh."
>>> Essentially, you're making an argument from ignorance:
>> No. Essentially, you are making a Pavlovian response.
>
> Actually he's quite right. Because you don't know about any other
> life in God's Universe, you assume there isn't any.
>
I'm making *NO* such assumption.
You on the other hand don't seem to want to contemplate on what I stated.
How come? Fear???
> Swill
Meltdarok
> This is Meltdarok's brain on drugs:
>> What I am suggesting is:
>> If there is a God, why the Hell did She need to create all that other stuff?
>> Could it be that all that other stuff is what was necessary for
>> conditions to be just right for life here?
>
> Because the entire universe was created as part of an experiment to
> create life and most of those experiments seem to have failed?
>
Ok, there's a suggestion.
> In any case, when we look at the stars, we're looking at the past.
> When we look at a star or planet that's a million light years distant,
> we're seeing it as it looked a million years ago.
>
> Swill
Yeah, and?
--
meltdarok
Meltdarok
> Governor Swill wrote, On 10/1/2008 11:01 AM:
>> This is Meltdarok's brain on drugs:
>>> What I am suggesting is:
>>> If there is a God, why the Hell did She need to create all that other
>>> stuff?
>>> Could it be that all that other stuff is what was necessary for
>>> conditions to be just right for life here?
>>
>> Because the entire universe was created as part of an experiment to
>> create life and most of those experiments seem to have failed?
>>
>
> Ok, there's a suggestion.
>
>> In any case, when we look at the stars, we're looking at the past.
With the sun, eight minutes into the past.
>> When we look at a star or planet that's a million light years distant,
>> we're seeing it as it looked a million years ago.
>>
>> Swill
>
> Yeah, and?
>
I'm reminded of when I was in my sky watching phase.
Astronomy magazine showed a quasar easy to find with
binoculars. I took my trusty 10x50's out to a nice field,
then drank in 3 billion year old photons. Heh.
dh
That's a possibility. There's also the other one...
>Maybe he started the big bang,
>but after that, it's all laws of nature.
That doesn't mean he doesn't give things a tweak
when he wants to, and maybe a hard slam when he
wants to too.
>There are millions, if not billions, of
>earths with life forms in the universe.
There probably are others, and places where space
travel is common, and where beings influence the
development of life... Whether it happened here or not
we don't know.
>Religon is for the feable minded
It's for anyone who wants it.
>and used by those in power to control the unwashed masses.
Like trying to get people not to steal, and lie, and kill
each other, and have sex with animals, and sacrifice
their children, etc...
dh
>
>"Hugh Gibbons" <hugh_g...@dontsendmeemail.net> wrote in message
>news:muqdnWupNs2vnn7V...@comcast.com...
>>
>> To put it in perspective, Earth comprises about 1 part in 3x10^59 of the
>> observable universe and about 1 part in 10^20 of what we can see with
>> our own eyes.
>
>While I'm quite able to grasp the notion that the Earth is a very, very tiny
>portion of the universe, I don't know where you're getting your figures.
>The "observeable universe" is the universe we can observe. I do not think
>that the earth is only a tiny part of what we observe.
It's insignificant to almost all we can observe, like to every bit of this:
dh
>Absorbed wrote, On 9/30/2008 9:03 AM:
>> Meltdarok wrote:
>>> Absorbed wrote, On 9/30/2008 8:36 AM:
>>>> Meltdarok wrote:
>>>>> Hugh Gibbons wrote, On 9/30/2008 1:15 AM:
>>>>>> In article <JAdEk.1857$ZP4....@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com>,
>>>>>> "RumpelStiltSkin" <fabl...@abc.gov> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And what was he thinking of when he created
>>>>>>> 200 billion galaxies consisting of 200 billion stars each.
>>>>>>> What good is this stuff to his chosen few?
>>>>>>> Maybe it took him that long to get earth right.
>>>>>>> Ya gotta wonder.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Here's the real kicker- what if with over 200 billion galaxies
>>>>> consisting of 200 billion stars each, Earth is the only place
>>>>> where life developed? Heh.
>>>>
>>>> You don't know that Earth is the only place where life has developed.
>>>> There may be life elsewhere in the universe of which we're unaware.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Gee. . . Did you read what I wrote?
>>>
>>> ">>>> Ya gotta wonder.
>>> >>>
>>> >>
>>> >> Here's the real kicker- -->what if<-- with over 200 billion galaxies
>>> >> consisting of 200 billion stars each, Earth is the only place
>>> >> where life developed? Heh."
>>
>> Okay, lazy reading on my behalf, but still you're trying to suggest that
>> there isn't life anywhere except Earth, while covering yourself with an
>> "if".
>
>Christ.
>What I am suggesting is:
>If there is a God, why the Hell did She need to create all that other stuff?
Sometimes probably the view. He probably has places with great
views of all the best nebula, for example.
>Could it be that all that other stuff is what was necessary for
>conditions to be just right for life here?
Maybe he has more than one project in the works.
dh
>In article <bn44e4ls3b620scm7...@4ax.com>, dh@. wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:15:56 -0600, Hugh Gibbons
>> <hugh_g...@dontsendmeemail.net> wrote:
>>
>> >In article <JAdEk.1857$ZP4....@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com>,
>> > "RumpelStiltSkin" <fabl...@abc.gov> wrote:
>> >
>> >> And what was he thinking of when he created
>> >> 200 billion galaxies consisting of 200 billion stars each.
>> >> What good is this stuff to his chosen few?
>> >> Maybe it took him that long to get earth right.
>> >> Ya gotta wonder.
>> >
>> >And what was he up to when he put most of those stars more than 6000
>> >light years away? Very tricky of him. I thought God was supposed to be
>> >honest. If God wanted us to believe that He created the visible
>> >universe 6000 years ago, He would have made it credible.[2] Surely He
>> >can't insist that only those who believe that can go to heaven, because
>> >that implies that He only wants idiots to go to heaven
>>
>> It implies that he wants people who accept him as their Lord even
>> when it's not easy. Some people do it by rejecting information that conflicts
>> with their own interpretation. I try to do it by altering my interpretation
>> to
>> go along with what seems most likely to me.
>
>You do it by ignoring facts that conflict with your notion that God did
>those absurd things.
I try to consider all possibilities. Maybe he doesn't exist at all,
maybe he does but doesn't have anything to do with this planet,
maybe he has plenty to do with it...
>Assuming God exists and wants to be worshipped by
>human beings, it is ridiculous to accept a theology that implies that he
>hides his existence and produced fake evidence to trick people into not
>believing in him, or not believing the truth about him.
People's interpretations are what screw things up, most likely.
>The God you
>profess to believe in would be dishonest, if he made the world the way
>you say he did.
I don't say how he did. Personally since it's round and probably
has a molten core I believe it was a huge round drop of lava like
matterial that was probably the result of a super nova however
many billion years ago, but that's just a guess the concept of which
came to me from watching what happens to the sparks produced
by welding. If you watch them hit a smooth concrete floor you see
that they roll, becauce they cool into tiny balls of metal as they
travel through the air. It seems to me the Earth was once a molten
ball, and is still cooling. The atmosphere slowed the cooling process,
so there's still a molten core, and volcanoes etc.
>Therefore you must be wrong about at least some of
>those things. You paint a picture of a God that is a trickster.
My guess is he made the Earth from an exploding star, and I don't
believe he tried to trick anyone on it.
>> >and has no use for people who can process facts.
>>
>> That's your interpretation. You would have to change it in order to
>> think about how it could be different, apparently.
>
>I can imagine an intelligent person believing in the existence of a God,
>but that person would have to reject much of what the Bible says about
>God, in the light of what he can observe and reason for himself.
A person could question the interpretations and not the actual
content. If there is a creator all who worship him worship the same
being regardless of what they call him or think about him. That
being the case a person would need to consider Hiduism, Islam,
Christianity, and any other religions about the creator in pretty much
the same way in order to get a realistic interpretation. Very few people
I've met even try to do that.
>I cannot credit that any person who persists in believing the nonsense
>that biblical literalists claim is firing on all cylinders.
It doesn't really matter. The idea behind the religions is to encourage
a relationship with God, not explain anything much about him or even
less how he manages to do things.
>> >So why did He make intelligent people in the first place?
>>
>> You would have to change your interpretation in order to even think
>> about it realistically.
>
>Realistically, people who are biblical literalists refuse to think about
>the inconsistencies between their story and their theology.
I try not to let my own thougths be held back by the restrictions
other people put on theirs.
>> >The Devil needs more help?
>>
>> Doing what? Do you think God would create "intelligent" people to
>> help the beast convince them that he doesn't exist? You might think
>> about changing your interpretation of that one too.
>
>Well he certainly spotted the Devil a lot: the entire body of scientific
>knowledge and the evidence written in the bones of the Earth and in our
>own cells.
None of that can be credited to Satan, though I don't doubt
he might have some boys suggesting that they should be.
>What for, if not to help the Devil out?
The Devil only has one main goal in regards to humans
from what I've heard, and persuading some people that he
doesn't exist is one way he may be able to accomplish it
with them.
Tom
<dh@.> wrote in message news:cc87e4hspi6qa87pu...@4ax.com...
Almost none of us have ever gotten far enough away from the earth for it to
really appear small in our eyes. To our eyes, the earth will always figure
very large. However, we can easily imagine that we are seeing from somewhere
far away from the earth and that, in that imagined view, the earth seems
very small. To our imagination, the earth may well be too small to notice
at all.
Our eyes are small and are located very close to the earth, but we have
really big imaginations whose views are not limited to any specific
location. Thus what seems all-encompassing to our eyes may seem
insignificant to what we can imagine.
The earth is insignificant to almost all we can imagine observing, but not
to all that we actually observe at any given moment. Look down right now.
How much of the earth are you looking at? A few square yards or so? Is
that a significant percentage of the earth's surface or volume? Yet it
completely fills our visual field, just as ther sky fills our visual field
when we look up. When we look at the earth, it seems very large. When we
imagine the earth, it can seem very small.
Tom
>> our explanations are absolutely correct and unquestionable. Our
>> explanations are what we imagine that our observations mean. The
>> difference between science and scientism is that science questions its
>> own beliefs and scientism simply regards them as facts.
>
> scientism ... never heard that word before.
> sort of like ... creationism?
It has a range of meanings. In this context, I'm using it more or less
perjoratively as a description of an exaggerated faith in the truth of
current scientific theory.
While the current scientific view is far from capricious or without basis in
observeable evidence, it is also limited by the finiteness of our tools and
conditions. It is not complete. It contains errors and omissions that
could, if and when discovered, significantly alter that view. An
exaggerated faith in scientific theory would presume that none of these
errors or omissions are ever significant.
whistler
>
> While the current scientific view is far from capricious or without basis in
> observeable evidence, it is also limited by the finiteness of our tools and
> conditions. It is not complete. It contains errors and omissions that
> could, if and when discovered, significantly alter that view. An
> exaggerated faith in scientific theory would presume that none of these
> errors or omissions are ever significant.
As opposed to "THE WORD of GAWD (aka - yowwee)" which is SO totally
constant and NEVER needs be translated/updated (doh!)
Tom
"whistler" <whist...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3636d80b-b186-4c68...@q9g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
whistler
> "whistler" <whistler...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
> > As opposed to "THE WORD of GAWD (aka - yowwee)" which is SO totally
> > constant and NEVER needs be translated/updated (doh!)
>
> http://www.lionsgate.com/religulous/
NOW I am convinced, I'm ordering cable pay'per'view immediately !
Howl'A'lou'la ! "Hot Whiches shur do taste good!" - B.Maher
Governor Swill
>Governor Swill wrote, On 10/1/2008 11:01 AM:
>> This is Meltdarok's brain on drugs:
>>> What I am suggesting is:
>>> If there is a God, why the Hell did She need to create all that other stuff?
>>> Could it be that all that other stuff is what was necessary for
>>> conditions to be just right for life here?
>> Because the entire universe was created as part of an experiment to
>> create life and most of those experiments seem to have failed?
>Ok, there's a suggestion.
>> In any case, when we look at the stars, we're looking at the past.
>> When we look at a star or planet that's a million light years distant,
>> we're seeing it as it looked a million years ago.
>Yeah, and?
Those galaxies and stars that are hundreds of millions or billions of
light years away might have life around them on planets.
Governor Swill
>> This is Meltdarok's brain on drugs:
>>> Gee. . . Did you read what I wrote?
>>>
>>> ">>>> Ya gotta wonder.
>>>>> Here's the real kicker- -->what if<-- with over 200 billion galaxies
>>>>> consisting of 200 billion stars each, Earth is the only place
>>>>> where life developed? Heh."
>>>> Essentially, you're making an argument from ignorance:
>>> No. Essentially, you are making a Pavlovian response.
>> Actually he's quite right. Because you don't know about any other
>> life in God's Universe, you assume there isn't any.
>I'm making *NO* such assumption.
I didn't mean you personally. I meant it in the detached way the
English mean when they say "one". As in "Because one doesn't know
about any other life in God's universe, one assumes there isn't any."
Otoh, statistically speaking, I find it incomprehensible that the only
life in the universe is here.
>You on the other hand don't seem to want to contemplate on what I stated.
>How come? Fear???
Um, no. What would fear have to do with it? Perhaps more to the
point, why would I be afraid of something posted to usenet?
Hugh Gibbons
> > I can imagine an intelligent person believing in the existence of a God,
> >but that person would have to reject much of what the Bible says about
> >God, in the light of what he can observe and reason for himself.
>
> A person could question the interpretations and not the actual
> content. If there is a creator all who worship him worship the same
> being regardless of what they call him or think about him. That
> being the case a person would need to consider Hiduism, Islam,
> Christianity, and any other religions about the creator in pretty much
> the same way in order to get a realistic interpretation. Very few people
> I've met even try to do that.
>
> >I cannot credit that any person who persists in believing the nonsense
> >that biblical literalists claim is firing on all cylinders.
>
> It doesn't really matter. The idea behind the religions is to encourage
> a relationship with God, not explain anything much about him or even
> less how he manages to do things.
Apparently, I mistook you for a conservative Christian literalist, based
on a couple of comments. Thank God you're not!
I do disagree with you on the purpose of religions. I think religions
are about attempting to CONTROL peoples' relationships with God, not to
encourage them. Of course they must encourage them though, because they
can't control what might not exist. There's an awful lot of emphasis on
orthodoxy and orthopraxy in most religions.
Hugh Gibbons
"Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote:
> "Hugh Gibbons" <hugh_g...@dontsendmeemail.net> wrote in message
> news:muqdnWupNs2vnn7V...@comcast.com...
> >
> > To put it in perspective, Earth comprises about 1 part in 3x10^59 of the
> > observable universe and about 1 part in 10^20 of what we can see with
> > our own eyes.
>
> While I'm quite able to grasp the notion that the Earth is a very, very tiny
> portion of the universe, I don't know where you're getting your figures.
> The "observeable universe" is the universe we can observe. I do not think
> that the earth is only a tiny part of what we observe.
The "observable universe" is a scientific concept. It refers to that
portion of the total universe from which the Earth receives radiation
from space, expanded to the estimated position of where the objects that
made that radiation are thought to have receded since they emitted the
radiation we receive. It's based on the red shift of the CMB.
> In fact, I think
> that the whole earth is far more than what we can observe. What we can see
> with our own eyes comprises considerably less that the entire earth. Yet,
> here you are, trying to claim that the entire planet is only a small
> fraction of what you see with your own eyes.
I'm talking about size scales, here, not detailed observation. I have
seen the galaxy with my own eyes. That establishes a visible radius of
thousands of light years.
The size of he Earth, as compared to the size of the observable universe
is much smaller than the size of a proton as compared to the size of
your body. It is approximately as preposterous to claim that God
created the universe for man as to claim that God created you for the
sake of that proton. The removal of the human race from the universe
would be about as significant to any being in almost any part of it as
the significance to your body of the removal of a single proton.
Hugh Gibbons
"Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote:
> While the current scientific view is far from capricious or without basis in
> observeable evidence, it is also limited by the finiteness of our tools and
> conditions. It is not complete. It contains errors and omissions that
> could, if and when discovered, significantly alter that view. An
> exaggerated faith in scientific theory would presume that none of these
> errors or omissions are ever significant.
I don't know anyone who has an exaggerated faith in scientific theory
such as you describe. It appears to me that you are referring to nobody.
Hugh Gibbons
Meltdarok <melt...@aol.com> wrote:
> Hugh Gibbons wrote, On 10/1/2008 12:57 AM:
\
> > To put it in perspective, Earth comprises about 1 part in 3x10^59 of the
> > observable universe and about 1 part in 10^20 of what we can see with
> > our own eyes.
>
> So?
> Even people who claim there is no Creator entity, only have an
> anthropomorphized version in their thoughts that they are rejecting.
> Self awareness is very sweet, no matter the size.
It's very specific claims about that creator that are most clearly in
error. In my view, there could well be some sort of creator entity, but
I have trouble conceptualizing what that would mean without resorting to
religious concepts that I am quite sure are wrong.
I am completely certain that God did not create the world in six days
and did not make a man out of clay, for instance, though that's a common
theme in several mythic systems worldwide.
Meltdarok
See yet??? You are still thinking of these things as a mere man.
What about in terms of self awareness Itself? Size doesn't matter.
> It is approximately as preposterous to claim that God
> created the universe for man as to claim that God created you for the
> sake of that proton.
There you go, forgetting that *all* life on Earth is one big Family.
Then as well, when I conceptualize Earth as the only place in this
universe where life may have developed, I also clearly see many such
universes being created.
Of course then, it would be easier to read the words than attempt
to increase your size scale concepts a trillion fold.
> The removal of the human race from the universe
> would be about as significant to any being in almost any part of it as
> the significance to your body of the removal of a single proton.
I reeeeally think that depends on where that proton is, who the Hell
is going to remove it, and how they remove it. Heh.
Ichabod Ilk
> Hugh Gibbons wrote, On 10/2/2008 6:22 PM:
>
>
>
>
>
> > "Tom" <dantPAYATTENTIONo...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> >> "Hugh Gibbons" <hugh_gibb...@dontsendmeemail.net> wrote in message
>
> - Show quoted text -
so get real an eat yoh veggyz
Meltdarok
Been there, done that, got the stalkeratzis.
Sanity
wrote:
> In article <1oednQekLqGgj37VnZ2dnUVZ_qfin...@comcast.com>,
>
> "Tom" <dantPAYATTENTIONo...@comcast.net> wrote:
"removal" suggests conscious volition at work. Since the Subject of
this Thread had to do with religion, and all religions have to do with
the concept of God being interested in humans; this is a theosophic
culdesac.
Does God care more or less about humans or protons? Which does God
favor more? Where are the prophets of God when you need answers only
God can give? I demand a recount!
I've heard a man with a sling who really really knows what he's doing
has a killing range of about 200 meters. Goliath didn't stand a
chance, David was a shepherd boy with years of daily practice... Oh,
and even the most modern helmet won't save you from a baseball sized
rock traveling at over 100MPH. Politics vs Religion.
Peace, Sanity
Tom
>
> I do disagree with you on the purpose of religions. I think religions
> are about attempting to CONTROL peoples' relationships with God, not to
> encourage them. Of course they must encourage them though, because they
> can't control what might not exist.
Well, if they do encourage them then it's clear that their purpose is, at
least in part, to encourage them.
The point you're trying to make, I think, is that religions (at least the
organized kind) encourage certain kinds of relationship with God (or a
pantheon of Gods) as a means to control the behavior of the believers. I
think evidence supporting that statement is easily available. On the other
hand, religion is more than merely a means of social control. It is an
attempt, an often successful one, to meet some very deep emotional needs
experienced by a vast majority of people.
Religion is a very complex set of psychological and sociological phenomena.
It's not such a good idea to oversimplify it one way or the other.
Wah Wah brush
> "Hugh Gibbons" <hugh_gibb...@dontsendmeemail.net> wrote in message
Oh jeah? "eat green drink blue," think Veggy religion or else
Tom
>
> The "observable universe" is a scientific concept.
What is observable about the universe is *not* a scientific concept.
This is the crux of my argument. We do not observe concepts. We observe
phenomena and then incorporate those observations into a conceptual
framework in order to make some kind of sense out of what we observe.
>> In fact, I think
>> that the whole earth is far more than what we can observe. What we can
>> see
>> with our own eyes comprises considerably less that the entire earth.
>> Yet,
>> here you are, trying to claim that the entire planet is only a small
>> fraction of what you see with your own eyes.
>
> I'm talking about size scales, here, not detailed observation. I have
> seen the galaxy with my own eyes. That establishes a visible radius of
> thousands of light years.
You are not able to determine the size of the galaxy simply by looking at
it. Your current concept of the galaxy has been extant for only a very
brief amount of time and is entirely predicated on what you call "detailed
observation". Indeed, it is a direct result of many reports of
painstakingly detailed observations of things that cannot be observed at all
with the naked eye. Back in the days of ancient Greece, Aristotle, widely
regarded as a pretty sharp guy, declared that the stars were fixed and
unchangeable. He did this for one very good reason. That's how it appeared
to his naked eyes. At the time, the best measure of distance was a concept
called "parallax", which is an simultaneous observation of an object from
two different positions and a trigonometric calculation done on the
differences between how it appears against its background. The furthest
object that Aristotle knew about (and he knew about a lot of them) was the
moon, which, if observation could be trusted, was about a quarter of a
million miles away. A few objects that could be seen to move in some
predictable fashion but they didn't offer enough parallax from the earth's
surface to calculate their distance. Aristotle assigned them to "spheres"
beyond them moon according to how quickly they seemed to move but he didn't
even try to estimate how far away they were. Most objects in the night sky
didn't seem to move at all. For all we could observe, the universe beyond
the moon and the planetary spheres was a two-dimensional surface. Not until
the discovery of the telescope and its use by Galieo to observe the sky did
anyone even imagine that it might be any different from that. It wasn't
until the 20th Century that anybody began to make serious estimates of just
exactly how far away the stars actually are, based on some very tiny and
incredibly detailed observations that most of us cannot make because we lack
the intricate technology.
It has been the collection of stories about people who observed very tiny
and detailed things over a very great deal of time that make up our current
conception of the size of the galaxy, not any single observation by any
single person. As individuals, we see things from one position at a time
and what we interpret from that is enhanced and distorted by what we have
been told about what our perception means.
> The size of he Earth, as compared to the size of the observable universe
> is much smaller than the size of a proton as compared to the size of
> your body.
You have never seen a proton. Nobody has. However, you can imagine one.
Again, there is observation and then there is belief about what our
observations mean. To think clearly, you have to be able to distinguish the
one from the other.
Tom
People who think they can observe the size of the galaxy have an exaggerated
faith in scientific theory. We can conceive the size of the galaxy, we can
estimate it from reports of tiny, highly detailed observations of others
(most of whom we have never met personally) and what those people thought
their observations meant, but it is not immediately evident to our senses.
Nobody can "observe" the size of the galaxy. When we confuse our beliefs
with our observations, we are presuming that what we believe is not really a
belief at all but a fact. That presumption is a display of exaggerated
faith in scientific theory.
Big Meany
"Absorbed" <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:gbtsvo$ks$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
> Bassos wrote:
>> "Absorbed" <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:gbteog$7o9$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
>>> Bassos wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Okay, lazy reading on my behalf, but still you're trying to suggest
>>>>> that there isn't life anywhere except Earth, while covering yourself
>>>>> with an "if".
>>>> You fail to read before drawing conclusions all over the actual imput.
>>> It's an error I sometimes make, and one I'll happily admit to if I've
>>> done it.
>>
>> So, gonna ask a question ?
>> I mean, the initial being too scared to ask a question should have
>> subsided by now.
>
> This is a good example of your consistent lazy reading. I'll quote for
> you.
>
> You wrote:
>>> About the beliefs questioning :
>>> Fine, ask me something, i will indulge you here, for one question, but i
>>> will ofcourse also present my idea about the question involved.
>
> I replied:
>> I don't wish to ask you a question; I'm suggesting that you attempt to
>> clearly express your opinions so they can be questioned, and thereby you
>> might learn something.
>
> Apparently, you still fail to understand this point.
Heh.
It is still the same.
I offered you an option to ask any question whatsoever.
You did not, cos :
> I don't wish to ask you a question
And that is based on fear.
If you would not care, you just ask a question.
<snip bailout>
As to your suggestion; i already explained why i do what i do. (several
times...)
Now it is time to catch on.
Absorbed
>> Bassos wrote:
>>> So, gonna ask a question ?
>>> I mean, the initial being too scared to ask a question should have
>>> subsided by now.
>> This is a good example of your consistent lazy reading. I'll quote for
>> you.
>>
>> You wrote:
>>>> About the beliefs questioning :
>>>> Fine, ask me something, i will indulge you here, for one question, but i
>>>> will ofcourse also present my idea about the question involved.
>> I replied:
>>> I don't wish to ask you a question; I'm suggesting that you attempt to
>>> clearly express your opinions so they can be questioned, and thereby you
>>> might learn something.
>> Apparently, you still fail to understand this point.
>
> Heh.
> It is still the same.
> I offered you an option to ask any question whatsoever.
>
> You did not, cos :
>
>> I don't wish to ask you a question
>
> And that is based on fear.
> If you would not care, you just ask a question.
>
> <snip bailout>
Now you're just plain weaseling. You said "Fine, ask me something, i
will indulge you here". I then explained that I'm not asking your
permission to ask you a question, but suggesting that you question your
opinions. This is yet another simple point that you have failed to grasp.
You're also assuming that asking you a question is a worthwhile
endeavour. As it happens, I think that asking you a question will
further feed your overinflated ego and change nothing. Why don't you ask
me a question? I tell you what, I'll indulge *you* with my hallowed
opinion and give you a solemn promise that I'll answer a question from
you, but just *one* question. The answer to all the mysteries await you,
Bassos; all you must do is have the courage to ask me and then I will
bestow it upon you.
> As to your suggestion; i already explained why i do what i do. (several
> times...)
> Now it is time to catch on.
I've already caught on: you don't want truth, but followers who blindly
believe everything you say. You have an unshakable believe in your own
opinions. That's why you do what you do. My suggestion -- which you
appear unable to comprehend -- is that you critically analyse your
opinions or present them for others to criticise, rather than continue
to blindly believe in them and hide them from criticism.
You're not interested in questioning your own opinions, but only in
indoctrinating others into the same bullshit that you believe. You seem
completely blind to this huge assumption, that your opinions are
unquestionable validity.
Governor Swill
You would be incorrect. Religions are about controlling populations.
Controlling their relationship with God is only the means by which
they accomplish their larger aim.
It should be no secret that political and religious leaders are
codependent. Whether it the pastor exhorting his flock to vote
Republican, John McCain apologizing to the Religious Right and
nominating a Christian Fundamentalist for his VP or a Pope granting a
divorce to this king but not to that one, the effect is the same.
Religion assists the civil leadership in controlling the society as
long as the religious leaders get their slice of the money pie. Have
you ever seen Hampton Court Palace? The Vatican Palace? The
wristwatch on the arm of a successful TV evangelist?
Hugh Gibbons
Meltdarok <melt...@aol.com> wrote:
> Hugh Gibbons wrote, On 10/2/2008 6:22 PM:
> > I'm talking about size scales, here, not detailed observation. I have
> > seen the galaxy with my own eyes. That establishes a visible radius of
> > thousands of light years.
> >
> > The size of he Earth, as compared to the size of the observable universe
> > is much smaller than the size of a proton as compared to the size of
> > your body.
>
> See yet??? You are still thinking of these things as a mere man.
There is no other way for a human being to think.
> What about in terms of self awareness Itself? Size doesn't matter.
Show me something that is self aware that is not an animal.
Hugh Gibbons
<4755bacb-cef8-4d0d...@64g2000hsm.googlegroups.com>,
Sanity <sanity...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > The size of he Earth, as compared to the size of the observable universe
> > is much smaller than the size of a proton as compared to the size of
> > your body. It is approximately as preposterous to claim that God
> > created the universe for man as to claim that God created you for the
> > sake of that proton. The removal of the human race from the universe
> > would be about as significant to any being in almost any part of it as
> > the significance to your body of the removal of a single proton.
>
> "removal" suggests conscious volition at work.
Humans might well remove themselves from the universe. As for protons,
I'm losing things much bigger than that all the time and I don't even
notice.
> Since the Subject of
> this Thread had to do with religion, and all religions have to do with
> the concept of God being interested in humans; this is a theosophic
> culdesac.
Indeed.
> Does God care more or less about humans or protons?
No way to tell.
Meltdarok
That my friend is something that already has been decided that
you have to find on your own. Once you reach that point, you
will know that this "secret hidden in plain sight" has a place
in the very marrow of civilizations.
Until then, spend your dollars, help out at the soup kitchen, and
yes-- look at the stars.
dh
>In article <m397e4h0m442kpmsd...@4ax.com>, dh@. wrote:
>
>> > I can imagine an intelligent person believing in the existence of a God,
>> >but that person would have to reject much of what the Bible says about
>> >God, in the light of what he can observe and reason for himself.
>>
>> A person could question the interpretations and not the actual
>> content. If there is a creator all who worship him worship the same
>> being regardless of what they call him or think about him. That
>> being the case a person would need to consider Hiduism, Islam,
>> Christianity, and any other religions about the creator in pretty much
>> the same way in order to get a realistic interpretation. Very few people
>> I've met even try to do that.
>>
>> >I cannot credit that any person who persists in believing the nonsense
>> >that biblical literalists claim is firing on all cylinders.
>>
>> It doesn't really matter. The idea behind the religions is to encourage
>> a relationship with God, not explain anything much about him or even
>> less how he manages to do things.
>
>Apparently, I mistook you for a conservative Christian literalist, based
>on a couple of comments.
They disagree with much of what I've grown to believe.
>Thank God you're not!
It's hard to say if it's a curse or a blessing. It would be a
lot easier and probably more comforting and rewarding to
just accept some faith and be happy with it. But then again
it wouldn't allow the freedom of thought and to consider all
the possibilities as I do now, which though sometimes
frustrating and annoying is also a lot more interesting and
rewarding in that way.
>I do disagree with you on the purpose of religions. I think religions
>are about attempting to CONTROL peoples' relationships with God, not to
>encourage them. Of course they must encourage them though,
Right. That's the main idea whether God exists or not,
of course even more so if he does.
>because they can't control what might not exist.
We all share our interpretations of how we think it is,
even though it's almost certain that none of us have a
good interpretation.
>There's an awful lot of emphasis on
>orthodoxy and orthopraxy in most religions.
It helps maintain stability, which is beneficial for a number
of reasons.
dh
>think Veggy religion or else
· Vegans contribute to the deaths of animals by their use of
wood and paper products, electricity, roads and all types of
buildings, their own diet, etc... just as everyone else does.
What they try to avoid are products which provide life
(and death) for farm animals, but even then they would have
to avoid the following items containing animal by-products
in order to be successful:
Tires, Paper, Upholstery, Floor waxes, Glass, Water
Filters, Rubber, Fertilizer, Antifreeze, Ceramics, Insecticides,
Insulation, Linoleum, Plastic, Textiles, Blood factors, Collagen,
Heparin, Insulin, Solvents, Biodegradable Detergents, Herbicides,
Gelatin Capsules, Adhesive Tape, Laminated Wood Products,
Plywood, Paneling, Wallpaper and Wallpaper Paste, Cellophane
Wrap and Tape, Abrasives, Steel Ball Bearings
The meat industry provides life for the animals that it
slaughters, and the animals live and die as a result of it
as animals do in other habitats. They also depend on it for
their lives as animals do in other habitats. If people consume
animal products from animals they think are raised in decent
ways, they will be promoting life for more such animals in the
future. People who want to contribute to decent lives for
livestock with their lifestyle must do it by being conscientious
consumers of animal products, because they can not do it by
being vegan.
From the life and death of a thousand pound grass raised
steer and whatever he happens to kill during his life, people
get over 500 pounds of human consumable meat...that's well
over 500 servings of meat. From a grass raised dairy cow people
get thousands of dairy servings. Due to the influence of farm
machinery, and *icides, and in the case of rice the flooding and
draining of fields, one serving of soy or rice based product is
likely to involve more animal deaths than hundreds of servings
derived from grass raised animals. Grass raised animal products
contribute to fewer wildlife deaths, better wildlife habitat, and
better lives for livestock than soy or rice products. ·
dh
>
>"Hugh Gibbons" <hugh_g...@dontsendmeemail.net> wrote in message
>news:Rr-dnSR5ZKEOB3jV...@comcast.com...
>>
>> I do disagree with you on the purpose of religions. I think religions
>> are about attempting to CONTROL peoples' relationships with God, not to
>> encourage them. Of course they must encourage them though, because they
>> can't control what might not exist.
>
>Well, if they do encourage them then it's clear that their purpose is, at
>least in part, to encourage them.
>
>The point you're trying to make, I think, is that religions (at least the
>organized kind) encourage certain kinds of relationship with God (or a
>pantheon of Gods) as a means to control the behavior of the believers.
Like to discourage them from lying, and stealing, and murdering,
and sacrificing their children, etc...
>I think evidence supporting that statement is easily available.
What do you have in mind?
dh
What examples do you have in mind? Don't pretend any political
tricks are what you're referring to either. If you can't provide any,
then don't pretend something else will do.
dh
>
><dh@.> wrote in message news:cc87e4hspi6qa87pu...@4ax.com...
>> On Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:06:30 -0700, "Tom"
>> <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>>While I'm quite able to grasp the notion that the Earth is a very, very
>>>tiny
>>>portion of the universe, I don't know where you're getting your figures.
>>>The "observeable universe" is the universe we can observe. I do not think
>>>that the earth is only a tiny part of what we observe.
>>
>> It's insignificant to almost all we can observe, like to every bit of
>> this:
>
>
>Almost none of us have ever gotten far enough away from the earth for it to
>really appear small in our eyes.
No one has yet and lived to tell about it, if anyone has at all.
>To our eyes, the earth will always figure
>very large. However, we can easily imagine that we are seeing from somewhere
>far away from the earth and that, in that imagined view, the earth seems
>very small.
The Earth IS very small.
>To our imagination, the earth may well be too small to notice
>at all.
>
>Our eyes are small and are located very close to the earth, but we have
>really big imaginations whose views are not limited to any specific
>location. Thus what seems all-encompassing to our eyes may seem
>insignificant to what we can imagine.
>
>The earth is insignificant to almost all we can imagine observing, but not
>to all that we actually observe at any given moment. Look down right now.
>How much of the earth are you looking at? A few square yards or so? Is
>that a significant percentage of the earth's surface or volume? Yet it
>completely fills our visual field, just as ther sky fills our visual field
>when we look up. When we look at the earth, it seems very large.
That's what is imaginary when we consider the universe.
>When we imagine the earth, it can seem very small.
It is very small. Lots of things are much smaller, but it's still
small when considering the universe.
Tom
<dh@.> wrote in message news:knqhe41do7k7hf3p3...@4ax.com...
Yes. And voting for this political party over that one or doing what the
authorities tell you to do, promptly and without question. That sort of
thing. And you might want to note that it's religion that is associated
with the sacrifice of children. I've never known an atheist to advocate the
practice of human sacrifice. After all, if you're going to sacrifice your
children, you'll be doing it to placate some god or another.
>>I think evidence supporting that statement is easily available.
>
> What do you have in mind?
Let's consult the oldest known code of laws and see how it is justified by a
declaration that the author is a personal conduit to God.
"Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared
God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the
wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak; so
that I should rule over the black-headed people like Shamash, and enlighten
the land, to further the well-being of mankind." -- Hammurabi of Sumer
Religion is clearly a device used to exert social control and has been since
the earliest days of organized societies.
Sanity
wrote:
> In article
> <4755bacb-cef8-4d0d-9b8f-88512e339...@64g2000hsm.googlegroups.com>,
>
> Sanity <sanity-cla...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > > The size of he Earth, as compared to the size of the observable universe
> > > is much smaller than the size of a proton as compared to the size of
> > > your body. It is approximately as preposterous to claim that God
> > > created the universe for man as to claim that God created you for the
> > > sake of that proton. The removal of the human race from the universe
> > > would be about as significant to any being in almost any part of it as
> > > the significance to your body of the removal of a single proton.
>
> > "removal" suggests conscious volition at work.
>
> Humans might well remove themselves from the universe. As for protons,
> I'm losing things much bigger than that all the time and I don't even
> notice.
Holding one's self analogos to the Creator borders on arrogance IMHO,
but then again it may fall under poetic license... %~\
>
> > Since the Subject of
> > this Thread had to do with religion, and all religions have to do with
> > the concept of God being interested in humans; this is a theosophic
> > culdesac.
>
> Indeed.
>
> > Does God care more or less about humans or protons?
>
> No way to tell.
>
Thank you. :^)
Tom
<dh@.> wrote in message news:mvqhe458kgm6b3q89...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 1 Oct 2008 11:59:48 -0700, "Tom"
> <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>
>><dh@.> wrote in message news:cc87e4hspi6qa87pu...@4ax.com...
>>> On Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:06:30 -0700, "Tom"
>>> <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>While I'm quite able to grasp the notion that the Earth is a very, very
>>>>tiny
>>>>portion of the universe, I don't know where you're getting your figures.
>>>>The "observeable universe" is the universe we can observe. I do not
>>>>think
>>>>that the earth is only a tiny part of what we observe.
>>>
>>> It's insignificant to almost all we can observe, like to every bit of
>>> this:
>>
>>
>>Almost none of us have ever gotten far enough away from the earth for it
>>to
>>really appear small in our eyes.
>
> No one has yet and lived to tell about it, if anyone has at all.
You seem to be forgetting about those guys who walked on the moon. They are
the only known exception.
>>To our eyes, the earth will always figure
>>very large. However, we can easily imagine that we are seeing from
>>somewhere
>>far away from the earth and that, in that imagined view, the earth seems
>>very small.
>
> The Earth IS very small.
Depends on what you're going to compare it to. Compared to us, it's huge.
To our physical eyes, it's huge. In our minds, though, it can be any size
we like.
>>The earth is insignificant to almost all we can imagine observing, but not
>>to all that we actually observe at any given moment. Look down right now.
>>How much of the earth are you looking at? A few square yards or so? Is
>>that a significant percentage of the earth's surface or volume? Yet it
>>completely fills our visual field, just as ther sky fills our visual field
>>when we look up. When we look at the earth, it seems very large.
>
> That's what is imaginary when we consider the universe.
No, what's imaginary is our consideration of the universe as opposed to what
we see with our eyes.
>>When we imagine the earth, it can seem very small.
>
> It is very small. Lots of things are much smaller, but it's still
> small when considering the universe.
"Considering the universe" is an act of imagination. It's not something we
do with our eyes.
RumpelStiltSkin
"Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:NZWdnR6LDfB3oXTV...@comcast.com...
There are more stars than grains of sands on the earth.
There are also more atoms in your body than grains of sand on the earth!
Governor Swill
>>You would be incorrect. Religions are about controlling populations.
>>Controlling their relationship with God is only the means by which
>>they accomplish their larger aim.
>
> What examples do you have in mind? Don't pretend any political
>tricks are what you're referring to either. If you can't provide any,
>then don't pretend something else will do.
Certainly. In the sixteenth century, Henry the VIII applied for
divorce from his wife Catherine of Aragon. His dynasty was a new one
and she'd only given him one child, a daughter. He needed a son and
heir. Henry eventually became convinced he was cursed by God. You
see, Catherine had been married to his older brother Arthur who died
shortly thereafter. There's a verse in Leviticus condemning a man who
would "uncover his brother's nakedness", the euphemism meaning to have
sexual intercourse with or marry one's brother's wife or widow.
On these grounds Henry applied for a divorce. Divorces were routinely
granted to the rich and powerful by the church. Several had been
granted by Clement himself in recent years.
Unfortunately for Henry, and is it turned out, the Roman Church, Pope
Clement VII was at that time the prisoner of Catherine's uncle, the
Holy Roman Emperor.
The result was England withdrawing from the Roman Church which led it
to becoming the bastion of the Protestant Reformation later in the
century. It was then the King of England, Supreme Head of Church and
State who wielded absolute authority. Depending on whether he got
after you with the Bishops or the Court of Star Chamber, you were
subject to either burning alive or beheading at the King's pleasure.
Who could gainsay the King when he was also God's divine spokesman on
Earth?
Throughout history the Church, whatever church has supported first one
faction, then another. Popes routinely declared Holy War against this
or that king and induced other kings to fight for him. In WWII
preachers passionately exhorted their congregations to fight the
yellow men and the Nazis.
Political and religious power have converged and made use of each
other as long as there have been political and religious powers. Even
when it was only the Chief and the Medicine Man telling the tribe what
to do from both sides.
Emperor Constantine, unable to control either the people (Roman
emperors had the nasty habit of getting quickly and violently dead)
converted to Christianity, had it proclaimed throughout the empire and
while he was at it, executed the priests and stripped their temples of
their enormous treasures. The newly empowered Christian leaders
naturally became his bestest friends and a means by which he kept the
people in line.
Augustus made decrees of moral behavior and engaged the priests of the
Roman Pantheon to enforce them. That particular attempt pretty much
failed to keep people from having public orgies at the baths.
And how can we forget the Crusades when Popes committed millions of
Europeans and the fortunes of the kings of the Continent to go away to
the ME and fight the Moslem hordes who had taken over the Holy Land?
Never mind that both the Christians and Jews had long abandoned that
worthless desert. It was Holy and therefore Europe at the behest of
the Popes would expend centuries of lives and treasure trying to get
it back. The Kings and Popes got the glory, the soldiers got dead and
their families starved and paid the taxes used to kill their kin.
In modern times the religious right were instrumental in the election
of Ronald Reagan and the expansion of the GOP in the south. The
church readily took clear political positions and drove their
congregants to the polls to vote Republican. This gave the GOP a bit
of an edge in elections. Until then, devout Christians were not much
about voting. Fundamentalists considered it all to be God's will and
had no thought of interfering in His Divine political process.
Even today this can be seen in McCain's running mate. A devout
Protestant who has roused the religious right which only two months
ago was lukewarm at best and just two months before that, willing to
vote for a Democrat.
Religion and politics have long been bedfellows and it was this danger
that led the founders of the US to do everything they could to shut
religion as completely as possible out of the political process.
Searles O'Dubhain
<snip>
>
> Religion is clearly a device used to exert social control and has been
> since the earliest days of organized societies.
One could say the same thing about many other aspects of societies. Being
used as a controlling device is not inherently a feature, function or
purpose of religions. The desire to control others might be an inherent
characteristic of humans in positions of authority and power. These people
will use anything that can be an effective tool for social control. Religion
is not at fault here so much as the people misusing it.
Searles O'Dubhain
Tom
"RumpelStiltSkin" <fabl...@abc.gov> wrote in message
news:t8bGk.2131$Rx....@flpi144.ffdc.sbc.com...
>> we do with our eyes.
>
> There are more stars than grains of sands on the earth.
> There are also more atoms in your body than grains of sand on the earth!
Yeah. Cool. I can't see *with my physical eyes* all the sands on the
earth, all the stars in the sky, or all the atoms of my body. Nor can I
actually count them and compare totals. So I have to imagine their looks
and their quantities instead. Fortunately, my vivid and well-stocked
imagination is up to the task. So is yours, apparently.
Tom
"Searles O'Dubhain" <odubhain@*comcast*.net> wrote in message
news:ad6dnXkTEtQuAXTV...@comcast.com...
>
> "Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:MtGdnV6xLOIXuXTV...@comcast.com...
>
> <snip>
>
>>
>> Religion is clearly a device used to exert social control and has been
>> since the earliest days of organized societies.
>
> One could say the same thing about many other aspects of societies.
I agree. It's not the only device by which social control can be exerted,
but it is far and away one of the most efficient ones. As a tool, religion
is top drawer.
However, whether or not a tool is good or bad depends on whether one is the
woodworker or the tree.
Redelk
So, wait... the masses... people, are being manipulated by tools?
"Heh. Heh-heh. I said tool." - Butthead
http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/anti-masonry/hitler.html
(On an aside... Is Television a religion yet?)
Sanity
> (On an aside... Is Television a religion yet?)
aparantly
Searles O'Dubhain
Everyone can sit or lay on the ground but it is comforting and restful to
have furniture for these activities. It's not absolutely necessary however
but that's civilization.
Searles O'Dubhain
Governor Swill
> Tom wrote
>> Religion is clearly a device used to exert social control and has been
>> since the earliest days of organized societies.
>
>One could say the same thing about many other aspects of societies. Being
>used as a controlling device is not inherently a feature, function or
>purpose of religions. The desire to control others might be an inherent
>characteristic of humans in positions of authority and power. These people
>will use anything that can be an effective tool for social control. Religion
>is not at fault here so much as the people misusing it.
*nods* "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."
The purpose of religion may not be to manipulate and control people in
your view, but the fact remains that that is exactly what it has been
used for.
Governor Swill
>However, whether or not a tool is good or bad depends on whether one is the
>woodworker or the tree.
Hmm . . . I like that.
dh
It's a matter of perspective. If God exists, it seems fairly clear
that he would be better at changing his perspective than we
are.
dh
>
>"Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>news:MtGdnV6xLOIXuXTV...@comcast.com...
>
><snip>
>
>>
>> Religion is clearly a device used to exert social control and has been
>> since the earliest days of organized societies.
>
>One could say the same thing about many other aspects of societies.
Like movies and TV, and all types of advertising, architecture,
the design of highways and cities, the packaging of food and
other products, fashion, the design of vehicles, and it seems
like there might be something else too....maybe politics?
>Being used as a controlling device is not inherently a feature, function or
>purpose of religions.
So far the only examples we have are the ones I gave.
>The desire to control others might be an inherent
>characteristic of humans in positions of authority and power. These people
>will use anything that can be an effective tool for social control. Religion
>is not at fault here so much as the people misusing it.
>
>Searles O'Dubhain
Right. Some people can figure that out for themselves, while
other people don't seem able to appreciate it even after it is
explained to them.
dh
>
><dh@.> wrote in message news:knqhe41do7k7hf3p3...@4ax.com...
>> On Fri, 3 Oct 2008 08:24:16 -0700, "Tom"
>> <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>"Hugh Gibbons" <hugh_g...@dontsendmeemail.net> wrote in message
>>>news:Rr-dnSR5ZKEOB3jV...@comcast.com...
>>>>
>>>> I do disagree with you on the purpose of religions. I think religions
>>>> are about attempting to CONTROL peoples' relationships with God, not to
>>>> encourage them. Of course they must encourage them though, because they
>>>> can't control what might not exist.
>>>
>>>Well, if they do encourage them then it's clear that their purpose is, at
>>>least in part, to encourage them.
>>>
>>>The point you're trying to make, I think, is that religions (at least the
>>>organized kind) encourage certain kinds of relationship with God (or a
>>>pantheon of Gods) as a means to control the behavior of the believers.
>>
>> Like to discourage them from lying, and stealing, and murdering,
>> and sacrificing their children, etc...
>
>Yes. And voting for this political party over that one
You would have to provide some example(s) of that being done
before it could seem possibly significant. As yet you don't appear to
be correct.
>or doing what the
>authorities tell you to do, promptly and without question.
It does say to obey the laws of man in the Bible, but some of
them might get a person fined or put in jail these days, like:
Leviticus 20
1 The LORD said to Moses,
2 "Say to the Israelites: `Any Israelite or any alien living in Israel who
gives[1] any of his children to Molech must be put to death. The people
of the community are to stone him.
[...]
9 "`If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has
cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head.
10 "`If a man commits adultery with another man's wife--with the wife of his
neighbor--both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.
11 "`If a man sleeps with his father's wife, he has dishonored his father. Both
the man and the woman must be put to death; their blood will be on their
own heads.
12 "`If a man sleeps with his daughter-in-law, both of them must be put to
death. What they have done is a perversion; their blood will be on their
own heads.
13 "`If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have
done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be
on their own heads.
14 "`If a man marries both a woman and her mother, it is wicked. Both he and
they must be burned in the fire, so that no wickedness will be among you.
15 "`If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he must be put to death, and
you must kill the animal.
16 "`If a woman approaches an animal to have sexual relations with it, kill both
the woman and the animal. They must be put to death; their blood will be on
their own heads.
>That sort of
>thing. And you might want to note that it's religion that is associated
>with the sacrifice of children.
The Bible speaks against it:
Ezekial 23
36 The LORD said to me: "Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah?
Then confront them with their detestable practices, 37 for they have committed
adultery and blood is on their hands. They committed adultery with their idols;
they even sacrificed their children, whom they bore to me, [e] as food for them.
38 They have also done this to me: At that same time they defiled my sanctuary
and desecrated my Sabbaths.
>I've never known an atheist to advocate the
>practice of human sacrifice.
I've never known anyone to do it other than by suicide.
>After all, if you're going to sacrifice your
>children, you'll be doing it to placate some god or another.
>
>>>I think evidence supporting that statement is easily available.
>>
>> What do you have in mind?
>
>Let's consult the oldest known code of laws and see how it is justified by a
>declaration that the author is a personal conduit to God.
>
>"Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared
>God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the
>wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak; so
>that I should rule over the black-headed people like Shamash, and enlighten
>the land, to further the well-being of mankind." -- Hammurabi of Sumer
What do you have in mind that might be significant now?
If nothing, then we are still left with nothing but the things
I pointed out including opposition to child sacrifice.
>Religion is clearly a device used to exert social control and has been since
>the earliest days of organized societies.
As yet we have no examples of it being a problem today.
dh
Those are all examples of religious people manipulating the
religion to for their own benefit, not something to do with what
the religion itself is supposed to be about. It's like saying
Catholisism is wrong because some of the priest do things it
says they should NOT do.
>Political and religious power have converged and made use of each
>other as long as there have been political and religious powers. Even
>when it was only the Chief and the Medicine Man telling the tribe what
>to do from both sides.
>
>Emperor Constantine, unable to control either the people (Roman
>emperors had the nasty habit of getting quickly and violently dead)
>converted to Christianity, had it proclaimed throughout the empire and
>while he was at it, executed the priests and stripped their temples of
>their enormous treasures. The newly empowered Christian leaders
>naturally became his bestest friends and a means by which he kept the
>people in line.
>
>Augustus made decrees of moral behavior and engaged the priests of the
>Roman Pantheon to enforce them. That particular attempt pretty much
>failed to keep people from having public orgies at the baths.
>
>And how can we forget the Crusades when Popes committed millions of
>Europeans and the fortunes of the kings of the Continent to go away to
>the ME and fight the Moslem hordes who had taken over the Holy Land?
It was for personal gain, again.
>Never mind that both the Christians and Jews had long abandoned that
>worthless desert. It was Holy and therefore Europe at the behest of
>the Popes would expend centuries of lives and treasure trying to get
>it back. The Kings and Popes got the glory, the soldiers got dead and
>their families starved and paid the taxes used to kill their kin.
>
>In modern times the religious right were instrumental in the election
>of Ronald Reagan and the expansion of the GOP in the south. The
>church readily took clear political positions and drove their
>congregants to the polls to vote Republican. This gave the GOP a bit
>of an edge in elections. Until then, devout Christians were not much
>about voting. Fundamentalists considered it all to be God's will and
>had no thought of interfering in His Divine political process.
Again is was people taking advantage of the religion, not the
religious ideas themselves.
>Even today this can be seen in McCain's running mate. A devout
>Protestant who has roused the religious right which only two months
>ago was lukewarm at best and just two months before that, willing to
>vote for a Democrat.
More exploitation, not the religious ideas themselves.
>Religion and politics have long been bedfellows and it was this danger
>that led the founders of the US to do everything they could to shut
>religion as completely as possible out of the political process.
>
>Swill
Yet they still asked for God's influence and assistance, and it
appears that when they did they often got it. Clearly they had
confidence in Gob, but not necessarily in man's manipulation of
religious ideas.
dh
>
><dh@.> wrote in message news:mvqhe458kgm6b3q89...@4ax.com...
>> On Wed, 1 Oct 2008 11:59:48 -0700, "Tom"
>> <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>><dh@.> wrote in message news:cc87e4hspi6qa87pu...@4ax.com...
>>>> On Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:06:30 -0700, "Tom"
>>>> <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>While I'm quite able to grasp the notion that the Earth is a very, very
>>>>>tiny
>>>>>portion of the universe, I don't know where you're getting your figures.
>>>>>The "observeable universe" is the universe we can observe. I do not
>>>>>think
>>>>>that the earth is only a tiny part of what we observe.
>>>>
>>>> It's insignificant to almost all we can observe, like to every bit of
>>>> this:
>>>
>>>
>>>Almost none of us have ever gotten far enough away from the earth for it
>>>to
>>>really appear small in our eyes.
>>
>> No one has yet and lived to tell about it, if anyone has at all.
>
>You seem to be forgetting about those guys who walked on the moon. They are
>the only known exception.
No, the moon is nowhere near far enough for the Earth to look small. In
fact from the moon the Earth would be the biggest thing from that perspective.
I believe there was a Russian space vehicle that was lost and it kept on moving
away from the Earth. It's possible some of the people on board survived long
enough for the Earth to look small, but maybe even they didn't live long enough
to see it.
>>>To our eyes, the earth will always figure
>>>very large. However, we can easily imagine that we are seeing from
>>>somewhere
>>>far away from the earth and that, in that imagined view, the earth seems
>>>very small.
>>
>> The Earth IS very small.
>
>Depends on what you're going to compare it to. Compared to us, it's huge.
>To our physical eyes, it's huge. In our minds, though, it can be any size
>we like.
>
>>>The earth is insignificant to almost all we can imagine observing, but not
>>>to all that we actually observe at any given moment. Look down right now.
>>>How much of the earth are you looking at? A few square yards or so? Is
>>>that a significant percentage of the earth's surface or volume? Yet it
>>>completely fills our visual field, just as ther sky fills our visual field
>>>when we look up. When we look at the earth, it seems very large.
>>
>> That's what is imaginary when we consider the universe.
>
>No,
Yes.
>what's imaginary is our consideration of the universe as opposed to what
>we see with our eyes.
Knowing what we know it's imaginary to think of the Earth as being
large in comparison to the universe.
>>>When we imagine the earth, it can seem very small.
>>
>> It is very small. Lots of things are much smaller, but it's still
>> small when considering the universe.
>
>"Considering the universe" is an act of imagination. It's not something we
>do with our eyes.
What we see influences what we imagine, and our interpretation
of everything we do see.
Tom
<dh@.> wrote in message news:326ke41e7t34rdl20...@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 5 Oct 2008 22:46:45 -0700, "Tom"
> <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>"RumpelStiltSkin" <fabl...@abc.gov> wrote in message
>>news:t8bGk.2131$Rx....@flpi144.ffdc.sbc.com...
>>>
>>> "Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>>> news:NZWdnR6LDfB3oXTV...@comcast.com...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "Considering the universe" is an act of imagination. It's not
>>>> something
>>>> we do with our eyes.
>>>
>>> There are more stars than grains of sands on the earth.
>>> There are also more atoms in your body than grains of sand on the earth!
>>
>>Yeah. Cool. I can't see *with my physical eyes* all the sands on the
>>earth, all the stars in the sky, or all the atoms of my body. Nor can I
>>actually count them and compare totals. So I have to imagine their looks
>>and their quantities instead. Fortunately, my vivid and well-stocked
>>imagination is up to the task. So is yours, apparently.
>
> It's a matter of perspective.
It's a matter of imagination. There is no physical perspective in which we
can see atoms, or all the stars, or all the grains of sand on the earth.
So, lacking that perspective, we choose to imagine it instead.
> If God exists, it seems fairly clear
> that he would be better at changing his perspective than we
> are.
And if wishes were horses, it seems fairly clear that beggars would ride.
Big Meany
"Absorbed" <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:gc69ff$5sc$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
> Big Meany wrote:
>> "Absorbed" <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:gbtsvo$ks$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
>
> I tell you what, I'll indulge *you* with my hallowed opinion and give you
> a solemn promise that I'll answer a question from you, but just *one*
> question.
Oki.
why are you such a whore ?
Absorbed
> "Absorbed" <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:gc69ff$5sc$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
>> Big Meany wrote:
>>> "Absorbed" <purestd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:gbtsvo$ks$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
>> I tell you what, I'll indulge *you* with my hallowed opinion and give you
>> a solemn promise that I'll answer a question from you, but just *one*
>> question.
>
> Oki.
> why are you such a whore ?
Your question is founded on the incorrect assumption that I'm a whore.
I'm not a whore.