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News Briefs 02-12-2004

Godzilla, fish sticks, mary-jane and killer robots. It’s either a very mixed up B-movie or Thursday’s TDG news.

  • Remember the holy Virgin Mary sandwich? Now a guy from Canada says he has Jesus’ picture on a fish stick. (Link has picture)
  • China is awash in out of control acid rain.
  • University of Toronto boffins are making an attempt at getting Leonardo’s ornithopter off the ground.
  • Vandals attempted to exorcize St. Pauls cathedral to rid it of gay worshippers.
  • Want some good news? It looks like the reintroduction of Condors into the wild in Arizona is succeeding.
  • Claims that global warming will be a good thing outrages eco-groups. Then again, it seems a lot of the climate sceptics are funded by oil companies.
  • I’ve covered this on Newshog already but it’s too mind-boggling to leave alone. Most Americans don’t believe in evolution, according to a CBS Poll.
  • Some Christian thinkers have found evidence for Noah’s flood in ice cores, dust samples and radiographic data all support Noah’s Flood.
  • Godzilla, everyones favourite monster, gets his own star on Hollywood’s
  1. Robots in Iraq

    “Now the robots can shoot the helpless and save the Army a court-martial.”

    The steady march of interjected political idiocy at TDG can’t be stopped it seems. I guess the only “fair” fight is the one where Americans die from booby-trapped, suicidal terrorists.

      1. Peas
        Joo vill haf peas und joo vill like it; und if joo don’t like it, vee haf vays ov making joo like it..

        Just ask the indigenous uncivilized aboriginals of any continent (if you can find any left, that is), and you will find that no man or society on earth has clean hands when it comes to ethnic cleansing and genocide. The hate and fear inside us is too strong.

        I’d like to think we could all get along, agreeing to disagree without resorting to insults, violent outbursts and petty fits of pique, but history tells me that’s not in the cards. Compound that with greed, and you have a formula for continual warfare, oppression, and human misery. Add a dash of religion, and you have a recipe for eventual extinction – slow and painful. Peace will come at the expense of freedom; or one day the last man will stand bloodstained atop the bodies of his “enemies”, the chamber of his weapon empty at last, with no one left to kill. Hurry, sundown.

    1. Robot Attack Dog
      Hi Anon,

      I couldn’t figure out whether you intended the political idiocy to be yours or mine. I am guessing yours since even the article cited leads to a link which discusses the Army’s debate over whether this will lead to greater inhumanity in warfare. If they are worried about it, shouln’t you be? It is, as usual, a mark of the attack-dog right wing to bite before they know why they are biting.
      To be honest, it’s easier on their intellects.

      I don’t want Americans to die from booby traps either…or Scots from IED’s like the son of a family friend did just a couple of weeks ago. I will bet the bank you are NOT posting from a foxhole in the Sunni Triangle. If you are so gung-ho for the war why haven’t you joined up? Maybe its other peoples bodies you are courageous with. Americans are as much my fellow humans as Iraqis or Scots and I would really like it if rottweillers like you wouldn’t encourage your leadership to send young kids off to war. You have far more in common with Osama than you ever will with a true human being.

      Lastly, The only “fair fight” would be Bush and Cheney vs. Osama and Zarquawi, two falls to decide the winners. I am sure we can find a kindred fanatic from the Islamic camp to tag-team you if you would care to join that “fair fight”.

      Regards, C

    2. Political bs on this site
      I agree. I used to really enjoy this site, but the pc slant on so many of the articles is enough to make me want to leave off. I wish the people who run TDG wouldnt interject their personal political opinions so much.

      1. I agree
        And if that isn’t enough, every loony-toon who thinks everyone is waiting on their every word, crawls out from under some rock and writes a 3000 word psycho-babble comment using three or less periods because everyone knows that if you write sentences like that it must be a profound comment and that thay are so far above the rest of us that they don’t have to abide by the rules of English because they are in a different plane of trancendence and their current manifastation in this aspect doesn’t translate well at our lower bionic frequency and other thought beings like themselves are not bound by the earthly confines of spacial reasoning…………………………….get my point?

    3. Ack
      And here I was thinking it was a humorous bit of social criticism. Well I laughed, but then I am part of the left-wing conspiracy that is TDG. Watch my eyes…you are getting sleepy, sleepy….
      😉

      Peace and Respect
      Greg
      ——————————————-
      You monkeys only think you’re running things

      1. Doctor Bill
        Greg,

        I’m sending you the Doctor bill for my broken nose. As I was reading your post, I fell to sleep straight away and smashed my nose into my keyboard. I got the ‘J’ key back on, but my nose will never be the same! 😉

        AncientSkyman

        The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

        George Bernard Shaw

        1. hilarious little website
          >>At least you have this hilarious little website to prove to the world how intelligent you & your friends are.

          “Never settle with words what you can accomplish with a flame-thrower.” – Bruce Feirstein

  2. mind-boggling evolution poll
    Hi Cernig,

    The Poll:
    Which statement best describes your beliefs?

    God created humans in present form.
    Humans evolved, God guided the process.
    Humans evolved, God did not guide process.

    The results are less mind-boggling when you consider the poll’s lack of nuance, lack of definitions, and the black-or-white thinking reflected in a lack of other choices.

    But then, these are also faults of the U.S. educational and political systems. In textbooks, as with all subjects, evolution is presented as fact, with no discussion of any alternative theories, whether they be those of Sheldrake, etc. or religious in nature. Discussing alternative explanations, after all, might teach us to think — a dangerous possibility which could lead us to question the political system in which we’re dominated (literally) by the two-party/one-party plutocrats. So, no surprise that the media suffers from the same flaws.

    I wonder how the poll’s results would have differed if the pollsters had included this choice:

    None of the above precisely describes my beliefs about human evolution.

    Kat

    1. Way, way East of Eden
      The Poll:
      Which statement best describes your beliefs?

      God created humans in present form.
      Humans evolved, God guided the process.
      Humans evolved, God did not guide process.

      D. None of the above

      Homo Sapiens is an aberration: an accidental, virulent, and noxious virus that fouls its own nest and those of other creatures; murders its own kind and others for gratification and profit, or in the name of God; thrives on conflict and aggression; disregards natural principles with impunity; values the material over the spiritual; and continually refuses to learn from its mistakes. If God had anything whatever to do with this species, other than preparing the agar dish, it must have been an experiment in terror. If mankind as we know it were to be wiped out tomorrow, the Earth would celebrate for a million years, which might just be enough time for all traces of this destructive, mean-spirited, arrogant animal to disappear.

      It’s a fortunate thing for the rest of nature that regular cataclysms take us back to the stone age; otherwise it would have no respite at all. Paragon of animals, indeed. Parasite’s more like it.

        1. Darkness
          Yes, it is dark in there, isn’t it? Here’s a way out:

          1. Grasp your neck firmly with both hands.
          2. Place your feet against your buttocks.
          3. Pull your cranium out of your anal orifice. (it’s like taking the red pill.)
          4. Shake your head vigorously. If you don’t hear a protracted or loud rattle, you may continue, otherwise place your head back where it came from (it’s like taking the blue pill).
          5. Spend an undistracted four hours scrutinizing international news and commentary sites – look at everything, not just what interests you. Rub your nose in the reality of contemporary human behavior, both good (minority) and bad (majority).
          6. Put on your coat and take a stroll around your town. Don’t have an agenda, just observe. Watch how people behave, listen to what they say, how they drive, how they obey the letter and/or spirit of the law, how they observe the protocols of civilized society, how they treat each other.
          7. Go to work on your paradigms – it’s the only way out of the mess you’ll discover if you follow the above suggestions. Optimism won’t help if you have a distorted mental picture of reality, and your place in it.

      1. parasites
        Hi anonymous,

        I have been to that place wherein you now reside, and it is a dark place so my heart aches for you.
        However, the fact that you have written what you just have proves your thesis wrong.
        It proves that there is at least one thinking, caring human being who has time to shed tears for what we have done, and if there is one, then there is a good chance there are more.
        I have just read The Zanzibar Chest by Aiden Hartley, mostly of his time as a war correspondent in Africa and it plunged me into despair to read the inside stories of some of the most stupid and devastating wars.
        But then I remember people like Arundhati Roy, the Indian author who is fighting the good fight while she ducks death threats and prosecution.
        If it is true that good balances evil,positive balances negative, then there are more people like you who hate what is happening in the world,and eventually justice will prevail.
        Ms Roy says….There is no Peace without Justice.

        shadows

        1. Jim Morrison was right
          shadows,

          1. You assume I’m human.
          2. As Dickens commented, through the personage of Scrooge (poetic license taken): “An ant is what it is, and a grasshopper is what it is, and Justice, madam, is a humbug.”

          Justice is a human concept that uses a prejudiced rationale, and the power to exact a balance between “good” and “evil” (read popularly acceptable or unacceptable). Justice is a word used by the victorious when punishing the “guilty”, or rewarding the “wronged” entity. Who is evil, the rat who steals the grain, or the cat who kills the rat? So what is justice, the beheading of an “infidel” in the name of Allah, or the deposing of a vile and vicious dictator? The deliberate murder of thousands of people in a bombed building, or the execution of a murderer by lethal injection? Ebola or AIDS?
          Nature has no concept of justice, only being, in accord with natural laws. Natural laws cannot be broken, you merely break yourself on them. In nature, the penalty for stupidity, or going against natural law is usually death. Enter man, who not only fails to recognize this simple truth, but effectively subsidizes, even rewards stupidity at every turn. Homo Sapiens’ greatest failure is to picture itself standing outside of nature, rather than being an integral and interdependent part of it, responsible to the whole, and accountable, whether it chooses to believe it or not. Denial will obtain nothing but misery and oblivion, if not in this cycle, then another. You may quote morality, but that again is a construct of man, and although I might be disposed to agree that man’s “sense of self”, the gift for which he was allegorically “expelled from the garden”, can lead the species to a nobler plane of existence, it cannot happen unless mankind first understands and embraces its place in nature. Frankly, I don’t think it’s up to it.
          You want reality? In the film “Independence Day”, the President asks the alien about “Peace”. “Peace?” the alien replies, “there can be no peace.” Taken aback, the President mutters “What do you want us to do?” The alien’s answer was simple and direct: “Die.” There is no “good fight”, just somebody’s notion of justified mayhem, which has been sold to those who want to believe it for their own reasons or profit.
          Now someone will ask, “What can be done about it?” The answer is simple, but unpleasant for those who remain in denial: Nothing. Civilization, as it always has, will grow and implode, until one day it will narrow the window of existence to an untenable level, and expire. Nothing I have seen in man’s history leads me to believe it can have any other ending, and the trend toward self-destruction and polarization has been steepening since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

          3. I’m not in a dark place; you are. Sympathies all around.

          1. Justice
            While it is true humans have blasted themselves to the stone ages before, and most likely will do it again, it is my belief that there is an incremental leap in the complexity of the human spirit each time. If you look around you, in today’s technobabylon, you will see that we fit the description of ‘God-like’ from a scribe writing 2500 years ago. We command light at the speed of thought, we move mountains, create new elements, convert matter to energy and back again. . . all this from living in caves only 70 generations ago. . . you should stand in Awe!

            We do kill each other . . . and most likely, somewhere on this rock, we always will. But there will be new places where murder doesn’t happen, where altruisim is not only normal, but expected. . . because if we can think it, we can do it.

            It may take a wiping away before we can start fresh, but a fresh start there will be, I have no doubt. There are thousands like me who hoard knowledge, spread light, and kindle the flame for a time when it is needed. Such a time might not come in my life, but I know for sure that there are already replacements taking up the path to whom I could pass a torch.

            We are the marrage of spirit and matter, and we cannot escape. Trapped in Space-Time, it is up to US to make the best of it. I choose not to throw up my hands in dispair and give up, but to shine my light forth as best as I can, and try not to tremble in the face of the Unbearable Chaos. Order is as we make it, as is Justice. You speak of decline beginning with the industrial revolution, I say broaden your definitions of time. The Chinese write of five separate eras of increase, empire, and barbarous decline, taking place over thousands of years. You shutter at one 300 year decline . . . .

            There is a “good fight”. Evil CAN BE objectively defined. That which destroys for no benefit is evil. That benefits from the sufferage of others, with no attempts to mitigate the suffering is Evil. That which deprives any individual of the fruits of their labors, without compensation considered fair by that individual, is UNJUST. There, wasn’t that easy? Justice does exist . . and it is one of the most profound human emotions. Haven’t you heard of REVENGE? It is one of the most primal human emotions and it derives DIRECTLY from one’s feeling of injustice. It is instinctive! Now, that doesn’t mean it is always right, we are Human after all, but that is why we created Law. . . you know what that is right? Human construct I know, full of errors I know, but it beats the hell out of Chaos!

            Peace is where you find it, and if you can’t find it, make it.

            AncientSkyman

            The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

            George Bernard Shaw

          2. Concepts
            Yes, definitely make peas.

            Godlike in technology only, but with feet of clay. Humankind plays with the tools of creation and destruction, drunk with its power and capability. Bikini. Chernobyl. Bhopal. Exxon Valdez. Amoco Cadiz. The Northern Fleet. Genetic manipulation. AIDS. PCBs. Dioxin. BSE. Depleted Uranium. Everything mankind develops is eventually tapped to satisfy the darker side of its nature, which it totally fails to understand, and which is the reason for the proliferation of “feel good” drugs.

            I did not say that justice doesn’t exist, merely that it is not a reality in nature – it is a construct of man’s attempt to make sense of things while he maintains a precarious position “standing outside” nature’s domain.

            Also, I stated that the trend of decline began to steepen since the IR – the number of failed civilizations testifies to the number and severity of previous “cycles of decline”, or implosions. And I’m not trembling or shuddering, just watching with interest.

            Evil can only be defined in subjective terms, from a relative point of view. There is no independent “Evil”, just as there is no independent “Good”. What there is, is duality, which is the essence of creation. There are no good or bad sentient creatures, just good or bad (relativistic) choices. In a reality where something must die in order for something else to live, who defines good and evil?

            Revenge? Surely I’ve heard of it – I see it on the highways, in the schools, markets, and streets every day. Once again, it is not a natural law or principle, but a function of man’s misunderstanding of his nature, and his failure to use his sense of values to dictate his response, instead of reacting blindly, or instinctively like a flatworm. If it was purely instinctive, nothing on this planet would be alive – for as Gandhi said “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

            Gandhi also said, “Be the change you wish to create.” Mankind would do well to take those words to heart, and then act on them.

            As for despair, I have no reason to despair – I’m just an observer. Continue to let your light shine, because that’s your only hope, and know that you are whistling past the graveyard if you ignore the truth.

          3. The Truth
            You want to know the Truth? You can’t handle the Truth! (I’ve always wanted to say that in context!)

            Seriously though, the Truth cannot be known, so how can it be ignored? You state you know all about revenge, but what about the Law? Another construct, sure, but isn’t everything? Even though you deny it, you accentuate the negative aspects of human culture and seem to brush aside the positives. Where do you think you are? Heaven? Hell? The answer is both and you cannot know why. We are forbidden to know why. Anyone who says they have ‘The Answer’ is either selling something or deranged . . . I make no pretentions, unlike the ones you seem to make.

            I disagree with many things you’ve said, so without further ado:

            “Godlike in technology only, but with feet of clay.”
            You quote Gandhi more than once, was he a technologist? Or did he have wings? Or was he a human being?

            “Humankind plays with the tools of creation and destruction, drunk with its power and capability. Bikini. Chernobyl. Bhopal. Exxon Valdez. Amoco Cadiz. The Northern Fleet. Genetic manipulation. AIDS. PCBs. Dioxin. BSE. Depleted Uranium.”

            I respond: Unfortunate, Criminally Negligent, and reprehensible. But nothing compared to a volcanic eruption. . . Who says genetic manipulation is bad? Who said AIDS came from science? Chemical poisons and disease . . . they’ve always been around us, but at least we now know what they are and can start cleaning them up! Ancient man poisoned many areas with mercury during their smelting processes, and didn’t even know it. They died and didn’t know why!

            When a baby grows, it does not start out moving around its environment by running. First it crawls, then a few sputtering steps, then a few falls. Only after many bruised knees and more than a few tears comes the running part. We are but children. . . civilization is still a very new experiment, relatively speaking.

            “Evil can only be defined in subjective terms, from a relative point of view. There is no independent “Evil”, just as there is no independent “Good”.”

            I disagree, and I told you what defined objective evil and injustice my last post. You overlooked it or choose to ignore it, so I’ll write it down again:

            That which destroys for no benefit is evil. That which benefits from the suffrage of others, with no attempts to mitigate the suffering is Evil. That which deprives any individual of the fruits of their labors, without compensation considered fair by that individual, is UNJUST. There, wasn’t that easy?

            “There are no good or bad sentient creatures, just good or bad (relativistic) choices. In a reality where something must die in order for something else to live, who defines good and evil?”

            Not all destruction is Evil, I never said it was. I said that which destroys without purpose is evil. As for no bad sentient creatures, I must take offense! Of course there are! If you intentionally cause suffering in others, you are bad. Period. If you enjoy it, you are truly evil. Can you not see that? Not everything must kill in order to live (plants), and not everything that kills to live causes suffering. You speak of the need to have broad focus without bias, try it!

            “Gandhi also said, “Be the change you wish to create.” Mankind would do well to take those words to heart, and then act on them.”

            That’s what I’ve been trying to say! Look at my signature line for goodness sake! I ask you again, What is Law? Isn’t it someone saying “Hey, we really got to cut out this eye-for-an-eye vengeance trip, let’s make a code to live by so we don’t have to kill each other all the time.” That’s being the change!

            As for Revenge, I stated that it was instinctive, and I stand by that. Many animals take revenge. Primates (chimps, gorillas, rhesus monkeys) have been observed harboring a grudge and extracting revenge. It is fear of retaliation that keeps the world from killing itself. Without it only the strong would survive, and as we see in the animal kingdom, it’s really the strong and the ‘almost strong’ that survive. All species need somekind of support, the more complex the species, the more support and social integration needed. Study life more . . .you will see we are only animals! But we think and therefor can (note I said CAN, not WILL) become more. It is our choice. I agree that most (more than 1/2) of the world’s humans are barely above the animal level, and there a good many well below that level, but there are still those above. Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. . .

            As for despair, if you look at your posts with a critical eye, you will see you make far more negative statements than you do positive. That is a hallmark of despair, and if you don’t feel that way, at least understand how others like myself could see it that way.

            As for death . . . I welcome it. Not afraid of it at all, and I know that all I’ve done or will do is just castles in the sand before the tide. But I believe in Spirit, and that the moments I’ve cared for others will last forever.

            Finally, you make no mention of my central thought that even though we are in a period of decline, over all, the spirit of man advances.

            Peace is so much harder to make than Peas,

            AncientSkyman

            The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

            George Bernard Shaw

          4. Wisdom
            The wise man chooses to learn, unlearn, and relearn. The fool remains with his concepts and defends them to the death. Argument for argument’s sake is folly, driven by ego, and not in a quest for knowledge. May you speedily obtain what you desire.

          5. The Wise Know Nothing
            “True wisdom comes from knowing that you know nothing”.

            Must have been another technologist who said that! Oh, sorry, it was Socrates.

            Thanks for well-wishes, same to you.

            AncientSkyman

            The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

            George Bernard Shaw

          6. Truth is relative as well. The absolute is not.
            AncientSkyman: I find interesting how differently we read the post made by this person.

            The most important thing I would underline from your answer is this statement:
            “We are forbidden to know why. Anyone who says they have ‘The Answer’ is either selling something or deranged”

            That is a principle imbedded in the human mind and that has been used to maintain him in his state. that negates any possible evolutionary path.

            If it is impossible for you to know because you are forbidden to, then you are either saying that you have no capacity to know or that we are lied to (or both).

            If you have no capacity to know then that statement is applicable to that state. If you have been lied to then it is your necessity to have sufficient lucidity to ‘know’ the lie. That lie even hides in the very nature of thoughts and I see it as ‘the nature of thought’.

            If you say that no one knows and no one can know, you are condemning yourself to eternal ignorance because if one were to come and tell you, you would refuse to hear.

            What I say is that this statement is part of the cosmic lie that we have been subjected to.

            Philosophizing may be a pleasant mental activity but it is not enough. We would rather philosophize than facing the sad state of humanity because facing that state means facing the necessity for change. Real change which also means the obliteration of what we are for what we must be. This is a much more painful proposal than philosophy which does not threaten anything since it is not sourced in reality and only proposes what we have been forged to want to hear. Like the alcoholic, until one accepts to see his state, and accepts that indeed that is what his state is, he cannot take a step away from his nature to allow any real change to happen. Even then, if he has not the will to face the suffering that comes with that change, psychological and psychical and even physical, he will relapse in a state of denial or forgetness and remain in that state. We must see the state of what is before us if we are serious about a real change.

            Real change is the death of the nature of the relation between the ego and its reality, the end of his impression of control and his illusory free will, which is the equivalent of dying psychically. No one really wants that. That is not something someone can want. That is something that we either are forced to live or something that is not ours to live.

            It has been said that man can’t save himself, not that he could not be saved.

          7. Maintening the status of civilization
            I should also have said that the ego needs civilization to remain so tends to opt for conservatism (not in the political sense but as well in the political sense).

            The reality void in human psyche is then replaced with social structures. It should be the reality behind the mind filling the void of social structures. Unfortunately, there is more experimental memory than there is spirit and this civilization is the result.

            It was necessary to develop the intellect but that is only a step on the way, not a finality.

          8. The Unknowable
            Richard,

            What is the definition of the Unknowable? Really, it’s like one hand clapping. You use words to communicate and most likely think with words, but they are only approximations. When I say ‘Blue Sky’ what do I really mean? We can know things in degrees, but the ultimate? We are physical beings. We exercise the process of thought through the medium of time. I can ‘see’ beyond time in my ‘mind’s eye’, but is it truth? Can I communicate it?

            Even if I have an AWE inspiring experience, not alone, but with others who acknowledge it, how can I possibly communicate it later to someone not originally there? I could tell them what I saw . . . I could tell them what I heard . . . I could even tell them what I thought and felt, but I could not make them experience it like I and my group did. You had to BE there. To KNOW the TRUTH is a question of capacity I’m afraid. There are only so many variables that can be tracked in the human mind, and the Universe is so immensely complex as to render ‘knowability’ a moot point. All our physical form will permit is experience in slices of time and space, a narrow view of the big picture. Even our most grandiose thoughts are but slim filaments in how things really work. We are forbidden by form. It might be a sad state of affairs, but I’m sure it won’t last. The point for me though, is once we are not constrained by these limits, we will no longer be human. To be human is to be defined by these limits. We all must sleep. No matter how you fight it, you cannot stay awake forever. You cannot imagine the entire universe either; no matter how hard you try. You CAN imagine how things work, create theories, test them into proofs. You CAN create art and inventions. You CAN also measuring specific things. You can measure so close you put a robot on Mars, but in my mind, that’s all truth with a little ‘t’. Big ‘T’ Truth is like a breeze that blows across you on an otherwise still day. While you feel it, you know it, but once it’s gone, you could only describe it to someone else who’s already felt it. That’s not to say mystics and spiritual folk from around the world and across the ages haven’t plugged into Big ‘T’ Truth, for that is also part of the human condition. There will always be heroes to cross over and bring the blessings back to the people.

            Change happens regardless. It isn’t something that must obliterate self before occurring. Not one person will be the same next year as they are today. It is impossible to remain the same. If you mean change for the better, then I think we need to look far beyond the current systems in place, which define what is in fact ‘better’. That we have the ability to look far beyond is an article of faith, but I do believe we can do it.

            As you save your brother you save yourself.

            Peace,

            AncientSkyman

          9. And the Knowable
            Hello AncientSkyman,

            I read your post with great interest. You certainly bear much sensibility and what you define and explain in this post is indeed right when considering the current status of the human psyche. If you allow me, I will try to expand on your writing.

            No matter how the word ‘Unknowable’ is defined, no matter how any word is defined, there is an urgent need, from the spirit (not spiritual, spirit as in source) standpoint to undo the definitions and, by doing this, undo the psychological status quo set through the memory of the form and how it gives the illusion of knowledge.

            Unfortunately, the English language leaves little subtlety to properly support concepts that go beyond the materialistic considerations of the human experience.

            A single word exists to concatenate concepts such as the spirit of man, spirits as the spirit of the dead and spirituality. Likewise it does not make a clear determination of the difference between knowledge as a quantity of accumulated memory and confirmed experimental results and what is known, in other words knowledge not based on human experimentation but pure knowledge that has no proof in human experience on this planet.

            So, indeed do we use words to communicate but it is imperative to destroy the form, which is the densified psychic memory of meanings through association, to render the spirit of the form, which will bear a different magnetic register over the mind. The spirit of the form is what occupies the form when it has been emptied of astral energies. In this case, this energy is the impression left by words, which is made of historical human values.

            When people discuss and get stuck on semantics they, instead of honestly being attentive to the spirit of the words, are mechanically attentive to the recorded value of the semantics and the historical symbolic weight affected to the words used. Likewise, when man thinks, he is trapped by the symbolic nature of the form given to the thought with all the hypnotic power such forms have over the ego, totally disconnected from the fact that prior to the symbolic association of forms to the energy of thought, there is a formless energy that is received and which incorporates in its vibration all the information relevant to the subject in that context.

            The matter is that it is not necessary to think with thought forms. Especially in the subjective form of thought, through which man is forced to be impressed with the idea that those thoughts are his by association to the form of the ‘I’ and the powerful symbology associated to that simple word.

            Thought forms, using special or even usual symbology are as much magical incantations and symbols as those used in black magic. In fact, they could even be linked to dark aspects of magic since they are a conditioning factor that keeps humanity enslaved to its ignorance. Words in that sense are dangerous since they can be used to indoctrinate, control and dominate. Words should be used to free man, not encapsulate him.

            The thought forms can only use memory to densify. One cannot think forms that are not part of memory or part of human experience. At that level, you can even say that the ‘creation’ of ‘inventions’ is not an act of creation but is the simple application of acquired memory through the computational capability of the intellect.

            Eventually, new words will need to be created to replace those that today are ill conceived because of the karmic energy they carry and to create concepts/words that will encompass vibrations and energies not even yet recognized on this planet.

            Beyond the forms of thoughts is the energy of the spirit. It is the energy of the source of man’s consciousness and absolute reality, beyond the conditions of his experimental consciousness. The ray of that energy, which interacts with the memorial compound of the soul, creates a point of energy that is perceived by the incarnated as the self. It is at this point that the ego is made to vibrate the impression of being. It is also at this point that are inserted the forms of the thoughts by the use of the ego’s relationship with its memory and soul.

            If the ego could be made to see that the form of the thoughts, the thought forms, are a diminution of the vibration of the spirit of man that allowed partly the construction of an organized psychic energy: the intellect, he might then be able to take a certain distance towards the thought forms and become aware of the instantaneous vibration received before the form is applied to the energy. He might be able to become aware of the very creation of the form that adapt to his memory and acquired language to replace in an awkward attempt at reproducing the ‘meaning’ of the spirit that should have been the spirit of the word.

            It is no simple task then to ‘channel’ the energy of our own source in an ordinate manner. For instance, as I am writing this and that the forms are applied while I am typing these words instead of taking form before just so that I can convey them, the mind goes in all directions, reeling from the endless possibilities of interpretation that come from the vibration that predates the form.

            This would tend to make my words jump left and right and requires a great deal of mental focusing so that I can keep at least a semblance of lead. This can create the impression of not knowing where to start, not because you don’t know what to say but because you are not sure of which direction to use. The vibration of the mind or of the spirit of man radiates 360 degrees. It is then required to focus this energy in a direction.

            Then again, I could have no control over the initial vibration and, if it wants to talk about something else or bring the conversation to another direction, it will simply change its spirit.

            It will be sometime before the vibration of the source can be focused by the ego. Imagine, we can’t even realize that thoughts are not our own even though there are plenty of occasions where we should see that we can’t put an end to the flow of thoughts, especially uncomfortable ones, and that should represent evidence enough to the separation between us and them.

            On the other hand, until that realization has been made, we are what we are and we are forced to think our memory and humanity’s experience.

            We have not been taught to tap, or to channel, ourselves. The vibration of the energy of man’s spirit would not have made possible the actuation of man’s intellect which was a necessary step in the process of personification of man’s spirit and the individualization of man’s consciousness beyond the self identification afforded by the soul’s memory.

            The ability to communicate your experience is less on your shoulders than it is on those of the one who receives the said communication. If the word is full of spirit it will create a likewise vibration in the spirit of the one who receives the word. Because the spirit of the word is what will be important, and not the form. Forms, thought forms and words, especially words that are associated with important human concepts, either social, spiritual or metaphysical in nature which bear a great weight of egregorian sclerosed energy, are only useful in insuring the continuity of civilization context. They are dangerous in the sense that they magnetize the mind and keep it prisoner of memorial understanding but they are also useful in organizing social thoughts where man is not yet capable of interpreting his own consciousness.

            Effectively, one can only know what he has already experienced. On the other hand, man can know the ‘truth’ of reality (for lack of better words since there is no such thing as truth). Knowing his reality allows recognizing the reality within another man. Knowing this, he is forced to realize that in the end, he can’t be right by himself and must build upon the spirit of another which in turn will build upon his owns spirit and vibration. The matter is that in the end, a man that is conscious of the source of his thoughts will feel challenged (not confronted) by the man who uses words that contain some spirit and not only densified symbology and archetypes.

            The eventual finality of the process of communication lies in telepathy where the vibration can be focused and channeled to meet the mind of others.

            It is not so much the physical form that is the problem. We have been taught to consider the body as a impeachment between our being and the ability to know. I see this more as the inability of the soul to deal with the physical because of its nature coupled with the amount of psychical space that the soul’s energy takes up in our consciousness, effectively making us ‘feel’ limited in our consciousness.

            The body also creates veils by forcing the focus of consciousness via the magnetism that the physical senses create on our awareness and the magnetic power it has over our perceptions. In the end, it is somewhat illusive even though it is very real. One can’t segregate the consciousness of man from the consciousness of the body. Our psychology tends to make us go that way and the mind, the intellect, tends to compartment everything in an attempt at understanding or defining his position in the universe by way of comparative values. In the same process, the intellect will partition all the aspects he seems to recognize in his own mental and psychological makeup for he believes that if he understand or thinks he was able to label all of the parts independently, he will have a better understanding of the whole whereas, in reality, it is the whole that defines the proceeds of the parts in order to control the evolution of both the conditions and the vibrations and the quality of the consciousness of its constituents.

            This impression of being a part independent of the whole, where the mind thinks the body as something separate, the soul as another factor, the spirit as an abstract and remote entity and itself, the ego, as the whole of the consciousness of man, separate from the mechanics that nevertheless condition his views on the world, is the actual state of an un-integrated consciousness where one part thinks of itself as the whole. The next evolution of man, its next mutation, will not be of material nature first but of a psychical nature, which in turn will change the vibration of the body and the soul to integrate the principles of the astral consciousness of man and of the consciousness at the cellular level. Then, can the spirit of man be called the son of man.

            So, to know the ‘truth’ is indeed a question of capacity as you said. A capacity that pertains to the initiation of a vibratory movement that increases the vibratory level of the mental to allow it to distance itself from lower mechanism levels all the while being conscious of their interconnected roles.

            There are in effect only so many variables that can be tracked by the human mind. This is why it would be a fallacy to believe that the mind, at the level of the ego or even that of the soul, can contain all that is necessary to compute the consequences of reality. What man has though, that is beyond the capacity of the intellect and that of its need for memorial securing, is his spirit, his source, uncreated and immortal. If we had unended access to our own spirit, if we at least learned to recognize it in ourselves, we would not have the need for such data compilation. This source, which is the creative force behind the reality of the individual, knows all that needs knowing in relation to the evolution of the psychic entity. Its level of ascendancy will accordingly have access to various levels or information that at the present time would be considered occult, even to the energies in the highest level of the astral world, but that would nonetheless be capped, but not in time, to its capacity to ‘steal’ or ‘force’ information from the forces that are their detainers. Likewise, man must eventually learn to force information from its own spirit.

            ‘We’ define humanity by those limits because we have been thought to think that way, especially through our karmic contracts that dictated our experimental conditions on this planet and its astral realm. Man has to define himself if he is to be his own master. In the mean time, we remain little creatures of a greater reality of which we are, or are not, ready to receive the full blast of its manifestation and penetration.

            In that sense, I can definitely agree with you that once these limits have been overridden, we are not ‘man’ anymore as per the usual definition of humanity. We do become ‘Man’, which is what has been prophesized.

            Imagination is a sub-reality that is attached to the astral and the way though forms are infused. Depending on the sensibility of an individual, there will be an ability to have a clearer and more advanced form of mental projection that is in fact connected with astral schools of thoughts or archives of things studied and projected either in relation with the impact of intruding voyagers working with the astral energies of this planet to affect some aspects of chunks of humanity or that are related to the energy of the dead who are in study and in reflection over the human experiment that they need to increase their energy level.

            Imagination may eventually be recuperated by the energy of the spirit of man to allow projecting the creative power of man instead of channeling his ‘life plan’, which was useful in the past to allow the construction of subtle bodies that would be capable of eventually absorbing the energy of their own reality.

            I feel that we are much more the same than we think of ourselves overtime. It depends on how you define change. Conditions change and they tend to create impressions in the consciousness. In turn, the ego will use the emotional values that it associates with these experiences to create a form of impression of itself based on the accumulated energy of these values, which we call subjective experience. This cumulating of experience ends up being the color of consciousness or, in better terms, the identity of the impression of self by identification to the emotional charge created by the experience. In other words, the memory of oneself which persists after the time of death, separated from the creative authority of the spirit who will always remain in its world, which is not the world of the dead, until all energies of the entity-man have been integrated and taken away from the energy of death.

            Then, can we say that we have changed. Becoming conscious that this change is started will be the sign that the ego must recognize (if or when it happens) as the beginning of his initiation, which may last beyond this particular incarnated experience.

            If you are not saved, who shall you save?

          10. Sorry..
            I wasn’t aware that I needed to satisfy your desire to respond to every nuance of thought in your post. Sorry.

            In regard to the Gandhi quote, I was agreeing with you – I’m on your side on this one, in case you hadn’t noticed.

            Regarding revenge, responding in kind is not necessarily revenge: we might interpret it as such because that’s the way our paradigm works. What looks like revenge is possibly only a way to redeem a place in the “pecking order”.

            Despair: I do not depair, I merely comment on desperate circumstances; find me something happy to talk about and you will see my optimism in certain arenas is equal to your own. I will leave the precept “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” to Bambi and Thumper, thank you.

            “That which destroys for no benefit is evil. That which benefits from the suffrage of others, with no attempts to mitigate the suffering is Evil. That which deprives any individual of the fruits of their labors, without compensation considered fair by that individual, is UNJUST. There, wasn’t that easy?”

            So a Jackal who survives by stealing the kill of another animal is UNJUST? A cattle rancher who slaughters his herd for beef is UNJUST? I fail to see how you make your point. My referral to justice and evil are to their non-existence as entities in nature, not as scripted by the encyclopedia of man, courtesy AS.

            Regarding the overall advancement of the spirit of man. What are you using as a yardstick? New laws are being written every day in an effort to force people to do the right thing. Organized religions are at each others’ throats, killing in the name of their God.

            I never said everything has to kill to survive – only the higher orders find that necessary, but even plants thrive on dead matter – nature doesn’t waste much.

            In the interest of civility, let’s just agree to disagree.

          11. Agreed
            I’m for the Tao Te Ching’s saying:

            When the Great Way is rejected, it is then that we have the virtues of Humanitiy and Righteousness.

            When Humanity and Righteousness are rejected, then knowledge and wisdom appear.

            When knowledge and wisdom are lost, we gain justice.

            When justice is lost, we have the law, and when that is lost we are left with force.

            When force fails, then comes chaos and confusion, but out of that, arises the Great Way.

            Peace,

            AncientSkyman

            P.S. You’ve made more than three posts which obligates you to pick a name/handle and register with the TDG 😉

          12. Values, concepts and polarity
            Interesting.

            Man’s ignorance of his own nature is crucial to his inaptitude to ‘learn’. He has a tendency to accumulate experience and baggage of memories, which are either digested to become habits or to reinforce his cultural makeup. His ignorance of his nature equates to ignoring the occult essence of his conditioning that remains the main part of his sentience. The very fact of ‘feeling oneself’ negates ‘knowing oneself’ and the obsessive memory accumulation as opposed to experience integration strangely enough conveys an impression of ‘wanting to learn’, often spurred either by curiosity or by passion if not by obligation when in reality it only adds up to a social drive and is ultimately negated by the color of the psychological value attributed to the experience by the ego.

            He does not integrate his experience, he comparatively evaluates it using the positive or negative charges of the values of his race, those of his society, perhaps those of his family and then those that he thinks are the fabric of his reality but which are not issued from his consciousness but are rather acquired and embedded to keep the civilization going until it has lapsed its usefulness on an experimental planet during an experimental time using experimental consciousness.

            In turn, the polarized energy of his mind forces him into emotionally charged judgments about everything, from the most insignificant details of his existence to the greater social movements of humanity. This polarization, as much as it creates a psychical tension that creates the impression of a certain consciousness, keeps him in a state of non-being as it forces him to follow the movements of likely polarized energies. It makes him part of a culture, a country, a family. He loses his identity (if he ever had one). Everything becomes right or wrong, black or white good or evil, all based on cultural values. In that sense, although what you said ‘felt’ right (“failure to use his sense of values to dictate his responses”) I would further say that even this sense of value, which is paramount to the ‘soul’ that has attained a certain level of progress, remains part of an even subtler illusion that eventually keeps the soul trapped in its spiritual self-importance. Values are human concepts too and we need to go further than that. Most have actually used ‘their’ sense of values to keep the world in its mess. This is the fruit of the tree of science of good and evil which, like for the self awareness you earlier referred to, was counterpart to ‘man’s’ fall from the tree of life.

            This polarization further causes individuals to refuse to see what is broken in their own culture or civilization. If one can’t see there is a problem with the nature of his civilization, how could he ever see what problem there is with his own nature? As all who have lost their person in the name of their civilization participate to the perpetuation of their natural ignorance henceforth to the perpetuation of collective ignorance, which is the result of a consciousness that still lacks a light that is real and objective but that has plenty of a light that is subjective and subjected.

            Man’s very nature makes it very difficult for him to turn his eye against himself without leaving the veil behind, the veil being part of his nature as well. Man ignores his own nature, which is far worse than failing to understand it. Understanding is the analytic relationship that exists between the intellect and the impression man has of himself. In that sense, man remains prisoner of his concepts and of the memory he has of his experience. To compensate this, human civilizations are created on ‘great principles’ we call values that have for purpose to direct the mob this way or that.

            In order to ‘see’ his nature, as opposed to ‘understand’ it, one would need to set a foot outside of his psychological time and to not apply any judgment on what he sees. He then does not need values and if they are taken away from him, as we can see the values of the current civilization collapse as they always do when their time is up, then he does not feel despair because the base of his consciousness is already seated on the integrated essence of his own spirit which is already the expression of the ‘laws of nature’ and their manifestation at a level or another.

            It is necessary for this civilization to disappear otherwise individuals will never belong to themselves and will never have any real authority on their life. Too much of our minds and our nature is of the same fabric as this social tissue which is very mechanical in nature and leaves very little space to individual control over one’s energy and psychical territory. Instead, this civilization is built upon egocentrism, which is mistaken for individuality even though there is a sea of difference between the two.

            The egocentric needs to relate everything to himself and draw towards himself because he is empty. A civilization built on such people will also tend to draw everything it can from all it can whenever and however. The individual radiates because he is full. There is no need for him to vampirize his brethrens and a civilization built upon individuals could not therefore vampirize the world but would instead radiate its energy.

            A conscious man is the source of his consciousness. This said should help evaluate what the state of this civilization is.

          13. terrific posts here
            Great posts guys, you have set me thinking, and that’s what it’s all about.
            So anonymous who posted so cynically might find it of benefit if he suffered an outbreak of cranial activity.
            There’s plenty here to go on.

            shadows

    2. Cobb County
      Hi Kat,

      I don’t think it’s a problem with evolution being taught as un-nuanced fact. Our eldest daughter lives with her grandmother in Georgia. I asked her about this poll, being interested in what teenagers think on the subject. She reckons about 60% of her peers believe the whole hardline creationist orthodoxy – 6,000 years duration of a creation made in 7 days by a big white guy with a beard.

      I am delighted to say that our daughter is worried by this as much as I or my wife are. We are proud of her – great grades, independent spirit, caring heart, inquisitive mind, 🙂

      Regards,C

      1. The missing shades of grey
        Hi C,

        My bad for not making my point more explicitly.

        The media’s black-or-white wording of the poll (and their news stories), the educational system’s discouragement (or in many cases, outright banning) of thoughtful discussion in all areas, the plutocrats’ ‘you’re either for us or against us’ stance, the fundamentalists’ dogma that any questioning or deviation from their prescribed beliefs will lead straight to hell, and many other aspects of American culture are all part of the same circular feedback loop which reinforces the habit of black-or-white thinking that’s prevalent in the U.S.

        And unfortunately for humanity, the same is the case in most other places as well.

        To my mind, the poll was just a reflection of the situation.

        Kat

          1. tricky treacle
            Hi C,

            Actually, I read your piece on Thatcherism last night. 😉 And as usual whenever I read something of the sort, I wondered why people seem reluctant to take on the challenge of writing about the true values of those who espouse this trickle-down treacle. They’re not dumb. They know exactly what will happen to the middle class — and that’s exactly what they want. So why doesn’t anyone ever expose them for what they are by explaining why they want it?

            Kat

          2. Synchronicity?
            Hi C,

            I just checked your blog and figuratively heard the theme music from The Twilight Zone when I saw the title of today’s blog. If you wrote about those ‘shades of grey’ before I posted my recent clarification, we just experienced our own little synchronistic moment here. 😉

            Kat

          3. Synchronicity
            Hi Kat,

            I was in the middle of writing that piece when I read your comment. I then went back and changed a few things to clarify matters. Thanks for the assist 🙂

            Regards, C

      2. you must be proud
        You must be so proud of your daughter Cernig.
        I was interested what categories came first in your assessment of her.
        For me I would have written caring heart, inquisitive mind, independent spirit, great grades.
        Sorry for being pedantic, that’s what I do.I think we write the first thing that comes to mind.
        If I were to write of my sons’ attributes, I would probably say soft, gentle, before mentioning how successful one is and how clever the other.
        I hope you are not offended,If you are I am sorry and will delete it.

        shadows

  3. TV: US vs OZ
    Tonight in the US:

    “The Librarian: Quest for the Spear” (8 p.m., TNT) is a fantasy-adventure in the “Indiana Jones” or “Laura Croft: Tomb Raider” vein. “ER’s” Noah Wyle stars as a career grad student with degrees to rival a thermometer who’s tapped to head a secret library that houses mythological treasures such as Pandora’s box and the sword Excalibur.

    He’s forced to go into the field – the Amazon jungle, to be exact – when the evil Serpent Brotherhood steals a piece of an ancient holy relic known as the Spear of Destiny.

    It’s cheesy and breezy, though heavier on the Cheddar, and worth putting up with, if you’re a fan of the genre, just to see Wyle’s costar, Bob Newhart, make like Jackie Chan.

    Sunday in OZ:

    Lost Worlds: On The Trail Of The Celts (7:30 pm SBS)

    Recent archaeological finds have thrown new light on the spread of Celtic culture throughout Europe. Large-scale excavations are being carried out in the Champagne plain of France to lay 300 km of railway track. A French archaeological team has been taking advantage of the digging to follow the trail of the ancient Celts.

    In Hungary and Italy too, excavations have revealed Celtic objects. New discoveries indicate that the Celts expanded throughout Europe, from England to Spain and today’s Turkey, mainly through the sword, but also by exchanging knowledge and goods with the other cultures of the time, like the Etruscans, Romans and Greeks. A much more complex and subtle antiquity emerges as new discoveries are made.

    We’ll never see that in the States — it’s in French, with English subtitles. So, hey, Rico, David, Greg, Shadows, somebody — mail me a bootleg, please!

    Kat

    1. I’ll do my best
      I’ll try Kat.How do you know what’s on SBS? I never know.
      I recall now that there are a few things on optus this month that people in Oz may be interested in…..a program on savants and one on the Russian girl with the x-ray eyes.
      I don’t know the times, just had a glance through the book, but I imagine they will be repeating all month.
      Somewhere last week I saw advertised Handel’s Messiah.
      Don’t know where or when, so if anyone knows I would appreciate it.

      shadows

      1. How I know 😉
        Hi shadows,

        >>How do you know what’s on SBS?

        When I search for news for TDG, one of the many things I do is a search of google news for certain keywords. As I was looking through results for ‘ancient’, I found the story about this upcoming SBS program on the Celts — and lusted after it! haha

        But I was mostly sorta kidding about a bootleg. I don’t even know whether Oz VCR tapes would play in a US machine. But just in case you manage to tape it 😉 — I moved, so I’d have to give you an updated address.

        >>Somewhere last week I saw advertised Handel’s Messiah.

        Sorry, I don’t have a clue how you’d find Handel’s Messiah on Oz tv. I just tried to check some Oz newspapers for tv listings, and couldn’t find a thing.

        Here in the US all the major newspaper sites tell what’s on. Just now I went to the homepage of The Denver Post. Over on the left, under Features, there’s a link to the TV LISTINGS. This particular page is customized for my zip (postal) code. I just click the down arrow at the bottom to show the schedule of more cable channels.

        Do your local tv channels have websites like this one where you could check the tv listings? Even the cable channels here each have their own websites, like this one for Bravo.

        Thanks for volunteering, though. Who knows, maybe I’ll get to see it.

        Kat

  4. Evolution
    Fears of an American Taliban aside, There are very good reasons why most Americans don’t believe in evolution. It never happened! It isn’t happening now! If one studies the subject in depth one discovers that evolution has little scientific evidence to back it up and a ton of evidence which refutes it. Evolution is as much a belief system as any religion. The problem in this debate is with the high priests on both sides passing off their own judgements as facts and the followers believing whatever their high priest spews out, without ever checking for themselves. The truth is out there…look it up…the facts just don’t support evolution. I suspect that some true belivers in evolution will be quite offended by my remarks and want to prove in 25 words or less why I must be the devil, insane, an idiot or all of the above but let’s try too be civil.

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