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News Briefs 28-04-2009

By Gregon

You could spend all day reading through these articles, they’re all fascinating. So which ones will you pick and choose?

Thanks Lee, Cat and John.

Quote of the Day:

Logic is a feeble reed, friend…Logic is a way of saying that anything which didn’t happen yesterday won’t happen tomorrow.

Robert A. Heinlein (Glory Road)

Greg
Editor
Greg is the owner-editor of The Daily Grail, as well as the author of a number of books including Stop Worrying, There Probably is an Afterlife.
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30 Comments

  2. Quote:
    How can we make sense
    [quote]How can we make sense of the ongoing conflict in Kashmir if we pretend that Hinduism and Islam are one and the same? Or of the impasse in the Middle East, if we pretend that there are no fundamental disagreements between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam?[/quote]

    Duh! This is such a basic misunderstanding, coming from a ‘religion professor’.

    The religions are not the same, but the underlying spiritual truth they strive to reflect is – strive being the operative word.

    No I don’t hold out much hope for interfaith harmony either.

  3. religions…..dangerous?
    the root of religions are fine, it’s the greed, ego and power crazed idiots that run it that are dangerous.
    If all people of their specific beliefs would actually read their book instead of taking what their told as gospel,we would be all better off and no terrorists.

    1. Depends on what you call the
      Depends on what you call the root really. Is the root in our biology? A specific or co-opted part of our brain perhaps. Or is the root in some sort of essential understanding hidden inside a ‘magical’ soul independent of the brain? Or maybe the root is in our cultures. An evolution of superstition and verbally communicated ideas extended to a larger scale.

      Each religion seems to claim its own root. Explaining our inherent abilities in its own way with its own stories it bases its power on such things as revelation.

      So is the revelation fine? Jesus was fine, Mohammed is fine, as are their individual claims and related inconsistencies. Is it fine to use revelation as a root? Or more to the point is it fine to apply pressure based on the claim of revelation.

      Also you seem to be implying that the problem with theologically assisted terrorism is that they have not read the material well enough. A common enough claim, but unfortunately there is no correct way to read these books, there is just the way we would like them to read them. A type of cultural superiority. One I am in favour of naturally, but it might be better to suggest that the books be edited so they do not contain content inspiring violence, but we are along way from people even accepting the books are imperfect.

      Personally i would prefer people to question more. Though we could say that if people read them more that is what should be happening part of the problem, i think, is that people are taught NOT to read them, but to scan them unthinkingly, perhaps just learning them, rather than thinking about them. I don’t think any of us do well when we stop thinking.

      1. too generalised
        your right, I was a bit genralised in that statment. I meant the ideal behind religion. Mind you, some religions have been pretty ugly over the years, sacrifices and all that.
        Another thing, I actually don’t think terrorism is religious based, more political using religion as a cover. So I was a bit out there as well.
        Questioning? Religious leaders have always taught to not question.
        This is a big problem. I like what Sitchin said about his time as a child learning the Jewish ways. They could not stop him from thinking or questioning.

        1. Ah, i’m with you.
          Personally
          Ah, i’m with you.

          Personally i think the ideal behind the spirituality more often expressed here at the Grail is better than religion. The search for a deeper truth than that currently understood.

          You could argue that the search for answers only forms a very small part of modern religion, or even non of it. There is a confusion assisted by religion itself in propagating this strange sensation of mixed mystery and confusion and at the same time saying that it is understood and truthful. This is quite different to the honesty of the Grail.

          I agree with you that terrorism is not religiously based, but would add that it is bigger than that. There is no clear definition of what religion even is, and it differs depending on culture and even individual to individual. If religion is said to be just love or just faith then terrorism isn’t religion. Personally i think that religion has a much greater political dimension than most people are willing to admit. I would go so far as to say it is 99% politics, just that it is selling something different. It would not be as hard to make analogies between politics and violence, in fact political violence is very well recognised, but people are not so defensive of politics. If we re-phrase it to ‘your politics demand sharia law across europe, the death of apostates, the death of anyone from another party or who disagrees with your party etc, then it is easy to make comparisons with political regimes such as the Nazi’s and Stalin. Fine the motivations are different, but if you consider religious beliefs to be similar to party policies then the leap is not so great to understanding how the social and educational settings of their own perverted politics create the evil.

          Is that religion from our cultural perspective? No, not really. It would help if the religious books had some of their worst bits edited from them, though they would scream imperialism and keep secret copies of the old books. In the end we can see though that they will claim it is religion and all we can do is go ‘well, its not my religion’ to which they will reply ‘i don’t care, it is mine’.

          So as for teaching not to question. I think it is harder than that. That would probably fail in the long run. They have taught the importance of accepting logical inconsistencies and taking expert witness from people who themselves will claim not to understand, or even that something is impossible to understand. It is about power through confusion. Most people are confused about theology. They are supposed to be, it is designed to be confusing. That is where we hand power to them and it is where we hand our ability to think to them. They have sold us confusion as clearly as they have dreams of eternal bliss, and it keeps us from asking questions because we are confused and don’t know what to ask.

          Even better than that they are taught answers that do not actually answer the questions, but instead produce a response from most people along the lines of ‘hmmm, well i don’t really understand, but it sounds profound and like it might work’. It is all very cleverly designed, but i don’t think it is designed to stop you asking questions. It is more like a multilayered system of confusion whereby the more you ask the more confusing the answers will become until you eventually either become so confused and hit the same level as theologian where it will be admitted that nobody understands or you give up and choose just to be happy.

          1. Against censorship

            It would help if the religious books had some of their worst bits edited from them, though they would scream imperialism and keep secret copies of the old books.

            In this I have to be in total disagreement. Censorship is not the solution to anything. Who decides what constitutes a danger and which parts should be discarded? usually the people in power, and they always address as dangerous that which might threaten their positions.

            And, even with the best of intentions, to ‘weed out’ the undesirable parts of any philosophy or religion might only postpone the inevitable: public rejection. Why sugarcoat something that could be seriously flawed at its core?

          2. exactly, full disclosure
            These religions, ideologies and philosophies propose a large and complicated package of rules. Keeping the ugly parts quiet it only going to mislead people.

            After all, faith in all of these things requires that people accept the whole package, so they have a right to know what they are getting into. No fine print.

            If the new and improved version of religion R, Ideology I or philosophy P can do without the old ugly parts, renounce it explicitly. Say that you don’t want to kill the heretics and unbelievers any more, and explain why that is a permanent change.

          3. unfortunatly it’s been done
            the bible is a perfect example. In Neacia (spelling?) about 327ad the whole bible was written to suit the chatholic agenda.
            This is why there are so many books missing out of the original text.

          4. how many?
            Aside from the censorship, this is another part of the problem
            [quote]
            This is why there are so many books missing out of the original text.
            [/quote]
            and not just with the bible. The Koran has a similar history.

            There is no such thing as the original text, instead there are many disjoint texts. Some of them contradict each other.

          5. Nice Ear
            [quote=thefloppy1]the bible is a perfect example. In Neacia (spelling?) about 327ad the whole bible was written to suit the chatholic agenda.
            This is why there are so many books missing out of the original text.[/quote]

            Nicea.

            When you look at the Gnostic material you see a very different interpretation of Christianity, and one based on personal experience of the deity. No wonder it got removed from the bibles of organised religions…

            I touched on elements of this in this recent article (excerpted from my Dan Brown book):

            http://dailygrail.com/features/dan-brown-and-the-lost-word

          6. Nicea….ahha
            thanks Greg….would the Gnostic material you speak of have anything to do with the Cathars????
            If so, then a lot of it servived time then. I’m not sure of how long the Cathars were persecuted, but the end was around 1244.
            Is there any evidence of Gnostism supported by literature pre Nicea?

            Thanks for the article link, will read it this weekend. I have a sneaking suspicion I read it when you first posted it.

          7. That would go a long way
            That would go a long way towards alleviating the concern of people like myself.

            It is interesting to note that religion and faith have not always been so intertwined. There have been times in our past, as well as through cultures, when the idea of faith would have seemed very strange indeed.

            It is funny that the faith system has come into its theological own really in opposition to the diminished stance of religion to explain the features of our world. Prior to this it was unnecessary. Nowadays it is so common to hear of faith and religion, or faith groups, faith communities, that people have forgotten that religion and faith need not be so mingled.

            Dennett has written of enquiry and philosophy relating faith to the peacocks tail. Faith stands out precisely because it is exuberant. It is a display, and it becomes a competition. You are asked to compete against yourself of course as well as with others, but this is really beneficial to the communicability of faith itself since more exuberant displays act like showing off your wealth. By sacrificing more of your time and of yourself you say to people that you have the time and part of yourself to sacrifice, a type of one-upmanship and you naturally apply pressure on them to do the same. So the whole thing becomes a positive feedback of more and more exuberant behaviour leading to ever greater displays of ‘faith’ – giving away ones will, ones mental faculties, ones property, time, family and even ones life. I guess in this way martyrs through such things as celibacy or suicide act to challenge the faith of others.

          8. This is tricky. If we can’t
            This is tricky. If we can’t agree that phrases saying you should kill people should not be in books that many take literally then we need to look past this and to educating people not to take them literally.

            Arguably the thing that has led Christianity to keep pace better than Islam has been its revisions. There is nothing new in culturally relative revision in Christianity.

            Of course there are many ways to ‘censor’ as you put it, and each time a new bit of a holy book is relegated to metaphor instead of literalism we arguably have a culturally sensitive revision occurring. Of course this also happens every time a vicar or a priest changes a surmon to a more parishioner friendly version. The map at the front of the bible listing recommended reading and hence leading people away from the more contentious parts is also a way to revise the text without actually deleting from it.

            I think we censor our holy books every single day of the week in numerous ways. Theology in some part is also about censoring them in the sense that new culturally relative interpretations are created to make them more scientifically or morally relevant.

            Here in the UK there was an instance of Islamic terrorism. I sort of cringe to use the term, but it is hard not to. The bombers drove a 4×4 into Glasgow Airport trying to blow up the main entrance and all the people that would have been gathering inside. Fortunately the bomb failed to work and instead they set themselves on fire. One of the bombers that survived long enough to make it to hospital had terrible burns over his whole body except for his genitals which he had wrapped up. Now maybe this wasn’t for the virgins he was apparently expecting to have his way with, but plenty of people link the two and there is plenty of evidence that the expectation of the afterlife and of paradise is assisting in peoples decision making. If i had a time machine i would not feel at all guilty making a few revisions, even if they were culturally relative to myself.

          9. Expectations

            […]but plenty of people link the two and there is plenty of evidence that the expectation of the afterlife and of paradise is assisting in peoples decision making.

            Personally, I don’t know whether such behavior has more to do with the lack of expectations those people have in THIS life, than promises of hedonist pleasures at the next one.

            If religions were all about enticing people with promises you can’t really confirm, then one would think they’d become a major evolutionary drawback —if an organism is devoting all its resources into the next life, instead of fighting for its survival, it would become a very easy prey.

            But, again, one needs to keep coming back to what Greg said: that the reason people are drawn into religions is more deeply rooted in personal experience, than dogma or holy books. Events in our life hint to us that there seems to be something more than what we perceive in our daily basis.

            And it’s something that you can feel it’s missing, even if you hadn’t have a prior taste of it, which is kind of counterintuitive —I suspect that might be one of the reasons religions have never been able to be eradicated in communist countries like Cuba or China.

          10. Very true. This idea that the
            Very true. This idea that the religious instinct is rooted innately is being taken more and more seriously. I still like the memetic viewpoint though (though obviously the two are not exclusive – memes rely on the pre-existing environment set by the innate and intuitive responses). I like the idea that ideas can run away with themselves and can serve no purpose other than their own fitness and survival and that if we act un-thinkingly, i.e we do not change the mental environment in which specific memes co-operate then they will flourish and adapt all on their own and carry us along with them (through culture?).

            Of course by saying ‘serve no purpose’ and ‘fit into the environment’ I mean such things as they ‘feel right’, but in a more complex manner since over time they adapt our culture to suit themselves; acting in their own best interest and not necessarily in our own. Its a fascinating perspective and though only part of the picture I think it is an important part.

            Eradication of religion always was scientifically silly (and repugnant and murderous). You cannot wipe out any idea that people believe in. It is stored in brain structure after all so wiping out institutions does nothing to change brain structure. Wipe out the institutions and books and force people to never utter a word again and you still do little to change brain structure. The same would happen if you tried to wipe out evolution or climate change from our culture. People don’t work in a way where there is a delete button on belief. Anyway, that’s one big and evil subject.

            I think Greg is sort of right. There is much more to it though. I would be much more accepting of the idea that people are drawn towards paranormal research and spirituality than religion by their experiences, though no doubt many skip over spirituality completely. I think the religions are in the powerful position of controlling sections of our cultures and also childhood education such that they raise people into them. When people are raised outside of religion they end up much less inclined to convert to it. I think it is possible to back up the idea that people will gravitate to more general spirituality as you see happening in Europe when free’d from childhood religious education.

            As the number of atheists researching the paranormal, even if just to disavow it, shows there is still a great interest in it and in greater meaning no matter the camp people are in. This would reflect Greg’s wise principle of personal feeling and experience, though broadened to include different avenues for it. Yep, as oxymoronic as it may seem I do think that the emotional equivalent is the same for us all. That search for meaning is likely to be driven by the same emotionality that Greg refers to even if people differ in opinion, and if we can accept that it is the same for people of every religion and otherworldly belief then i see little biological difference to suggest that a completely different system is in use in non-believers. I guess I like to think we are all the same deep down 🙂

            Oh, i think your wrong on your evolutionary argument, it depends on many other things, especially when we start to divide labour. People can survive by being great painters and artists, it isnt all about attacking wild animals, especially with sexual selection involved. This is also where the memetic evolution comes into play. Describing the evolutionary advantage of celibacy was once a real problem, after all how are the genes for celibacy getting passed on? From the viewpoint of the meme though it is easy to understand. If the meme can convince some people to become celibate and in doing so increase the replicability of the meme to others (either by setting an example that increases belief in the meme, or getting people to spend more time spreading the meme) then the meme will spread further and probably create more celibate people resulting in feedback, albeit with a mathematical relationship that still allows for population growth.

            Your right though, its not all about the next life. Most religions (all?) feature rulesets designed to increase ‘life prosperity’ in this life. They have to grow after all. Looming on the horizon though are the promises of what is to come if you are good, or if you are bad. It would be interesting to see what happened to a religion if it did exactly the same as normal, but promised no afterlife.

          11. Memes vs Tulpas

            i.e we do not change the mental environment in which specific memes co-operate then they will flourish and adapt all on their own and carry us along with them (through culture?).

            You mention memes in your comment. No doubt from Dawkins’ theory of religion or philosophy propagation through them.

            But what if the forces behind religions are much more powerful than that? what if at some point they become what the Tibetan Buddhists call ‘Tulpas’ —thought forms projected into our reality by the focusing of mental energy.

            There are plenty of references to tulpas being created by the sheer will of mystics experienced in deep meditation techniqes. However, there are some researchers who consider the possibility that tulpas can also be created by the subconscious desires or fears of whole populations. The first one to propose this was Jung with his archetypes —and then he even proposed that to be the explanation behind the UFO phenomenon. Keel also utilized the tulpa theory to try to discern the events surrounded the Mothman sightings during the 1960s —a monstrous apparition that preceded the horrible disaster of the Silver bridge collapse; could it be that this entity was ‘created’ by the subconscious tension of the Point Pleasant inhabitants, as some kind of omen?

            Micah Hanks explores this s well with his book Magic, Mysticism & the Molecule. Because, how can we explain that, for example, people in the UK are still reporting sightings of such impossible beings as werewolves or ‘monkey men’? can a thought form survive the death of its originator?

            Incidentally all this came to mind when I went to watch Clash of the Titans last weekend with my nephew: the idea that gods need to be sustained by the prayers of men. Materialists would no doubt laugh and say that it is Man who created the gods in the first place; well, that does NOT preclude the possibility that our creations would still demand attention from heir progenitors. Perhaps this is why the Blessed Virgin Mary likes to show herself so often, to remind us that we need to pray the rosary?

            Bottom line is that humans are inherently hardwired for mystic experiences, some of us even more than the rest. Religions make use of this predisposition and tr to exploit it by imposing dogmas & rules —having said that, issuing some structure or guidelines isn’t all that bad when dealing with the unknown. It’s always wise to heed the words of those who have ventured into the same path before we have.

          12. Hay RPJ,
            As ever its
            Hay RPJ,

            As ever its probably the over-extension of a principle that causes it the most problems. I love the idea of meme’s, but the word is a new one for something everyone knows. The investigation of thoughts from the perspective of computer viruses is an interesting one though with profound implications, but I agree, its over-extention will cause it problems.

            As for the idea of thoughts having real world physical implications that extend beyond minds…

            I like your implications for meme’s in this way. Obviously we have implications for spell casting and the like with something like this. Even if only one in a billion thoughts accidentally did this, if we can accidentally conjure a werewolf into existence with thought alone then their are big implications for mental responsibility. I’d hate to think I had done that, even to a smaller extent, perhaps having my anger conjure viruses etc.

            Of course there would probably be the two things still happening. Beliefs and thoughts affecting our perception instead of the real world. It is easy to see the Virgin Mary. I haven’t myself, but I have seen werewolf’s (they were a favourite fear as a child) as well as hundreds of ghosts, a Predator (of Arnold fame) in my bedroom and vast numbers of faces watching me in wallpaper patterns as well as animals in clouds. This has all been tested and is pretty normal brain functioning. Then of course we have hallucinations, unless we wish to say every one is real.

            However, if the world is some sort of manifestation of consciousness then maybe thoughts can create physical manifestations. I suppose we should be grateful that this is not the normality. Perhaps when we think of evolved and stable universes of the type that can exist stably for long enough time periods for us to evolve we might consider from the magical perspective that magic (for want of another word) would have to be minimal or else the universe might not be stable. If you or I could destroy the universe with a single thought then obviously it would not be stable, so perhaps there are rules to how powerfully consciousness can interact with ‘reality’; lest an alien species does the same and conjures an army of super space faring werewolf’s.

            Here I am considering how if the greater structure of the multi-verse is embedded or fundamental consciousness randomly generated universes of differing magical potential might favour life developing in low magical potential universes where the dangers of magic are limited such that life cannot pop the universe out of existence in a single thought. What do you think?

          13. Full Metal Alchemist

            What do you think?

            Beats me! 🙂

            There’s this Japanese Anime series I like a lot called Full Metal Alchemist. It deals with a world where the role of science is filled by alchemy, and the heroes of the story are two brothers who attempted to use alchemy to bring their dead mother back to life. Unfortunately, they had to learn the harshest law of alchemy: what they call equivalence of exchange —basically, that for anything to be created or modify, something of equal energy or value has to be exchanged in return; kind of like a karmic explanation of the laws of thermodynamics.

            So in the end that law of equilibrium keeps the power of the alchemist in check. Maybe the same way vacuum energy is constantly creating and disintegrating virtual particles in and out of existence in the quantum foam of space time.

            I know it’s silly to find meaningful explanations in pop culture —the flaw of the geek 😉 —although in the end, what do we REALLY mean when we use the word magic? a process that falls outside the laws of nature? it’s a it hard to discern that, if you don’t have a full knowledge of the totality of Nature’s laws.

            How much ‘weight’ do our thoughts have on the world? who knows. But maybe it wouldn’t hurt us if we started to take a bit more of responsibility for our grudges and fears.

            And I agree with you that re. BVM apparitions and werewolves, there’s a huge role in the interpretation given to phenomena through our culture. We might just be dressing entities based on our folklore. However, isn’t it strange that in our day and age there are still people who claim to have encountered dwarves and gnomes, big pointy hat and all? how is it that we keep coming back to these anachronistic interpretations? I can understand a very religious person seeing something that he might interpret as Christ or the Virgin, but what compels a ‘normal’ individual to see a god-damned dwarf?

          14. an analogy
            If we go back in the history of recorded literature just a little bit to, oh let’s say the first recorded stories, we find that they are full of allegories. In fact the entire story is usually an allegory, containing tales of allegories told by the characters in the story. There is no literal tale in sight.

            We can’t describe the real world, since we see it indirectly. So we describe it by fictional examples of things that others know, with the tacit understanding that the real events or entities were as if the fictional examples were a little bit real.

            Every now and then some wise person invents another name for these things.

            And at any given time, some percentage of the population takes the allegories literally, and swear up and down that they have witnessed every detail.

          15. Quote:
            So in the end that law
            [quote]So in the end that law of equilibrium keeps the power of the alchemist in check. Maybe the same way vacuum energy is constantly creating and disintegrating virtual particles in and out of existence in the quantum foam of space time.[/quote]

            An interesting idea. Obviously we have all seen this sort of thing on many TV programs and the like. It’s like trading consequences and is often used to teach the character, like a good vs evil clause embedded into the universe; cheat the universe to get something good for yourself and the universe will balance with something equally bad happening to you. As you say, it is Karma.

            Lets see if we can get a little more scientific here:

            Your idea of something akin to quantum probability is interesting. It gives us a window through which to view ‘magic’. A werewolf can pop into existence right now, right next to you. There are no rules to stop it other than probability. Though I don’t know how to do it I have seen this sort of maths done. You could probably run the whole universe over several times before you would even get a single werewolf appearing anywhere in it, so the odds of one right nextdoor to you are vanishingly small.

            What if consciousness can interact with those odds though? To throw in some good words; this is an interesting perspective because it allows possible insight into the probabilistic shifts occurring in quantum mechanics created by quantum consciousness to create an effect we are calling magic.

            Macroscopic ‘consciousness’ of the type exhibited by the neural networks built in labs can move itself around, feed etc. In essence it makes choices and moves atoms around – macroscopic affecting macroscopic. Could a quantum consciousness affect quantum systems? Can a quantum consciousness shift quantum probabilities? If so then we have united most mainstream science with magic and the paranormal, as well as determining a definition of magic – it is the change in quantum probability away from universal background probability by quantum consciousness.

            [quote]However, isn’t it strange that in our day and age there are still people who claim to have encountered dwarves and gnomes, big pointy hat and all? how is it that we keep coming back to these anachronistic interpretations? I can understand a very religious person seeing something that he might interpret as Christ or the Virgin, but what compels a ‘normal’ individual to see a god-damned dwarf?[/quote]

            I guess this comes down to the line between Greg’s (well not just Greg’s!) idea that common experience provides evidence of phenomena and the common skeptical line that none of us can trust our senses. I don’t know if there is anything really that different between ‘very religious’ and ‘normal’ people as you put it – not biologically anyway. Repetitive techniques such as repeating phrases might affect perception or memory and it might be worth considering how imagination and dreaming might interact with the normal waking modes of thought. Imagination is effectively setting up parallel worlds or constructs next to the sensory inputs provided by our normal senses. It seems to me that imagination can provide a filter or construct through which sensory input can be filtered. Strong pressures to create and use imagination might affect our mental models of the world and how sensory input is processed, in effect making people who mess with their minds more likely to have differing constructs merging reality and imagination into something of a merged construct affecting interpretation of the senses.

            If this was happening then I wonder to what degree it could be done consciously, and how long it would take before it was happening subconsciously- affecting all sensory input. If that was to happen then belief would no longer be needed as the senses would confirm what the person ‘wanted’ to believe, in affect the perception would be confirming the presence of a sensory imaginative construct in the subconscious.

            Could we all have these as adults, left over from childhood? The alternative of everything we see and hear is true would make for one crazy world 😉

          16. improbability drive
            Of course manipulating your point in the probability distribution could lead to interesting effects. The parting of the Red Sea is one example. It is entirely possible, on the basis of thermodynamics, that the Red Sea waters distribute so unevenly that you can walk across the bottom. Very unlikely, but possible.

            Might make for a cheap and fast mode of transportation too, as Douglas Adams has pointed out.

            As for gnomes and such – the old stories die very slowly. We invent better tools, but no new stories. Look at Gilgamesh, Odysseus, King Arthur, Siegfried, and the latest critically acclaimed “intellectual” novel and Hollywood movie. We haven’t invented a new story in more than 5000 years. It is not surprising that some of the old characters still stick around too.

          17. Another possibility
            Another possibility is that there ARE entities that have made contact with humanity throughout the centuries, and have entered the folklore of many cultures under different names, but with the same attributes.

          18. the others
            A fairly popular alternative is that the others are different species of humans. Neanderthal people have met modern humans, probably they are part of the legend of “others”. Just earlier this year another separate human species was discovered. Then we have the hobbit, whether they were a separate species or not. It seems quite likely that some aspects of all these others survive in the old stories.

          19. Yeah
            Yeah, it’s possible. Mac’s Cryptoterrestrials might come in all shapes and sizes 🙂

  4. Just a bad blog
    On Bad Astronomy (et al), there is always the assumed liberty to contradict one self when it is first processed to appear as humor. For each arrogance, there is a whipping boy and for every one of those lesser children, a brief moment of fond familiarity that is quickly followed with a hearty round of laughter.
    (Excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta?)

      1. Nibbling Nibiru nuts
        Taste like cashews, apparently.

        Has anyone else read Walter Cruttenden’s book, Lost Star Of Myth And Time? It’s a compelling argument for a solar twin, but I don’t know how accurate is: one error has the goddess Kali related to the Kali-Yuga, but they’re entirely different. Check out the Binary Research Institute website for more info.

        Coincidentally, I watched 2010: The Year We Make Contact on Tuesday night, the plot involving a new, second star created from Jupiter. I don’t know what prompted me to rewatch it (last time I saw it was in the 1980s), but it’s nice timing!

  6. All’s ‘Write’ With the World!
    Greg: “Can you grok that?”

    Yes, I certainly can, Greg, you ol’ stranger in a strange land, you!

    What a wonderful day for being reminding of the literary delights of one’s youth!

    There I was reading Nick (Redfern) musing on his childhood passion for the books of Alan Garner, (ah, Alan Garner…sigh…), and now there’s you with Robert Heinlein here, (ah, Robert Heinlein…sigh…)…

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