I took an economics course in college and learned two things; that economics is the study of how we attempt to satisfy our unlimited wants with limited resources, and that money is anything that has value. Unlimited wants? Thats a tall order, one that we have been unable to succesfully address since the United States became a world economic power. We now have the distinction of being the world's largest debtor nation as our pursuit of those unlimited wants has bankrupted us and reduced our currency to near worthlessness. The issue requires some corrective action; but what?
Presidential candidate Ron Paul (R Texas) wants us to return to the Gold Standard; that's a step in the right direction, and he has also mentioned a second currency, as I have recommended. I sent the proposal to Dr. Paul's campaign committee but can't claim authorship of the idea, but at least we're thinking along the same lines. But no solution to the problem will ever be enough if we don't understand how we came to this disastrous state.
About six-million years ago, before the Lords arrived, our ancestors were nomads, hunter-gatherers who roamed the forests and savannahs of the pristine world in search of small game, roots, and berries. Theirs was a pure subsistence economy; in modern terms we would call it a Consumer Economy, just like we have now. They didn't produce anything as everything they needed lay all about just for the taking. It was a hand-to-mouth existence but it had it's good points; none of these primitives went bankrupt, had their caves foreclosed, their clubs and spears repossessed; it wasn't all bad. These people lived from nature and were healthy; they didn't need doctors, psychiatrists, prescription drugs, health care, or retirement plans. Then something happened.
Eatly man, Homo Habilis, settled down about four-million years ago. They did this because of the introduction of agriculture, an art taught them by the Lords, as it seems unlikely that early man, habituated as he was to hunting and gathering, would have the time or inclination to develop horticulture on his own. Villages sprang up around the arable land and man acquired something he never had before.
Spare time. But wait! Let's back up a moment.
Lords of the World, you may ask. Settlers from somewhere " out there '?
Yes. Consider these facts. First, it is amply clear that isolated peoples never progress beyond the tribal level of socialization. Cultures advance only through contact with a more developed society: that's history. Where did it start? Even when hunter-gatherers came into contact with others of their kind, these others were no more developed that they were - so where could the advancement have come from?
Also, as old habits die hard, it seems very likely that the Lords would have taught early man animal husbandry: raising cattle, pigs, chickens, etc., as man was well used to killing and eating animals, and these had a nasty habit of running away.
And time was of the essence. People accustomed to satisfying their needs on a daily basis, employing methods that have proven successful, rarely take the time to think about other, more complex matters. Perhaps this is the source of mankind's inbred resistance to change. A primitive version of " if it's working, why fix it? "
No, there's much more to it than that.
Consider the development of agriculture. It is much more than popping a seed into the ground and watching for it to grow. The soil must be arable and conducive to plant growth; not all soils can claim this distinction. Another problem would be with the tending of the crop, a task that would necessarily involve a settled group of people to see to the proper watering and to ensure that no animal could just come along and eat the whole spread. Small tribal units constantly on the move would be reluctant to leave any of their small number behind to conduct such experiments for two reasons; one, their presence would be missed as important part of the hunting and gathering process, and two, those left behind would be vulnerable to attack by wild beasts or other small tribes which might not be too friendly. Then there is the question of when to sow a crop. Owing to the reasons already given for keeping the tribe together and on the move, it is also highly unlikely that any members would be afforded the time to conduct meteorological and seasonal research for the purpose of identifying the best time to plant and to harvest the crop. It's just too complicated to have been just " discovered ". But we got there eventually, and our reward for our labors was something entirely different.
Surplus. The subsistence economy of the hunter-gatherers was pure Consumerism flavored by immediate gratification. The only things that were traded were blows when two tribes found themselves eying the same boar. Or the same water hole. But with agriculture and the raising of domestictaed food animals, either those who produced it or those who became it, man was able to settle into more-or-less stable habitats. I personally claim descendacy from these people because their two favorite words are also my favorites: Free and More!
Surpluses had to be disposed of in some manner since they were perishable, or in the case of livestock, had a tendency to eat too much and multiply. Where on group had a surplus of cattle and another a surplus of pigs the two engaged in the first instances of trade, the exchange of commodities known as Barter. Simple?
Well, not entirely. Barter, though a primitive form of exchange, did have some stikingly modern considerations attached to it. One of these was Present-Value-Future-Value. A two year-old cow was worth more than one nine years old. A bull was worth more than a cow. There was also the matter of condition: animals were prone to disease and vegetation to rot and blights, some of which might not be readily apparent. Barterers took great pains in their deliberations. If all was well a bargain was struck. Simple?
Not exactly. There was also matter of supply and demand which affected the trade. If one of the traders wished to sell more than the other wished to buy, or vise-versa, this would affect the final agreement. The agreed terms of the trade constituted the Exchange Value, one of the characteristics of money. But because of the factors listed above, three trades of the same commodities could have three different values of exchange.
Barter was slow and some theorists have proposed that early man developed a set of standards wherein the values of commodities were based on a fixed relationship with a single good. The proposed standard in those days was one head of cattle against which the values of all other goods were compared. This would have proved to be of little added value: barter still took time.
Things plugged along this way for some time until the discovery of copper. Here we must pause to consider. If the development of agriculture presents problems explaining itself in terms of the itinerant, hunter-gatherer tribes, then the "discovery" of copper would present even greater problems. I believe that this was another gift of the Lords. Consider.
We are still stuck with the hunter-gatherer societies with no clear idea how they advanced their cultures while busy surviving in the primordial wilderness. Out there is was kill or be killed, the constant battle between predator and prey - and it still goes on today. The discovery of fire lent light and warmth, but it was out there, plainly seen and only needing to be harnessed. Copper is an ore that is not so readily apparent. It melts at just less than 2,000°F, much hotter that any wood fire used for cooking. What clue would the primitives have had of a metallic substance embedded in certain kinds of rock? And even if they knew, how would they conceive of making things from this substance? No, the simplistic view of history is just too full of holes. " Yeah! You guys go ahead and chase that wooly mamouth. I'll stay behind, build a real hot fire, and cook some rocks to see what comes out of them. "
However it came to be, copper waas the answer to barter, while being a form of barter itself but of a different kind. Being a metal, copper was immune from the ravages of injury, disease, aging, and decay: a pound of copper is a pound of copper, whether produced yesterday or ten years ago. In terms of utility, copper was also used to make a whole variety of impliments, tools and ( sigh! ) weapons; therefore it was a general good, rather than a specific commodity. Copper became the first Medium of Exchange, the fist specie metal. Economics really took off then!
The universal appeal of copper made it possible for trade to flourish as never before, and as it flourished it grew to transcend borders and waterways; caravans and ships carried goods ever farther afield, and copper was the blood that coursed through the arteries of trade. But as the volume of trade increased in most, if not all, commodities so did the amounts of copper needed to complete transactions. This caused a problem, since large amounts of copper were difficult to transport, and were always at risk of being stolen.
The Chinese are generally credited with the invention of paper money, but that is only a guess. This step certainly called for a literate society with a facility for the written word and some mathematics. Combining the need of some substitute for the transfer of copper from one place to another and the capacity for keeping records, it seems logical that one party to a trade would envision a solution: a Letter of Credit.
These letters of credit were not actual currency as they were not yet used for general ditribution, but they did have one characteristic important to money: they would be accepted by the issuing party for goods and services. Thus begn the trading of paper instead of actual metal - but you had to have the copper. Trade among nations relied heavily on thepossession of copper or the resources and manufactured goods to secure quantities of it. It was the first step in distinguishing between powerful and weak nations, later to be translated into wars of conquest. But for a time things went well; then a problem.
Over time it became apparent to the ruling powers that economies tended toward depression. There were two reasons for this: increased population, and the banking system of the time. Population growth acted on curency by thinning it out: if ten people equally divide a million dollars, each would have $100,000; if there were a hundred-thousand people, then each would have only ten dollars, a million people would have one dollar each. The need for currency putstripped the means to acquire specie metal, so more money was printed to keep up. This is called devaluation. In modest amounts devaluation does no real harm; carried to extremes it courts disaster.
The banking systemsback then also contributed to depressed economies by being storehouses for wealth, a place where wealthy merchants stored their treasure for safe keeping, where it was out of circulation. In fact they paid the banks for keeping their resources. Eventually banks started paying depositors interest and lending money.
All the while populations grew exponentially while the stocks of copper expanded by volume, creating the need for more currency. Expanding foreign trade further exacerbated the need for liquidity, and currencies began to devalue. As long as the value of a currency was predicated on a hard-currency principle there were natural curbs on population growth, levels of trade, and the dearth of money promoted greater efficiency. But our unlimited wants prevailed and societies began devaluating their currencies; when paper money replaced letters of credit, they began creating money out of thin air. Inflation became a fiscal way of life.
As stocks of copper grew apace with volumes of trade, it became less likely that one party would demand full restitution in copper, after all they were trading paper, and in the absence of any regulatory agency they just printed more coupons, which is what paper money actually is. Here, it is useful; to examine the phenomenon of inflation.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Modern Myths - About Spirituality
I am often in contact with " spiritual " people, or persons trying to become so. I've noticed that in many cases people have a tendency to link spirituality with religion, church, and a concept of God as some sort of Old Man in the Sky. And they take themselves so seriously. It is as though spirituality were a burden that these folks have to carry through life, instead of the basis of our existence. Everyone is spiritual in some form or another. Evil sprits abound in our world; do they not? What follows is a concept of spirituality that I find most satisfying, enjoyable, and productive.
That state which we refer to a spiritual is basically intangible. The Spiritual Realm, underlies all material Reality. A thought is a spiritual entity; it occupies the mind but is unrevealed without some action to bring it into material form. It's the relationship between thought and action, and these thoughts and actions are governed by feeling. And the feeling that most, if not all, humans experience is hurt. All else stems from that and from nothing else! But by and large, most people opt for what they believe to be the opposite of hurt: pleasure.
Don't get me wrong,pleasure is nice, feels good, but too often it's the source of that pleasure that determines the spiritual fitness of an individual. How many times have you heard something like this; "I trusted Helen and she let me down; I'll never trust anyone again for the rest of my life!"
The rest of your life can be a pretty long time, too long to be affected by a single reverse. But if the hurt is severe enough it can end up affecting the rest of your life. A man I met while incarcerated many years ago had just murdered his wife's boyfriend. I don't know how long this man had been planning his desperate act, but in commission it took only a few seconds to pull the trigger. A few seconds that were to determine his fate; twenty years in prison, or a lethal injection.
Was this a bad man? No. There are no bad people, just people who are not spiritually fit to deal with the life's situations. A woman told me a while back that, "Life occasionally throws you a curve ball." I replied with the observation that that is a good opportunity to learn how to hit curve balls. But where does it begin?
Try childhood.
Infants of our species come into the world prematurely, and are completely helpless. Their bodies, the beasts their spirits ride through life, are totally foreign to them and they get by mostly on instinct, a decidedly spiritual faculty. Gradually, through experimentation, these little people learn to use their faculties, to move their arms and legs in deliberate actions, and then to face the first major challenge of life: learning to walk. Most people can't remember that first step on shaky legs, a couple of flops before getting it quite right. Then walking, like the many other mechanical operations we master, becomes automatic. Don't have to think about it any more; they are assimilated into our beings and we just...well...walk! Or tie shoelaces, or perform the countless simple ( and some not so simple ) actions we take without giving the slightest thought. This is spiritual growth in the sense that the mind is freed at each juncture to think about other things; and the world has plenty of things to think about; sex, money, power, fame, war, and a hundred other distractions that the Evil ( Real ) world offers to hinder spiritual progress. In the end, when the curtain of deceit is finally parted, those who suffer the toils and trials of life to the gates of insanity or death finally turn to God. Or seem to.
There is an Evangelical pastor with whom I have many debates over the Bible; we agree that it is the Word of God but, as is said, " The devil is in the details." One point on which we disagree is the Presence of God. I hold that God is All Things Everywhere, my pastor friend believes that God is not everywhere, but only where [He] chooses to be. He can't explain why God chooses to be in one place and not another, and this is typical of the belief system he follows: state a belief, then be unable to justify it beyond the mere statement. " It's just God's Will," he tells me, and that ( as far as he is concerned ) is that! Faith of this kind is but a veneer that hides an ugly, crumbling wall: looks good, but the wall is still there. I advocate tearing down the wall!
But what do most people do? Why they assume an identity that they feel will get them where they want to be, like a spiritual wallpaper, a pretty design, rich vibrant colors, but the wall it covers is cracked and crumbling. Eventually ecven the stoutest wallpaper will crack and peel, like the Cristian woman. A onetime relative by marriage she was the model of faith - until her husband died suddenly, at which time this woman, in tears cried, " There is no God! "
But there is. God is just not the Lord of the Spiritual Feudalism that fundamentalists ( like my friend the pastor ) believe. This reworked Zeus figure is the one who is only where he chooses to be, does whatever strikes his fancy in the moment, favors some and denies others, causes war, famine, and a host of other unpleasant evens to occur so " people will turn to [Him]. " Then, there's Jesus.
As the story goes, [God] sent Jesus ( a Roman knickname: his true name was Yashueh ) to die for our sins in a most unpleasant way. What kind of God is this? [He] has a remarkably human odor about him; priests of all religions that called for human sarcifices invariably didn't sacrifice themselves, it was always someone else. But the man himself asked, " What father, if his son asked him for bread would give him a stone or it asked for a fish, would give him a serpent. " The idea here is that if no human father would treat his son that way, how can anyone believe that the Father, who is so much better, would do any less.
The Evil ( Reality ) of the world lies in the distractions it presents to the striving soul. Religion stands in the forefront of this muddle and its failures are legion. Jesus said, " By their works ye shall know them,"; the works of religions have been to divide into countless denominations, sects, cults, and covens; to ostracize any who do not agree with them or, as " Mother Church " was wont to do, torturing those whose thinking was " in error " and killing those who would not recant their heretical ideas. What kind of God would approve of such atrocities?
The idea here is very simple, so basic in fact that many cannot see it: there are only two ways to go, the Way of God or the way of the world, and this choice is ours every instant. Let's look at the way of God. How can we know what that is? Paul tells us in Romans[1:18-21] that the wonder of God is all about, clearly seen by the eye of reason ( New English Bible ). This is more easily understood if we have a true understanding of what God is: the Spirit of the Universe, not some whimsical tyrant who rules from on high and who " chooses " to be here or there, to reward or punish according to some esoteric formula. Such a God cannot be counted upon as [He] may either " choose " to answer prayers, or not. The Spirit of the Universe answers every prayer.
Perfectly. Never fails!
The Spirit of the Universe is a passive power the mind of which is Natural Law. According to natural law everything operates on a Cause-and-Effect basis; press a button and a bell rings, an elevator appears, or a city of millions is swept up in a nuclear holocaust. The effect is always perfectly concistent with the cause; if the outcome is bad then the action that brought it about was wrong.It doesn't matter how much time you spend on your knees begging for the laws of nature to be temporarily suspended; go out in the rain, you get wet; stay in the sun too long, you get burned; stick a fork in a light socket, you get shocked; spend money carelessly, you go broke. Pray yourself hoarse, till your hands are fused together, and you knees lock into a permanent bend, and nothing will change. Change you attitude, your thoughts, and your actions, and things will change!
It's that simple!
There is a saying: " What goes around, comes around. " Perhaps it would be better undertsood if rephrased: " What you send around comes back to you. "; express love and love is yours, perhaps not immediately perceived but ultimately a treasured additon to your life. And loving people isn't hard; it's just about seeing the good in them. Jesus told us not to be concerned with the mote in our brother's eye but the beam in our own. Is it not true that what you despise in others is nothing more than what you hate in yourself? It is, and no amount of thinking differently can ever change that fact. But acting differently can, and will produce miraculous results. Try it: you might like it. You can change your life, but this change can only originate within you, in your Heart of Hearts, your Secret Place of the Most High, where all your fondest hopes and dreams lie dormant. Let the Father in you " which doesth the works " help you bring these bright imaginings into full and splendid reality.
What have you got to lose?
That state which we refer to a spiritual is basically intangible. The Spiritual Realm, underlies all material Reality. A thought is a spiritual entity; it occupies the mind but is unrevealed without some action to bring it into material form. It's the relationship between thought and action, and these thoughts and actions are governed by feeling. And the feeling that most, if not all, humans experience is hurt. All else stems from that and from nothing else! But by and large, most people opt for what they believe to be the opposite of hurt: pleasure.
Don't get me wrong,pleasure is nice, feels good, but too often it's the source of that pleasure that determines the spiritual fitness of an individual. How many times have you heard something like this; "I trusted Helen and she let me down; I'll never trust anyone again for the rest of my life!"
The rest of your life can be a pretty long time, too long to be affected by a single reverse. But if the hurt is severe enough it can end up affecting the rest of your life. A man I met while incarcerated many years ago had just murdered his wife's boyfriend. I don't know how long this man had been planning his desperate act, but in commission it took only a few seconds to pull the trigger. A few seconds that were to determine his fate; twenty years in prison, or a lethal injection.
Was this a bad man? No. There are no bad people, just people who are not spiritually fit to deal with the life's situations. A woman told me a while back that, "Life occasionally throws you a curve ball." I replied with the observation that that is a good opportunity to learn how to hit curve balls. But where does it begin?
Try childhood.
Infants of our species come into the world prematurely, and are completely helpless. Their bodies, the beasts their spirits ride through life, are totally foreign to them and they get by mostly on instinct, a decidedly spiritual faculty. Gradually, through experimentation, these little people learn to use their faculties, to move their arms and legs in deliberate actions, and then to face the first major challenge of life: learning to walk. Most people can't remember that first step on shaky legs, a couple of flops before getting it quite right. Then walking, like the many other mechanical operations we master, becomes automatic. Don't have to think about it any more; they are assimilated into our beings and we just...well...walk! Or tie shoelaces, or perform the countless simple ( and some not so simple ) actions we take without giving the slightest thought. This is spiritual growth in the sense that the mind is freed at each juncture to think about other things; and the world has plenty of things to think about; sex, money, power, fame, war, and a hundred other distractions that the Evil ( Real ) world offers to hinder spiritual progress. In the end, when the curtain of deceit is finally parted, those who suffer the toils and trials of life to the gates of insanity or death finally turn to God. Or seem to.
There is an Evangelical pastor with whom I have many debates over the Bible; we agree that it is the Word of God but, as is said, " The devil is in the details." One point on which we disagree is the Presence of God. I hold that God is All Things Everywhere, my pastor friend believes that God is not everywhere, but only where [He] chooses to be. He can't explain why God chooses to be in one place and not another, and this is typical of the belief system he follows: state a belief, then be unable to justify it beyond the mere statement. " It's just God's Will," he tells me, and that ( as far as he is concerned ) is that! Faith of this kind is but a veneer that hides an ugly, crumbling wall: looks good, but the wall is still there. I advocate tearing down the wall!
But what do most people do? Why they assume an identity that they feel will get them where they want to be, like a spiritual wallpaper, a pretty design, rich vibrant colors, but the wall it covers is cracked and crumbling. Eventually ecven the stoutest wallpaper will crack and peel, like the Cristian woman. A onetime relative by marriage she was the model of faith - until her husband died suddenly, at which time this woman, in tears cried, " There is no God! "
But there is. God is just not the Lord of the Spiritual Feudalism that fundamentalists ( like my friend the pastor ) believe. This reworked Zeus figure is the one who is only where he chooses to be, does whatever strikes his fancy in the moment, favors some and denies others, causes war, famine, and a host of other unpleasant evens to occur so " people will turn to [Him]. " Then, there's Jesus.
As the story goes, [God] sent Jesus ( a Roman knickname: his true name was Yashueh ) to die for our sins in a most unpleasant way. What kind of God is this? [He] has a remarkably human odor about him; priests of all religions that called for human sarcifices invariably didn't sacrifice themselves, it was always someone else. But the man himself asked, " What father, if his son asked him for bread would give him a stone or it asked for a fish, would give him a serpent. " The idea here is that if no human father would treat his son that way, how can anyone believe that the Father, who is so much better, would do any less.
The Evil ( Reality ) of the world lies in the distractions it presents to the striving soul. Religion stands in the forefront of this muddle and its failures are legion. Jesus said, " By their works ye shall know them,"; the works of religions have been to divide into countless denominations, sects, cults, and covens; to ostracize any who do not agree with them or, as " Mother Church " was wont to do, torturing those whose thinking was " in error " and killing those who would not recant their heretical ideas. What kind of God would approve of such atrocities?
The idea here is very simple, so basic in fact that many cannot see it: there are only two ways to go, the Way of God or the way of the world, and this choice is ours every instant. Let's look at the way of God. How can we know what that is? Paul tells us in Romans[1:18-21] that the wonder of God is all about, clearly seen by the eye of reason ( New English Bible ). This is more easily understood if we have a true understanding of what God is: the Spirit of the Universe, not some whimsical tyrant who rules from on high and who " chooses " to be here or there, to reward or punish according to some esoteric formula. Such a God cannot be counted upon as [He] may either " choose " to answer prayers, or not. The Spirit of the Universe answers every prayer.
Perfectly. Never fails!
The Spirit of the Universe is a passive power the mind of which is Natural Law. According to natural law everything operates on a Cause-and-Effect basis; press a button and a bell rings, an elevator appears, or a city of millions is swept up in a nuclear holocaust. The effect is always perfectly concistent with the cause; if the outcome is bad then the action that brought it about was wrong.It doesn't matter how much time you spend on your knees begging for the laws of nature to be temporarily suspended; go out in the rain, you get wet; stay in the sun too long, you get burned; stick a fork in a light socket, you get shocked; spend money carelessly, you go broke. Pray yourself hoarse, till your hands are fused together, and you knees lock into a permanent bend, and nothing will change. Change you attitude, your thoughts, and your actions, and things will change!
It's that simple!
There is a saying: " What goes around, comes around. " Perhaps it would be better undertsood if rephrased: " What you send around comes back to you. "; express love and love is yours, perhaps not immediately perceived but ultimately a treasured additon to your life. And loving people isn't hard; it's just about seeing the good in them. Jesus told us not to be concerned with the mote in our brother's eye but the beam in our own. Is it not true that what you despise in others is nothing more than what you hate in yourself? It is, and no amount of thinking differently can ever change that fact. But acting differently can, and will produce miraculous results. Try it: you might like it. You can change your life, but this change can only originate within you, in your Heart of Hearts, your Secret Place of the Most High, where all your fondest hopes and dreams lie dormant. Let the Father in you " which doesth the works " help you bring these bright imaginings into full and splendid reality.
What have you got to lose?
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Modern Myths - Time Travel and Time Dilation
Among the " scientific " pursuits that qualify as hare-brained, Time Travel belongs at the head of the list. It's impossible, yet presumably intelligent people view it as a possibility and are working to make it happen. The simple fact is this:
TIME TRAVEL IS IMPOSSIBLE!
That might be putting it a bit strongly but it's true; the reason time travel is impossible is simple. Time is not a naturally occurring pheomenon. That's right; it's an invention devised by man, initially to regulate agricullture: when to plant, when to harvest - that sort of thing. After all, when was the last time you saw a clock hanging from a tree in the woods naturally? Ever seen a racoon wearing a wristwatch? Ever had a pigeon stop you on a downtown street and ask you for the correct tiime? Didn't think so.
Time is an immutable scalar that is used to measure change, therefore time travel would necessarily involve un-changing all the changes that have taken place between the present and the target period. That isn't going to happen anytime soon. Beside that you could only go back so far; what happens after you have changed all the way back to a fertilized egg? Which path would you follow? As you can see, it gets pretty complicated.
While an interesting subject for science-fiction buffs, time travel has no place in serious scientific endeavor. But time travel is not the only illusion that those who should know better still take seriously. Another is Time Dilation.
The idea here is: An atronaut travelling on a spaceship speeding away from the Earth will experience a slowing in time such that the faster he goes the more slowly time passes for him. He's gone for twenty years and when he returns five-hundred years have passed on the Earth. Think of it! Amazing, isn't it?
Well, no, not exactly. This is another bit of nonsense that belongs squarely in the realm of science-fiction. It's another version of A Note on Danger B.
In the 1930's the goal of aeronautics was to break the Sound Barrier. Scientists and writers both wondered what would happen when this challenge was mastered. One writer cooked up A Note on Danger B, a short story hat appeared in Reader's Digest at the time. The story was about a pilot who broke the Sound Barrier and - started getting younger! The faster he went, the younger he got, and the problem he faced was to slow the plane down before he regressed to infancy, where he could no longer reach the controls. In 1969 Chuck Yeager finally broke the Sound Barrier without getting a nanosecond younger.
The " theory " of Time Dilation is founded in Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, published in 1905. The theory is based on the understanding that the speed of light, C, is finite: that is, it takes time even for a beam of light ( or a radio wave ) to travel a given distance. It takes a full eight minutes for the light from the Sun to reach Earth, about 93,000,000 miles. For this explanation we'll borrow Kepler's Astronomical Unit, AU, one Earth-distance from the Sun as our base.
The cosmonauts are happily speeding away from the Earth and have reached the first AU of distance. The Earth station has been sending time signals every hour, and this time it takes eight minutes to arrive at the vehicle. Assuming the Earth time to be the standard, the guys on the spaceship would have to turn their clocks back eight minutes to comply. At the second AU they would be sixteen minutes ahead, at 3AU, 24 minutes, and so on. But time would only be appearing to slow down; in actual fact time would pass normally in both environments. If the cosmonauts turned back and approached the Earth, the exact reverse would happen and they would be turning their clocks ahead to match the time signal from Earth: when safely back home both clocks would read exactly the same!
TIME TRAVEL IS IMPOSSIBLE!
That might be putting it a bit strongly but it's true; the reason time travel is impossible is simple. Time is not a naturally occurring pheomenon. That's right; it's an invention devised by man, initially to regulate agricullture: when to plant, when to harvest - that sort of thing. After all, when was the last time you saw a clock hanging from a tree in the woods naturally? Ever seen a racoon wearing a wristwatch? Ever had a pigeon stop you on a downtown street and ask you for the correct tiime? Didn't think so.
Time is an immutable scalar that is used to measure change, therefore time travel would necessarily involve un-changing all the changes that have taken place between the present and the target period. That isn't going to happen anytime soon. Beside that you could only go back so far; what happens after you have changed all the way back to a fertilized egg? Which path would you follow? As you can see, it gets pretty complicated.
While an interesting subject for science-fiction buffs, time travel has no place in serious scientific endeavor. But time travel is not the only illusion that those who should know better still take seriously. Another is Time Dilation.
The idea here is: An atronaut travelling on a spaceship speeding away from the Earth will experience a slowing in time such that the faster he goes the more slowly time passes for him. He's gone for twenty years and when he returns five-hundred years have passed on the Earth. Think of it! Amazing, isn't it?
Well, no, not exactly. This is another bit of nonsense that belongs squarely in the realm of science-fiction. It's another version of A Note on Danger B.
In the 1930's the goal of aeronautics was to break the Sound Barrier. Scientists and writers both wondered what would happen when this challenge was mastered. One writer cooked up A Note on Danger B, a short story hat appeared in Reader's Digest at the time. The story was about a pilot who broke the Sound Barrier and - started getting younger! The faster he went, the younger he got, and the problem he faced was to slow the plane down before he regressed to infancy, where he could no longer reach the controls. In 1969 Chuck Yeager finally broke the Sound Barrier without getting a nanosecond younger.
The " theory " of Time Dilation is founded in Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, published in 1905. The theory is based on the understanding that the speed of light, C, is finite: that is, it takes time even for a beam of light ( or a radio wave ) to travel a given distance. It takes a full eight minutes for the light from the Sun to reach Earth, about 93,000,000 miles. For this explanation we'll borrow Kepler's Astronomical Unit, AU, one Earth-distance from the Sun as our base.
The cosmonauts are happily speeding away from the Earth and have reached the first AU of distance. The Earth station has been sending time signals every hour, and this time it takes eight minutes to arrive at the vehicle. Assuming the Earth time to be the standard, the guys on the spaceship would have to turn their clocks back eight minutes to comply. At the second AU they would be sixteen minutes ahead, at 3AU, 24 minutes, and so on. But time would only be appearing to slow down; in actual fact time would pass normally in both environments. If the cosmonauts turned back and approached the Earth, the exact reverse would happen and they would be turning their clocks ahead to match the time signal from Earth: when safely back home both clocks would read exactly the same!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Modern Myths - The Big Bang Theory
Science has become the new religion in America having, as does the more familiar brand, an ideaology that members of acadême are required to endorse or be labelled " heretics " and miss out on all the generous funding. The new religion borrows heavily from the old one and tries to justify its faulty belief systems. The Big Bang Theory is probably the best known of these attempts a looking like science. The BBT is pseudo-science, completely false, and is based on Creationism's " literal " interpretation of the Bible. In this case it's the first verse of Genesis, Chapter One.
" When God created the heaven and the earth, the world was without form and void, and the spirit of God moved across the abyss. " This verse, probably the most troublesome collection of words ever assembled, has been taken to mean that nothing existed before this great event: the Creation. The Ignorant power-seekers expanded this idea into a preposterous fantasy worthy of the borthers Grimm and fed it to the Easily-Convinced, who gobbled it up whole and still profess to believe in the " something from nothing " ideaology.
A strong structure needs no supports. Creationism identifies itself as a weak structure in that it needs further support to " justify " itself. Truth is its own justification, a strong structure that can always standon its own. But Creationism needed the appearance of science to counter critics who expressed serious doubt on several counts; that God would act impetuously, that what was before wasn't perfect ( else why change it? ); that God couldn't have existed prior to this Creation thing as there would have been nowhere to be, and nothing to work with; that God made Adam and Eve in " His own image and likeness " but they sinned anyway, thanks to the interference of a talking snake. The attempt to justify Creation through scientific means has produced results as preposterous as the initial thesis. It certainly isn't science.
Scientific investigation may be thought of in two ways; investigations by scientists wearing white coats and working in laboratories, or by anyone using the Scientific Method. Deductive logic is the process of examining evidence and formin conclusions based on that evidence. The Big Bang starts with the conclusion and then tries to gather evidence in support of that conclusion. It's science worked backwards. Not only that but it lacks the one starting point of all scientfic investigation: The Compelling Cause.
The Compelling Cause is the motivation behind every investigation of any kind: it is when;
Something is seen from a subjective viewpoint and attracts attention,
Something appears that wasn't there before,
Something was there is no longer there and has been replaced by something else, or is missing altogether,and
Something that was present in one state or condition has changed.
Some examples:
Imagine when man first encountered fire. More than likely it was a tree ignited by a lightning strike and a small band of hunter-gatherers happened upon the scene. They would certainly would have been mesmerized by the sight, and upon closer investigation, finding it to be a source of light and warmth they obviously decided it was something they wanted. How to transport it from one place to another would have been the first item on their list; what burns and what doesn't would be second, and how to make it happen when desired and make it go away when no longer needed would also be an item to consider. Fire science is still a major discipline.
Consider the Iron Age blacksmith who twists a few strands of iron together and hammers out a shiny new sword. But then, in a short while this magnifience work begins to show signs of a red, powdery substance, and little black holes ( pits ).The compelling cause here is to discover why this is happening and devising a way to avoid it. From this grew the science of metalurgy.
Imagine now that a scientist of perhaps the 17th Century is studying caterpillars, and has five in a big glass enclosure. The furry little multi-legged creatures have lots of leaves to munch on as they crawl around on the twigs that bear the leaves.
Our scientist is taking careful notes of everything he sees and feels that he is getting to know quite a bit about caterpillars. Then he is called away on another and is absent from his lab for two weeks. When he returns the caterpillars are gone!
Some dirty prankster has stolen his caterpillars and replaced them with - of all things - MOTHS! Well, that's what he might think at first, but in time he would find that caterpillars eventually turn either into moths or butterflies.
Now let us examine the Big Bang in terms of Compelling Cause. It fails the first requirement in that it is not subjective: Whether the universe came in to being suddenly or was already there doesn't affect my state of being in the least. The second requirement also, since no one has ever experienced a condition of no universe. It's always been there to us.
The Big Bang is also logically false in that it begs the question: assuming the conclusion to be true in the absence of any hard evidence. It is only after this a priori conclusion that the evidence has been gathered. True evidence points in the opposite direction: that the Big Bank is totally false, and two items should make the point.
A few years ago a team of astronomers headed by Wendy Freeman observed that the 12-million year-old universe contained stars that were 17-million years old. More recently there was an item on Yahoo! about a galaxy 13-billion lightyears away. The article stressed the point that that is were the galaxy was thirteen-billion years ago; if the Big Bang is true, then how did this galaxy get way out there a billion years before the big event? Then there is the matter of the Instanton.
Stephen Hawking was analysing the Big Bang, focusing on the events that " must " have occurred a millionth of a second after the explosion. He concluded that there was a key element missing, one without which the Big Bang could not happen. So he invented one: the Instanton, an element that was there when needed, then disappeared never to be seen again. It's very much like the retrograde motion of Mars. The Ptolemaic astronomers, anxious to preserve the Earth-centered universe, attributed this motion to epicycles, circular paths that the planet described along is pricipal orbit. But when the retrograde movement wasn't in evidence, neither were the epicycles! Shouldn't the planet have been wobbling along the whole time? Gravity was another topic upon which the scholars of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century got it wrong.
In Watchers of the Skies the German physicist Willi Ley tells the story. It seems that when isaac Newton concluded that the force of gravity is the product of the mass of an object and an acceleration, the equation: F = ma, the scholars of the time began to teach that gravity is a Constant Force. But expressing gravity so, making the force of gravity a constant, craeted a problem that wasn't discovered in time to keep it out of some text books. The problem is that the equation describes a mathematical area. If the force is held constant the either the mass or the acceleration would have to be the independent variable, the other therefore being the dependent variable. A change in one necessitates a proportional change in the other: as one get bigger, the other must get smaller. It's the same as an area of, say, 48 feet; is it six feet by eight feet, twelve by four, ninety-six feet by six inches? Who knows? Now, if the force of gravity is constant, then a small mass would plummet to the ground at the higher acceleration, while a 100-ton boulder would float to the ground like a feather. Gravity is an acceleration. More than that, gravity is not a primary force but a reactive one as we perceive it.
To understand this let us consider the all subsuming Law of the Universe, that elusive concept that ties all the laws of the universe together in a single, seamless whole. It's simple. The Law;
Energy is all there is. Because it is present in infinte supply, energy cannot combine with itself fully, but only in local situations. Accumulations of particles form centers of mass which in turn develop gravitational forces. These forces grow in intesity until the total concentration of matter is sufficient to ignite at the center. Then a star begins its dazzling life. In smaller concentrations, all formations being spherical, planets form from the superhot gases ejected from the parent star. AS these planets move farther away from the star they cool, form crusts, and then gravity as we experience it comes into play. Were the crust of the Earth not solid, everything on its surface would continue to approach the center of mass: the center of the Earth. So much for anti-gravity machines, another modern myth.
" When God created the heaven and the earth, the world was without form and void, and the spirit of God moved across the abyss. " This verse, probably the most troublesome collection of words ever assembled, has been taken to mean that nothing existed before this great event: the Creation. The Ignorant power-seekers expanded this idea into a preposterous fantasy worthy of the borthers Grimm and fed it to the Easily-Convinced, who gobbled it up whole and still profess to believe in the " something from nothing " ideaology.
A strong structure needs no supports. Creationism identifies itself as a weak structure in that it needs further support to " justify " itself. Truth is its own justification, a strong structure that can always standon its own. But Creationism needed the appearance of science to counter critics who expressed serious doubt on several counts; that God would act impetuously, that what was before wasn't perfect ( else why change it? ); that God couldn't have existed prior to this Creation thing as there would have been nowhere to be, and nothing to work with; that God made Adam and Eve in " His own image and likeness " but they sinned anyway, thanks to the interference of a talking snake. The attempt to justify Creation through scientific means has produced results as preposterous as the initial thesis. It certainly isn't science.
Scientific investigation may be thought of in two ways; investigations by scientists wearing white coats and working in laboratories, or by anyone using the Scientific Method. Deductive logic is the process of examining evidence and formin conclusions based on that evidence. The Big Bang starts with the conclusion and then tries to gather evidence in support of that conclusion. It's science worked backwards. Not only that but it lacks the one starting point of all scientfic investigation: The Compelling Cause.
The Compelling Cause is the motivation behind every investigation of any kind: it is when;
Something is seen from a subjective viewpoint and attracts attention,
Something appears that wasn't there before,
Something was there is no longer there and has been replaced by something else, or is missing altogether,and
Something that was present in one state or condition has changed.
Some examples:
Imagine when man first encountered fire. More than likely it was a tree ignited by a lightning strike and a small band of hunter-gatherers happened upon the scene. They would certainly would have been mesmerized by the sight, and upon closer investigation, finding it to be a source of light and warmth they obviously decided it was something they wanted. How to transport it from one place to another would have been the first item on their list; what burns and what doesn't would be second, and how to make it happen when desired and make it go away when no longer needed would also be an item to consider. Fire science is still a major discipline.
Consider the Iron Age blacksmith who twists a few strands of iron together and hammers out a shiny new sword. But then, in a short while this magnifience work begins to show signs of a red, powdery substance, and little black holes ( pits ).The compelling cause here is to discover why this is happening and devising a way to avoid it. From this grew the science of metalurgy.
Imagine now that a scientist of perhaps the 17th Century is studying caterpillars, and has five in a big glass enclosure. The furry little multi-legged creatures have lots of leaves to munch on as they crawl around on the twigs that bear the leaves.
Our scientist is taking careful notes of everything he sees and feels that he is getting to know quite a bit about caterpillars. Then he is called away on another and is absent from his lab for two weeks. When he returns the caterpillars are gone!
Some dirty prankster has stolen his caterpillars and replaced them with - of all things - MOTHS! Well, that's what he might think at first, but in time he would find that caterpillars eventually turn either into moths or butterflies.
Now let us examine the Big Bang in terms of Compelling Cause. It fails the first requirement in that it is not subjective: Whether the universe came in to being suddenly or was already there doesn't affect my state of being in the least. The second requirement also, since no one has ever experienced a condition of no universe. It's always been there to us.
The Big Bang is also logically false in that it begs the question: assuming the conclusion to be true in the absence of any hard evidence. It is only after this a priori conclusion that the evidence has been gathered. True evidence points in the opposite direction: that the Big Bank is totally false, and two items should make the point.
A few years ago a team of astronomers headed by Wendy Freeman observed that the 12-million year-old universe contained stars that were 17-million years old. More recently there was an item on Yahoo! about a galaxy 13-billion lightyears away. The article stressed the point that that is were the galaxy was thirteen-billion years ago; if the Big Bang is true, then how did this galaxy get way out there a billion years before the big event? Then there is the matter of the Instanton.
Stephen Hawking was analysing the Big Bang, focusing on the events that " must " have occurred a millionth of a second after the explosion. He concluded that there was a key element missing, one without which the Big Bang could not happen. So he invented one: the Instanton, an element that was there when needed, then disappeared never to be seen again. It's very much like the retrograde motion of Mars. The Ptolemaic astronomers, anxious to preserve the Earth-centered universe, attributed this motion to epicycles, circular paths that the planet described along is pricipal orbit. But when the retrograde movement wasn't in evidence, neither were the epicycles! Shouldn't the planet have been wobbling along the whole time? Gravity was another topic upon which the scholars of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century got it wrong.
In Watchers of the Skies the German physicist Willi Ley tells the story. It seems that when isaac Newton concluded that the force of gravity is the product of the mass of an object and an acceleration, the equation: F = ma, the scholars of the time began to teach that gravity is a Constant Force. But expressing gravity so, making the force of gravity a constant, craeted a problem that wasn't discovered in time to keep it out of some text books. The problem is that the equation describes a mathematical area. If the force is held constant the either the mass or the acceleration would have to be the independent variable, the other therefore being the dependent variable. A change in one necessitates a proportional change in the other: as one get bigger, the other must get smaller. It's the same as an area of, say, 48 feet; is it six feet by eight feet, twelve by four, ninety-six feet by six inches? Who knows? Now, if the force of gravity is constant, then a small mass would plummet to the ground at the higher acceleration, while a 100-ton boulder would float to the ground like a feather. Gravity is an acceleration. More than that, gravity is not a primary force but a reactive one as we perceive it.
To understand this let us consider the all subsuming Law of the Universe, that elusive concept that ties all the laws of the universe together in a single, seamless whole. It's simple. The Law;
Energy is all there is. Because it is present in infinte supply, energy cannot combine with itself fully, but only in local situations. Accumulations of particles form centers of mass which in turn develop gravitational forces. These forces grow in intesity until the total concentration of matter is sufficient to ignite at the center. Then a star begins its dazzling life. In smaller concentrations, all formations being spherical, planets form from the superhot gases ejected from the parent star. AS these planets move farther away from the star they cool, form crusts, and then gravity as we experience it comes into play. Were the crust of the Earth not solid, everything on its surface would continue to approach the center of mass: the center of the Earth. So much for anti-gravity machines, another modern myth.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
An Interesting Idea
My endless search for Truth has led me along many paths and raised many questions. In the book, Creation, and my analysis of the Great Pyramid, I have raised the point that we humans are a very untypical life form on this Earth. Considering that all creatures of the wild basically look alike and act pretty much alike, human beings are in a class by themesleves What does the typical human look like?
In the article about the true meaning of the Great Pyramid is the idea that it symbolizes the Life Presence of the Earth at the time of the Lords' coming: that is, the complete array, from the tiniest microscopic form the the most complex and sophisticated organism. The shape of the Pyramid seems to replicate in a very general sense the number of species and the relative population of each. In other words, the smaller the creature, the more species there are, and each has a number of denizens proportional to the level of existence: microbes have the greatest number and variety of species, and the population of each is astronomical; higher organisms have fewer species and consequently lower populations. This leads to a fascinating idea of the true nature of life itself.
Beginning with the fundamental concept that energy is all there is, let us consider the infinite number of forms that energy assumes. In its basic form energy is boundless, unharnessed, and undirected: it's just there! The most dramatic way in which energy expresses itself is an explosion. One of the most familiar ways is what we call a detonation: a controlled explosion such as in an internal combustion engine. We might consider this latter expression as organized energy.
If we can agree on this point, we are ready to continue.
Life expresses itself through organisms, or bodies, and the infinite variety of bodies that creatures display also have certain sets of capabilities. Birds fly, fish breath under water, snakes have no arms and legs; dogs can articulate their limbs independently while horses cannot ( they must move both legs on either side together ); the variety is endless. And it can be asserted with conviction that organisms experience life. Thus, can we not conclude that organisms organize energy through their experiences and to the peak of their abilities?
There are four characteristics of life;
The ability to consume food and produce energy,
The ability to reproduce its own kind,
The ability to learn and grow, and
The ability to adapt to its surroundings.
And all of the above are experiences.
Carrying the point a step further, there is a behavioral characteristic that is evident in species according to their positions on the pyramid configuration: those at the low end tend to be more reactive that those higher up. More sophisticated animals demonstrate a greater capacity for volition, the moreso the higher up they are. An Amoeba ( one-celled animal ) will shrink from an electrical charge, or light;a startled animal will flee or strike out without bothering to determine whether the agent of surprise is a threat or just an interested passer-by. On the website, http://timeoftheend-faithanreason.net, is the true story of a cat I had about twenty years ago: Jose. This little animal, who never weighed more than three pounds, demonstrated such a sweet personality, and an intelligent curiosity far above what anyone would expect of a so-called dumb animal. Jose solved problems, played pranks, experimented, imitated me, and had such a lovable personality ( yes, a cat with a personality ) that everyone who knew him loved him completely. One has to ask; why does a cat bother to learn these higher ( volitional ) behaviors? Was he preparing to enter a higher state? Become human someday?
We might ask the reverse question; why do so many humans bear such striking caricature resemblances to lower animals? And why do these people also demonstrate the behaviors of these animals? People resemble apes, bears, cats, bloodhounds, tortoises - not actual resemblances but suggestive appearances. I am content to let the reader sort these matters out for him- or herself: but something is going on here.
There is nothing wrong with the idea that we evolved from lower animals; those who oppse the idea suffer from an obvious case of spiritual pride which says, "We are too good, too special for that to be true." Yet the history of mankind is a nearly unbroken record of organized violence covering some six-thousand years. Archaeologists probe for the origins of mankind and one of the things they look for is the first indications that man ( or proto-man ) used tools. And were these tools not weapons mostly? Certainly one of the first inventions was the adlala, a notched stick used to launch spears farther by extending the thrower's arm. From then to the present we have spared no resources in developing more horrific and efficient ways to kill each other, and that can lead only to one conclusion.
We are animals! The Lords wish( ed ) us to be better than that.
We weren't listening.
In the article about the true meaning of the Great Pyramid is the idea that it symbolizes the Life Presence of the Earth at the time of the Lords' coming: that is, the complete array, from the tiniest microscopic form the the most complex and sophisticated organism. The shape of the Pyramid seems to replicate in a very general sense the number of species and the relative population of each. In other words, the smaller the creature, the more species there are, and each has a number of denizens proportional to the level of existence: microbes have the greatest number and variety of species, and the population of each is astronomical; higher organisms have fewer species and consequently lower populations. This leads to a fascinating idea of the true nature of life itself.
Beginning with the fundamental concept that energy is all there is, let us consider the infinite number of forms that energy assumes. In its basic form energy is boundless, unharnessed, and undirected: it's just there! The most dramatic way in which energy expresses itself is an explosion. One of the most familiar ways is what we call a detonation: a controlled explosion such as in an internal combustion engine. We might consider this latter expression as organized energy.
If we can agree on this point, we are ready to continue.
Life expresses itself through organisms, or bodies, and the infinite variety of bodies that creatures display also have certain sets of capabilities. Birds fly, fish breath under water, snakes have no arms and legs; dogs can articulate their limbs independently while horses cannot ( they must move both legs on either side together ); the variety is endless. And it can be asserted with conviction that organisms experience life. Thus, can we not conclude that organisms organize energy through their experiences and to the peak of their abilities?
There are four characteristics of life;
The ability to consume food and produce energy,
The ability to reproduce its own kind,
The ability to learn and grow, and
The ability to adapt to its surroundings.
And all of the above are experiences.
Carrying the point a step further, there is a behavioral characteristic that is evident in species according to their positions on the pyramid configuration: those at the low end tend to be more reactive that those higher up. More sophisticated animals demonstrate a greater capacity for volition, the moreso the higher up they are. An Amoeba ( one-celled animal ) will shrink from an electrical charge, or light;a startled animal will flee or strike out without bothering to determine whether the agent of surprise is a threat or just an interested passer-by. On the website, http://timeoftheend-faithanreason.net, is the true story of a cat I had about twenty years ago: Jose. This little animal, who never weighed more than three pounds, demonstrated such a sweet personality, and an intelligent curiosity far above what anyone would expect of a so-called dumb animal. Jose solved problems, played pranks, experimented, imitated me, and had such a lovable personality ( yes, a cat with a personality ) that everyone who knew him loved him completely. One has to ask; why does a cat bother to learn these higher ( volitional ) behaviors? Was he preparing to enter a higher state? Become human someday?
We might ask the reverse question; why do so many humans bear such striking caricature resemblances to lower animals? And why do these people also demonstrate the behaviors of these animals? People resemble apes, bears, cats, bloodhounds, tortoises - not actual resemblances but suggestive appearances. I am content to let the reader sort these matters out for him- or herself: but something is going on here.
There is nothing wrong with the idea that we evolved from lower animals; those who oppse the idea suffer from an obvious case of spiritual pride which says, "We are too good, too special for that to be true." Yet the history of mankind is a nearly unbroken record of organized violence covering some six-thousand years. Archaeologists probe for the origins of mankind and one of the things they look for is the first indications that man ( or proto-man ) used tools. And were these tools not weapons mostly? Certainly one of the first inventions was the adlala, a notched stick used to launch spears farther by extending the thrower's arm. From then to the present we have spared no resources in developing more horrific and efficient ways to kill each other, and that can lead only to one conclusion.
We are animals! The Lords wish( ed ) us to be better than that.
We weren't listening.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Monday, December 24, 2007
The Beginning - Part Six
Who were the Lords of the World? Because their arrival predated recorded history by eons, we cannot cite any hard evidence. But we have a body of circumstantial evidence as to their character and nature: they had to be exceptionally spiritual folk. This the Bible tells us in Revelation [21:8]; "But the fearful, and ubelieving,and the abominal, and muderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolators, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake of fire and brimstone, which is the second death." Sure looks like these people aren't going to be welcome in the City of Heaven. Small wonder, as such as these would be disrupters, and on a journey to the stars we couldn't afford to have these types around. And this lake of fire; could it be the Sun?
There is no other candidate for identification as this fiery lake. According to the celestial mechanics of the Solar System as outlined earlier in this series, all matter will one day return to the Sun. Might be a good idea to head out before that happens. And it will happen! In fact, given the infinite reaches of this Universe - there are others - we may with some degree of certitude posit that this is a regular occurrence in the cosmos.
Much of what has been covered thus far is validated by the information found in Genesis, chapter six. Here we find that " sons of god saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and took unto themselves such as they chose as wives." This passage tells us two things; that the Lords were Christs ( sons of god ) and that their interest in the daughters of men were to produce children. As to the designation, Christ: this is the spiritual state of absolute humility and dependence upon the Spirit of the Universe. Fundamentalists tell us that Jesus was the only begotten son of God; the Nicene Creed tells us that he was not begotten, and the man himself made no allusion to the subject. But he did tell his disciples, " Think not what you will eat or wear ... your Father knows ye have need of these things." Stock 'christian' thinking is a morass of confusion, contradiction, half-formed thoughts, and outright lies. The Bible clearly states that it was the ' sons of god ' that mated with native women - when they were fair. One must wonder what they were like before they were fair, and whom the Lords were taking to wife then.
The Lords of the World are a model for what forward thinking seers envision for certain members of our race: those with the right stuff to borrow from the title of a motion picture of years ago. Such people would have to demonstrate a nearly perfect dedication to the mission, a matchless capacity for co-operation, a loving spirit free of judgement, condemnation, greed, and deviousness of any kind; they would be free of envy, jealousy, covetousness, and self-seeking. This would be the ultimate one-way trip and no consideration would be left to chance.
The Lords of the World were Christs, and if we survive to realize this sunlime dream, we must find such character, dignity, humility, and grace, from among our own.
That is truly why we are encouraged to adopt virtues akin to sainthood; not that we must be somber, morbidly serious, or wear hair shirts - that is just an act put on by those who believe that such demonstrations are valid. No, God loves a cheerful spirit, one who spreads love and joy in his path, who makes others smile and feel good about themselves, and who turns his back on no one who truly wishes to follow the True Path to redemption.
Make no mistake; we are talking about the very survival of our species into perpetuity. The smugly complacent, self righteous who claim to be 'saved' are whistling in the wind. They speak of brotherly love but practice intolerance, they claim to be seekers of truth but their minds are set on an outlandish fable that has been relentlessly hammered into their minds. They fail in the basic spiritual ideal of Live and Let Live. The self same people who bridle at being on 'hold' for five minutes yet have been waiting over two-thousand years for Jesus to return. Why would the man wish to retuirn? After all he gave us a pattern of living to assimilate but which we have all but totally ignored. Who bombs abortion clinics? The descendants of those who set fire to those who didn't agree with their preposterous ideas, and who to this day make war on any person or group they deem unworthy.
To be contimnued.
There is no other candidate for identification as this fiery lake. According to the celestial mechanics of the Solar System as outlined earlier in this series, all matter will one day return to the Sun. Might be a good idea to head out before that happens. And it will happen! In fact, given the infinite reaches of this Universe - there are others - we may with some degree of certitude posit that this is a regular occurrence in the cosmos.
Much of what has been covered thus far is validated by the information found in Genesis, chapter six. Here we find that " sons of god saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and took unto themselves such as they chose as wives." This passage tells us two things; that the Lords were Christs ( sons of god ) and that their interest in the daughters of men were to produce children. As to the designation, Christ: this is the spiritual state of absolute humility and dependence upon the Spirit of the Universe. Fundamentalists tell us that Jesus was the only begotten son of God; the Nicene Creed tells us that he was not begotten, and the man himself made no allusion to the subject. But he did tell his disciples, " Think not what you will eat or wear ... your Father knows ye have need of these things." Stock 'christian' thinking is a morass of confusion, contradiction, half-formed thoughts, and outright lies. The Bible clearly states that it was the ' sons of god ' that mated with native women - when they were fair. One must wonder what they were like before they were fair, and whom the Lords were taking to wife then.
The Lords of the World are a model for what forward thinking seers envision for certain members of our race: those with the right stuff to borrow from the title of a motion picture of years ago. Such people would have to demonstrate a nearly perfect dedication to the mission, a matchless capacity for co-operation, a loving spirit free of judgement, condemnation, greed, and deviousness of any kind; they would be free of envy, jealousy, covetousness, and self-seeking. This would be the ultimate one-way trip and no consideration would be left to chance.
The Lords of the World were Christs, and if we survive to realize this sunlime dream, we must find such character, dignity, humility, and grace, from among our own.
That is truly why we are encouraged to adopt virtues akin to sainthood; not that we must be somber, morbidly serious, or wear hair shirts - that is just an act put on by those who believe that such demonstrations are valid. No, God loves a cheerful spirit, one who spreads love and joy in his path, who makes others smile and feel good about themselves, and who turns his back on no one who truly wishes to follow the True Path to redemption.
Make no mistake; we are talking about the very survival of our species into perpetuity. The smugly complacent, self righteous who claim to be 'saved' are whistling in the wind. They speak of brotherly love but practice intolerance, they claim to be seekers of truth but their minds are set on an outlandish fable that has been relentlessly hammered into their minds. They fail in the basic spiritual ideal of Live and Let Live. The self same people who bridle at being on 'hold' for five minutes yet have been waiting over two-thousand years for Jesus to return. Why would the man wish to retuirn? After all he gave us a pattern of living to assimilate but which we have all but totally ignored. Who bombs abortion clinics? The descendants of those who set fire to those who didn't agree with their preposterous ideas, and who to this day make war on any person or group they deem unworthy.
To be contimnued.
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