Apparently 51% of Americans think of Christmas as Christian. I'm really surprised. But then away from the coastal cities America is quite an oldfashioned place and still very dominated by Christianity.
Quite simply there's nothing Christian about Christmas except the name. The date, the birth of the Son, the maiden Mother, the Star, the Magi, shepherds, angels, stable/ cave, the animals ... all of it is Pagan. So are Tree, gifts and feasting.
It's fine for Christians to share though. there's plenty for everyone.
It always amuses me the fuss every year about Christmas being "commercial."
This is the Earth quarter of the year. It's all about material survival. So we eat, drink, and are merry because very soon the death rate will peak. Some of those faces around the jolly table won't be there when Spring comes. Making a big display of how strong, vigorous, rich and well fed we are is a great way to reassure ourselves against the coming strain on our bodies.
Gift giving is also an exchange of bonds, about survival. Those we exchange gifts with now are those who we hope to call upon if things go badly wrong in the coming months.
So raise a glass. Smell the piney aroma of the Tree. Eat a treat ... and another. Let the shiny wrappings litter the floor for the cats to chase and crackle.
For tomorrow is another day.
......................
Ignore READ MORE link.
Showing posts with label Spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spirituality. Show all posts
Thursday, 23 December 2010
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
Changing the World
An Australian journo has written a delightful (though disapproving) account of Assange's quasi-religious charisma. (Brendan O'Neill, The Australian)This was something I was already observing with interest too so I thank Mr. O'Neill for collecting the data so industriously.
Oxford English Dictionary: CHARISMA n. compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others: ...from Greek kharisma, from kharis 'favour, grace' (OED online)
The Australian article however mistakenly writes as if Assange does his work alone. He doesn't. Wikileaks was actually more active while he was helpless in solitary confinement.
Assange has explained his personality cult very neatly. “It is my role to be the lightning rod," Assange said. "That is a difficult role. On the other hand, I get undue credit."
(Oct. 2010 CNN)
Agreed Assange has a quasi-religious messianic image but I would say this operates with both his admirers and his attackers. To one side he is a rescuing angelic force to the other a destructive demonic force.
Mr. O'Neill declares "Strikingly, it shows how utterly degraded the idea of truth has become."
Indeed so. For Assange admirers the political process you recommend "political engagement, public debate and critical thinking" have failed. These have little or no influence on the ruling class of each nation.
Instead we have deadly secrets like war crimes, lies about WMD, and enquiries or consultations that merely serve to distract or whitewash. Western societies are more unequal than ever especially the USA and UK.
As a result those who support justice, fairness, equality, who were in despair at the destruction of all these values, now find a blazing inspiration in Assange and Wikileaks.
Should Assange be assassinated as some American leaders have demanded, his messianic myth will never die but grow to haunt Governments for centuries. But if he lives he remains a mighty rallying call. What a dilemma for the ruling classes.
Later edit: Assange has referred today to being a messiah without dying. He says this is a positive way to do it! (BBC interview Humphreys)
On the other side they see him as demonic. A techno-wizard superman villain who suddenly whips his cloak aside to reveal their nastiness. How scary. They got used to neatly hiding their foul doings and suddenly it’s not so easy.
The ruling class for now and some time to come is under pressure to take responsibility for what they have done.
When that includes 20,000 ordinary people including children, killed illegally in war crimes, it is difficult to see the downside. Except for the rich ruling class.
Who have not yet managed to point to one death caused by Wikileaks’ exposures.
I'll end this with an excerpt from the BBC interview.
Q: You want to change the world?
JA: Absolutely. The world has a lot of problems and they need to be reformed. And we only live once. Every person who has some ability to do something about it, if they are a person of good character, has the duty to try and fix the problems in the environment which they're in.
That is a value, that, yes, comes partly from my temperament. There is also a value that comes from my father, which is that capable, generous men don't create victims, they try and save people from becoming victims. That is what they are tasked to do. If they do not do that they are not worthy of respect or they are not capable.
Oxford English Dictionary: CHARISMA n. compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others: ...from Greek kharisma, from kharis 'favour, grace' (OED online)
The Australian article however mistakenly writes as if Assange does his work alone. He doesn't. Wikileaks was actually more active while he was helpless in solitary confinement.
Assange has explained his personality cult very neatly. “It is my role to be the lightning rod," Assange said. "That is a difficult role. On the other hand, I get undue credit."
(Oct. 2010 CNN)
Agreed Assange has a quasi-religious messianic image but I would say this operates with both his admirers and his attackers. To one side he is a rescuing angelic force to the other a destructive demonic force.
Mr. O'Neill declares "Strikingly, it shows how utterly degraded the idea of truth has become."
Indeed so. For Assange admirers the political process you recommend "political engagement, public debate and critical thinking" have failed. These have little or no influence on the ruling class of each nation.
Instead we have deadly secrets like war crimes, lies about WMD, and enquiries or consultations that merely serve to distract or whitewash. Western societies are more unequal than ever especially the USA and UK.
As a result those who support justice, fairness, equality, who were in despair at the destruction of all these values, now find a blazing inspiration in Assange and Wikileaks.
Should Assange be assassinated as some American leaders have demanded, his messianic myth will never die but grow to haunt Governments for centuries. But if he lives he remains a mighty rallying call. What a dilemma for the ruling classes.
Later edit: Assange has referred today to being a messiah without dying. He says this is a positive way to do it! (BBC interview Humphreys)
On the other side they see him as demonic. A techno-wizard superman villain who suddenly whips his cloak aside to reveal their nastiness. How scary. They got used to neatly hiding their foul doings and suddenly it’s not so easy.
The ruling class for now and some time to come is under pressure to take responsibility for what they have done.
When that includes 20,000 ordinary people including children, killed illegally in war crimes, it is difficult to see the downside. Except for the rich ruling class.
Who have not yet managed to point to one death caused by Wikileaks’ exposures.
I'll end this with an excerpt from the BBC interview.
Q: You want to change the world?
JA: Absolutely. The world has a lot of problems and they need to be reformed. And we only live once. Every person who has some ability to do something about it, if they are a person of good character, has the duty to try and fix the problems in the environment which they're in.
That is a value, that, yes, comes partly from my temperament. There is also a value that comes from my father, which is that capable, generous men don't create victims, they try and save people from becoming victims. That is what they are tasked to do. If they do not do that they are not worthy of respect or they are not capable.
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
THREE QUESTIONS: From Mushrooms to the Nature of Religion
Psilocybin, or hallucinogenic mushroom, can give a genuine and life changing religious experience. This article is not all about drug based spirituality, but its thinking develops from the implications of psychedelics.
That psychedelic spirituality is genuine is a startling statement coming from a professional Christian authority. Mark Galli deserves all credit for his integrity in publicising the new interest emerging by science in hallucinogenics.
From there he examines three functions of religion. or as I put it, three useful questions we can ask about any religion, cult or tradition. This powerful triad gives us a definition or profile of the faith under scrutiny, in a nutshell.
Galli summarises the findings of a Johns Hopkins study in which a chronic depressive, at low ebb due to cancer, chemotherapy and other external factors that made life worthless to him, rediscovered a profound sense of meaning after taking a psilocybin mushroom.
Researchers from around the world are gathering this week in San Jose, Calif., for the largest conference on psychedelic science held in the United States in four decades. They plan to discuss studies of psychedelics for treating depression in cancer patients, obsessive-compulsive disorder, end-of-life anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction to drugs or alcohol.
The results so far are encouraging. However the scientists participating make cautious comments, clearly wishing to distance themselves from the uncontrolled personal experimentation of the 60s and 70s. Participants are not only monitored carefully by human observation while placed in peaceful, gentle surroundings, but their brains are also scanned to study effects and alert to warning signs of distress.
Most of the participants report the experience as one of the top most meaningful personal events in their lives. Their reports mirrored closely the accounts of religious mystical experiences: a deep oneness, a lack of ego, a lack of the need to control others, instead an attunement with them. Researchers are reporting some success in using psilocybin to ease the anxiety of patients with terminal illnesses.
This strongly resembles the early work of Dr. Timothy Leary of 60s and 70s fame. It also resembles the teachings of many shamanic traditions, so much so that it is even irritating to see persons in white coats doing a gosh wow! type of research as if they are actually discovering something. But it is nonetheless a sign of progress. As one of the researchers says “Thanks to changes over the last 40 years in the social acceptance of the hospice movement and yoga and meditation, our culture is much more receptive now, and we’re showing that these drugs can provide benefits that current treatments can’t.”
So good, great, let’s hope that a saner approach to spirituality and drugs develops, especially as all those working in the field of illegal drugs are virtually unanimous that the so-called “war on drugs” is not only useless but actively damaging to our society. We use drugs to heal our illnesses of body and mind, so why do we divide off some of them and make them illegal? It only creates funding for crime, and contributes mightily to a huge industry of destructive porn and prostitution.
Returning to Galli his courage does not falter in exploring the implications of drug based mysticism for an established religion. As he does so he uses a powerful analysis of what religion is about.
As he says, if mystical experience of the Divine can be gifted by a mushroom, then Christianity, and by implication, no religion, can claim it’s “the one” which can bring us to the Divine. Ecstasy, or the quiet oneness of prayer or meditation, are experiences on offer with or without religious structures like church, temple or ritual. Or as Pagans would put it, the sacred is anywhere and everywhere.
Galli continues by observing that another great teaching of Christianity, to find the Divine in “deeds not creeds” is not unique to his faith. With honourable generosity he recognises that Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and “others” live moral lives. As he puts it “You don't need revelation to figure out that adultery, stealing, and murder are really bad ideas, and that there is something noble about caring for other human beings.” We might add perhaps you don’t need a vision of unity but it certainly helps.
Pagans are not mentioned even though in Britain we number as many as the Hindus he places first on his list. Presumably we come under that blurred “others.” But we shall not pout at being slighted. He is after all an establishment Christian writing within the churches hierarchies. He would have difficulty getting published if he included trance drugs AND Pagans in one article!
What I like very much and find most useful is Galli’s three categories of what religion is about. Firstly the mystical experience of the Divine. Secondly a personal morality which emerges from the mystical experience of unity with others. Pagans would enlarge this to include “all our relations” the tree. stone, star and animal cousins in the great Family of Life, the Web.
Thirdly a mythos, a story, a Way to go into a relationship with the Divine that partners the formless profundity of the direct mystical experience. Once we leave that state we cannot retain its immensity so we need our Stories to companion and support our journeys.
For Galli this is the Story of the Divine Son who came to visit humanity and awaits a visit from us. Pagans would point to other faiths which have given us similar Stories: Inanna, Isis, Cybele, Astarte, Mithras, Odin, Esus, Brighde, Aradia. We also gladly honour other kinds of Stories like Lucifer Lord of Light; Rhiannon Lady of the Sun; Sulis the Healer, all the Ancestors, or the Guardians of Place, and so on.
I might quibble with a detail of Galli’s article here and there. His concept of religious experience is startlingly limited to Sunday worship. He says “If religious experience is something that a drug can induce even more easily than spiritual ritual and disciplines, it may be time, for example, to rethink what many churches are trying to do on Sunday morning: create a memorable "worship experience." “ Again we need to remember that he is speaking from within church hierarchy which needs to assert a need for churches and priests: a lot of salaries depend on it.
It would be well if the emerging Pagan temple building projects were to stay aware of this issue. We must never, never lose the radical understanding that experience of the Divine lies all around us in toilets, rubbish heaps, washing up bowls, babies’ tummy rumbles, tree roots, sunsets and sex. It’s not to be found in any better way through those who hold certificates or in buildings used as ritual spaces over time.
Though that’s a very important quibble I am happy to return to Galli’s three way examination of religion, so Celtic in its triad. In asking what is THIS religion, THIS faith about? we have three useful questions.
How does it help us encounter the Divine as a real Other, a living relationship with the unity of life?
How does it help us grasp a morality to guide us to make that unity more of an everyday reality, living in awareness of others’ needs in relation to ours?
What Stories does it offer us that help us stay in touch with the first two?
………………………………………………………………
“The End of Christianity as We Know It”
Mark Galli | posted 4/15/2010 09:10AM
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/aprilweb-only/25-41.0.html
Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today, and author of “A Great and Terrible Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Attributes of God” (Baker).
Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century. April 15-18, 2010 • San Jose, California
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/science/12psychedelics.html
That psychedelic spirituality is genuine is a startling statement coming from a professional Christian authority. Mark Galli deserves all credit for his integrity in publicising the new interest emerging by science in hallucinogenics.
From there he examines three functions of religion. or as I put it, three useful questions we can ask about any religion, cult or tradition. This powerful triad gives us a definition or profile of the faith under scrutiny, in a nutshell.
Galli summarises the findings of a Johns Hopkins study in which a chronic depressive, at low ebb due to cancer, chemotherapy and other external factors that made life worthless to him, rediscovered a profound sense of meaning after taking a psilocybin mushroom.
Researchers from around the world are gathering this week in San Jose, Calif., for the largest conference on psychedelic science held in the United States in four decades. They plan to discuss studies of psychedelics for treating depression in cancer patients, obsessive-compulsive disorder, end-of-life anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction to drugs or alcohol.
The results so far are encouraging. However the scientists participating make cautious comments, clearly wishing to distance themselves from the uncontrolled personal experimentation of the 60s and 70s. Participants are not only monitored carefully by human observation while placed in peaceful, gentle surroundings, but their brains are also scanned to study effects and alert to warning signs of distress.
Most of the participants report the experience as one of the top most meaningful personal events in their lives. Their reports mirrored closely the accounts of religious mystical experiences: a deep oneness, a lack of ego, a lack of the need to control others, instead an attunement with them. Researchers are reporting some success in using psilocybin to ease the anxiety of patients with terminal illnesses.
This strongly resembles the early work of Dr. Timothy Leary of 60s and 70s fame. It also resembles the teachings of many shamanic traditions, so much so that it is even irritating to see persons in white coats doing a gosh wow! type of research as if they are actually discovering something. But it is nonetheless a sign of progress. As one of the researchers says “Thanks to changes over the last 40 years in the social acceptance of the hospice movement and yoga and meditation, our culture is much more receptive now, and we’re showing that these drugs can provide benefits that current treatments can’t.”
So good, great, let’s hope that a saner approach to spirituality and drugs develops, especially as all those working in the field of illegal drugs are virtually unanimous that the so-called “war on drugs” is not only useless but actively damaging to our society. We use drugs to heal our illnesses of body and mind, so why do we divide off some of them and make them illegal? It only creates funding for crime, and contributes mightily to a huge industry of destructive porn and prostitution.
Returning to Galli his courage does not falter in exploring the implications of drug based mysticism for an established religion. As he does so he uses a powerful analysis of what religion is about.
As he says, if mystical experience of the Divine can be gifted by a mushroom, then Christianity, and by implication, no religion, can claim it’s “the one” which can bring us to the Divine. Ecstasy, or the quiet oneness of prayer or meditation, are experiences on offer with or without religious structures like church, temple or ritual. Or as Pagans would put it, the sacred is anywhere and everywhere.
Galli continues by observing that another great teaching of Christianity, to find the Divine in “deeds not creeds” is not unique to his faith. With honourable generosity he recognises that Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and “others” live moral lives. As he puts it “You don't need revelation to figure out that adultery, stealing, and murder are really bad ideas, and that there is something noble about caring for other human beings.” We might add perhaps you don’t need a vision of unity but it certainly helps.
Pagans are not mentioned even though in Britain we number as many as the Hindus he places first on his list. Presumably we come under that blurred “others.” But we shall not pout at being slighted. He is after all an establishment Christian writing within the churches hierarchies. He would have difficulty getting published if he included trance drugs AND Pagans in one article!
What I like very much and find most useful is Galli’s three categories of what religion is about. Firstly the mystical experience of the Divine. Secondly a personal morality which emerges from the mystical experience of unity with others. Pagans would enlarge this to include “all our relations” the tree. stone, star and animal cousins in the great Family of Life, the Web.
Thirdly a mythos, a story, a Way to go into a relationship with the Divine that partners the formless profundity of the direct mystical experience. Once we leave that state we cannot retain its immensity so we need our Stories to companion and support our journeys.
For Galli this is the Story of the Divine Son who came to visit humanity and awaits a visit from us. Pagans would point to other faiths which have given us similar Stories: Inanna, Isis, Cybele, Astarte, Mithras, Odin, Esus, Brighde, Aradia. We also gladly honour other kinds of Stories like Lucifer Lord of Light; Rhiannon Lady of the Sun; Sulis the Healer, all the Ancestors, or the Guardians of Place, and so on.
I might quibble with a detail of Galli’s article here and there. His concept of religious experience is startlingly limited to Sunday worship. He says “If religious experience is something that a drug can induce even more easily than spiritual ritual and disciplines, it may be time, for example, to rethink what many churches are trying to do on Sunday morning: create a memorable "worship experience." “ Again we need to remember that he is speaking from within church hierarchy which needs to assert a need for churches and priests: a lot of salaries depend on it.
It would be well if the emerging Pagan temple building projects were to stay aware of this issue. We must never, never lose the radical understanding that experience of the Divine lies all around us in toilets, rubbish heaps, washing up bowls, babies’ tummy rumbles, tree roots, sunsets and sex. It’s not to be found in any better way through those who hold certificates or in buildings used as ritual spaces over time.
Though that’s a very important quibble I am happy to return to Galli’s three way examination of religion, so Celtic in its triad. In asking what is THIS religion, THIS faith about? we have three useful questions.
How does it help us encounter the Divine as a real Other, a living relationship with the unity of life?
How does it help us grasp a morality to guide us to make that unity more of an everyday reality, living in awareness of others’ needs in relation to ours?
What Stories does it offer us that help us stay in touch with the first two?
………………………………………………………………
“The End of Christianity as We Know It”
Mark Galli | posted 4/15/2010 09:10AM
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/aprilweb-only/25-41.0.html
Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today, and author of “A Great and Terrible Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Attributes of God” (Baker).
Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century. April 15-18, 2010 • San Jose, California
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/science/12psychedelics.html
Sunday, 9 August 2009
Canu Gwyl Lleuad / Lughnasa singing
Went to the woods and sat by the big pools brushing out my long hair and making many triple plaitings.
Water was brown like darkened bronze, smooth silky reflecting birch, ash trees with golden highlights where afternoon sun sprinkled the trunks of the trees sinking deep down to Annwvn under the waters.
So deep so clearly mirrored the underworld under but around, through, in.
A woodpigeon spoke of Goddess peace.
Walked through the lush green choked woods along by the stream up past the Two Trees who rest my back gently moving yet stillness as I lean back eyes flying up into spattered leaves against deep sky blue like a picturebook.
The waterfall is dark but busy in the shadows, voices of falling water busy busy, rushing over the knotty roots.
The Oak in the Water stands quiet over her pool as the waters slush the overflow at her feet.
Up the bridleway a soft mulch of mud lies sculpted across the gate stroking the side of my feet with cool.
In the top meadow many perfumes of flowers fighting for attention are almost dizzying but a sharp note beneath the sweetness saves the atmosphere from overkill.
Small wasps work the white valerian clusters peaceably beside me; there is cool shadowed grass around my bare feet while fuzzy warm sun lies on my neck.
Sitting on my mighty log throne with soft skirts spread I was surrounded by soaring trees flinging a mass of dense green multicoloured green pride of green in millions of tiny pieces of green way up high in an amphitheatre of green.
The Ash singing delicate so I sang her too.
Horse Chestnut insisting on his say even outspeaking the Oaks today.
Above and around the brilliant blue of halcyon summer sky reaching limitless where was this moment who was I so very me.
I sang them all and they gifted me with sweet voice but also answered by cynical crows lest I become proud and forget the dark beneath the golden day.
Alone without humans yet so embraced I was, sitting in the high meadow beside the sloping hill above the waterdeeps.
Returning, things happened normally hard to do but they were nothing to me today.
Water was brown like darkened bronze, smooth silky reflecting birch, ash trees with golden highlights where afternoon sun sprinkled the trunks of the trees sinking deep down to Annwvn under the waters.
So deep so clearly mirrored the underworld under but around, through, in.
A woodpigeon spoke of Goddess peace.
Walked through the lush green choked woods along by the stream up past the Two Trees who rest my back gently moving yet stillness as I lean back eyes flying up into spattered leaves against deep sky blue like a picturebook.
The waterfall is dark but busy in the shadows, voices of falling water busy busy, rushing over the knotty roots.
The Oak in the Water stands quiet over her pool as the waters slush the overflow at her feet.
Up the bridleway a soft mulch of mud lies sculpted across the gate stroking the side of my feet with cool.
In the top meadow many perfumes of flowers fighting for attention are almost dizzying but a sharp note beneath the sweetness saves the atmosphere from overkill.
Small wasps work the white valerian clusters peaceably beside me; there is cool shadowed grass around my bare feet while fuzzy warm sun lies on my neck.
Sitting on my mighty log throne with soft skirts spread I was surrounded by soaring trees flinging a mass of dense green multicoloured green pride of green in millions of tiny pieces of green way up high in an amphitheatre of green.
The Ash singing delicate so I sang her too.
Horse Chestnut insisting on his say even outspeaking the Oaks today.
Above and around the brilliant blue of halcyon summer sky reaching limitless where was this moment who was I so very me.
I sang them all and they gifted me with sweet voice but also answered by cynical crows lest I become proud and forget the dark beneath the golden day.
Alone without humans yet so embraced I was, sitting in the high meadow beside the sloping hill above the waterdeeps.
Returning, things happened normally hard to do but they were nothing to me today.
Saturday, 18 July 2009
The Genesis Enigma
A new book claims it is astounding that biblical Genesis describes the stages of "creation" in the right order, matching the theories by modern scientists.
This isn't so surprising as it appears. It only looks it if we assume Genesis was authored by the primitive early Israelites. Those tribal brigands who invaded and massacred peaceful Canaan were indeed not great thinkers.
However many Israelites were later taken into slavery to Babylon which DID have highly sophisticated scholars, where Israelites learned some knowledge. Many of these better educated Israelites then returned to Israel under Cyrus.
The Magi and other scholars of Babylon invented geometry we still use today - 60 seconds/ minutes, angles etc. They gave us our first recorded literature as well via their own ancestral culture, the Sumerians. In fact one of those books, by Enheduanna, told of a messiah who descended to hell for 3 days to hang dead on a tree - only that messiah was female.
Much of the early books of the Israelite Bible are based on Babylonian myths - Eden, Noah, Babel. Like the Greek philosophers we know better, the Magi well knew analytic logic so the order of the origin of the universe could have been worked out.
Impressive? yes. Mystery? no.
This new book also quite clearly distorts in order to fit facts to its argument. Day 4 for example has God creating the stars and the sun and the moon. As the author admits this is a facer as Light, day and night, already exist from Day 1.
An ingenious but unlikely theory is put forward that at this point evolution developed sight - so beings could SEE the sun and moon. Apparently this sequence does fit.
But I doubt if early science (deductive logic) could go that far and the argument here sounds artificially distorted. It's arguing back from what we know now - or rather what we theorise now.
We should not forget that evolution is only a theory, not a fact. A good theory, but just a theory. It doesn't fit all the facts. It just fits a lot more than other theories do.
This isn't so surprising as it appears. It only looks it if we assume Genesis was authored by the primitive early Israelites. Those tribal brigands who invaded and massacred peaceful Canaan were indeed not great thinkers.
However many Israelites were later taken into slavery to Babylon which DID have highly sophisticated scholars, where Israelites learned some knowledge. Many of these better educated Israelites then returned to Israel under Cyrus.
The Magi and other scholars of Babylon invented geometry we still use today - 60 seconds/ minutes, angles etc. They gave us our first recorded literature as well via their own ancestral culture, the Sumerians. In fact one of those books, by Enheduanna, told of a messiah who descended to hell for 3 days to hang dead on a tree - only that messiah was female.
Much of the early books of the Israelite Bible are based on Babylonian myths - Eden, Noah, Babel. Like the Greek philosophers we know better, the Magi well knew analytic logic so the order of the origin of the universe could have been worked out.
Impressive? yes. Mystery? no.
This new book also quite clearly distorts in order to fit facts to its argument. Day 4 for example has God creating the stars and the sun and the moon. As the author admits this is a facer as Light, day and night, already exist from Day 1.
An ingenious but unlikely theory is put forward that at this point evolution developed sight - so beings could SEE the sun and moon. Apparently this sequence does fit.
But I doubt if early science (deductive logic) could go that far and the argument here sounds artificially distorted. It's arguing back from what we know now - or rather what we theorise now.
We should not forget that evolution is only a theory, not a fact. A good theory, but just a theory. It doesn't fit all the facts. It just fits a lot more than other theories do.
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Mother, Child dead due to "Christian" faith
A 30 year old woman killed her baby then died of blood loss in a toilet.
I am horrified that the revolting beliefs of these parents terrorised their daughter to the point that she suppressed awareness of her pregnancy, then panicked, committed deliberate murder, and died herself in a ghastly way.
What a poor crazy woman, with her mind twisted by these foul ideas of sex guilt and shame.
In a healthy family she would have been TOLD about sex - her mother admits they never spoke of it so she never checked her daughter was knowledgeable and competent to be an adult woman.
In a healthy family she could have told her parents and they could all have enjoyed an addition to the family. Instead of THIS.
Do not PLEASE blame this on "religion." This isn't religion. It's a particular part of one religion, Christianity, and a certain type of Christianity that wrecks lives with guilt and misery.
There is a lot of other religions not like this. You can venerate, meditate, pray etc without poisoning minds like this.
I am horrified that the revolting beliefs of these parents terrorised their daughter to the point that she suppressed awareness of her pregnancy, then panicked, committed deliberate murder, and died herself in a ghastly way.
What a poor crazy woman, with her mind twisted by these foul ideas of sex guilt and shame.
In a healthy family she would have been TOLD about sex - her mother admits they never spoke of it so she never checked her daughter was knowledgeable and competent to be an adult woman.
In a healthy family she could have told her parents and they could all have enjoyed an addition to the family. Instead of THIS.
Do not PLEASE blame this on "religion." This isn't religion. It's a particular part of one religion, Christianity, and a certain type of Christianity that wrecks lives with guilt and misery.
There is a lot of other religions not like this. You can venerate, meditate, pray etc without poisoning minds like this.
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
Rhiannon
My Rhiannon research is really fizzing!
Decided to check her father in the First Branch - found his name is Hyfaidd Hen.
Looked that up and YESSS! there was a Dyfed warlord king same name. A lot of the information fits my theory of how Dyfed used the Pwyll Rhiannon myth politically.
Exciting.
Oh and I've ordered the magnificent Will Parker "The Four Branches of the Mabinogi." a bit of a gulp at £40 but it's a big detailed book. Can't wait.
Also just seen Andrew Breeze has “The Origins of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi” coming out very soon - June 2009 - and only a tenner. Great! Breeze has a theory of a female writer for Y Mabinogi. I'd agree there is much female content that is unlikely from a male author, but of course I have my own ideas as to who the lady might be - not the same as Breeze who goes for Gwenllian.
Still I only know a description of his theory, not the actual detailed argument (it's in a journal paper or a totally expensive survey he wrote on Welsh medieval literature. We shall see.
Found a wonderful cat picture in the Book of Kells but not enough info on where to locate it. It's in Nora Chadwick “Celtic Britain.” 1963.
Bubbling BRAIN.
[Ignore the READ MORE link - this is the complete post.]
Decided to check her father in the First Branch - found his name is Hyfaidd Hen.
Looked that up and YESSS! there was a Dyfed warlord king same name. A lot of the information fits my theory of how Dyfed used the Pwyll Rhiannon myth politically.
Exciting.
Oh and I've ordered the magnificent Will Parker "The Four Branches of the Mabinogi." a bit of a gulp at £40 but it's a big detailed book. Can't wait.
Also just seen Andrew Breeze has “The Origins of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi” coming out very soon - June 2009 - and only a tenner. Great! Breeze has a theory of a female writer for Y Mabinogi. I'd agree there is much female content that is unlikely from a male author, but of course I have my own ideas as to who the lady might be - not the same as Breeze who goes for Gwenllian.
Still I only know a description of his theory, not the actual detailed argument (it's in a journal paper or a totally expensive survey he wrote on Welsh medieval literature. We shall see.
Found a wonderful cat picture in the Book of Kells but not enough info on where to locate it. It's in Nora Chadwick “Celtic Britain.” 1963.
Bubbling BRAIN.
[Ignore the READ MORE link - this is the complete post.]
Thursday, 24 April 2008
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