I looked for total gasoline consumption in the United States per year and found it to be 2.5 billion barrels. One barrel is 42 gallons, so the United States uses 106 billion gallons of oil per year. 700 million gallons saved equals 0.65% of 106 billion gallons total. How does Exxon Mobil stand to benefit from creating an advertisment telling us we could save less than one percent of our total gasoline consumption? They obviously didn't count on people taking the time to do the calculations to figure out they're selling us a scam, but what their exact goals are and how they stand to profit from this, I do not yet know.
-Dee
Monday, December 27, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
If You Just Properly Inflate Your Tires...
According to a new Exxon Mobil advertisment, if everyone in America properly inflated their tires we would save 700 million gallons of gasoline per year. The president had a similar argument in 2008 that if everyone would just properly inflate their tires we would never have to drill for oil. I did some quick searching to the Bureau of Transit Statistics and the Department of Energy and after some calculations discovered that 700 million gallons of gasoline divided among every gasoline powered vehicle in America ammounts to just over 3 gallons per vehicle per year, or $9.24 per vehicle per year. That's just over $2 Billion total saved. This hardly seems like something to brag about, so I suggest it is propaganda. While our oil rights are sold to other countries who stands to benefit from the United States tied down by foreign oil debt?
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
I Am Big Mind
Ken Wilber gives the best description of your true nature that I have ever heard. Remember from yesterday, the purpose of manifestation is lila? Here's how you get back. Simply recognize your own I am-ness. You're aware of objects right now? Of course you are. YOU are aware of objects, but YOU are not an object, YOU are the subject, and to recognize your awareness of those objects is to recognize your true self. If you get distracted throughout the day, just remember who it is that is distracted. I am distracted. If any of this confuses you just recognize I am confused, and you've got it. It's that simple.
Monday, December 20, 2010
What Is The Point To Creation?
Ken Wilber talks about evolution and the point of creation, Maya, as God's lila. Talking about the Absolute is useless, so every explanation must be metaphor. If God is infinite and perfect, why create anything? The only way to answer this question is to awaken to your true nature.
The Master's Effulgence
From The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
Vedanta
"The Brahmani was the enthusiastic teacher and astonished beholder of Sri Ramakrishna in his spiritual progress. She became proud of the achievements of her unique pupil. But the pupil himself was not permitted to rest; his destiny beckoned him forward. His Divine Mother would allow him no respite till he had left behind the entire realm of duality with its visions, emotions, and ecstatic dreams. But for the new ascent the old tender guide would not suffice. The Brahmani, on whom he had depended for three years, saw her son escape from her to follow the command of a teacher with masculine strength, a sterner mien, a gnarled physique, and a virile voice. The new guru was a wondering monk, the sturdy Totapuri, whom Sri Ramakrishna learnt to address affectionately as Nangta, the 'Naked One,' because of his total renunciation of all earthly attachments and objects, including even a piece of wearing-cloth.
"Totapuri was the bearer of a philosophy new to Sri Ramakrishna, the Non-dualistic Vedanta, whose conclusions Totapuri had experienced in his own life. This ancient Hindu system designates the Ultimate Reality as Brahman, also described as Satchidananda, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Brahman is the only Real Existence. In It there is no time, no space, no causality, no multiplicity. But through maya – its inscrutable Power – time, space, and causality are projected and the One appears to break into the many. The non-dual Spirit appears as multiple individuals endowed with forms and subject to the conditions of time. The Immortal becomes a victim of birth and death. The Changeless undergoes change. The sinless Pure Soul, hypnotized by Its own maya, experiences the joys of heaven and the pains of hell. But these experiences based on the duality of the subject-object relationship are unreal. Even the vision of a Personal God is, ultimately speaking, as illusory as the experience of any other object. Man attains his liberation, therefore, by piercing the veil of maya and rediscovering his total identity with Brahman. Knowing himself to be one with the Universal Spirit, he realizes ineffable Peace. Only then does he go beyond the fiction of birth and death; only then does he become immortal. And this is the ultimate goal of Vedanta – to dehypnotize the soul now hypnotized by its own ignorance.
"The path of the Vedantic discipline is the path of negation, 'neti,' in which, by stern determination, all that is unreal is renounced. It is the path of jnana, knowledge, the direct method of realizing the Absolute. After the negation of everything relative, including the discriminating ego itself, the aspirant merges in the One without a second, in the bliss of nirvikalpa samadhi, where subject and object are alike dissolved. The soul goes beyond the realm of thought. The domain of duality is transcended. Maya is left behind with all its changes and modifications. The Real Man towers above the delusions of creation, preservation, and destruction. An avalanche of indescribable Bliss sweeps away all relative ideas of pain and pleasure, good and evil. There shines in the heart of glory of the Eternal Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Knower, knowledge, and known are dissolved in the Ocean of one eternal Consciousness; love, lover, and beloved merge in the unbounded Sea of supreme Felicity; birth, growth, and death vanish in infinite Existence. All doubts and misgivings are quelled for ever; the oscillations of the mind are stopped; the momentum of past actions is exhausted. Breaking down the ridgepole of the tabernacle in which the soul has made its abode for untold ages, stilling the body, calming the mind, drowning the ego, the joy of Brahman wells up in the superconscious state. Space disappears into Pure Being, time is swallowed up in eternity, and causation becomes a dream of the past. Only Existence is. Who can describe what the soul then feels in its communion with the Self?
"Even when a man descends from this dizzy hight, he is devoid of ideas of 'I' and 'mine'; he looks on the body as a mere shadow, an outer sheath encasing the soul. He does not dwell on the past, takes no thought for the future, and looks with indifference on the present. He surveys everything in the world with an eye of equality; he is no longer touched by the infinite variety of phenomena; he no longer reacts to pleasure and pain. He remains unmoved whether he – that is to say, his body – is worshipped by the good or tormented by the wicked; for he realizes that it is the one Brahman that manifests Itself through everything. The impact of such an experience devastates the body and mind. Consciousness becomes blasted, as it were, with an excess of light. In the Vedantic books it is said that after the experience of nirvikalpa samadhi the body drops off like a dry leaf. Only those who are born with a special mission for humanity can return from this height to the valleys of normal life. They live and move in the world for the welfare of mankind. They are invested with a supreme spiritual power. A divine glory shines through them."
Vedanta
"The Brahmani was the enthusiastic teacher and astonished beholder of Sri Ramakrishna in his spiritual progress. She became proud of the achievements of her unique pupil. But the pupil himself was not permitted to rest; his destiny beckoned him forward. His Divine Mother would allow him no respite till he had left behind the entire realm of duality with its visions, emotions, and ecstatic dreams. But for the new ascent the old tender guide would not suffice. The Brahmani, on whom he had depended for three years, saw her son escape from her to follow the command of a teacher with masculine strength, a sterner mien, a gnarled physique, and a virile voice. The new guru was a wondering monk, the sturdy Totapuri, whom Sri Ramakrishna learnt to address affectionately as Nangta, the 'Naked One,' because of his total renunciation of all earthly attachments and objects, including even a piece of wearing-cloth.
"Totapuri was the bearer of a philosophy new to Sri Ramakrishna, the Non-dualistic Vedanta, whose conclusions Totapuri had experienced in his own life. This ancient Hindu system designates the Ultimate Reality as Brahman, also described as Satchidananda, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Brahman is the only Real Existence. In It there is no time, no space, no causality, no multiplicity. But through maya – its inscrutable Power – time, space, and causality are projected and the One appears to break into the many. The non-dual Spirit appears as multiple individuals endowed with forms and subject to the conditions of time. The Immortal becomes a victim of birth and death. The Changeless undergoes change. The sinless Pure Soul, hypnotized by Its own maya, experiences the joys of heaven and the pains of hell. But these experiences based on the duality of the subject-object relationship are unreal. Even the vision of a Personal God is, ultimately speaking, as illusory as the experience of any other object. Man attains his liberation, therefore, by piercing the veil of maya and rediscovering his total identity with Brahman. Knowing himself to be one with the Universal Spirit, he realizes ineffable Peace. Only then does he go beyond the fiction of birth and death; only then does he become immortal. And this is the ultimate goal of Vedanta – to dehypnotize the soul now hypnotized by its own ignorance.
"The path of the Vedantic discipline is the path of negation, 'neti,' in which, by stern determination, all that is unreal is renounced. It is the path of jnana, knowledge, the direct method of realizing the Absolute. After the negation of everything relative, including the discriminating ego itself, the aspirant merges in the One without a second, in the bliss of nirvikalpa samadhi, where subject and object are alike dissolved. The soul goes beyond the realm of thought. The domain of duality is transcended. Maya is left behind with all its changes and modifications. The Real Man towers above the delusions of creation, preservation, and destruction. An avalanche of indescribable Bliss sweeps away all relative ideas of pain and pleasure, good and evil. There shines in the heart of glory of the Eternal Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Knower, knowledge, and known are dissolved in the Ocean of one eternal Consciousness; love, lover, and beloved merge in the unbounded Sea of supreme Felicity; birth, growth, and death vanish in infinite Existence. All doubts and misgivings are quelled for ever; the oscillations of the mind are stopped; the momentum of past actions is exhausted. Breaking down the ridgepole of the tabernacle in which the soul has made its abode for untold ages, stilling the body, calming the mind, drowning the ego, the joy of Brahman wells up in the superconscious state. Space disappears into Pure Being, time is swallowed up in eternity, and causation becomes a dream of the past. Only Existence is. Who can describe what the soul then feels in its communion with the Self?
"Even when a man descends from this dizzy hight, he is devoid of ideas of 'I' and 'mine'; he looks on the body as a mere shadow, an outer sheath encasing the soul. He does not dwell on the past, takes no thought for the future, and looks with indifference on the present. He surveys everything in the world with an eye of equality; he is no longer touched by the infinite variety of phenomena; he no longer reacts to pleasure and pain. He remains unmoved whether he – that is to say, his body – is worshipped by the good or tormented by the wicked; for he realizes that it is the one Brahman that manifests Itself through everything. The impact of such an experience devastates the body and mind. Consciousness becomes blasted, as it were, with an excess of light. In the Vedantic books it is said that after the experience of nirvikalpa samadhi the body drops off like a dry leaf. Only those who are born with a special mission for humanity can return from this height to the valleys of normal life. They live and move in the world for the welfare of mankind. They are invested with a supreme spiritual power. A divine glory shines through them."
Sunday, December 19, 2010
A Pocketful of Miracles
From the original Urban Mystic, 19 August 2007. The tone of some of the older posts appears to be a bit harsher. I was coming out of being a skep-dick and while materialism had been dropped it would be a few years before the desire to attack everyone fell away as well. Accept this post for what it is.
From Michael Talbot's Holographic Universe (p. 119-120):
"Every year in September and May a huge crowd gathers at the Duomo San Gennaro, the principal cathedral of Naples, to witness a miracle. The miracle involves a small vial containing a brown crusty substance alleged to be the blood of San Gennaro, or St. Januarius, who was beheaded by the Roman emperor Diocletian in A.D. 305. According to legend, after the saint was martyred a serving woman collected some of his blood as a relic. No one knows precisely what happened after that, save that the blood didn't turn up again until the end of the thirteenth century when it was ensconced in a silver reliquary in the cathedral.
"The miracle is that twice yearly, when the crowd shouts at the vial, the brown crusty substance changes into a bubbling, bright red liquid. There is little doubt that the liquid is real blood. in 1902 a group of scientists from the University of Naples made a spectroscopic analysis of the liquid by passing a beam of light through it, verifying that it was blood. Unfortunately, because the reliquary containing the blood is so old and fragile, the church will not allow it to be cracked open so that other tests can be done, and so the phenomenon has never been thoroughly studied.
"But there is further evidence that the transformation is a more than ordinary event. Occasionally throughout history (the first written account of the public performance of the miracle dates back to 1389) when the vial is brought out, the blood refuses to liquefy. Although rare, this is considered a very bad omen by the citizens of Naples. In the past, the failure of the miracle has directly preceded the eruption of Vesuvius and the Napoleonic invasion of Naples. More recently, in 1976 and 1978, it presaged the worst earthquake in Italian history and the election of a communist city government in naples, respectively.
"Is the liquefaction of San Gennaro's blood a miracle? It appears to be, at least in the sense that it seems impossible to explain by known scientific laws." [emphasis added]
He goes on to suggest psi phenomena are involved, but more on that later.
There you have it, folks. The substance in the vial has incontestably been proven to be blood. However some skep-dicks and fundamaterialists will tell you that it is a thixotropic gel (like ketchup) that liquefies when stirred or shaken hard enough. How they can say this when hard, irrefutable proof they are wrong is staring them in the face is beyond my comprehension. Because the study happened in 1902 does not in any way refute the results or make them less acceptable. If that were the case we should throw out Newton and Galileo because their findings are hundreds of years old. Are their moons around Jupiter? Hell no! The most recient findings were in the 70's, and that's way before modern skep-dickal science was invented in 2007. We shouldn't believe it at all. Give me a break. Vintage does not detract from science. If the blood miracle is fake the priests would have to know in advance when horrible events were about to happen. Either way the skep-dicks lose. Either they say it is blood in the vial or that predicting the future is real. There's a bullet in every chamber. Psychic phenomena are the only two options. Good times.
-Dee
From Michael Talbot's Holographic Universe (p. 119-120):
"Every year in September and May a huge crowd gathers at the Duomo San Gennaro, the principal cathedral of Naples, to witness a miracle. The miracle involves a small vial containing a brown crusty substance alleged to be the blood of San Gennaro, or St. Januarius, who was beheaded by the Roman emperor Diocletian in A.D. 305. According to legend, after the saint was martyred a serving woman collected some of his blood as a relic. No one knows precisely what happened after that, save that the blood didn't turn up again until the end of the thirteenth century when it was ensconced in a silver reliquary in the cathedral.
"The miracle is that twice yearly, when the crowd shouts at the vial, the brown crusty substance changes into a bubbling, bright red liquid. There is little doubt that the liquid is real blood. in 1902 a group of scientists from the University of Naples made a spectroscopic analysis of the liquid by passing a beam of light through it, verifying that it was blood. Unfortunately, because the reliquary containing the blood is so old and fragile, the church will not allow it to be cracked open so that other tests can be done, and so the phenomenon has never been thoroughly studied.
"But there is further evidence that the transformation is a more than ordinary event. Occasionally throughout history (the first written account of the public performance of the miracle dates back to 1389) when the vial is brought out, the blood refuses to liquefy. Although rare, this is considered a very bad omen by the citizens of Naples. In the past, the failure of the miracle has directly preceded the eruption of Vesuvius and the Napoleonic invasion of Naples. More recently, in 1976 and 1978, it presaged the worst earthquake in Italian history and the election of a communist city government in naples, respectively.
"Is the liquefaction of San Gennaro's blood a miracle? It appears to be, at least in the sense that it seems impossible to explain by known scientific laws." [emphasis added]
He goes on to suggest psi phenomena are involved, but more on that later.
There you have it, folks. The substance in the vial has incontestably been proven to be blood. However some skep-dicks and fundamaterialists will tell you that it is a thixotropic gel (like ketchup) that liquefies when stirred or shaken hard enough. How they can say this when hard, irrefutable proof they are wrong is staring them in the face is beyond my comprehension. Because the study happened in 1902 does not in any way refute the results or make them less acceptable. If that were the case we should throw out Newton and Galileo because their findings are hundreds of years old. Are their moons around Jupiter? Hell no! The most recient findings were in the 70's, and that's way before modern skep-dickal science was invented in 2007. We shouldn't believe it at all. Give me a break. Vintage does not detract from science. If the blood miracle is fake the priests would have to know in advance when horrible events were about to happen. Either way the skep-dicks lose. Either they say it is blood in the vial or that predicting the future is real. There's a bullet in every chamber. Psychic phenomena are the only two options. Good times.
-Dee
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Interesting Facts
I did some calculations and found that this December contains the two longest posts in Urban Mystic history: Joshua, Jericho, and Hating Jews, and Survival of Someone, in that order, at 1243 and 1214 words. I'm Still A Creep II is the third longest post ever at 1044 words, but it is a transcript of a dialogue I had with two other people so a lot of it isn't my own. Few other posts seem to exceed 900 words, with the longer ones averaging 700-850 words a piece. Considering I wrote the longest post ever on the backs of two envelopes at 8:40 yesterday morning (15 December) I'd say that must be a topic I'm pretty passionate about. Well, enjoy my three longest posts. Always love.
-Dee
-Dee
Joshua, Jericho, and Hating Jews
Mahalia Jackson sings about Jericho, as it actually happened, in this 1964 video.
There is a gulf between archaeologists and the truth regarding all things biblical. Take the story of Joshua and the conquest of Canaan. The goal of archaeology seems to seperate the dates of the destruction of Jericho and other Canaan cities and the dates of Joshua and the Exodus as much as possible to discredit the whole story.
Kathleen Kenyon, a British archaeologist who excavated Jericho in the 1950s claims that the city was destroyed circa 1400 BC and that the Exodus occurred in 1250 BC, so the Israelites couldn't have destroyed the city. More recent dating puts the destruction of Jericho at 1550 BC, a full three centuries before the supposed date of the Exodus. The problem could be explained as followes: Suppose archaeologists a thousand years from now want to search for evidence of World War II, but they know with absolute certainty that the fiercest fighting of the war took place between 1744-45. They also don't believe in Nazis. So, when they look through the ruins of the old world they find a battle that took place in 1945, but none during 1745, so they conclude that the war in 1945 was some other war, certainly not World War II, and that the Nazis didn't exist because no evidence could be found for them in the ruins of the 18th century. Modern archaeologists, who don't believe in the Bible and who hate the Jews and Israel say that the Exodus happened in the 13th century BC (which they call BCE, but that's a whole other post) so when Jericho was destroyed in the 16th century it must have been someone else. Maybe it was the Syrians, oops, they call themselves Palestinians now, because we know they are the true and legitimate inhabitants of the land.
But what if the Exodus didn't happen in 1250? What if it did happen closer to 1550? After all, the grain at the city of Jericho and other sites was burned along with the cities, not plundered, just as Joshua told his army to do. Any invading army would plunder the cities they sack, but Joshua told his men not to plunder the sites. The goods of the city belong to God, not the Israelites, so they have to burn, not plunder them. This is exactly what we find, and exactly what would be expected if Joshua destroyed the city, not some fictional people hundreds of years prior. The dates of the destruction of the cities is based on hard evidence, the dates of the Exodus is based on speculation from texts. Speculation is far from evidence. Speculation can be wrong, and the Exodus can be a 16th century event. But why would anyone want to hide the truth?
Scholars claim that the story of the destruction of Jericho is etiological. The Israelites saw the cities, destroyed centuries before they arrived, and invented a fictional story to explain why those cities were destroyed. The story is fake, like all good biblical revisionists and fundamaterialists must believe, but the descriptions of the physical sites are accurate. But why should we believe that the Israelites excavated the cities, destroyed and buried three centuries before they arrived, found the broken walls, found the grain burned and not plundered, and invent a story to explain their finding? Why would a semi-nomadic people invent archaeology, undergo a huge excavation, and then write fiction about what they discovered? This is a far more complex explanation than saying the Exodus happened three centuries earlier than modern revisionists suppose.
The story has to be fake according to the revisionists. They believe there is a war between science and religion where such a war does not exist. They must debunk religion. But debunking isn't something science does, it's something the skep-dicks and TV magicians do. Science is open ended.
Debunking the conquest of Canaan deligitimises the Israelies' claim to the land. Modern liberal racists (~99% of academia) HATE Israel because it is the single light of freedom in the Near East. Liberal racists HATE freedom and every libertine idea. They are statists and Muslim theocracies are very statist regimes. Also, they hate "colonialism," which is what they see Israel as, for two reasons: 1. Israel was created by the British during the end of the colonial period, and 2. Israeli forces in the Syrian, oops, Palestinian territories is seen as a form of colonialism. Colonialism is much hated even though libocrats wouldn't exist without it. If not for colonialism there would be no academia because there would be no rich and powerful colonial powers to set up academies, as colonial powers get their power and wealth from their colonies. Before the rise of the colonial powers all academies were religious, and the libocrats HATE religion, except Islam because it is used by statist regimes, unlike other religions, and libocrats love statism, as all aristocrats do. Libocrats are willing to do anything, especially lie about science, to get rid of Israel and religion.
Well, there does exist an exception. One colony is good: Tibet. Why? Because the Chicoms are communist, and libocrats love communism above everything else in the whole world. China invading, conquering Tibet, and slaughtering one million Tibetans is wonderful to the Libocrats because it is part of the spread of communism.
The same can be said for the Muslim "archaeologists" who control the Temple Mount. They'll say there is no evidence of the Jews being in their "Palestine" at any point in history prior to 1923, the date the British Mandate went into effect. There is no evidence of David or Solomon, nothing to suggest anything but their mosques, designed in the style of the Roman temple to Jupiter at Baalbek, Lebanon, with its hexagonal structure exactly where the Dome of the Rock sits, and its rectangular structure exactly where the Al Aqsa Mosque sits, the space between the two being where the old Herodian Jewish temple was before it was destroyed (see diagram of how the two complexes, Roman and Islamic, look overlayed). These are the same Muslim "archaeologists" who say nothing existed in the Arabian peninsula before Islam, because they destroyed evidence of the Sassanid Persians, who controlled just about the whole area, as well as the countless sophisticated empires who occupied the area for millennia. When these discrepancies are pointed out they smile their asshole smile and laugh their asshole laugh and come up with some horseshit excuse and say "oh, we cannot let Jews onto the Temple Mount or build their temples between ours," leaving out the part where they think to themselves "because we want to exterminate them." You should take notice that 24% of Syrio-Palestinians, which I may start calling them, approve of terrorism against the US, with another 15% being somewhat ambivalent. Yes, the same people who claim the Jews never occupied Israel before 1923 support killing US civilians to achieve political goals. But they're good people, really.
This is why there exists a gulf between mainstream archaeology, which is run by fundamaterialist libocrats, and the true story of the Exodus, which likely did occur in the 16th century. Both groups want to delegitimise Israel, one out of disgust for religion and "colonialism," the other out of a desire to conquer and convert the world. Both create fictitional archaeology to support their claims.
Video, "There was nothing before Islam!
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Beyond and Back
Sunday Night I watched a show on the Biography Channel called I Survived... Beyond and Back. The official website describes it as follows:
"I Survived... Beyond and Back reveals one of life's greatest mysteries by profiling the extraordinary stories of people who have literally passed on to the other side. The series combines the compelling and emotionally gripping stories of I Survived... with the unexplainable experiences some people... "
I read about it from comments on Michael Prescott's Blog. After two hours I have a really mixed reaction. The parts that I like I really like, and the parts that I dislike I really dislike.
To start off, the show opens with a juvenile, ghoulish, really cheesy neon green slime covering the original I Survived... opening screen, and from this slime drips the words "Beyond and Back" like ooh, it's spooky or something. Already I'm wondering if I'm supposed to take this program seriously or not with an opening straight out of a second grade class' Halloween special.
The program features three different people telling stories of the day they died, what killed them, what they saw on the other side, how they came back, and how their life has changed afterward. This is wonderful. The world needs at least nine more programs like this where people tell of their death experiences. It is uplifting and magnificent and the people are treated with great respect and no one tries to debunk anything. Their first hand accounts are presented of their experiences along with the experiences of the people who helped revive them, and that's it. There is no armchair commentator, just people telling their own stories. This is raw data, and I love data, completely unsullied by intellectualism of any kind.
The bad part is that all three stories are told simultaneously. Each person will tell a little bit of their story, then the program cuts to the next person and the next, then there's a commercial. After the commercial the people resume their stories in the same order. When the stories resume there's a brief recap of what was said, something that would be completely unnecessary if each person could tell their story in its entirety without being cut off. There are four commercial breaks per hour show, so there's a whole lot of repetition, just like in Buddhist stories, only not to drill the point home but to remind the viewer what just happened because the format sucks. The show is made very confusing and roughly half an hour of material is padded into a full hour show It is difficult to really get into any one story when in ADD fashion they're presented in little bites.
When each person dies theire's a neon green EKG thing that beeps a couple of times then goes flat. Periodically throughout each person's story there's a little thing that reads:
♥Heart Stopped
0:00
It ticks for three or four seconds, making a very annoying and strange tolling sound every second. This sound is probably the worst part of the show. They couldn't have used any of the many more obvious sounds to mark the passage of each second, a tick, a beep, no, they use the most bizarre and annoying sound possible. All the while the story does not progress until the timer disappears.
The people tell their stories of what they saw on the other side, some accounts are very short (the shortest I recall was just over 3 minutes) and some are almost an hour (57 minutes was the longest). Meanwhile the people who are with their physical body tells the story of how they try to revive them.
When the people are revived the EKG thing reappears, their heart beating again. They then tell how their life has changed, and boy howdy has it ever. They are more loving, jovial, compassionate people who appreciate life more. They also have to readapt to life on earth. This part too is wonderful.
What Beyond and Back is is not a typical NDE program, it is a NDE program with Hollywood flair added and cheap special effects to capture an audience with a three second attention span. However, it is not a debunking program but is instead sympathetic to these people's experiences and for that I am greatful. Overall I will continue to watch Beyond and Back, at least for awhile. I recommend the program to you, my valued couple of readers and invite you to make up your own minds.
-Dee
"I Survived... Beyond and Back reveals one of life's greatest mysteries by profiling the extraordinary stories of people who have literally passed on to the other side. The series combines the compelling and emotionally gripping stories of I Survived... with the unexplainable experiences some people... "
I read about it from comments on Michael Prescott's Blog. After two hours I have a really mixed reaction. The parts that I like I really like, and the parts that I dislike I really dislike.
To start off, the show opens with a juvenile, ghoulish, really cheesy neon green slime covering the original I Survived... opening screen, and from this slime drips the words "Beyond and Back" like ooh, it's spooky or something. Already I'm wondering if I'm supposed to take this program seriously or not with an opening straight out of a second grade class' Halloween special.
The program features three different people telling stories of the day they died, what killed them, what they saw on the other side, how they came back, and how their life has changed afterward. This is wonderful. The world needs at least nine more programs like this where people tell of their death experiences. It is uplifting and magnificent and the people are treated with great respect and no one tries to debunk anything. Their first hand accounts are presented of their experiences along with the experiences of the people who helped revive them, and that's it. There is no armchair commentator, just people telling their own stories. This is raw data, and I love data, completely unsullied by intellectualism of any kind.
The bad part is that all three stories are told simultaneously. Each person will tell a little bit of their story, then the program cuts to the next person and the next, then there's a commercial. After the commercial the people resume their stories in the same order. When the stories resume there's a brief recap of what was said, something that would be completely unnecessary if each person could tell their story in its entirety without being cut off. There are four commercial breaks per hour show, so there's a whole lot of repetition, just like in Buddhist stories, only not to drill the point home but to remind the viewer what just happened because the format sucks. The show is made very confusing and roughly half an hour of material is padded into a full hour show It is difficult to really get into any one story when in ADD fashion they're presented in little bites.
When each person dies theire's a neon green EKG thing that beeps a couple of times then goes flat. Periodically throughout each person's story there's a little thing that reads:
♥Heart Stopped
0:00
It ticks for three or four seconds, making a very annoying and strange tolling sound every second. This sound is probably the worst part of the show. They couldn't have used any of the many more obvious sounds to mark the passage of each second, a tick, a beep, no, they use the most bizarre and annoying sound possible. All the while the story does not progress until the timer disappears.
The people tell their stories of what they saw on the other side, some accounts are very short (the shortest I recall was just over 3 minutes) and some are almost an hour (57 minutes was the longest). Meanwhile the people who are with their physical body tells the story of how they try to revive them.
When the people are revived the EKG thing reappears, their heart beating again. They then tell how their life has changed, and boy howdy has it ever. They are more loving, jovial, compassionate people who appreciate life more. They also have to readapt to life on earth. This part too is wonderful.
What Beyond and Back is is not a typical NDE program, it is a NDE program with Hollywood flair added and cheap special effects to capture an audience with a three second attention span. However, it is not a debunking program but is instead sympathetic to these people's experiences and for that I am greatful. Overall I will continue to watch Beyond and Back, at least for awhile. I recommend the program to you, my valued couple of readers and invite you to make up your own minds.
-Dee
Monday, December 13, 2010
An Islamic History of India
An historical perspective of Islam in India, the massive slaughter of early invaders and the terror attacks of today. Tolerance of Muslims in India and persecution of Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Aprox. 20 minutes.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Still Forbidden
You may remember in September I posted about Bob Couttie and his book Forbidden Knowledge. I was holding onto that book to read in December like The Geller Papers. Reading both books in the same month, a year apart, and reporting on them seemed fitting. Seems a monkey has been thrown into my plans. Right now I am in the middle of what looks like the largest research project I have ever taken on. I have well over 2000 pages to read (1500 left!) and will not be able to read Forbidden Knowledge and report on it here for you, my valued couple of readers, and Mr. Couttie who appears from time to time to stir the pot here. I still have ten videos made in November as a reserve to upload regularly, but taking on extra reading will be out of the question.
-Dee
-Dee
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Who the Hell do You Think You Are
Nigel Farage, MEP from the UK demonstrates yet again why the EU sucks. Not only do Europeans have to compare their whole continent to the United States just so they feel superior, the EU bosses want to take the European peoples' identities away, doing away with national boundaries and identities, and mashing everyone together into a grey European super-state goo.
Farage says, before the Euorpean Parliament:
"Just who the hell do you think you people are? You are very, very dangerous people indeed. Your obsession with creating this Euro-State means that you’re happy to destroy democracy. You appear to be happy for millions and millions of people to be unemployed and to be poor. Untold millions must suffer so that your Euro-Dream can continue."
He goes on to warn:
"If you rob people of their identity, if you rob them of their democracy, then all they are left with is nationalism and violence. I can only hope and pray that the euro project is destroyed by the markets before that really happens."
Don't content yourself just to reading my pale transcriptions. Watch, and listen for yourself.
Farage says, before the Euorpean Parliament:
"Just who the hell do you think you people are? You are very, very dangerous people indeed. Your obsession with creating this Euro-State means that you’re happy to destroy democracy. You appear to be happy for millions and millions of people to be unemployed and to be poor. Untold millions must suffer so that your Euro-Dream can continue."
He goes on to warn:
"If you rob people of their identity, if you rob them of their democracy, then all they are left with is nationalism and violence. I can only hope and pray that the euro project is destroyed by the markets before that really happens."
Don't content yourself just to reading my pale transcriptions. Watch, and listen for yourself.
Minute Musings: Two Subjects
Two episodes of Minute Musings go up today. The first one is on the "Bush Tax Cuts" also called the "Bush Era Tax Cuts," as if Bush has an entire era devoted to him like the Victorian or the Edwardian eras. The Bush tax cuts are NOT tax cuts. They were tax cuts only the first year they were introduced, after that they became the normal tax rate. Letting them expire is not letting tax cuts expire, it will be the largest tax increase in history (so says the Heritage Foundation, among others).
Some people think that taxing the rich will increase tax revenue, but the rich can just put their money in secret Swiss bank accounts and other tax shelters and pull out of the economy, so increasing taxes won't hurt them. Do you really think Warren Buffet or George Soros or other super rich people (mostly men) ever pay taxes, or do they find slimy underhanded ways around having to pay taxes, like starting ficticious charity organizations and donating to them? It worked for Howard Hughes. He started the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1953 to avoid having to give his vast fortune to anyone when he died. He created HHMI as a ficticious charity organization, which eventually became a real charity organization years after his death.
Wasn't it John Kennedy who cut taxes for the top income class and increased total tax revenue? You would think people would actually learn from history, but in a country where 26% of people don't know we won our independence from Britain what kind of history do you expect people to be learning from?
Bush Tax Cuts Video
The second video is about the Charles Rangel censure. Censure is supposedly so bad only 6 representatives have been given this punishment in the past hundred years (5 Democrats and 1 Republican; Democrats make up 16/23 total representatives censured ever, nearly 70%). I expected them to pour water on his face to simulate drowning, but all that happened was the Speaker got up and, nearly in tears, said something like "the House censures you." Then Rangel gave a speech that shows he's as cockey as ever and didn't learn a thing and then he left. That was it? He had a team of lawyers ready to fight this "punishment" and that was it? It was the biggest non-event of 2010.
Rangel Video
Some people think that taxing the rich will increase tax revenue, but the rich can just put their money in secret Swiss bank accounts and other tax shelters and pull out of the economy, so increasing taxes won't hurt them. Do you really think Warren Buffet or George Soros or other super rich people (mostly men) ever pay taxes, or do they find slimy underhanded ways around having to pay taxes, like starting ficticious charity organizations and donating to them? It worked for Howard Hughes. He started the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1953 to avoid having to give his vast fortune to anyone when he died. He created HHMI as a ficticious charity organization, which eventually became a real charity organization years after his death.
Wasn't it John Kennedy who cut taxes for the top income class and increased total tax revenue? You would think people would actually learn from history, but in a country where 26% of people don't know we won our independence from Britain what kind of history do you expect people to be learning from?
Bush Tax Cuts Video
The second video is about the Charles Rangel censure. Censure is supposedly so bad only 6 representatives have been given this punishment in the past hundred years (5 Democrats and 1 Republican; Democrats make up 16/23 total representatives censured ever, nearly 70%). I expected them to pour water on his face to simulate drowning, but all that happened was the Speaker got up and, nearly in tears, said something like "the House censures you." Then Rangel gave a speech that shows he's as cockey as ever and didn't learn a thing and then he left. That was it? He had a team of lawyers ready to fight this "punishment" and that was it? It was the biggest non-event of 2010.
Rangel Video
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Survival of Someone
Everyone who references Phillip Longman's article "Survival of the Godliest" titles thier own critiques "Survival of the Godliest" so I didn't. He writes about the trend of religious people having more children than secular people, so in the future there will be a trend toward more religious people and less secular people. Also, the more religious the person is the more children they have, so more deeply fundamental religious folks have more children than fair weather religious folks, but more on that latter.
Once again we resume our exploration of the topic of the demographic decline of atheism. Modern fundamaterialists of all stripes like to think that we're fucking killing the earf and humans have to go extinct to save the planet. Some like to anthropomorphise the planet, thinking the earf to be their mother goddess. Those who are not dirt worshiping dirt worshipers (when people refer to "mother earth" they mean dirt) are in the Dickey D crowd, folks who think they're better than us and shutter at the fact that they must inhabit the same space-time continuum as us lower forms of life. They don't care about the earth but they are smart enough to use the language of the dirt worshiping dirt worshipers in order to get the dirt worshiping dirt worshipers to join forces with them against their religious enemies.
Not too long ago I got into an argument with someone who may or may not fall into one or both of the above groups. Now, I don't like to get into arguments. They're rarely fun and even rarelyer accomplish anything. I'm more like a reporter. I report things here and then tell you, my valued couple of readers, to go out and do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Often I will give opinions, but more often than not I will admit that more study is needed and we shouldn't jump to conclusions. She used a lot of ten dollar words, said I was mistaking correlation with causation, and that when Muslims move to Europe and secularize their fertility rate drops. Well, big words won't win you an argument, around half the people who take a side on the issue of declining population raise the issue of the decline of secular people and I doubt ALL of them are mistaking correlation with causation (aside from myself and Phillip Longman, Vincent Torely at UD, and secular University of London professor Eric Kaufmann must be mistaking correlation for causation, plus Dean Radin didn't mention any logical mistakes with this argument, though he did question what the world would look like if the trend continues), plus, the argument is that religious people have more children so will outbreed secular people, if Muslims who migrate to Europe SECULARIZE one would expect them to have fewer children if the argument were correct. I'm not trying to make an argument from authority. All the people I've listed fall into the group of humanity, and as a member of that group there is metaphysical certainty that they will be mistaken at least once in their lives. I'm also not trying to make a climate change (hide the decline) type appeal to concensus, which does not exist in science. However, using fancy rhetorical devices won't make the argument go away just because you don't like the implications with regard to your lifestyle choice. Vincent at UD presented a good argument why secular people may still win the demographic battle, due to legislation (some passed, some very easy to pass) that would limit the number of children religious people could have or prevent them from having children in the first place, and those few children they do have, assure that they are given secular indoctrination so secularism survives the demographic decline. On top of that I might suggest that in the future, at the current rate of government expansion, there may come a day when political dissidents (libertarians, fundamentalist religious folks, etc.) may just be rounded up into camps (extraordinary rendition, 110,000 Japanese rounded up during WWII, it's happened before) and exterminated, or at least removed from the breeding population.
Getting back to Longman's article, he writes:
"To be sure, in countries rich and poor, under all forms of government, birth rates are declining across the globe. But they are declining least among those adhering to strict religious codes and literal belief in the Bible, the Torah, or the Koran. Indeed, the pattern of human fertility now fits this pattern: the least likely to procreate are those who profess no believe in God; those who describe themselves as agnostic or simply spiritual are only somewhat slightly less likely to be childless. Moving up the spectrum, family size increases among practicing Unitarians, Reform Jews, mainline Protestants and “cafeteria” Catholics, but the birthrates found in these populations are still far below replacement levels. Only as we approach the realm of religious belief and practice marked by an intensity we might call, for lack of a better word, “fundamentalism,” do we find pockets of high fertility and consequent rapid population growth."
If you're wondering where the Urban Mystic falls on that scale, well, I'm wondering too. At the present moment it's best to let Longman do the talking.
"When confronted with the fact that they are being outbred, secularists often respond that many if not most children born into highly religious families will grow up to reject the faith of their fathers — such is the assumed allure of freedom and individuality....Arguing against this proposition, however, are some stubborn demographic facts. Among fundamentalist families, it turns out, the apple does not fall far from the tree. And the more demanding the faith, the more this rule applies."
According to Eric Kaufmann's new book, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?: Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century, Darwin explains why secular people will be much fewer and farther between in the future and the religious shall greatly multiply.
"In a world in which childbearing is rarely accidental and almost never rewarding economically, birthrates increasingly reflect values choices. And so, by Darwinian process, those who adhere to traditions that preserve and celebrate the ancient injunction to “go forth and multiply” wind up putting more of their genes and ideas into the future than those who don’t. As Kaufmann shows, fertility, over time, plays out like compound interest. That is, even if religiously fundamentalist families only have a few more children than secular or religiously moderate counterparts, and they can keep those children holding on to fundamentalist faith and values (especially related to child-bearing), the passage of generations will greatly magnify their numbers and influence. Similarly, secularists and others who choose to have only one or two children, and who pass those values on to their children, will, over time, see their population decline precipitously."
Will religious people inherit the earth? Will secular people go extinct? I will say this only once, so pay attention: I don't know.
I am NOT an unbiased observer. There are few such people, maybe none. I do have a stake in the matter, and you may as well. I can only present to you the information that I am given and then ask that you draw your own conclusions.
-Dee
Once again we resume our exploration of the topic of the demographic decline of atheism. Modern fundamaterialists of all stripes like to think that we're fucking killing the earf and humans have to go extinct to save the planet. Some like to anthropomorphise the planet, thinking the earf to be their mother goddess. Those who are not dirt worshiping dirt worshipers (when people refer to "mother earth" they mean dirt) are in the Dickey D crowd, folks who think they're better than us and shutter at the fact that they must inhabit the same space-time continuum as us lower forms of life. They don't care about the earth but they are smart enough to use the language of the dirt worshiping dirt worshipers in order to get the dirt worshiping dirt worshipers to join forces with them against their religious enemies.
Not too long ago I got into an argument with someone who may or may not fall into one or both of the above groups. Now, I don't like to get into arguments. They're rarely fun and even rarelyer accomplish anything. I'm more like a reporter. I report things here and then tell you, my valued couple of readers, to go out and do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Often I will give opinions, but more often than not I will admit that more study is needed and we shouldn't jump to conclusions. She used a lot of ten dollar words, said I was mistaking correlation with causation, and that when Muslims move to Europe and secularize their fertility rate drops. Well, big words won't win you an argument, around half the people who take a side on the issue of declining population raise the issue of the decline of secular people and I doubt ALL of them are mistaking correlation with causation (aside from myself and Phillip Longman, Vincent Torely at UD, and secular University of London professor Eric Kaufmann must be mistaking correlation for causation, plus Dean Radin didn't mention any logical mistakes with this argument, though he did question what the world would look like if the trend continues), plus, the argument is that religious people have more children so will outbreed secular people, if Muslims who migrate to Europe SECULARIZE one would expect them to have fewer children if the argument were correct. I'm not trying to make an argument from authority. All the people I've listed fall into the group of humanity, and as a member of that group there is metaphysical certainty that they will be mistaken at least once in their lives. I'm also not trying to make a climate change (hide the decline) type appeal to concensus, which does not exist in science. However, using fancy rhetorical devices won't make the argument go away just because you don't like the implications with regard to your lifestyle choice. Vincent at UD presented a good argument why secular people may still win the demographic battle, due to legislation (some passed, some very easy to pass) that would limit the number of children religious people could have or prevent them from having children in the first place, and those few children they do have, assure that they are given secular indoctrination so secularism survives the demographic decline. On top of that I might suggest that in the future, at the current rate of government expansion, there may come a day when political dissidents (libertarians, fundamentalist religious folks, etc.) may just be rounded up into camps (extraordinary rendition, 110,000 Japanese rounded up during WWII, it's happened before) and exterminated, or at least removed from the breeding population.
Getting back to Longman's article, he writes:
"To be sure, in countries rich and poor, under all forms of government, birth rates are declining across the globe. But they are declining least among those adhering to strict religious codes and literal belief in the Bible, the Torah, or the Koran. Indeed, the pattern of human fertility now fits this pattern: the least likely to procreate are those who profess no believe in God; those who describe themselves as agnostic or simply spiritual are only somewhat slightly less likely to be childless. Moving up the spectrum, family size increases among practicing Unitarians, Reform Jews, mainline Protestants and “cafeteria” Catholics, but the birthrates found in these populations are still far below replacement levels. Only as we approach the realm of religious belief and practice marked by an intensity we might call, for lack of a better word, “fundamentalism,” do we find pockets of high fertility and consequent rapid population growth."
If you're wondering where the Urban Mystic falls on that scale, well, I'm wondering too. At the present moment it's best to let Longman do the talking.
"When confronted with the fact that they are being outbred, secularists often respond that many if not most children born into highly religious families will grow up to reject the faith of their fathers — such is the assumed allure of freedom and individuality....Arguing against this proposition, however, are some stubborn demographic facts. Among fundamentalist families, it turns out, the apple does not fall far from the tree. And the more demanding the faith, the more this rule applies."
According to Eric Kaufmann's new book, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?: Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century, Darwin explains why secular people will be much fewer and farther between in the future and the religious shall greatly multiply.
"In a world in which childbearing is rarely accidental and almost never rewarding economically, birthrates increasingly reflect values choices. And so, by Darwinian process, those who adhere to traditions that preserve and celebrate the ancient injunction to “go forth and multiply” wind up putting more of their genes and ideas into the future than those who don’t. As Kaufmann shows, fertility, over time, plays out like compound interest. That is, even if religiously fundamentalist families only have a few more children than secular or religiously moderate counterparts, and they can keep those children holding on to fundamentalist faith and values (especially related to child-bearing), the passage of generations will greatly magnify their numbers and influence. Similarly, secularists and others who choose to have only one or two children, and who pass those values on to their children, will, over time, see their population decline precipitously."
Will religious people inherit the earth? Will secular people go extinct? I will say this only once, so pay attention: I don't know.
I am NOT an unbiased observer. There are few such people, maybe none. I do have a stake in the matter, and you may as well. I can only present to you the information that I am given and then ask that you draw your own conclusions.
-Dee
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