A program called "5th Dimension" does an hour show on debunking reincarnation. It includes a case study of Shanti Devi, a girl born in India in 1926 who was tested by Gandhi and Ian Stevenson and became a media sensation in her time. Next is a segment with Stevenson's research, followed by a story from Pueblo, USA, of Bridey Murphy. It ends with a segment about the Dalai Lama.
Of course people like the head of the Indian (ir-)Rationalist Association Sanal Edamaruku like to say it's all fake (he actually does say that). He says that belief in reincarnation was created to explain the caste system, and, by extension, "takes away the sense of enterprise in people." Does it? Untouchable (Dalit) K. R. Narayana became President of India, and fellow untouchable K. G. Balakrishnan became Chief Justice of India. That's about as far from having their sense of enterprise taken away as you can get. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the highest level Brahmin, strove to destroy the caste system, as did Gandhi, another Brahmin. If the lowest of the low and the highest of the high can work together, both achieving great things, how is it that belief in reincarnation destroys their desire to strive and better their lives? In light of that it is safe to say that Edamaruku's criticism falls apart.
As a side note, the term "rationalist" means someone who believes true knowledge cannot be attained through the senses, only through the rational mind. This is in sharp contrast with people like Edamaruku who believes that the mind doesn't exist, that everything is dead matter, and that knowledge can only come from the senses. Fundamaterialist skep-dick debunkers like to hijack the word "rationalist" and "rational" to mean its opposite, just like they like to hijack the word "nothing" to mean "the quantum vacuum that has existed forever into the past".
There's also Prof. Phillip Sharp (or Shar or something, the narrator has a thick accent and no spelling is given and none of the people interviewed are acknowledged in the credits!), a white guy who uses a version of Bob Couttie's argument against Devi's case (see page 14 in my Forbidden Knowledge). Couttie said that just because a record of a chemical plant's bad safety existed somewhere several hours before the plant exploded (the report was filed on the same day it exploded) coupled with fear of chemical plants that a housewife some distance away having a premonition of the explosion can be explained away by cryptamnesia of her hearing about this report. Even though there's no evidence that the housewife or indeed anyone in the town in which she lived or anyone she knew had any knowledge of this report, and no evidence that even existence of this report got out before the accident, Couttie says that the mere existence of the report justifies the extreme likelihood of a Rube Goldberg nonpsychic explanation for how the housewife had the premonition. Similarly Prof. Sharp says that just because Devi's husband in a former life visited her neighborhood in Delhi to do business means that Devi likely overheard the man and that's how she got the idea of her past life, and correctly identified people she never met, and made a great deal of correct statements of a city she never went to. For skep-dicks as long as a non-psychic explanation is not impossible that means there is at least a 99.999% chance that the non-psychic explanation is the correct one. Actual scientists, on the other hand, like Ian Stevenson, conduct huge amounts of actual research to produce cases suggestive of reincarnation.
Archskep-dick Chris French chimes in, saying children with past life memories are all cultural dependent, which conveniently ignores children with past life memories who come from cultures that are neutral or hostile to belief in reincarnation. If pressed he would come up with some bullshit response.
Overall if a student gave me this to grade I would give it a D+, maybe a C- but only because of the stuff at the end with the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman. This should serve as an example of how NOT to do a documentary.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Plutarch On Love (Repost - 15 February 2008)
I was reading Plutarch's Dialogue on Love when I got to thinking. Daphnaeus, who plays the part of Plutarch, seems to have some very good things to say about sexuality, responsibility, and self-satisfaction.
The modern notions of human sexuality would be completely alien to the ancient Greeks as their notions are alien to people living today. People from Greece, today, complained about Oliver Stone's movie Alexander for portraying Alexander the Great as a homosexual, yet not only does the film not portray Alexander as homosexual (even considering the one minute deleted scene where Alexander and Bagoas are getting ready to have sex) but the concept didn't exist in his time that exists today. What happened between a man and a woman, or a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, or a woman and a woman and a man (I don't need to go through all the combinations) was a seperate sphere of society as what happened at home to keep your duty to the state. People persued sexual liasons outside the home, with members of the same sex and the opposite sex and at the end of the day went home and (at least tried) to be good spouses and to have children and raise them right. Sex could be about individual physical pleasure but it also was a show of power and authority one person held over a subordinate. How would you show you are someone's superior -- through sexual acts.
The ancient Greeks made it clear: you are free to express yourself sexually any way you want, but society runs by order and every member of that society has a duty to fulfill (a dharma) to keep that order in place and assure everybody is happy and safe. And what is one of the primary duties a Greek citizen has to uphold the order? That would be to create and maintain a good home and to have children. What you do at home is for the children, not for you; what you do outside the home is for you, but at home you have a duty to your children because they are the future of the state and maintaining the order of the state is your duty. When you put it like that notions of homosexuals and heterosexuals seem unimportant. Marriage isn't about love, it's about children; it's about admitting there's something bigger and more important than your petty self-endulgence and your personal enjoyment. I think in our culture ruled by materialism we have forgotten this.
And what did Plutarch say? Protogenes is going on for hours about how women are incapable of feeling love and that the only true love that can exist is betwen two men (actually between a man and a boy), and that it is only begrudgingly he fulfills the lawful requirement of having kids with his wife. After courteously letting him talk for a long time Daphnaeus chuckles and retorts something to the effect of "well, Protogenes, you say that you cannot know love except the love that exists between two men but we all know what happens between you and your wife when you get home, and you certainly don't seem to be reluctant or antipathetic about it."
The modern notions of human sexuality would be completely alien to the ancient Greeks as their notions are alien to people living today. People from Greece, today, complained about Oliver Stone's movie Alexander for portraying Alexander the Great as a homosexual, yet not only does the film not portray Alexander as homosexual (even considering the one minute deleted scene where Alexander and Bagoas are getting ready to have sex) but the concept didn't exist in his time that exists today. What happened between a man and a woman, or a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, or a woman and a woman and a man (I don't need to go through all the combinations) was a seperate sphere of society as what happened at home to keep your duty to the state. People persued sexual liasons outside the home, with members of the same sex and the opposite sex and at the end of the day went home and (at least tried) to be good spouses and to have children and raise them right. Sex could be about individual physical pleasure but it also was a show of power and authority one person held over a subordinate. How would you show you are someone's superior -- through sexual acts.
The ancient Greeks made it clear: you are free to express yourself sexually any way you want, but society runs by order and every member of that society has a duty to fulfill (a dharma) to keep that order in place and assure everybody is happy and safe. And what is one of the primary duties a Greek citizen has to uphold the order? That would be to create and maintain a good home and to have children. What you do at home is for the children, not for you; what you do outside the home is for you, but at home you have a duty to your children because they are the future of the state and maintaining the order of the state is your duty. When you put it like that notions of homosexuals and heterosexuals seem unimportant. Marriage isn't about love, it's about children; it's about admitting there's something bigger and more important than your petty self-endulgence and your personal enjoyment. I think in our culture ruled by materialism we have forgotten this.
And what did Plutarch say? Protogenes is going on for hours about how women are incapable of feeling love and that the only true love that can exist is betwen two men (actually between a man and a boy), and that it is only begrudgingly he fulfills the lawful requirement of having kids with his wife. After courteously letting him talk for a long time Daphnaeus chuckles and retorts something to the effect of "well, Protogenes, you say that you cannot know love except the love that exists between two men but we all know what happens between you and your wife when you get home, and you certainly don't seem to be reluctant or antipathetic about it."
Saturday, January 7, 2012
US Navy Rescues Persian Fishermen
The Persians want to close the Strait of Hormuz, from which 35% of the world's oil flows (other wiki's numbers). They want all US ships out of the area and are making threats. The President has enacted legislation that he can punish anyone doing business witht he Persians. Tensions are high, but in spite of everything the crew of the USS Kidd, one of the ships the Persians wants out of their waters, rescued 13 Persian fishermen from Somali pirates the other day. The Navy released about 20 seconds of grainy video of the situation.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
The Hawkeye Cauci and The Most Dangerous Man in the World
After Mitt Romney spent more money than humanly possible to completely destroy Newt Gingrich he removed from the race in Iowa everyone else except the most dangerous man in the world: Ron Paul. First some history.
Iowa is a little state, kind of like a little country really. It is really, really empty. Iowa's biggest "city" is Des Moines, which is actually pronounced "Day Moyn" but you would never guess it, is pretty much the only place where people actually live with vast, empty land stretching out for hundreds of miles in every direction. Their crown jewel is a place called Hawkeye Point, a 40 foot hill which is the flattest "highest" elevation on any part of the planet. The site is marked by a grain silo. Nobody knows what happens here, what they produce, or what their culture is. The biggest thing to happen in Iowa is the famous Hawkeye Cauci, that happens every four years. People from all over the country descend upon tiny tiny Iowa to watch presidential hopefuls duke it out then leave the state to its own devices for another four years. Since nobody ever gives Iowa anything they were allowed to have their presidential caucuses before every other state, all the way in January, dragging the presidential campaigns out to ten damn months.
Since 1979 the winner of the Hawkeye Cauci has gone on to win the party nomination roughly 50% of the time, meaning that for all the hype the Hawkeye Cauci is no better than a coin toss at predicting anything.
ADDENDUM
From the AP: With 100% of precincts reporting, relative unknown Rick Santorum has taken first place in the Hawkeye Cauci with 29,908 votes, or 24.6%. Mitt Romney is in very close second with 29,874 votes, or 24.5%. Ron Paul came in third with 26,097 votes, or 21.4%, and Newt Gingrich, the defeated, got 16,161 votes, or 13.3%. It is now safe to say that Rick Santorum, whoever he is, now has a 50-50 chance of winning the Republican presidential nomination for 2012.
ADDENDUM 2
The AP's report as of 2 am was inaccurate. Romney won with 30,015 votes and Santorum came in second with 30,007.
Enough of that, now on to why Ron Paul is the most dangerous man in the world. For the sake of the world it may be better to let Obama have a second term to put Ron Paul into office, should he become the Republican nominee. Let's look at some facts.
Ron Paul had no idea what the content of his own newsletter was.
Now being a doctor is hard work, and Mr. Paul has had a long career in doctoring and bringing babies into the world, so he knows a thing or two about accountability. Unfortunately he let "ghostwriters" insert loads of racist crap into his newsletters under his nose for years with his only defense being "I didn't know it was there and I don't endorse it." I didn't know employees were running an illegal international organ trafficking ring in my shipping company, and I don't endorse it, so I shouldn't be held responsible for being an accessory to their crimes.* No one is questioning Paul's sincerity in stating his ignorance and rejection of the racist crap people were doing under his name, but the United States is a much larger enterprise than a tiny newsletter. If Ron Paul doesn't know and doesn't endorse what's going on behind his back in his own publication how can he be expected to handle the most powerful office in the world?
Ron Paul is dangerously isolationist.
Many a Ron Paul robot has attacked me for saying the simple truth that their candidate is an isolationist. There is no shame in isolationism. There is no need to hide behind fictional categorisations of being "non-interventionist" when the truth is, Ron Paul was against the US action in Afghanistan following the attacks of 9/11. The very same attacks that provoked near unanimous approval in both houses of Congress to authorise reprisal** against al Qaeda and the Taliban (among other entities) [only California Representative Barbara Lee (D.) voted against the resolution in 2001]. Ron Paul insiders reveal that the only reason Paul voted in favour of the resolution is because his entire staff threatened to resign and he knew he could never win re-election anywhere ever if he did.
Ron Paul believes that the United States should not have gotten involved in fighting Germany in the Second World War, even though they declaired war on the US after Pearl Harbor. He firmly believes that it was not the job of the US to save the Jews from Hitler's death camps and that FDR knew about the Pearl Harbor attacks before they happened and used them as a pretext for war. If saving millions of people from Hitler isn't worth fighting for nothing is.
As bad as Obama's foreign policy is it absolutely pales in comparison to Ron Paul's psychopathic complacency toward genocide.
Ron Paul certainly would let North Korea invade South Korea, starting the Third World War and killing tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people and perhaps permanantly destroying the global economy.
Ron Paul certainly would let Persia get nuclear weapons, and let them disseminate those weapons to every terror group and rogue state on the planet, and use those nuclear weapons to attack Israel. In so doing Ron Paul is perfectly unmoved by the thought that anyone should have the capability to kill everyone by initiating an all out nuclear war.
Ron Paul is a 9/11 "truther".
As you know, 9/11 "truth" is the biggest load of bullshit ever. Former Ron Paul staffer Eric Dondaro states: "He immediately stated to us staffers, me in particular, that Bush/Cheney were going to use the attacks as a precursor for ‘invading’ Iraq. He engaged in conspiracy theories including perhaps the attacks were coordinated with the CIA, and that the Bush administration might have known about the attacks ahead of time. He expressed no sympathies whatsoever for those who died on 9/11."
Ron Paul is anti-Israel
Ron Paul sides with a completely fictional group of people who have no history and were invented for political reasons in the early 20th century, wants to abolish the state of Israel, which was created by the British as a result of a legitimate peace treaty that gave them legitimate power to do so after defeating the Ottomans in a legitimate war, and give everything to the Arabs "from the river to the sea." As if being perfectly content with Hitler murdering millions of Jews he now wants to kick them out of their country that has been their legitimate home for the past 3200 years.
Does this not disgust you? If the imminent threat of hundreds of millions of people being killed in nuclear war or complacency with genocide is what you want then you can vote for Ron Paul and then go straight to Hell.
*Neither Ron Paul or myself has taken part in illegal organ trafficking. This is merely a rhetorical device.
**Reprisal is a limited military action, in violation of international law, taken against another sovereign entity that has already broken international law in attacking another sovereign entity. It is not the same thing as a war. The Afghan people live in a culture that accepts revenge and they were in full acceptance of limited actions against al Qaeda and the Taliban, whom they hated greatly. Nobody knew those limited actions would last a decade and cost half a trillion dollars, even if bin Laden was killed and the Taliban decapitated.
Iowa is a little state, kind of like a little country really. It is really, really empty. Iowa's biggest "city" is Des Moines, which is actually pronounced "Day Moyn" but you would never guess it, is pretty much the only place where people actually live with vast, empty land stretching out for hundreds of miles in every direction. Their crown jewel is a place called Hawkeye Point, a 40 foot hill which is the flattest "highest" elevation on any part of the planet. The site is marked by a grain silo. Nobody knows what happens here, what they produce, or what their culture is. The biggest thing to happen in Iowa is the famous Hawkeye Cauci, that happens every four years. People from all over the country descend upon tiny tiny Iowa to watch presidential hopefuls duke it out then leave the state to its own devices for another four years. Since nobody ever gives Iowa anything they were allowed to have their presidential caucuses before every other state, all the way in January, dragging the presidential campaigns out to ten damn months.
Since 1979 the winner of the Hawkeye Cauci has gone on to win the party nomination roughly 50% of the time, meaning that for all the hype the Hawkeye Cauci is no better than a coin toss at predicting anything.
ADDENDUM
From the AP: With 100% of precincts reporting, relative unknown Rick Santorum has taken first place in the Hawkeye Cauci with 29,908 votes, or 24.6%. Mitt Romney is in very close second with 29,874 votes, or 24.5%. Ron Paul came in third with 26,097 votes, or 21.4%, and Newt Gingrich, the defeated, got 16,161 votes, or 13.3%. It is now safe to say that Rick Santorum, whoever he is, now has a 50-50 chance of winning the Republican presidential nomination for 2012.
ADDENDUM 2
The AP's report as of 2 am was inaccurate. Romney won with 30,015 votes and Santorum came in second with 30,007.
Enough of that, now on to why Ron Paul is the most dangerous man in the world. For the sake of the world it may be better to let Obama have a second term to put Ron Paul into office, should he become the Republican nominee. Let's look at some facts.
Ron Paul had no idea what the content of his own newsletter was.
Now being a doctor is hard work, and Mr. Paul has had a long career in doctoring and bringing babies into the world, so he knows a thing or two about accountability. Unfortunately he let "ghostwriters" insert loads of racist crap into his newsletters under his nose for years with his only defense being "I didn't know it was there and I don't endorse it." I didn't know employees were running an illegal international organ trafficking ring in my shipping company, and I don't endorse it, so I shouldn't be held responsible for being an accessory to their crimes.* No one is questioning Paul's sincerity in stating his ignorance and rejection of the racist crap people were doing under his name, but the United States is a much larger enterprise than a tiny newsletter. If Ron Paul doesn't know and doesn't endorse what's going on behind his back in his own publication how can he be expected to handle the most powerful office in the world?
Ron Paul is dangerously isolationist.
Many a Ron Paul robot has attacked me for saying the simple truth that their candidate is an isolationist. There is no shame in isolationism. There is no need to hide behind fictional categorisations of being "non-interventionist" when the truth is, Ron Paul was against the US action in Afghanistan following the attacks of 9/11. The very same attacks that provoked near unanimous approval in both houses of Congress to authorise reprisal** against al Qaeda and the Taliban (among other entities) [only California Representative Barbara Lee (D.) voted against the resolution in 2001]. Ron Paul insiders reveal that the only reason Paul voted in favour of the resolution is because his entire staff threatened to resign and he knew he could never win re-election anywhere ever if he did.
Ron Paul believes that the United States should not have gotten involved in fighting Germany in the Second World War, even though they declaired war on the US after Pearl Harbor. He firmly believes that it was not the job of the US to save the Jews from Hitler's death camps and that FDR knew about the Pearl Harbor attacks before they happened and used them as a pretext for war. If saving millions of people from Hitler isn't worth fighting for nothing is.
As bad as Obama's foreign policy is it absolutely pales in comparison to Ron Paul's psychopathic complacency toward genocide.
Ron Paul certainly would let North Korea invade South Korea, starting the Third World War and killing tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people and perhaps permanantly destroying the global economy.
Ron Paul certainly would let Persia get nuclear weapons, and let them disseminate those weapons to every terror group and rogue state on the planet, and use those nuclear weapons to attack Israel. In so doing Ron Paul is perfectly unmoved by the thought that anyone should have the capability to kill everyone by initiating an all out nuclear war.
Ron Paul is a 9/11 "truther".
As you know, 9/11 "truth" is the biggest load of bullshit ever. Former Ron Paul staffer Eric Dondaro states: "He immediately stated to us staffers, me in particular, that Bush/Cheney were going to use the attacks as a precursor for ‘invading’ Iraq. He engaged in conspiracy theories including perhaps the attacks were coordinated with the CIA, and that the Bush administration might have known about the attacks ahead of time. He expressed no sympathies whatsoever for those who died on 9/11."
Ron Paul is anti-Israel
Ron Paul sides with a completely fictional group of people who have no history and were invented for political reasons in the early 20th century, wants to abolish the state of Israel, which was created by the British as a result of a legitimate peace treaty that gave them legitimate power to do so after defeating the Ottomans in a legitimate war, and give everything to the Arabs "from the river to the sea." As if being perfectly content with Hitler murdering millions of Jews he now wants to kick them out of their country that has been their legitimate home for the past 3200 years.
Does this not disgust you? If the imminent threat of hundreds of millions of people being killed in nuclear war or complacency with genocide is what you want then you can vote for Ron Paul and then go straight to Hell.
*Neither Ron Paul or myself has taken part in illegal organ trafficking. This is merely a rhetorical device.
**Reprisal is a limited military action, in violation of international law, taken against another sovereign entity that has already broken international law in attacking another sovereign entity. It is not the same thing as a war. The Afghan people live in a culture that accepts revenge and they were in full acceptance of limited actions against al Qaeda and the Taliban, whom they hated greatly. Nobody knew those limited actions would last a decade and cost half a trillion dollars, even if bin Laden was killed and the Taliban decapitated.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Transpersonal Psychology: A Brief Definition (300th Post!)
Here's a nice video on transpersonal psychology, transpersonal events, mysticism, Ken Wilber, and some other stuff. Runs 12:12 (perfect for 2012).
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Timur's Body
Some people are so evil that not even death can stop them.
Fig. 1: Amir Timur statue, Uzbekistan
Timur was the son of some middle class dude in Transoxiana (modern day Uzbekistan, home of what used to be the Aral Sea, the Sogdian Rock, magnificent architecture, and Khiva, one of the last independent kingdoms of the 20th century to be battled over between the British and Russians in the Great Game. You also can't read the Bible, use the Internet, and prisoners are frequently tortured to death). He had ambitions. Unsatisfied with his prospects, Timur became a warrior and decided to conquer the Mongol empire like his hero Chingis Khan. To achieve this goal he invented a fake geneology linking him to the great Khan and married the Khan's granddaughter.
Timur then conquered the Persian Il-Khanate ("little" Khanate), and half of the Chagatai Khanate. He punished the Golden Horde for overstepping their boundaries as tributary state, permanantly destroying their economy. His greatest passtime during this period was abducting scholars and artists and transporting them to Samarkand, which they were to make into the most magnificent city in the world. He also liked to slaughter tens of thousands of people and make towers out of their heads for no other purpose than because it looked cool.
Timur's next venture was to prove that he is "not a man of blood" and that "God is my witness that in all my wars I have never been the aggressor, and that my enemies have always been the authors of their own calamity." He looked to the Quran for advice whether to slaughter every single person in India or every single person in China for being infidels and India turned out to be closer. He went there with his army and destroyed the Delhi Sultanate because they were the wrong kind of Muslims. He proceededt o ravage India, slaughtering more than a million people and making towers out of their heads. Every time his men would slaughter 20,000 Indians in a single afternoon he would throw a massive two day long feast so they could revel in their own crapulence.
Satisfied that it would take over a century for the subcontinent to repopulate he went West to slaughter the Ottomans for being the wrong kind of Muslim. In a bloody battle, Timur killed the Ottoman sultan and threw the empire into chaos. He also depopulated nearby Christian kingdoms for being infidels as well as other Muslim kingdoms for being the wrong kind of Muslims.
Fig. 2: Timur's Empire at the time of his death in 1405.
Something was still eating away at Timur. He was getting old and he hadn't slaughtered everyone in China yet, nor had he conquered the entire Mongol empire. He saddled up his army and went to China, but the weather was bad and he died. His body was placed in a lavish tomb in Samarkand with a curse: should anyone remove his body a fate more terrible will befall them than if Timur himself would ravish their country. Like the curse of King Tut, Timur's curse had real power to it. Unlike Tut's curse, which only claimed the lives around 20 people (and a dog and a bird), Timur's curse claimed the lives of millions.
Soviet archaeologists/tomb raiders broke into Timur's tomb in June 1941. Two days later Hitler broke the non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, launching Operation Barbarosa, the largest single military campaign ever. Eastern Europe would be devastated, millions would die both soldiers and civilians, and the Nazis would take control of an additional 13% of the continent, creating the largest empire in European history. One million people would die in Leningrad, another million in Stalingrad, three million Soviet soldiers would die as Nazi prisoners, and millions of Slavs and other unwanted would be sent to die in the death camps.
Realising the gravity of the situation the Soviets reintered Timur's body in November 1942. A few days later they launched Operation Uranus, the decisive counteroffensive that would push the Nazis back from Stalingrad and pave the way for the fall of the Third Reich.
Some might scoff and say that it is merely coincidence that within days of Timur's tomb being disturbed the largest military operation ever was launched and laid waste to the Soviet Union. They will say it is mere coincidence that within days of his body being put back the tide of the war turned and the Soviets were able to gain an iron grip on Eastern Europe for the next half century. I ask, "what is the measure of coincidence?" In the scientific method you make an injunction, follow it through to collect data, and check it against the results of others who have done 1 and 2. Timur's curse is the same. There's an injunction: "remove my body and your country will be devastated." Performing the injunction leads to the data: what he said would happen happened. The experiment was done in reverse with the reverse results: Timur's body was put back and the enemies of the Soviet Union were devastated and the Soviet Union grew in power undreamed of previously. The only thing missing is step three, repeating the experiment, which is a very bad idea in this case as the intended result is millions of people dying.
What we're left with is a mystery. Timur's curse did exactly what it said it would when it said it would, which is strong evidence in its favour. Unfortunately morality prevents us from testing his curse again so we can't be 100% certain. Still, for what it's worth, it's made a believer out of me.
Fig. 1: Amir Timur statue, Uzbekistan
Timur was the son of some middle class dude in Transoxiana (modern day Uzbekistan, home of what used to be the Aral Sea, the Sogdian Rock, magnificent architecture, and Khiva, one of the last independent kingdoms of the 20th century to be battled over between the British and Russians in the Great Game. You also can't read the Bible, use the Internet, and prisoners are frequently tortured to death). He had ambitions. Unsatisfied with his prospects, Timur became a warrior and decided to conquer the Mongol empire like his hero Chingis Khan. To achieve this goal he invented a fake geneology linking him to the great Khan and married the Khan's granddaughter.
Timur then conquered the Persian Il-Khanate ("little" Khanate), and half of the Chagatai Khanate. He punished the Golden Horde for overstepping their boundaries as tributary state, permanantly destroying their economy. His greatest passtime during this period was abducting scholars and artists and transporting them to Samarkand, which they were to make into the most magnificent city in the world. He also liked to slaughter tens of thousands of people and make towers out of their heads for no other purpose than because it looked cool.
Timur's next venture was to prove that he is "not a man of blood" and that "God is my witness that in all my wars I have never been the aggressor, and that my enemies have always been the authors of their own calamity." He looked to the Quran for advice whether to slaughter every single person in India or every single person in China for being infidels and India turned out to be closer. He went there with his army and destroyed the Delhi Sultanate because they were the wrong kind of Muslims. He proceededt o ravage India, slaughtering more than a million people and making towers out of their heads. Every time his men would slaughter 20,000 Indians in a single afternoon he would throw a massive two day long feast so they could revel in their own crapulence.
Satisfied that it would take over a century for the subcontinent to repopulate he went West to slaughter the Ottomans for being the wrong kind of Muslim. In a bloody battle, Timur killed the Ottoman sultan and threw the empire into chaos. He also depopulated nearby Christian kingdoms for being infidels as well as other Muslim kingdoms for being the wrong kind of Muslims.
Fig. 2: Timur's Empire at the time of his death in 1405.
Something was still eating away at Timur. He was getting old and he hadn't slaughtered everyone in China yet, nor had he conquered the entire Mongol empire. He saddled up his army and went to China, but the weather was bad and he died. His body was placed in a lavish tomb in Samarkand with a curse: should anyone remove his body a fate more terrible will befall them than if Timur himself would ravish their country. Like the curse of King Tut, Timur's curse had real power to it. Unlike Tut's curse, which only claimed the lives around 20 people (and a dog and a bird), Timur's curse claimed the lives of millions.
Soviet archaeologists/tomb raiders broke into Timur's tomb in June 1941. Two days later Hitler broke the non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, launching Operation Barbarosa, the largest single military campaign ever. Eastern Europe would be devastated, millions would die both soldiers and civilians, and the Nazis would take control of an additional 13% of the continent, creating the largest empire in European history. One million people would die in Leningrad, another million in Stalingrad, three million Soviet soldiers would die as Nazi prisoners, and millions of Slavs and other unwanted would be sent to die in the death camps.
Realising the gravity of the situation the Soviets reintered Timur's body in November 1942. A few days later they launched Operation Uranus, the decisive counteroffensive that would push the Nazis back from Stalingrad and pave the way for the fall of the Third Reich.
Some might scoff and say that it is merely coincidence that within days of Timur's tomb being disturbed the largest military operation ever was launched and laid waste to the Soviet Union. They will say it is mere coincidence that within days of his body being put back the tide of the war turned and the Soviets were able to gain an iron grip on Eastern Europe for the next half century. I ask, "what is the measure of coincidence?" In the scientific method you make an injunction, follow it through to collect data, and check it against the results of others who have done 1 and 2. Timur's curse is the same. There's an injunction: "remove my body and your country will be devastated." Performing the injunction leads to the data: what he said would happen happened. The experiment was done in reverse with the reverse results: Timur's body was put back and the enemies of the Soviet Union were devastated and the Soviet Union grew in power undreamed of previously. The only thing missing is step three, repeating the experiment, which is a very bad idea in this case as the intended result is millions of people dying.
What we're left with is a mystery. Timur's curse did exactly what it said it would when it said it would, which is strong evidence in its favour. Unfortunately morality prevents us from testing his curse again so we can't be 100% certain. Still, for what it's worth, it's made a believer out of me.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
A Tale of Two Cities
There are two towns named Bethlehem in the Holy Land.
Tradition places the site of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem near Jerusalem, which currently sits in the Palestinian territory. A journey here from Nazareth would have taken weeks; not the kind of trip for a woman about to give birth to take.
There is another town named Bethlehem right next to Nazareth, about two days journey to the Northwest. It is more likely that it was this Bethlehem, not the more famous one to the South, where Jesus was born.
This map was made in 2009 and shows some well known sites in the Holy Land.
Tradition places the site of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem near Jerusalem, which currently sits in the Palestinian territory. A journey here from Nazareth would have taken weeks; not the kind of trip for a woman about to give birth to take.
There is another town named Bethlehem right next to Nazareth, about two days journey to the Northwest. It is more likely that it was this Bethlehem, not the more famous one to the South, where Jesus was born.
This map was made in 2009 and shows some well known sites in the Holy Land.
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