Philosophy Articles & News
Evolution and Exorcisms
EVOLUTION: More surprising to me as I consider where my intellectual head-space has been on this issue, which is central to theological ideal; is the fact that I have become more of a creationist. Skeptics may say that God doesn't exist and I am inclined to agree he/she isn't within our purview to limit and say we know; HIM, or even what it is that really goes on, in the world about us. It would be difficult to say there is any one humanistic discipline or theology that fits ...
Satus Anxiety
'Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories. The first - the story of our quest for sexual love - is well known and well-charted. The second - the story of our quest for love from the world - is a more secret and shameful tale. And yet this second love story is no less intense than the first.' Thus speaks Alain de Botton author of the thought provoking book Status Anxiety. In this day and age, we are given respect in direct proportion to our (perceived) ...
Phony Baloney Detection Lesson #2
Appeals to Authority Listen to this quote by a guy I am sure some of you have heard of: "Our society is dominated by experts, few more influential than psychiatrists. This influence does not derive, however, from our superior ethics or goodness or from any widespread consensus that we are especially admirable…"[1] Don't you just love that? He goes on to say, that Americans have become a people too dependent on so-called "experts" who "for better or for worse, ...
Why I'm Glad I'm Not a Minority Writer
I'll admit that I used to be jealous of my compadres who were minorities in my BFA Creative Writing program. The rest of us were just crusty white kids with no rhythm.
Viewing from Another's Perspective Sets Humans Apart?
Recently I discussed what sets humans apart from other animals and species. The basic question, which has been kicked around for centuries is what makes man so unique? So, different than the other species we see? Many immediately take their religious doctrine and use it to answer the question; they say things like “God made us in his image.” The animals were put here for us to use, eat, fish and etc; they are indeed here to serve man? After kicking around such notions which cannot be proved ...
Quotes to Think About
INSPIRATIONAL COMMENTS: “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt prior to investigation. – Herbert Spencer” Albert Einstein - "We are seeking for the simplest possible scheme of thought that will bind together the observed facts." "If we do not expect the unexpected, we will never find it." – Heraclitus "Human beings, ...
Infinity Feynman
RICHARD FEYNMAN: - I had the great pleasure of watching a movie called Infinity by Matthew Broderick and his wife. What a joy! To see a person whose father taught him to observe rather than codify or label in order to get marks or social acceptance. Education that focuses on the soul and ethics is what humanity will need to handle the outcome of the Pandora’s Box unleashed by his fellow atom-mysticists. What a treat to see the ethics and honesty that made it difficult for him to lie ...
Simple Words
The words, the thoughts, the processes go on and on. As simple as it may seem to me I tend to feel that all words have their own meaning and not always the dictionary form. A simple word takes the form of many other words as each individual person who hears it puts it through a transformation process. A doctor can take a word and change it into a disease. A carpenter can take a word and change it into a tool. Is it that no one is listening or is it that each ...
It's Not Your Fault!
Saying goodbye is easy for the traveler. I am a person who traveled so much that I had no roots except ‘within’ and I learned to be connected to ‘What IS’.
What Is Destiny? Is There Some Thing Called Free Will?
One of the greatest and everlasting debates of humanity has been about the role of destiny in the lives of human beings. There was a time when it was almost an accepted fact of life that each and every event was governed by destiny of human beings. Astrology was considered a science. Then with the advent of modern times the importance of role of destiny as a concept started losing weight. Today, belief in destiny is considered a superstition by majority of people. And rightly so, since there ...
Archetypes
DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY (ARCHETYPES): - "All material bodies are condensations of frozen bodies." (2) Jung is becoming 'in vogue' again, I hear. Perhaps this time around it won't just involve so little real appreciation for all that he meant and understood. Dream interpretation and projected Western values can be a Freudian gambit - Jung grew to see things few will ever admit to in the present ideologies of the West. He was able to contact the future before the First World War ...
Darius and the US Postal Service
DARIUS: - Coins bearing his visage are found in the Americas but we would never expect to see normal academic overviews mention this for public consideration. And I was not surprised when I read many other things about Aryans and supposed first Empires, as I read the following part of a far larger presentation. Was the US support of the Shah connected to a larger and long term plan to manage the plebs or serfs who think they are free?
Tempus Fugit and the Dollar Doesn't
Money is time, a commodity which can be used to gage worth in respect to the time needed to construct, design, build, assemble, mine or in other ways accomplish a task, the creation of a product, a skill, an idea or any materialistic value. The value of a dollar changes from moment to moment depending on who possesses it at any specific point in time.
The Tree of Life and Allies
There are names in many languages and cultures or even within each culture, separate cults with different names for 'forces of nature'. Allies, guides, elementals, fairies, elves, gnomes, leprechauns and so the list would grow into the thousands. How many different dimensions or M-branes we might interact with at some level of our 'cosmic soup' is part of the question? There are different ways to access and varied levels or degrees of access. Not all are reliably replicable ...
Choice and Social Acceptance in Human Organizations
Let’s discuss choice and social acceptance. I had the most interesting conversation the other day with a friend at a coffee shop. I was working on a quote and read it out loud and then we discussed it for hours. First here is the quote:
Plato's Atlantis: Fact, Fiction or Prophecy?
Atlantis is often described as paranormal or mythical, but is it really? In two of Plato's great works, the Timaeus and the Critias, Plato describes an Athenian civilization in diaglogue between Critias, Socrates, Timaeus and Hermocrates. (Predating Plato by 9,000 years, or 9,600 BC) Atlantis, according to Critias, was a great Athenian city which, by the hand of mankind, met with cataclysmic destruction. By his (Solon) grandfather's education, Critias retold the story of an Athenian ...
Critical Thinking To Go: Dodging The Pepperoni Pizza Fallacy
Today we commonly hear in the news journalistic items about religion and politics, or faith and something else, where the suggested "duo du jour" usually sit in opposition to one another. One could do this, of course, just as easily with other areas of human thought, as with sociology vs. history, or economics vs. psychology. But most people do not seem nearly as interested in this exercise as they seem anxious to set "religion" over against whatever other area they might find ...
All That We Are... Are Labels
Within the confines of the known universe, a madness is present that taints all of the knowledge which every human being has aquired within their life, and within the lives of others.
William Butler Yeats
There are adepts outside of what is called alchemy who have achieved great things in these areas and there are alchemists before Socrates and Aristotle, or Da Vinci and Newton; who all true experts know were alchemists. For any author or journalist who would produce a TV documentary on the subject and not even interview a hermeticist (much less an alchemist) it is obvious their intent is not to educate. So when you see Time/Life videos doing that kind of show I hope you know you are being ...
In Answer To: Words Of Encouragement
Throughout my life, I have always known that it is not easy to fight injustices. I grew up in Jersey City and started to work during summers at the age of fourteen. I quit school just prior to sixteen and went to work full time because after 22 years my father had decided to leave my mother and someone had to do it. My mom was trying hard to go back to work after being a housewife for all those years but her health was not so great and she just couldn't do it long.
The Earth Energy Grid
EARTH ENERGY GRID: - Sedona, Arizona is not only my own personal special place in nature - almost all spiritual organizations have conventions, churches or offices near all these vortices of earth energy and nature. There is a secret government base in a valley to the north and under a swamp some engineers found signs similar to the Nazca Lines and other natural spirit forms from ancient peoples. That was after a dry spell and I no longer have the article from a local paper to quote ...
The Cosmic Eggs
One of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World is reported (many years after all but the Great Pyramid had vanished) to be the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus. This great goddess has what many archaeologists and historians have interpreted to be nearly a thousand breasts on her body. It is being commented on in this very manner as I type this. The Discovery Channel is interviewing an esteemed Cambridge scholar who looks to know his words are as wise as Solomon. The stupidity of such absurd ...
Belief is Closure
The CON in CONstructs: There are many esoteric wisdom schools and many divisions or a hierarchy in each one of them. Some of the initiates think they are all-knowing once they see what their school has placed in the ether to make them think what they want to think. Carl Jung describes something related to this in his forward to The Tibetan Book of the Dead. He makes it clear that once a person is entering the afterlife they will see what they thought they believed or ...
Reflection on the Nature of History
Humans Who Are Disrespected Seek Revenge
The easiest way to gain enemies is to disrespect people. Inherently for some reason; humans who are disrespected more often than not seek revenge. This should be a warning of what happens in business deals, corporate brainstorming (with regards to hard earned and developed Organizational Capital) or even an outcast member of society. What is the most unfortunate situation in all of these instances is that the whole of the group loses from the possible ideas and innovations of these ...
DNA, Fiction and Society; How it Affects Thought
A book called the Seven Daughters of Eve by Richard Sykes is worthy of a read and talks about what we have learned about the flow of human beings populations through DNA research. Thus it is safe to say that certain members of our species have developed differently and in different ways, meaning the brain also learns differently. As Scientists look at different human brains while doing various tasks and watch which areas light up with energy as it works through these different thoughts and ...
Desire is the First Step
When a member of a species determines it wants something a thought is born, which triggers a desire and thus starts the brain into a cycle innovation and strategy. If it is hunger in a Bald Eagle it means flying over the river to catch a Salmon. If it is a tourist who is cold it means going in and buying a sweatshirt. This comes first and is the reason we must first discuss the flow of thought before we attempt to discuss any other issues in our society.
26 Things I Learned From the Movies
I’m a huge fan of the movies – it’s my way of relaxing. Some people golf, others listen to music (actually I do these too) but I think the most fun you can have (legally) for around $15 is to sit through a good movie. Here are 26 things I’ve learned from regularly immersing myself in Hollywood’s alternate reality…
Culture and Knowledge
In eastern Cultures the passing of thought was considered valuable, so much in fact that even to this day members of those cultures respect their elders and listen to their advice. The passing of such thoughts and concepts and philosophies is of extreme value. The Christianity religion and its followers take those stories in the bible literally, almost to an absolute truth. Much of which is an incredible gift from those who came before us and experienced their lives and had something to say ...
Raindrops Keep Falling On My Web
I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them. The probability of that obviously is very low but laws of probability have often been known to falter at the crucial test of reality. For example, there is a statistical theory that if you gave a million monkeys typewriters and set them to work, they’d eventually comes up with the complete works of Shakespeare. Thanks to the Internet, we now know this isn’t true.