Meandering Notes From Afar: Bush, Ashcroft, Astrophysics, Time/Space, The Tachyon, Prophets and Profits...
HELL IN A HANDBASKET
How the discovery of the mythical Tachyon and the quantum have allowed me to comprehend the physics of prayer. How a number of politicians, and thieves on a painting I made years ago have found their destiny and how one man underwent a moral epiphany, and his seemingly odd belief system strengthened him to take a stand of honor. Further how communication with the unknown needs no ties to organized religion. Whether Metaphysics or cosmic reality, whether all or in part is fact or fiction is for each to decide for his/herself.
The Nature and Efficacy of Prayer, Comey, Gonzales, God, And Jesus A few days ago, I wrote about John David Ashcroft's moment of heroic immortality. While I have written strongly against some of his actions and ideas, in this case, I applauded his heroic stand and that of his Deputy, James Comey. I had prayed (literally) for the following, with no human involvement, that some, Ashcroft included, would reach a point when honor overtakes loyalty and they repent of their association with the Demoniacs, and either resign, turn state's evidence or are rendered unable to continue in office. I did a painting in which I painted a number of Neo-cons, (see above) and with the (so-far exception of four, the rest have either resigned in shame, been indicted, are under investigation, been fired or dead (which I prophecied two days before after several pleads for conversion to non-corruption.
"The man attacked and labeled by Liberals and Progressives, who saw himself as some sort of David reincarnate, appears to have had qualities and principles we might have wished Nancy Pelosi possessed, one being integrity of heroic proportion. Anyone which GW Bush does not trust enough to allow to read secret documents, he is being ordered to sign on a near deathbed, is a man of a certain kind of honor, which, despite his differences with us, must command our respect, if for nothing else, for standing head, shoulders and waist, above the man who sits, sycophanting his way along, as Attorney General of the once noble mantle of the USA, upon which honor and reputation he and his henchmen have defecated all over.
John David Ashcroft refused to sign-off on the escalation of wiretapping even while seriously ill and not quite able to function. While still dazed and overcome from surgery and the aftermath drugs, assisted by his deputy, James Comey, snuffed out the most unbelievable whoring, slime balling, cowardly action, by what passes in an era of nefarious, and despicable, misbehavior, as by what degrading pestilence, to anyone with an ounce of integrity would agree, is unmatched in American history.
It was said by John the Baptist that he was not worthy to unlatch even Jesus sandals, I will say that regardless of what many may hold against John D. Ashcroft, in this case, at least, he was a man of honor and principles, it is a modest matter to say, and I do not mention his name, not wishing to sully the name of Ashcroft by association in the same line, the current Attorney General is not worthy even to clean the outhouse if only perhaps used once by his predescessor."
In my admiration for a man, which I had thought an enemy of honor and righteousness, I had to reassess my past judgment. Ashcroft's seeming Fundamentalist religious beliefs, especially in his own, daily self beatification and David inspired oil anointing, had turned me off and his attachment to a vile system, Neo-Conism/fascism, was, for me, enough to oppose him. Then he had this revelation of truth and rebelled against the tyranny encircling him, with courage and righteous anger. Or was I mistaken-partially, did instead he see them for what they were, analyze their treatment of those for which they had no more use, perhaps including him-(they wanted him to sign-off on a document they would neither allow him to read in it's entirety, nor be allowed to have analyzed by other attorneys), perhaps they tried to go around him as they did Comey, Powell and Paul O'Neil?
At any rate for some underlying reason, Ashcroft had an epiphany, and instead of hiding in the weeds or signing-off on the destruction of liberty, as the democrats later did, he had the dignity, integrity and self awareness to attempt to protect the nation form further encroachments upon freedom. In doing that, he lifted himself above all who supported the infringements upon and eradication of liberty, including the Democratic Party, who later signed-off on an even more prohibitive version of the surveillance bill in their rush to re-fund the war. His actions recertified the prayer I have been raising for some time to my God, to either convert or remove those magnetized to the evils of Fascism and their hypocritical stand against one facet of the culture of death, abortion, but an equally hypocritical rejection of once born, the caring for those children not aborted by hypocritically opposing a child healthcare plan which would care for those not aborted, and the embracement of the rest of the platform of Satan, mass murder, the planned depopulation of America, as he planned, in Nero inspired debauchery to depopulate New Orleans, sans a shred of self examination or recrimination. Is that not ample evidence of soulless Demoniac embracement or possession? The possessor? Cheney and his vile group of soulless-mates. Here are a group of men and women condemning abortion, (which I also condemn) but accepting the practice of torture, mass murder, depopulation, assassination, slander, capital punishment, Preemptive war, and breaking of every one of the 10 Commandments (Perhaps excluding adultery, for some of them, but not all of them) and a good many of the rest of the 613 Commandments of Moses, including the now dispatched Bankruptcy Act which was a virtual copy of the one supplied Moses by God, further proof of their inane hypocrisy
This article goes to steps beyond the other two I wrote on this subject, and to a new premise, my own Theo-philosophical, Meta-physical, Theoretical Astro-physics, flight of fancy, explanation of the underlying principles of where, why, how, when and by what means man effects others, himself and events seemingly beyond his control. I speak here of giftedness unknown to others who do not possess it and at times unknown or misunderstood by even those, "unknown prophets" of which our lives have been enriched, without our understanding the nature of their giftedness. (The Jews believe there to be sent them from God, each generation, 36 "unknown Prophets.") Unknown because at times, neither they nor others are aware of the source or veracity of their pronouncements and premonitions, and often they die before the occurrence of the disasters they sometimes predict, or after the resolution of those disasters has been reached because of their actions. They may or may not be aware of their own giftedness or they may be very much aware of it. Some of those I believe to fall into that category are/were, in no particular order: FDR, General George S. Patton, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Edgar Cayce, the other Jesus, who was arrested and flogged in Jerusalem for disturbing the peace by shouting in the night that Jerusalem would be sacked by Romans. He was killed when a catapult accidentally fired a missile over the wall and struck him in the head shortly before the Romans attacked and sacked Jerusalem about 70 AD. Mark Twain, who came and went on the wings of Haley's comet and made a life of aphoristic truths, concealed in humorous wisdom sayings. Zishe Breitbart was reputed to be an "unknown Prophet, but although the film THE INVINCIBLE somewhat fictionalized his life, he was apparently unconsciously aware of the danger facing his people. General Billy Mitchell, USA Air Force.
I could go on naming many, including my Grandfather, whose prophetic giftedness astonished many during and after his lifetime, and my ancestor Duke of Bagnolo, the Leader of the Albigensian Heresy. These were all men who saw the future with what to others were merely scant clues and no clear-cut "evidence." I saw, when I taught, that in a classroom, students all have access to the same information in books, handouts, internet, library and field access, but some easily see the importance of some clues that the rest overlook, miss, or ignore. Some get "A's" and some less and some fail. Some, when confronted with the same information, see it as leading to a great discovery, while others, disregard it or wave it aside as important thinking those take such trivia seriously are crazy because they lack what the latter call "evidence." Well in the real world of investments, research, and material, and esoteric success, "evidence" is what the dense, and those lacking in foresight need and by the time they get it, the bubble has come and gobne and they are left holding the empty bag. The winners, the "prophets," whether through the intellect or some other means, see what will eventually come to pass. while the rest sit by waiting for "evidence." Once the kind of "evidence" they need is found it is too late to profit from it. Even the stock market guru's have a kind of second-sight that makes them winners and the Johnny-come-lately's, who constantly seek more evidence, losers. Interesting, isn't it that some profit by embracing those they see as "Prophets" while other argue, criticize and prove that their loser mentality is good for one thing only, nay-saying, which they view as their victories (though almost always very short-lived) and others, the vast majority, see as their shortcoming and defeatist mentality.
The nature of the gift of prophecy, has apparently no basis in merit, the physiological basis is beyond my Anthropological education to ascertain. I do know that even an empirical display of incontrovertible, unquestionable, evidence incites wrathful anger in those least gifted and most heavily influenced by the darker side, especially those with a penchant for vociferously negative, illogical and devious defensiveness. This gift, variously described by Jung and Einstein as "Synchronicity" the religious faithful, as prophecy, others inaccurately as Magik, Magic or Magick, is far less the latter as the former. Plato described it in this way (translation my own, loosely adjusted to modern English): "There is in the cosmos, a stream of consciousness within which abides all knowledge, moving in an ellipse about the known universe. Its accessibility is limited to those with varying degrees of unmerited physiological or cosmological giftedness, keyed or adjusted to cosmic realities. These fortunate or unfortunate ones, with or lacking self-knowledge of their gift, go about uncovering, with no more seemingly empirical evidence than the rest of the world, to conclusions which others can neither make nor comprehend, nor guess, to their infinite fury, envious and violent jealousy. Whether or not this ability is a direct gift of the Father's of Justice (the Gods, or one supreme God) is disputable"
When two weeks short of his mother Sarah's 87th birthday, she died, that very day the largest Oak tree on her estate came crashing to the forest floor. While the “true” cause, (bold italics quotation marks, mine) swears author Resa Willis in her book, FDR and Lucy, "was the thin soil over rock base, in Dutchess County, Roosevelt's bodyguard Mike Reilly noted that, "the president was struck, as we all were by the obvious symbolism." This was Jungian Synchronicity at it's finest. "God was letting," the Roosevelt family know, regardless of the soil condition, "that they were not alone," and at the same time as Einstein had realized and said so perceptively, "... remaining anonymous...." The tree could have fallen at any time in its long history, but it fell at a significantly synchronistic time. "... those with eyes had better see, and those with ears had better hear...," Where some see nothing, (incorrectly), others see the future correctly. Where some need, wait and see for some “evidence," others act and profit. Prophecy means profit. Others, the Nay-sayers, could not, are not capable of recognizing signs under any conditions.
Synchronicity, Einstein, IQ, God, Rabbi Yeshua and the efficacy of The NT In his work after breaking with Freud, and Gross, Carl Gustav Jung conceived of and pondered what others OF less enlightenment called coincidence, as something more. there is no such thing as coincidence. That things do coincide, is evident, that the mathematics say, at one time or another many people experience what others see a synchronisms, but see no psychic significance in them, is short-sighted and reveals a lack of giftedness a kind of subconscious to conscious blindness. That is why few succeed where many fail. The many see only meaningless data and nothing of what they call "evidence," where others see meaningful signs, and don't need to have everything spelled out in what fools call "evidence." It doesn't work that way in classes in graduate school or in communications with the unknown. Discriminating taste and foresight is a rare gift. Everyone would get "A's" if provided, with no work on his or her part, "evidence." Who wouldn't know the certain answers with proof positive. Demanding "evidence" that all can comprehend of the existence of God, is like demanding evidence that all can comprehend for a grade in graduate school, forgetting that rarity is what is sought, not conformity. The Symbolic value of IQ (Intelligence Quotient) is the Ability to learn and is not "just a number." If it were GW Bush would be as qualified to a Theoretical Astro-physicist as Hawking, Einstein Gödel, Bohr, and others, Anyone could get into the best graduate schools, everyone could become Neuro-surgeons. The difference between higher Intelligence and lower proven endless studies is that those with higher intellects see more alternatives than others do. Three men or women with Intelligence Quotient's over 150, see, with each contact and discussion with each other, exponentially greater alternatives than 10 or 20 or 100 people with Intelligence Quotient's of 120 would see in endless contact meetings. That is why the vast number of great scientists, doctors, and chess players, Professors of higher education, are people with extraordinarily high intelligence, as measurable by properly prepared and scored, IQ tests. Some people cannot comprehend the significance of such realities, which is EXACTLY the point. For the most part, smarter people create more, make more money and gain greater recognition and respect because of their intellectual giftedness. Except in sports, entertainment, executive positions, and a few other areas in which high cognitive and intelligence is unnecessary, intelligence and sometimes fused with strong creativity factors, are the greatest tools for success. Height in inches for a basket ball player is no less of a criteria than a high Intelligence Quotient is for one whose work requires a giftedness of another sort.
I had an idea in 1987, so while my cousin and I made a small fortune everyone else, including the experts, brokers, economists saw nothing but upswing, my cousin and I saw degeneration of the market coming in 1987, as we do now so in late Winter we sold all our holdings and went 100% cash except for shorting, until after the Fall crash and then between fall and winter bought high flying stocks at bargain basement prices selling those much later after the recovery, some at all time highs (up to that time). Then again in 1994 I had another idea, short and buy down oil stocks to between $8.00-$10.00 a barrel than start buying up and selling at $30.00 a barrel and then buy only technology stocks and sell them before the 2000 elections. It worked and we quadrupled our net worth. Others waited because they needed "evidence." By the time the "evidence" was available it was too late to profit but not too late to jump in and lose their shoes and everything else.
Professor Bagnolo is a Renaissance man: Cultural Anthropologist, Architectural designer, painter, writer, novelist, theologian. As a child prodigy, abed with polio for almost two years, with an off the charts IQ, reading at the graduate level by 5th grade, offered an opportunity to skip three grades at age 8. Later He was a recipient of an Art Institute scholarship at age 11, a Ford Foundation Fellowship in Anthropology and in Painting and a merit scholarship in art, and was appointed a Graduate Research Assistant position in college. He holds a triple bachelor's degree in Painting and Drawing, Anthropology, Architectural Design Advertising. MA's in Cultural Anthro, Painting and more. After being tenured he taught; architecture, anthropology, Theology, advertising, painting and drawing, entrepreneuring and Creative Profit Making. He produced a star-studded Music festival, had a radio talk show in Chicago, and cable TV show. Now, retired from Teaching, he paints, writes, and pursues other ventures.
The above bio harvested from the comments of Deans, colleagues, students, clients and collector's.
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem-the most important of all human problems."
Albert Einstein, 1947; from Banesh Hoffmann, Albert Einstein Creator and Rebel, New York: New American Library, 1972, p. 95.
"I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religion than it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism."
"I do not believe in the immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it."
"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for a reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."
-Albert Einstein, German-born American physicist
Spinoza was esentially an atheist, agnostic, pantheist, deist -- he believed in a 'something' -- an order of some sort in the universe, but nothing like a personal god as referred to in the Bible. Whether you can say either Einstein or Spinoza beleived in God depends very heavily on how you define 'God'.
As for IQ, do not mistake IQ for intelligence -- they are much different. Intelligence itself is very difficult to define, and there are many definitions -- and as a predicter of any sort of success that's very problematic. Obviously there are many people of extremely high intellignece (whatever that may be) who never succeed to any degree simply because they were born as peasants in a repressive society, or must contend with other poor circumstances. Some also never think about 'intellectual' things, for various reasons -- or never communicate their thoughts.
There is also the problem of anyone creating an intelligence test unless they are at least as intelligent, and *in the same way*, as those he would wish to test. There are worlds of intellectual capabilities which IQ tests never even touch on. The super-genius flying saucer people would be too bored with an IQ test to even take one.
As for any conclusions a highly intelligent person may come to, one can generally find some other highly intelligent person who disagrees completely. (Asimov, Sagan, Russell, Dawkins, Volatire, Shaw, Edison, Darwin, and Feynman were all atheists or agnostic to a significant extent.) In any case, an 'appeal to authority' is a logical fallacy.
As for prophesy and tachyons (or quantum consciousness) Stuart Hameroff has some interestng ideas, but also much opposition from the scientific community -- and he is speaking about 'backwards time' for only very short periods (long enough to account to gamma synchrony 40Hz.)
All I can conclude from my own prognositicative dreams and such is that 'there is something strange which seems to occur' at times -- but beyond that I must let it simply be classified what my Irish ancestors might call 'second sight' or 'fey' -- and remain unexplained, with no conclusions whatever. We should resist the urge to wrest meaning from assumed anomolous experience, as is the brain's tendency to do. Ambiguity is not a bad thing, after all, even it is often a tad uncomfortable.
And no, I'm afraid science is in no position to say anything at all about god. That would be a gross category error, and a scientist is hardly especially qualified to speak about theological philosphy. Neither do I recommend buying some particular kitchen gadget because a gifted actor or athlete endorses it.
by
Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 998 comments)
on Monday, August 27, 2007 at 12:04:36 AM
In his comments to Horgan, Dawkins. claims to be an atheist yet blames the "non-existent" God for the Holcaust. You can't have it both ways. He is no more an atheist than is the late pope John, he is just pissed at God. Einstein who bristled when called an atheist, adamently endorsed his belief and though he siad often he did not beleive in a personjal God, he none-the-less prayed and endorsed Jung's theories about God's intervention in the lives of poatients who exclaimed synchronistic events. I suggest you read the Bio- by Isaacson: Einstein. It, since I met and spoke with him at length as a "Boy-Wonder," in 1949, my childhood after writing my now prophetic paper on Vietnam and world events and the coming destruction of the environment, is one of several I have read.
The reality is that I don't give a hoot what anyone does or does not believe, I am smarter than your atheist friends listed above and therefore I am my own sole authority on the existence or non-existence of God. Woody Allen says his exwife gave him rational why he did not exist, but I think I have seen him less often as I have heard from the alleged non existent God. Dogma and Organized religions to me, are not of God, and I doubt that he gives a rats-ass about a good many things priests, ministers, Mullahs and rabbi's think or think he says or thinks. I also believe that God does not care if a man is an atheist, as long as he is sincere in his reasoning. As far as Jesus is concerned, when one can read and write the Archaic languages one has call for doubts. Jesus was a Liberal Jew, Paul was the "Christian" I fought side-by-side with 2 atheists, one died an atheist, the other asked me to pray for his soul-I did, prayed for both of them.
This appeared online sometime back: Whether it is BS or true I do not know. It is a long URL so it has to be patched together. The URL is long and it seems to not fit and when I try to break it up it makes a mess but it is on the Atlanta Facons site.
"It was one of those glorious autumn afternoons, that we sometimes enjoy in England, when I was asked to go in and sit with the well known professor, Charles Darwin. He was almost bedridden for some months before he died. I used to feel when I saw him that his fine presence would make a grand picture for our Royal Academy; but never did I think so more strongly than on this particular occasion.
He was sitting up in bed, wearing a soft embroidered dressing gown, of rather a rich purple shade.
Propped up by pillows, he was gazing out on a far-stretching scene of woods and cornfields, which glowed in the light of one of those marvelous sunsets which are the beauty of Kent and Surrey. His noble forehead and fine features seem to be lit up with pleasure as I entered the room.
He waved his hand toward the window as he pointed out the scene beyond, while in the other hand he held an open Bible, which he was always studying.
"What are you reading now?" I asked as I seated myself beside his bedside. "Hebrews!" he answered - "still Hebrews. 'The Royal Book' I call it. Isn't it grand?"
Then, placing his finger on certain passages, he commented on them.
I made some allusions to the strong opinions expressed by many persons on the history of the Creation, its grandeur, and then their treatment of the earlier chapters of the Book of Genesis.
He seemed greatly distressed, his fingers twitched nervously, and a look of agony came over his face as he said: "I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything, and to my astonishment, the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them."
Then he paused, and after a few more sentences on "the holiness of God" and the "grandeur of this book," looking at the Bible which he was holding tenderly all the time, he suddenly said: "I have a summer house in the garden which holds about thirty people. It is over there," pointing through the open window. "I want you very much to speak there. I know you read the Bible in the villages. To-morrow afternoon I should like the servants on the place, some tenants and a few of the neighbours; to gather there. Will you speak to them?"
"What shall I speak about?" I asked.
"Christ Jesus!" he replied in a clear, emphatic voice, adding in a lower tone, "and his salvation. Is not that the best theme? And then I want you to sing some hymns with them. You lead on your small instrument, do you not?" The wonderful look of brightness and animation on his face as he said this I shall never forget, for he added: "If you take the meeting at three o'clock this window will be open, and you will know that I am joining in with the singing."
How I wished I could have made a picture of the fine old man and his beautiful surroundings on that memorable day."
Hope you have a good day
by
Professor Emeritus Peter Bagnolo (144 articles, 1 quicklinks, 94 diaries, 1201 comments)
on Monday, August 27, 2007 at 11:33:51 AM
is most certainly an atheist. You can see videos on the web, and read his writings (and his latest book The God Delusion). You have seen the quotes from Einstein.
You decide for yourself what you believe? That's fine -- then stop trying to justify what you believe by citing others. My point in bringing other up was to say that for the people who believe in god there are also those who do not, and there is no logical justification for turning to others for your own beliefs in a matter where it is ONLY belief which matters, and no evidence: none of those people are authorities as far as theology goes, and even among theologians there is great disagreement. As Siddhartha Guatama, the Buddha, said, follow your own light (and he himself appears to have been atheistic in most senses). In general, there is a positive correlation with IQ and educational level and atheism -- but even that doesn't prove anything one way or the other. If I'm an atheist with a few IQ points higher than you should that mean that you should uncritically defer to my judgement about god -- or anything else? Of course not! All it means is that having a modicum of intelligence does not preclude the opposing position -- and this should not be compared to the situation of a very smart person vs one with intelligence within average ranges where the 'weight' of such opinion should count for more (while even then introducing no certainty). Even the brightest people can do absurdly stupid things. Have you never poured milk in the sugar bowl, put the coffee pot in the refrigerator, went back to the computer, reached for a drink, and wondered why your coffee cup was empty?
Notice also that IQ tests generally put one through a series of very common and simple tasks and rate someone on how quickly they can do them -- testing neither depth nor breadth nor other such qualities of thought. The worst of then rely on someone having general knowledge, large vocabulary, knowledge and experience in pattern matching and math, and other things which test not intelligence as some abstract quality, but experience and education: one can study for an intelligence test and improves one's score dramatically. What, then, is this "intelligence" which is being evaluated? It is like trying to decide the amount of gold in a mine by assaying the samples o the surface or drilling one core -- it's hardly reliably representative of whatever the abstraction named 'intelligence' is. Here we have a situation where one is being tested with largely silly question, for a limited subset of an undefined set of qualities and capabilities, with the assumption that being able to answer questions more rapidly is significant (which depends on how awake or focused one is -- perhaps if they eventually did find a cup with coffee in it, and other considerations of one's mental state at the time) -- and all of this with a test both designed and scored by people who most likely do not have much of the qualities supposedly being probed.
As for believing in god, that's something highly dependent on experience and other conditions too -- including culture, education, social circles and support systems, mental stability and degrees of neuroses, or what drugs one happens to have taken, or even if one's brain is under the influence of magnetic fields. And this, all about a word, "god", which is rarely defined and which conception is rarely shared by those who consider it -- or certainly not communicated. This is as much beyond the context of logic and rationality upon which most discussions rest as trees are above (or below) the soil of the forest in which they grow. It is a conception which from the start ignores the very ground of rationality and evidence. Far more so than for intelligence, it like trying to fathom what the ecology of an ocean is by analyzing in Kansas a small bottle of water taken from some very large body of water in unknown location: in such circumstance it is impossible to conclude whether either actually exists or not, much less it's true nature if it does.
Personally, I am far more likely to give some credit to the idea that some non-physical realty exists (a "spirit world' or non-physical aspect of totality) than "god", but that is mere speculation and may be no more than an artifact of the brain, which evolved by the circumstances of physical existence. I can no more expect to experience god than to see radio waves or electrons, or for my body to walk as if it were aware of space-time relativity and event horizons. For all the stories I might hear, devise, and tell myself or others, they remain mere stories, with less basis than stories I might contemplate than those about electron probability clouds or bits of matter popping into existence due to quantum uncertainty.
They are tales composed by freezing a bit of a sea of profound ignorance. Even my intelligence is no more than a small house within a universe which even in its 'known' extent is beyond imagining in anything but the roughest of terms. One might as well try to describe the geology of a planet in some distant galaxy as try to say something definitive about god.
by
Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 998 comments)
on Monday, August 27, 2007 at 1:15:41 PM
Is a reply to those who are trying to get me to agree with their beliefs. They can believe what they want. I don't telll them what to write when they write a column, but the lamest thing is when I write 2500 words about an issue and one mention of God brings a long BS diatribe, which ignores the main trust of the article. Well, that indicates self-discontent.
My Feelings? I don't care what a person believes as long as it is not pressed upon me, or argued when I don't care. As long as they are not urging mayhem or laws about what to and not to beleive, they are fine with me.
The mail I get indicates that VERY a large segment of those who read my stuff are believers as am I and they like what I write and do not go about as some do, nitpicking at silly stuff. You don't believe, fine, I don't care one way or the other. I reject Proselytizing and will continue doiing as I always do, write what I know. You are welcome to read it, but I really don't care what you believe. I write to my demographic, because they think as I do. Honestly, I have taught more than 20,000 students and most are intensely loyal, so much so that they tried to get me to run some are believers, some are not but they loved my classes, so popular were they that there was a constant waiting list to get in them.
Half my best friends have never indicated beloiuef or disbelief and it only pops up in conversation when oth. Three of my closest friends are agnostic, they ask me about the predictions because it blows them away that they are always so accurate. they too say as do you.... there is something out there because no one can be that acciurate by accident especailly when what you say is so unpopular and unthinkable at times. They are right as one professor who read my blogs said, "I started reaiding your predictions to prove you wrong, now some 75 or more later and not one error, I am convinced something is going on that I do not comprehend, (especially when you made predictions about news items about which you know little and they prove to be things no one else spoke of and you turn out to be right. I am an agnostic, but you have me wondering, becauset no one can be that good at guessing. So instead of a muckraker, I am a follower."
So there you have it.
You may buy into Dawkins BS, but for someone who does not beleive hge seems awfully discontented and is always writing lamely toantagonize believers. He is a beleiver, that is why he is so angry with everyone. In his field disbelief is a religion. he may fool you but he does not fool me. If he did disbelieve he would not waste his time calling believers names and trying to convert them I am trying to convert NO ONE! I write to my colleagues and fellow believers and religion is not the only thing about which I write.
by
Professor Emeritus Peter Bagnolo (144 articles, 1 quicklinks, 94 diaries, 1201 comments)
on Monday, August 27, 2007 at 4:48:07 PM
I was thinking along similar lines long before I had any idea of what he said. But I do think he authentic when he says is an atheist -- I'm as good as anyone when it comes to trying to psychoanalyze people I don't know from a distance. :-D He does seem to be concerned about the damage done by religion -- and considering the reality I don't see his refutations of it as a bad thing.
As far as predictions, assuming they do exist outside of probability, then they are unexplained -- a mystery -- and I am content to leave them as that without trying to extrapolate anything from what is an unknown to begin with. As for belief, I have reached the conclusion that it is intellectually and philosophically invalid except as consciously applied to marshal and focus energy, as in 'positive affirmations' or a working of chaos magick (which I first learned about from a book by Austin Spare -- who you might want to look into as his artwork is rather good also).
by
Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 998 comments)
on Monday, August 27, 2007 at 5:47:57 PM
He's dead now. Google in the images section too and you can quickly find some examples of his work. You can also find references for him in hits found by 'chaos magick' which he largely started up.
by
Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 998 comments)
on Monday, August 27, 2007 at 7:07:26 PM
I saw them Blue and also a few books on his work. I may order one. I have an enormous collection of art books. I love to paint and view the works of great figure artists.
by
Professor Emeritus Peter Bagnolo (144 articles, 1 quicklinks, 94 diaries, 1201 comments)
on Tuesday, August 28, 2007 at 11:21:58 PM
