by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | August 22, 2014
If Al, Jessie, Barry, Eric & the media really cared about Blacks, they would be concerned about Blacks with no father: 72.3% of blacks have no father. This was not true during the 60’s before the government insinuated itself into the black family substituting itself for the father. In 1960 the illegitimacy rate in the black community was 2.3%–then the Great Society started.
What are the Three Religions of science or the three sets of laws? First, to handle the really big stuff, we have Einstein’s general theory of relativity, string theory, M-Theory, etc. Second, for the medium-sized stuff– that is generally understandable by the human mind– we have Newton’s classic laws of physics and for the really small stuff we have the third child in this sibling rivalry called Quantum Physics . The problem with all three of these separate and distinct sets of rules is that no one can stitch them together into a consistent set of rules that are universally applicable. In short they are not in agreement. All three theories are true except when they are not. The solution is for us to change our religion or more precisely our epistemic system based on what we are observing. So, is there some enduring truth to be offered up by science or is science just a grand illusion based on the pragmatist philosophy that if it works then it’s true? What kind of enduring truth have we found here? We change our rules based on what works as dictated by our environment; but we are not very well equipped to probe beyond merely being a reaction to external events and then inventing a language and a resultant description of what we have observed.
We can create and then memorize the Phylum, Genus and Specie of every plant and insect in the Trans-Pecos Wilderness but what do we really know? As gods we sit on our lofty body of knowledge assured in the truth of what we know but what do we know really? Just because we can regurgitate the Phylum, Genus and Specie of the Creosote bush, do we know more about the Creosote bush than the Creosote bush grasshopper who makes his living there?
Many of us claim to know the most about that which we know the least. This aberration can result in feeling and acting self righteous. Self righteous thought manifests as a temporary or sometimes chronic condition of being “self-righteous”; the particular target of this self righteousness can be related to an emotional charge that hasn’t been thoroughly processed through the intellect…in other words, some people may have a predisposition to this state of mind due to partially processed information. Whether a character defect, lazy-brain or an uninformed brain I think most would see self righteousness as disagreeable despite the source or the object of self righteousness. I would guess that we all could be or have been subject to this repugnant state of being. Not sure the mechanics of how we succumb but it might be that it can reside beneath our awareness, bypassing our normal “bull shit protector” criteria for knowledge also known as our epistemic system; possibly through acceptance of faith as a legitimate source of knowledge or scientific theory as immutable fact. In defense of religion, I hope to prove, that faith is a normal and necessary condition of man while scientific theories are tools to improve man’s condition.
I believe that I can also prove that much of science is a religion.
Someone once said that “all politics are local”. If we peal back the obvious meaning of this statement a bit, there is more to see. First, the obvious meaning is that people vote on what is directly effecting them before considering the broader dynamics of national or global politics, for example. A second derivative might point to our tendency to myopic points of view wherein we are limited by our own personal experiences. If we, for example, have had limited experiences with one partition of a particular religion and this experience was not a satisfying experience we would naturally tend to leverage this direct experience and along with our judgment or invalidation therein include the entire offending belief system of which our experience is merely a part—possibly an aberrant part. This judgment could be accurate or not but this method definitely saves time. This experience may have produced fear, disgust or even hatred if you have felt bamboozled. If however after this limited, unsatisfactory experience there still exists somehow an interest in further evaluation, more data must be gathered to make a more accurate assessment.
If you accept my premise that roughly 80% of any population are “sheeple” or followers, then you might share my appreciation that weekly “Church-going” offers an incredible reoccurring opportunity for the work-a-day average folk to partake in a pause to consider something outside of their normal diet of sitcoms, football and movies…to consider the profound, the supernatural, the philosophical…to ask questions and to contemplate their existence. Of course they have guides on this weekly tour and they have structure. In Christiandom we call the guides preachers and the structure is a combination of tradition, dogma and liturgy. Of course there are many out-of-band sub-currents weaving in and out of this dynamic weekly communion of the “sheeple”. Examples would be the tour guide’s need for money and validation from an ever-increasing flock and you have the social element of friendships, etc.
So what are some of the benefits of church going? The first one I have already mentioned…the meeting once a week to ponder matters of the profound. You might consider your fellows uninformed, unenlightened or buffoons but you share much with these mere mortals, I assure you. For the astute, there is much more, I think. The astute have the opportunity to directly observe, appreciate and try to understand the interplay of the archetypes on display; to breathe the aroma of the sublime and seek to understand the emotional and metaphysical content. Other benefits are a sense of belonging to a group, joy, happiness and opportunities to interact socially. For me, the “be attitudes” and the sermon on the mount represent pearls of wisdom that have produce much good thought and understanding in my life and have also stimulated my intellectual curiosity on my quest for understanding.
Ah…but you say this stuff is for the weak-minded and cannot be true. Evolution, science and the belief in my own intellectual powers are the mooring by which I will secure my ship.
What if I could prove to you that faith was pervasive and more importantly a necessary part of the human condition? There are too many examples in every day life. You believe that this metal box with wheels you call a car will get you to work safely or you would probably just stay in bed that day, right? You believe that there is something you can do to improve your current status in life or you would just stay in bed and never get up. You believe that if you will your finger to move or your hand to grasp a glass of water that it will obey…what if you didn’t believe? Would your hand tremble? Faith is a necessary part of everyone’s life every day. The person who commits suicide is the eternal optimist because he believes that the next world or the lack thereof will be better than this. So belief is the natural state of being and there is nothing wrong with believing.
So how do you know what you believe is true? You know the same way you know all things… by experience.
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THE SCIENCE OF KISSING By Brann the Iconoclastpublished in 1899 in Waco, Texas
I note that a Britisher named Prof. Bridger has been infringing my copyright by proclaiming, as an original discovery, that kissing is an excellent tonic and will cure dyspepsia. When the o’er busy bacteriologist first announced that osculation was a dangerous pastime, that divers and sundry varieties of bacteria hoped blithely back and forth engendering disease and death, I undertook a series of experiments solely in the interest of science. Being a Baptist Preacher and making camp-meetings my specialty, I had unusual opportunity for investigation, for those of our faith are strict constructionist of the Biblical law to “greet one another with a kiss.” I succeeded in demonstrating before the end of the tenting season that osculation, when practiced with reasonable discretion and unfaltering industry, is an infallible antidote for at least half the ills that human flesh is heir to. The reason the doctors arrived at different conclusions is that they kissed indiscriminately and reasoned inductively. They found on casting up the account that bad breath and face powder, the sour milk-bottle of youth and the chilling frost of age, comprised six-sevenths of the sum total. Under such conditions there was nothing to do but establish a quarantine. I pointed out, as Prof. Bridger has since done, that a health microbe as well as a disease bacillus nidificates on the osculatory apparatus, and added that failure to absorb a sufficient quantity of these hygiologic germs into the system causes old maids to look jaundiced and bachelors to die sooner than benedicts. Kisses, when selected with due care and taken on the installment plan, will not only restore a misplaced appetite, but are especially beneficial in cases of hay fever, as they banish that tired feeling, tone up the liver, invigorate the heart, and make the blood to sing thro’ the system like a giant jewsharp. I found by patient experiment that the health microbe becomes active at 15, reaches maturity at 20, begins to lose its vigor at 40, and is quite useless as a tonic when, as some one has tersely expressed it, a woman’s kisses begin to “taste of her teeth.” Thin bluish lips produce very few health germs, and those scarce worth the harvesting; but a full red mouth with Cupid curves at the corners, will yield enormously if the crop be properly cultivated. I did not discover whether the blonde or brunette variety is entitled to precedence in medical science, but incline to the opinion that a judicious admixture is most advisable from a therapeutical standpoint. Great care should be taken when collecting the germs not to crush them by violent collision or blow them away with a loud explosion that sounds like hitting an empty sugar hogshead with a green hide. The practice still prevailing in many parts of this country of chasing a young woman over the furniture and around the barn like an amateur cowboy trying to rope a maverick, rounding her up in the presence of a dozen people , unscrewing her neck and planting almost any place a kiss that sounds like a muley cow pulling her hind foot out of a black-waxy mud-hole, and which jars the putty off the window panes, possesses no more curative powers than hitting a flitch of bacon with the back of your hand. I prithee, avoid it; when a girl runs from a kiss you may take it for granted either that the germ crop is not ripe or you are poaching on somebody else’s preserves. The best results can be obtained about the midnight hour, when the dew is on the rose, the jasmine bud drunken with its own perfume, and the mockbird trilling a last good-night to his drowsy mate…and on and on it goes.
Note: I thought this was an interesting insight into the real history of the day. Hope you enjoyed this! -db
by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | JUNE 12, 2011
Do you see a pattern here? Believing in the primacy of the state over the individual is a religion in every sense of the word yet spreads undetected into all aspects of our lives. Although Darwin himself was not an atheist, the Darwinian Theory is based on the materialism that man is just a soulless animal or a series of chemical reactions; a cog in a wheel, and thus merely an effect –not cause over effect– converges with the godless belief system in the state over the individual. This epistemology is devoid of any real morality and produces a barren moonscape robbed of meaning or the juice of life. This epistemology contains no external standards which cannot be modified whimsically to fit the fashions or the politics of the day. Their standard is not a standard at all. Not believing in the individual, freewill or individual personal responsibility, the progressive Democrats –which are in fact authoritarians– regularly check themselves into rehab after engaging in socially unacceptable behavior thus taking no real responsibility for their actions as individuals. It is always someone else’s fault. It’s a mental illness, It’s their childhood, it’s big business, it’s society’s fault, its poverty, it’s mom or dad…it’s fill in the blank with anything but the person actually responsible. All they require is some counseling, group therapy, new religion or a magic pill and they will be all better. This aberration in identifying the real culprit frustrates any attempt to take responsibility; break away from the old ways that did not work and to make meaningful changes so that the individual can grow into new healthy and prosperous ways of living. True healing and corrective action can only come after the total destruction of the old faulty assumptions, the old habits and the old ways of thinking that did not work so that a rebuilding of healthy habits that do work can take place on new ground thus provided.
All our holy water is based on epistemic systems which underlie various nouns and are supported by basic assumptions which are beyond critical reason.
Where…
Holy Water = Cherished beliefs
Epistemic System = Epistemology is the study of truth, or answers the question… at what point does something become truth, your criteria for truth, bull-shit detector or your truth system, ergo epistemic system. Everyone has a system to analyze data and this is called your epistemic system
Various nouns = variables like in algebra. The point here is that these are all “objects” either real, virtual, imagined, etc. These are words or containers for meaning.
Basic Assumptions = All logical arguments as in an epistemic system must first start with an assumption, for example If A = B and B = C, then A = C. So the assumption upon which this entire logic depends is that A= B, this is also called the ‘a priori’. If your first assumption is wrong (A does not equal B) then all your logical conclusions are suspect and cannot be trusted.
We can never prove the original or first a priori, it is just a given upon which all subsequent reason depends.
The Hoax of Materialism | The Machine Wins (left); The Human Spirit Wins (right)
It’s been said you know a man by his choices. One of our most important and fundamental choices is a choice between a belief in materialism, or a belief that something more exists than is presented to us in the physical world; if you choose materialism you have unwittingly established a partnership with ‘The Machine’ and your future will necessarily be a stark, gray, dry, dusty moonscape devoid of the juice of life or meaning; because after all, materialism tells us we are merely cause and effect of the material world. Such is the dreary life of the man who chooses materialism to the exclusion of all else. Mistaken as truth or science, the belief in materialism provides a naïve and short-sighted pathway to the religion of death where concepts like infanticide become a reasonable choice for family planning.
In the material world there is no right or wrong; no good or evil just cause and effect. We have shirked our responsibility; we fail to take ownership of our actions, and so we are turned over to our own devices and sent strong delusions by the machine.
Like cackling hyenas over a recent kill, we feast at the hoax sold to us as sexual freedom, we choose death over life, debauchery over love and are left howling into the vast existential abyss of meaninglessness. The machine wins.
Wikipedia: Materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter or energy; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance, and reality is identical with the actually occurring states of energy and matter.
“Then came our Quantum theory, which totally transformed our image of matter. The old assumption that the microscopic world of atoms was simply a scaled-down version of the everyday world had to be abandoned. Newton’s deterministic machine was replaced by a shadowy and paradoxical conjunction of waves and particles, governed by the laws of chance,rather than the rigid rules of causality. An extension of the quantum theory goes beyond even this; it paints a picture in which solid matter dissolves away, to be replaced by weird excitations and vibrations of invisible field energy. Quantum physics undermines materialism because it reveals that matter has far less ‘substance’ than we might believe. But another development goes even further by demolishing Newton’s image of matter as inert lumps. This development is the theory of chaos, which has recently gained widespread attention.”
— Paul Davies and John Gribbin, ‘The Matter Myth’,Chapter 1“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together.We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.”
— Max Planck, ‘Das Wesen der Materie’, 1944Plato, the Sophist: “Some of them drag down everything from heaven and the invisible to earth, actually grasping rocks and trees with their hands; for they lay their hands on all such things and maintain stoutly that that alone exists which can be touched and handled; for they define existence and body, or matter, as identical, and if anyone says that anything else, which has no body, exists, they despise him utterly, and will not listen to any other theory than their own.”
More on Materialism from James Corbett (10/02/2023): I READ YUVAL NOAH HARARI’S BOOK (SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO!)
The Language of Creation: Cosmic Symbolism in Genesis by Matthieu Pageau
September, 2022: Mattias Desmet provides additional insights into this topic: MATTIAS DESMET, PHD (OUTTAKE) ON DEL BIGTREE’S HIGHWIRE
Science Unshackled: Restoring Causality in a World of Chaos Paperback – November 9, 2023 by Matthew Ehret (Author)
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Shortly before a solar eclipse was to occur in central India, an Indian physicist—who was also a member of the Brahmin caste—was lecturing to his students at the university. He told them precisely when the event would begin and described in detail how the moon’s orbit would take it between the sun and the earth. In their city there would be only a partial eclipse, but on a wall map he pointed out the path of totality as it moved across the terrestrial globe to the north of them. They discussed such things as the corona, solar flares, the beauty of annular rings, and the appearance of Bailey’s beads during that rate total eclipse. Some of the students from the rural villages had heard stories about a Giant Dragon that swallowed the sun, but their teacher’s lucid presentation of celestial mechanics had dispelled any fears they might have felt.
Having dismissed his class, the professor returned to his village and, since he was a Brahmin, assume
d his duties as a priest. Around his shoulders he draped the vestments of his office and began counting through his string of beads, calling aloud the names of the gods. A goat was beheaded in sacrifice to Kali, the Black Goddess, the cause and controller of earthquakes, storms, and other evil things, and the archenemy of demons. “Glory to Mother Kali,” the priest and people chanted.
While in the classroom there was nothing illogical about describing the solar eclipse in terms of celestial mechanics; neither was there anything wrong in offering a gift to the Black Goddess—just in case . . .
Philosophy: An Introduction to the Art of Wondering [James L. Christian]
by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | March 29, 2012
Like MLK, as far as I’m concerned, the color of one’s skin is not as important as the content of one’s character. However, I am fair skinned and am thus generally envious of those with more color than me so you could say I tend to be slightly prejudiced against my pink brethren and slightly more positive towards those fellows who by no choice of their own are blessed with a darker skin.
Notwithstanding the above, I was raised in an all-white family and played with mostly white kids. I had a few friends who were Hispanic in origin but no black friends. Maybe that was the result of segregation, I just don’t know but I never saw any black people during my youth until we ran track in high school against another school that was almost entirely black.
I don’t recall having any negative opinions of black people and I have no recollection of my mother or father making negative comments towards our black brethren, so you could say I was agnostic on the topic of race; really having no experience on which to base any judgment. I was mostly curious.
After high school, I did have occasion to meet and greet a few blacks but just a few. I recall feeling bad for the blacks since they were slaves –or rather some of their ancestors were– and felt okay with my self-appraisal since I knew I was not prejudiced and had no ill feelings toward any person based on color. I would however go out of my way to be nice and friendly as a sign of respect and some misplaced guilt.
My mother dabbled in genealogy a bit and it is clear from her investigation that neither side of my family owned any slaves in the New World. In the Old World, that might be a different story however. My wife dug a little deeper into my family history and found out that I’m a direct descendent of a few ruthless folks including some Roman Emperors; but since the sins of the father generally carry down only seven generations, I conclude that I’m pretty clear in terms of family karma.
The only reason I divert into this little family history lesson is to establish my bona fides that neither I nor my family have ever owned any slaves in America.
So being white as the driven snow in terms of slavery and even whiter by skin color, I could safely say I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body.
Now, do I like thugs, or anti-social people who want to rob, steal or hurt others? Nope. It doesn’t matter if they are white, black or poky dot, I do not like ignorant, violent people and probably never will in spite of any amount of media propaganda that says it is cool to be cruel. Am I suspicious of people who think they are gangsters or dress and act like a gangster? Yep. (BTW, if your mother drives you to school, you are not a gangster.) So if you dress like a gangster and/or act like a gangster or a thug, I will be suspicious and may not like you. And for the record, I don’t want to see your underwear or your white, brown or black butt crack.
Do I owe the blacks anything more than respect and dignity? Nope. Do they deserve equal protection under the law? Yes.
Since my youth described above, I have joined the work force and am happy to report that I have had two managers who were black: one a woman and one a man. Both were excellent human beings and deserved and received my respect and admiration.
Now just because I am pure in terms of racism, is no excuse for being ignorant of the real issues blacks have faced and continue to face to a lesser extent today in this country. To this end, I read a book called ‘Black Like Me’ which had a profound impact on my view of racism in this country. If you haven’t read this book. Do it. It’s a 188 page diary written in 1959 by a white man who dyed his skin black and traveled anonymously as a black man and wrote about his experiences. It will curl your toe-nails and enlighten your brain and disabuse you of many false premises many whites seem to share including myself. This book allowed me to peer into the true nature and brutality of racism.
What this book taught me is that yes indeed I did have some racial preferences despite my proven purity explained above. Why? Because I realized that I never wanted to be black. I would rather be white. If I were to be black that would be okay but I wouldn’t want to be subjected to what many blacks endured in the 60s or prior. It also taught me that I was not sensitive or even aware of the many lasting deep scars this inflicted on our fellow citizens. ‘Black like me’ was proof positive of the soul-destroying, racial hatred and base prejudice that existed during this time. This realization provoked a deeper understanding and genuine sensitivity to the black man’s plight and exposed to my ignorant brain not just the casual, gossamer understanding of the importance of respect, but much deeper, sapient meaning of the word dignity. For the first time in my life the word dignity had salt to it. It had meaning. I realized that our racism had robbed an entire race of their human dignity with racial slurs, put downs, separate drinking fountains, restrooms, etc.
I turn now to Martin Luther King, Jr. to drive home my point from the very emotional and heart-wrenching perspective of a father. If you have no children, you cannot imagine the injury this causes to a father’s heart.
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]”
16 April 1963
My Dear Fellow Clergymen:
…”when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.”
So I imagined how one of my children would feel and how I would feel being robbed of my human dignity in front of my children who look up to me and I became profoundly sad. All this became real to me. This experience has helped with my understanding. But does this mean we should further destroy a man’s dignity with a handout and not a hand-up by way of a job? No. Does this mean we should feel guilty? No. Does this mean we should offer up special privileges? No. Does this mean that all men should be treated equally and have equal opportunities? Yes. Does this mean that every man deserves dignity until proven they do not? Yes.
So for some wise advice on how to help a man when he is down, I turn to one of my favorite writers, old Ben Franklin:
“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”
Benjamin Franklin died in 1790 at the age of 84. He had bought and sold slaves earlier in his life but wrote the following in 1772…
In an unsigned letter to the London Chronicle, he asked readers whether it was absolutely necessary to sweeten their tea with slave-produced sugar. Could such a “petty pleasure…compensate for so much misery produced among our fellow creatures, and such a constant butchery of the human species by this pestilential detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of men?”
Later at age 81 Franklin signed a public exhortation that declared “the Creator of the world” made “of one flesh, all the children of men.”
As a final thought on race, I turn to the US Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”