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So it seems "realness" is relative to the observer. But why is your mind at war over what is real or not. Its not the destination which is importance, only the journey. So don't let dogma weigh against your mind. Be real to yourself and the path you need to walk. If that be science. Then that science be real.
originally posted by: igloo
a reply to: JAGStorm
I was pretty shocked when I first heard about roundup being used as a dessicant here in canada because I use straw as bedding for my animals and they often eat it which should be ok but now isn't. Asked at the feed store I buy it at and no one knows any of this nor can trace back the source.
People here also use straw as mulch on their gardens and the straw is just those very plants killed by the round up. This practice isn't super widespread but it has me wondering as I have a few patches in my garden that I dumped some old straw and nothing grows in it. I was delighted by that at first until I realized this might be the reason.
Bee Sting and the Sinister
It was the Spring of 1970 and I was mowing the lawn for an old woman. I don't remember if I was getting paid for that gig or if this was one of the projects that my mother set up to keep me out of the hospital, jail, or other mayhem and trouble.
There is that old proverb "Idle hands are the devil's play ground". Now that I've spent some time thinking about this, I wonder if there is a similar proverb with regards to over-active imaginations.
Maybe, just maybe, if I hadn't come up with that practical joke to play on the nurses strapping me down on the table while the doctors discussed stomach pumping and other unpleasant sounding things, they wouldn't have been so eager to hand me over to the cops so readily. Oh well, hindsight and all that. I'm not going to say what the joke was though because it was a shameful thing, but it did involve the loosening of the straps, which did seem to be at least one of the objectives I had in mind.
I guess I was the winner of that champagne, scotch whiskey, and cheap red wine guzzling contest. Mike and Larry were already out of sight as I attempted, not altogether successfully, to weave my way to their house. Then Mr. Anderson with his red goatee was helping me up. "I called the ambulance" he said, "It's on the way."
"What?" I asked, "Why?"
"I was looking out the window and saw that car hit you." he explained.
"What car?" I asked, "I didn't see any car."
"Oh, there's the ambulance now." was his only reply, then to the EMTs "I'll hold him."
Nope. Mr. Anderson didn't hold me. I took off running up the side dirt road. At least I thought I was running. Maybe it was some acrobatic multi flip, as I watched the sky and ground chasing each other in a nice pirouette. Then there was the stretcher and the straps. What's up with all the straps?
So after the practical joke on the nurses, the cops came in to the emergency room while I was still unstrapped, more chasing, more restraints, metal ones.
I must have slept through the ride to jail because the next thing I remember was what the cops were doing, laughing while doing it.
My mom told me later how they shamed and humiliated her when she came to get me. "Do you hear those wild animal noises?" one of the cops asked her, "That's your son." I'm sure they hid the cattle prods before they brought me out of the cell though because she didn't mention them.
So that's why my mom was anxious to find useful, productive things for me to do. To avoid hearing the wild animal noises and the accompanying shame.
The old woman had a really nice front yard with the orange trees spread far enough apart that the Sun light was not blocked. Grass likes plenty of sunlight. The bees were going from orange blossom to orange blossom. A pleasant Spring day in which to cut the grass.
The old woman (I do wish that I knew her name, it would seem so much more dignified than just old woman) brought out a nice cold glass of lemonade. "You're so lucky to be young in these times." She told me, handing me the glass.
I took a big swig and asked, "Why is that?"
"Because" she replied, "I'm too old now to be living in the last day, when Jesus returns. I'm going to die before then, but you, you can live to be translated to heaven without seeing death."
I took another big sip from the glass as she continued, "When I was just a little girl the preachers were saying all the signs are fulfilled, Jesus can return any day now, so be ready."
After finishing the lemonade, and holding the glass to my lips to catch some of the melted ice, she continued, "My whole life I waited and waited, but the last day never came. Would you like some more lemonade?"
"No, thank you." Before I handed the glass to her, I dumped some of the ice into my hand and rubbed the melting ice over my face. She went back in the house and I pulled the mower starter cord and continued mowing the grass.
As I passed by one of the trees, I turned my head to my right, to look at the orange blossoms, and noticed a bee on my right short shirt sleeve. "If I don't bother it" I thought, "then it won't bother me."
Five minutes later, though, there was quite a bad stinging sensation from my right shoulder. The bee was gone but the stinger, with the strategically placed barbs for working its way in, was left in my shirt with the muscle action pumping away to inject the venom. I pulled the cloth away from my skin then flicked the stinger off with my fingernail.
It is very important to point out the difference between left and right here. It is central to the conspiracy. Left is sinister and right is dexter, from the holy Latin, I think. Sinister, in the dictionaries is evil, deceitful, and just plain bad. It's the black magic compared to the wonderful white magic of the right.
My mom died that Summer, so it was all up to me to stay out of trouble, hospital, and jail. I was mostly successful with that. There was that one time on a very cold Winter night when the cops decided that standing naked in that small room with that high up window that had bars but no glass, open to the well below freezing temperatures was a good idea. Who's to say what a good idea is anyway. The rules have changed since then haven't they?
I eventually grew bored with delinquency, so at the ripe old age of 16 I turned to Christ and God and got somewhat sorted out. At least I thought it was Christ and God, I was at a Jesus People meeting anyway.
I did spend a pretty good couple of months just reading through the whole Bible, but the seemingly inevitable happened, Eschatology, End of the World, hellacious persecution and tribulations. Pretend Christians, carrying flags, Bibles, and rifles dragging people into the streets and shooting them with the full approval of the United World Christian Coalition and their U.S. Government wing. Really violent stuff.
Not only did I read this stuff, but with that already in mind, I heard a sermon about it too. I'm sort of sensitive when it comes to the prospect of something terrible like that happening in the near future. Now mind you, this was the 1970s, when Hal Lindsey's book The Late Great Planet Earth was the nations top selling book, claiming that The End would be about 1988.
So all this apocalyptic nightmare was permeating society, in different versions of course, depending upon whether one happened to be pre-trib, or post-trib, or pre-millennial, or dispensationalist, or Supersessionist. The End was upon us all, one way or another. So you can imagine how a sensitive 17 year old like myself was feeling; very freaked out!
Under stressful conditions like that, it wasn't such a big deal for the very air in front of me to part, and there in the typical almond shaped portal stood two people. This brings up another question about just how normal it is for such visitations or visions to not actually say anything in words, like nothing spoken, and the seer is just left to his or own devices to figure out what is meant by these visions.
So seriously, think back to the three or four times this has happened to you. Did the god-like people actually speak to you or did you just make up a likely conversation? Do you just reach your own conclusion about what the god-like apparitions mean by tearing the fabric of reality in such a way?
Now remember what has been previously written about the dexter and the sinister. The almond shaped portal was not directly in front of me, nor was it to the right. It was to the sinister side. And the closest being held out his sinister hand to me. Now this is where the guessing comes in. He didn't actually say, "Fear not." It just seemed to me that that is what he would have said if he had said anything in words.
Now I'm going to throw a bit of hind sight in here. I lived through the civil rights era of the 60s, with the protests turned to riots and the burning cities. I've lived through the Viet Nam War era with the bodies returning and the protests and the funerals, and the shootings by national guard, the assassinations, mass shootings, civil wars, revolutions, dictators killing their own people, wars, rumors of wars, incitements to war, warmongering propaganda, patriotism turned chauvinist turn jingoist, terrorist attacks, cults gone wrong and deadly results. I've seen a lot, been in some of this stuff even; seen a lot of people die. Dying isn't some weird thing. Even dying violently at the hands of Bible toting fanatics isn't all so very weird.
Just imagine what it looks like to see a cheering, jeering crowd at a beheading, through the eyes of the beheaded. Is it all so terribly weird if a frenzied group of vigilantes shoots me in the street? No. Not at all. It's happened to so many thousands of people already. The World didn't end. No saviour came down from heaven to stop it.
It was interesting that he seemed to expend energy to do it and needed hours to recover.
originally posted by: LABTECH767
a reply to: pthena
...
And perhaps this is a load of crap and the truth is destined to remain beyond us.
THAT question was cynically posed to Jesus by the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate. He was not interested in an answer, and Jesus did not give him one. Perhaps Pilate viewed truth as too elusive to grasp.—John 18:38.
This disdainful attitude toward truth is shared by many today, including religious leaders, educators, and politicians. They hold that truth—especially moral and spiritual truth—is not absolute but relative and ever changing. This, of course, implies that people can determine for themselves what is right and what is wrong. (Isaiah 5:20, 21) It also allows people to reject as out-of-date the values and moral standards held by past generations.
The statement that prompted Pilate’s question is worth noting. Jesus had said: “For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth.” (John 18:37) Truth to Jesus was no vague, incomprehensible concept. He promised his disciples: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”—John 8:32.
Where can such truth be found? On one occasion, Jesus said in prayer to God: “Your word is truth.” (John 17:17) The Bible, written under divine inspiration, reveals truth that provides both reliable guidance and a sure hope for the future—everlasting life.—2 Timothy 3:15-17.
Pilate indifferently rejected the opportunity to learn such truth. What about you? ...
But it really isn't about protecting reality, is it.
What you are protecting is your self ego, against those that you percieve threaten it.
Spirituality isn't magic. Its not something that add's to us. Its about stripping away the restraints of ego so we become free of its trappings. So looking at religion as a means to attain magic (become special) will guarantee failure.
Just existing rather than being. That is not life. That is death.
science itself is guilty of the same as many people are:
It's more comfortable to think you know than to wonder and doubt.
Like the Big Bang that's a theory that's not working, which obviously is based more on the effects of a religious indoctrination than honest research and reliable evidence.
It’s snot real it’s all just theories.
a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
1: a project or undertaking that is especially difficult, complicated, or risky
2a: a unit of economic organization or activity
especially : a business organization
b: a systematic purposeful activity
3: readiness to engage in daring or difficult action : INITIATIVE
Einstein penned the letter on January 3 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind who had sent him a copy of his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt. The letter went on public sale a year later and has remained in private hands ever since.
In the letter, he states: "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."
...
His parents were not religious but he attended a Catholic primary school and at the same time received private tuition in Judaism. This prompted what he later called, his "religious paradise of youth", during which he observed religious rules such as not eating pork. This did not last long though and by 12 he was questioning the truth of many biblical stories.
"The consequence was a positively fanatic [orgy of] freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression," he later wrote.
...
"Like other great scientists he does not fit the boxes in which popular polemicists like to pigeonhole him," said Brooke. "It is clear for example that he had respect for the religious values enshrined within Judaic and Christian traditions ... but what he understood by religion was something far more subtle than what is usually meant by the word in popular discussion."
Despite his categorical rejection of conventional religion, Brooke said that Einstein became angry when his views were appropriated by evangelists for atheism. He was offended by their lack of humility and once wrote. "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."