church-sized Pill

Wonder Headaches pulse without end – how was it possible for a news organization to send me their newsletter. How did they find me? Then it hits me: i use one of their services, just like the other 159,904,332, minus a couple hundred, people out there.

(Wow! i just inadvertently dated this.)

There are 159,904,332 or so people just like me working tenaciously or unbeknownst for the Common Goal; spilling egos through the expression of WebPages on a specific social networking site; one i’d like to refrain from naming because it will carbon date me & that kind of publicity costs money. Hence, the cheap layout. So, this isn’t about them; it’s about creating diluted mirrors, if you will, that somehow were intended to show a culture, but along the way through its creation, altruism got A.D.D. & the definition was born deformed & presently unappreciated & what were we talking about? Oh, right, “self-expression.” So, from one angle we’d say that through this digital cloning of our identities, through these cloudy reflections, we toss away soul-fragments to decay along the side of the road. Pieces of you & me flitter like litter on the Information Superhighway.

Passer-by: Please Reap & Sow in Return.

Why? The next-generation needs to eat from the previous generation's labors.

Why? There's a chronic multiple-choice test, a.k.a. "life," in progress.

And i'll be damned if i get another D+!!

From another angle (shared by the same structure of the previous angle; in another frame we could begin to see the makings of an architecture or even dimension within the confounds of hyper-reality [bawanggggggg] quantum [zzzzzztchkkack]) we'd say that that form of expression, with all its knots & ravels of collected psychic debris is exactly the same form of expression required to make a religion; a code of beliefs affirmed by action. Who threw a who out the driver’s window? Biodegradable is not a legal excuse. So i ask & share the question: what if these bunches of Zeros, Ones & Oats, are the same form of expression required to make a God or the spiritual prerequisite of religion? Dimensions!! Must not forget the spiritual dimension! Like Voltron!!

"The deafness of many philosophers, social scientists and historians to the spiritual dimension can be remarkable," Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor said in a statement given at a reward ceremony at the Church Center for the United Nations in New York. There, he also said this dimensional-lack was damaging because it "affects the culture of the media and educated public opinion in general." (Well, to say it was a reward ceremony implies that the prize had already been given when, i’m led to presume, in actuality he won then & there the $1.5 million Templeton Prize for advancement and research of spiritual matters. “The prize was established in 1973 by the investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton and exceeds the monetary value of the Nobel Prize because of Sir Templeton's belief that advances in the spiritual realm can reap greater benefits than those in the secular.” So they give $$$ because the spiritual realm is worth more, a voice behind the Moon asks.)

The New York Times article i got this from said Professor Taylor “has written extensively on the sense of self and how it is defined by morals and what one considers good. People operate in the register of spiritual issues, he said, and to separate those from the humanities and social sciences leads to flawed conclusions.” Pretend i believe everything i read, & this guy’s statements mean that much more.


After showing my good friend NESTORtheAPE the article he said, “I think I'm becoming deaf in the way Taylor has stated... I sometimes use a hearing aid.”


(Uhm, i hope no one was hurt when that explosion when off. ("Explosion," figuratively used to describe Senators’ trust on whether or not North Korea has any nukes, given their (the Senators’) lack of faith in U.S. intelligence. (Bush Jr.-Era) Let’s not mention the dollar-sign motives seen eye to eye with "intelligence." Vision based largely on trust…)) Give me some Intelligence & we'll dance a good one!

SsssslaPaaanaaahp!!! Focus. We were talking about angles.

Angles, and there’s a, a, a third. Out of the sky like a baby elephant crying, "Expression? Expression! What about the forces of expression!?" Please correct me if i'm wrong – something i encourage for mutual learning – but isn't an expression an actualization of an Ego? For instance, we see an instance & describe it. Am i rambling, i ask myself to describe the instance. Is this guy/gal wonderin’ if he’s rambling, you ask yourself to describe the instance. You describe “for instance” differently than i did because we have different expressive energies behind the instance. Call it character, humors, attitude or temperament. You would have yours & i would have mine.

“The fundamental tenet of the Vedânta school consisted not in denying the existence of matter, that is, of solidity, impenetrability, and extended figure (to deny which would be lunacy), but in correcting the popular notion of it, and contending that it has no essence independent of mental perception; that existence and perceptibility are convertible terms.” – Sir William Jones

Deep, deeeeep, deeeeeeeeeep. Maybe too deep. My ears popped from the pressure and i’d really like to tell you as convincingly as possible that they actually did because i was, well, transported. My eyes were open but i was not there. Or here. i had been zoned out in a daydream.

Apologies for the headaches. We are almost through.

Uh-huh & as we now see all three angles approximately at a distance from each other, a triangle takes shape. Note the distance of the angles is equal to the amount of length that is capable of propping it up or push it at away (we'll talk away from what shortly); the amount of distance between an angle & the other angles is like a good structure made out of titanium & diamonds (i'm sure there's stronger materials). Where may i get these metaphysical titanuum & diamonds? Are they just other materials changed into their brief state as something strong? & who invited A.D.D. What i was gettin' at was if the g’damn metaphor is goin t’ be Three-Dimensional, just like we picture, another angle needs to be added, right? We'll, wouldn't that angle, that component be Consciousness, the self kind, because in the end isn't it the only entity on the face of this wobbly earth capable of swallowing a church-sized pill.


Probably. & probably because of a lack of grains & distilled information, a.k.a. knowledge, i failed to realize that like everything else Religion has origins in parallel with the “knots & ravels of collected psychic debris” spoken about above. Uh, to rephrase it better, that aside from humanistic expression, there’s many another components to a Religion’s birth. Maybe it wasn’t a full-fledged failure on my behalf, but more like a simplified take of what is a multi-faceted subject.

Those religious origins, to the best of my current understanding, stem from Mystical experiences individuals have for one reason or another. Why they have them is not the point, as long as we learn from or are helped by them. Thank you, William James. Religion comes along when a system or code of law is made to reach the aforementioned Mystical experiences.

At least, that’s as far as i’ve been capable of seeing it. i wish i could promote a certain belief structure everyone can follow [systematically], but my humanity makes me unworthy of such a holy feat. Let us hold hands by keeping this quote afresh:

“Religion has always used art in one form or another, and must do so, for the reason that incestuous desires invariable construct their phantasies out of the material provided by the unconscious memory of infantile coprophilic interest; that is the inner meaning of the phrase, ‘Art is the handmaiden of Religion.’” – Ernest Jones

Merely Hyena wanderings on points older than Zeus. Just ask John Noble Wilford, when he published on February 5, 2008, an article titled & about “An Altar Beyond Olympus for a Deity Predating Zeus”.

In the regions of Greece known as Archadia, sacrificial remains were found & were dated to be made as early as 3000 B.C., the archaeologists concluded, 900 years before Greek-speaking people arrived to the area.

The findings were made near Mount Lykaion, the same mythical birthplace of Zeus. "After reviewing the findings of pottery experts, geologists and other archaeologists, David Gilman Romano of the University of Pennsylvania concluded that material at the Lykaion altar ‘suggests that the tradition of devotion to some divinity on that spot is very ancient’ and ‘very likely predates the introduction of Zeus in the Greek world.’ As Dr. Romano remarked, quoting a quip by a friend, ‘We went from B.C. to B.Z., before Zeus.’"


Re-reading that got me high like Moses, & Moses was high on drugs. Don’t look at me, i didn’t say it, but it appears repeated here & elsewheres. Before going any further in presenting the repetition, it hurts me to be so narrow-minded by merely saying “Moses was high on drugs”; all drugs are not, NOT, created equal, nor was Moses equal for that matter… Have you heard the latest story of the Israeli researcher.

Way from Jerusalem we get a story about Benny Shanon who was quoted saying on radio that "as far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics." Remember the 10 Commandments. Let’s step back a second to what Shanon wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy to see what he’s getting at. He wrote about how such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times.

Back to the radio, back to March 4, 2008, Shanon suggested that “Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the ‘burning bush.’” He said, “The Bible says people see sounds, and that is a classic phenomenon.” A classic phenomenon when compared to the religious ceremonies in the Amazon in which drugs are used to induce people to, among other mind-manifesting things, “see music.” (Blogger’s note: i doubt Amazonian people get “induced” just to see music; "Hey, let's eat some bark of the acacia tree & go to the concert."; talk about shoddy reporting).

Shanon has “dabbled” with such substances (“dabbled” the word was dabbed by the dabbling article). “He mentioned his own experience when he used ayahuasca, a powerful psychotropic plant, during a religious ceremony in Brazil's Amazon forest in 1991. ‘I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations,’ Shanon said. He said the psychedelic effects of ayahuasca were comparable to those produced by concoctions based on bark of the acacia tree, that is frequently mentioned in the Bible.”


Type “science of religion” in the search & what will the internets give you? Type “what a science of religion would do & for whom” in the search & what will your intuitions give you? If all we were doing is reaching through a void & grabbing at what we can with our words – only the imaginable, please – then what would these words tell you? A tale of what church-sized pills are & what they can do? Or the tail of the human being reading this sentence? At this rate we can put down hammers & chisels and pick up atom smashers & lasers.

Found relevant Dan Vergano article weathered yet in presentable shape within my archives about how “’Resistance to science’ has early roots”. So, sharing is caring & i care for you.

After reminding us how science has through known history been caged, belittled, quizzed in court, & given the silent treatment – because it gives the animals, a.k.a. people, the rabies – after these pesky reminders, we hear straight from the horses’ mouths:

"Scientists, educators and policymakers have long been concerned about American adults' resistance to certain scientific ideas," Yale psychologists Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg were noted to have said in a review published in a 2007 Science magazine. "This resistance to science has important social implications because a scientifically ignorant public is unprepared to evaluate policies about global warming, vaccination, genetically modified organisms, stem cell research, and cloning." Those buzzing historical reminders need to leave & brave their own; historical birds need to fly coop…

"To be scientifically educated means you have to pick up a lot of counter-intuitive beliefs," says Bloom studies children & their mind-at-large capacity to grasp the world around them. But as Bloom is quoted as saying, “Life is too short” to have to go through all the hassle of doing what other people with more time have done already. And reliably for that matter. That’s why god created books!

"A lot of scientific ideas are fundamentally at odds with religious ones," Bloom says. "Every religion in existence adopts dualism," (Is that quite so, Bloom?) Dualism defined in the article is “a belief that draws a distinction between the mind (i.e. the soul) and the brain, he notes, a finding completely at odds with the basic evidence from neuroscience that the brain itself generates all our thoughts and feelings.” It’s a simple statement for a an old being… “The belief that thoughts and being arise from something besides a bunch of brain cells zapping one another explains much of the debate over the moral worth of stem cells, Bloom contends.” (Would “contends” dualism be like “nolo contendere”?)

One hymn played in the article, informally draws inspiration from "Songs of Innocence & of Experience": as children our lack of experience leaves us in a state where relying on those with experience, a.k.a. adults, is the best solution to…well, not dying. “But in adulthood, who we decide to trust has a powerful effect on how we view science, says Bloom. This goes both ways, he notes. Many people who accept that natural selection and evolution are reasonable explanations for where species come from, can't explain the concepts, polls show.”

A doughnut within a doughnut: here’s an example given within the article that was supposed to be an example. The “’scientifically credulous subpopulation accepts this information because they trust the people who say it is true,’ says the review. Similarly, when trusted religious or political leaders endorse an idea, people who view them as trustworthy will hew to their views, as demonstrated in a 2003 study in which, ‘participants were asked their opinion about a social welfare policy that was described as being endorsed by either Democrats or Republicans. Although the participants sincerely believed that their responses were based on the objective merits of the policy, the major determinant of what they thought of the policy was, in fact, whether or not their favored political party was said to endorse it.’”

For those of you who read the first sentence of every paragraph, here in it’s own words, because these are really not my words, is the nut of what has been said: “Resistance to science springs from a clash of experimental or observational evidence with childhood intuition about the world, coupled with what political or religious community we embrace. For scientists, the review suggests they need to show how they use evidence and observations to demonstrate their conclusions, in contrast to religious and political leaders. Scientists, who have struggled mightily to distrust childhood intuition, must understand that their way of seeing things - based on experimentation, observation and debate - is unnatural, Bloom adds. ‘We have to understand the idea that that supernatural or religious ideas are not the product of stupidity or malice, but are in fact, normal human nature.’”