Driving east through Philadelphia and across that famous American River, you will find New Hope, NJ. It is what it claims to be. A creatively artsy village of extraordinary life. And, as I said, it is found just across that famous river previously crossed by couragous men before.

There is a great historical bearing here. The orthodox Christian church sits figuratively in the ghettos of Philly. You might recall Aristarchus (310 BC - circa 230 BC) was a Greek astronomer and mathematician, born in Samos, Greece. He is the first to place the Sun, not the Earth, at the center of the known universe. Unfortunately for him and the world, he was not Alexandrian. His astronomical ideas were subordinated to religiously influenced errors of Aristotelian Physics, Platonic theory, and the Ptolemaic Wheels for the early Christian age. Claudius Ptolemy being an Alexandrian astrologer lived with the great church fathers during that supposed enlightened time of the first and second centuries AD. He custom built the Ptolemiac (wheels) theory for the Church fathers stating the universe was a closed space bounded by a spherical envelope, with the Earth at its center. Everything revolving about us and nothing existed beyond that closed spherical envelope. It was the only way he could explain what the Alexandrian Church Fathers wanted. It took centuries for Copernicus to arrive and later Galileo, at the cost of his life, to experiment and prove the true state of things. TYCHO DE BRAHE at the end of the 17th century through experimentation shattered the church's own "permanency and immutability of the stellar sphere". This was a fundamental doctine of medieval Christianity. Kepler followed upon the death of Brahe to prove that the church driven ideas of circular motion and uniform speed had prevented progress in astronomy for two thousand years.

Man, it was believed, was ALONE made by God in His image. Man was the next thing to God, and, as such, superior, especially in his best part, his soul, to all creatures. These church Fathers stated and Brahe concieved. The Great Fathers claimed man (and woman being subordinant) did not even take a place within the natural world. - This has been a philosophy which has proved disastrous to the earth's environment. - The correct even enlightened theories of Copernicus, Galileo, Brahe, and Kepler lead men to know that they are simply part of nature and not superior to it. It took 20 centuries but most of us understand this mortal and spiritual truth.

So, what should this teach us?

All of this is a connecting web because today we talk about another experiment that the traditions of the church fathers would murder to stop. And out of some ancient duty to them, some Christians hold fast to the darkness of a closed canon. It would seem that they are rooted to it and cannot escape. But that is myth.

Returning to Claudius Ptolemy's Earth centered closed envelope: The theory lives on today in the form of a closed windowless room whose walls were the brightest white 1700 years ago. So many of us live there now. The radiance that once filled it has been reduced to near darkness, leaving grayed walls. Nothing from the outside has been permitted in for 20 centuries, only for the edict that there is nothing on the outside to be found. But there is hope. For the oldest fathers among us here in the room, in the dimming light, see order in the ceiling paint. Blemishes in the paint appear as celestial objects, until over time everyone simply realizes the total absence of light has left our minds to retreat to a near faithless, hopeless, loveless state, where even consciousness cannot be trusted. We sink together to the floor to die from too many idle years while leaning against an external doorway long boarded up.

In the Book of Mormon, there is a heroic tale where the sons of Helaman, with their father's permission, set off to the land of their sworn enemies to deliver the true Gospel. Individually, they took separate paths into the land. They were imprisoned but were determined to do whatever it took to deliver their ancestral brothers and sisters from their darkness. They committed most of their lives to that task. And they succeeded.

Your Loving Father in Heaven and His only begotten Son did not create a closed room. Man did, all the way back in the time of an erring ancient astrologer.

May this post bring you the courage to look for a life of New Hope, across the river.

A postscript: The notion that Fluffy is every bit as cherished by God as any human insults the medieval minds of a new age Christian orthodoxy. This is because they give honor to their Church Fathers. And in doing so, they have been blinded from the so many real truths.

A careful study of the origins of Christianity reveals that generations after the death of Christ on the cross, some time after his apostles had all been murdered, those who we imagine were taking the place of the apostles began to depend upon philosophy to gain direction, manage the believers and to differentiate the believers from the heretics, as they saw fit. Remember, Herod and others tried to "cross" Jesus as they questioned him. It was Philosophy that aided the unenlightened orthodoxy in killing Jesus, His ordained apostles, and their true believers, although there was no truth in their charges against them. It was the malleable techniques of philosophy combined with their closed canon that drew all power to their hands, even to the conquering in the name of a principle that remains a myth. New archaelogical finds have revealed anew much broader Christian scriptural sources and much deeper spiritual meanings. Yet those who draw power, wealth, and false honor to themselves today still persecute those who reveal their malicious acts through the conquests of their ancestors.

One can make a convincing argument for or against anything if you know your philosophy. I will be demonstrating this below in the form of an invitation....should anyone doubt.

The rather bizarre topic titles we read at blogstream: "God is unAmerican", "God can make you do what He wants you to do", "The thing God cares about the most; it ain't you babe", "Fluffy the Dog is not going to Heaven" are the product of Philosophy corrupting the truth. Much of Philosophy cares less about truth than about consistancy. I prove this with the following absurd philosophical point of view.

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Humans do not qualify to go to Heaven because they do not have consciousness. Belief and Faith do not exist.
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In demonstration I assert that common sense understandings (folk psychology) doesn't exist. Any of it, including belief and intention, is not a viable theory because it cannot be tested through scientific investigation. In short, it cannot be proven because no rational or reasoned argument can be raised in support of belief, faith, or intention. The behaviour and experience can only be adequately explained on the biological level. And even there the explanation is not rational. Therefore consciousness does not exist except as an cerebral phenomenon.

Get ready! The progress of Neuroscience will prove your belief in anything and everything is a figment of your imagination. Faith is illusory and as a result does not have an established neurological substrate, nor will one be found. In ten years, real science will prove all you value to be illusion.

Go ahead. Try to argue the point with me. I will defeat you using the wisdom of man. And each step along the way will bring us closer to the end of your objections, yet farther from the TRUTH.

The wisdom of man is the Anti-Christ. Well, one of them.

Occasionally I am struck by the mix of the lyrics and how well they match the music experience. This is somewhat dated. But hearing it wrapped around a CSI episode strengthened the meaning. CSI Las Vegas had side by side murders they were solving. One was of a Laotian Immigrant murdered by a rival. The other was the accidental killing of an up and coming duplicitous singer engaged in an evening of bondage gone wrong.

"Mad World" - Tears For Fears

All around me are familiar faces,
worn out places, worn out faces,
Bright and early for their daily races,
going nowhere, going nowhere,

And their tears are filling up their glasses,
no expression, no expression,
Hide my head, I want to drown my sorrow,
no tomorrow, no tomorrow,

And I find it kind of funny,
I find it kind of sad,
The dreams in which I'm dying
are the best I've every had.

I find it hard to tell you,
cause I find it hard to take,
when people run in circles,
it's a very, very
Mad World mad world mad world mad world

Children waiting for the day they feel good,
Happy birthday, happy birthday,
Made to feel the way that every child should
sit and listen, sit and listen.

Went to school and I was very nervous,
No one knew me, no one knew me,
Hello teacher, tell me what's my lesson,
look right through me, look right through me.

Resolution #1
2002: I will reduce my weight below 180.
2003: I will watch my calories/carbos until I get below 190.
2004: I will follow my new diet religiously until I get below 200.
2005: I will develop a reasonable attitude about my weight.

Now what?

Of late the Bush administration has been peppered for permitting the torture of some of our captive enemy in secret prisons throughout the world. Some Arguments that justify torture is that the Geneva Convention provides no protection to these combatants and the rules of war have no restraint on our actions where the enemy chooses not to follow them. Additionally, a question: Is torture justified in war if the intelligence gained leads to the saving of American lives?

Does the good of the most justify the use of immoral treatment of the few? Despite the absolutely justified end, are there some means that cannot be justified? If yes, (without taking the position that there are) specifically, what are those means?