07.31.07
Posted in New Age at 9:40 pm by nemo
Sillykitty(thanks) sends me this link (he is in constant paranoid fear of ‘sufi hyena’ gold, the ‘shaykh’ according to Whitehouse) from Sufi Amanesis, with remarks about E.J. Gold
the google blog search turns up interesting tidbits sometimes. check out
‘authenticity of sufi shaykhs’ re: e.j. gold
http://anab-whitehouse.blogspot.com/2007/07/authenticity.html
Since Mr. Whitehouse has never met Mr. Gold, and has little information, we can take his remarks as courteous verbiage. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in New Age at 7:50 pm by nemo
Doberry comment. Since Dogberry is getting stymied by the comments straightjacket I will quote the comment in a top line post:
Dogberry said,
July 31, 2007 at 5:00 am ·
Some interesting reflections on Gurdjieff, Bennett, Shah, Lessing, higher powers, dangers of ’seeking’, authoritarian teachers, dialogue, by Tony Blake, here:
http://www.anthonyblake.co.uk/Meetings.html
Tony Blake link
The blog format is not really suitable for exploring themes in depth, as comments only surface if you, Nemo, bump them back to the top by creating a new post. And Comment text doesn’t appear in searches. I’ve mentioned Ikbal Ali-Shah twice, but try searching for it.
Thanks for the interesting link, and I recall reading a book by Blake, in the eighties, but I forget the title, it had a lot of interesting historical material. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in New Age at 7:14 pm by nemo
James on Bhakti yoga.
And it is remarkable to see that resurface in the modern New Age movement, with multiple gurus plying a disguised bhakti yoga in their ashramic combinations, even Rajneesh. In all fairness, the multitudes of spiritual seekers themselves tend to foment their own entrapment in this, and it is a good business for celebrity gurus to exploit bhakti for their own dominance.
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Posted in Evolution at 4:07 pm by nemo
From the Bulletin online
Such hyperrational plans are at the root of our problem in the nuclear age. Since the invention of the atomic bomb, we have surrendered control of nuclear policy to elites whose schooling in game theory and operations research has often superseded common sense and human wisdom. As interesting as it might be to ask what rational actors would do in the event of nuclear attack, human beings are not rational actors. If they were, we wouldn’t have thousands of nuclear weapons in the world today.
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Posted in Evolution at 3:53 pm by nemo
Panda’s Thumb comments of Korthof review
…If natural law and chance can in fact explain the evolution of life after the instance of ‘creation’, then ID has made itself irrelevant…
This is a good criticism, but the problem is that natural law and chance can’t foot the bill either. This double contradiction resembles the antinomy structure of Kant’s dialectic.
The double contradiction can only be resolved by considering a time-less component to evolutionary theories,whatever that might be.
Korthof shows how Behe’s book does little to explain ‘Intelligent Design’, leaving it once again scientifically vacuous.
More recently I listened to Behe talk about intelligent design, suggesting that the design instance could very well be moved to the moment of ‘creation’. Such a self defeating move was in fact predicted by such visionaries as Wesley Elsberry and others. If natural law and chance can in fact explain the evolution of life after the instance of ‘creation’, then ID has made itself irrelevant and yet ID also argues that there are ‘edges’ which evolution cannot explain and which would require some intervention. However at the same time it also suggests that such interventions may not be needed but then there are no edges left to evolution.
This fascinating self contradiction is what lies at the foundation as to why Intelligent Design has remained scientifically vacuous.
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Posted in Evolution at 3:47 pm by nemo
Either Design or Common Descent
Michael Behe (2007) The Edge of Evolution. The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, Free Press.
Review by Gert Korthof, 22 July 2007
Common Descent is based on genetic continuity in the history of life on earth. Design, according to Michael Behe, is based on genetic discontinuities in the Tree of Life. Therefore, Design and Common Descent are not compatible. Make your choice: it is either Design or Common Descent. Contrary to Behe, both cannot be true.
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Posted in Evolution at 3:13 pm by nemo
In Games, an Insight Into the Rules of Evolution
The most confusing thing about Neo-Darwinism is the appearance of apparent rigor in pop gen and now evolutionary dynamics. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in 1848+, Evolution at 2:56 pm by nemo
ISR Issue 54, July–August 2007
——————————————————————————–
CRITICAL THINKING
Darwin’s dangerous ideas
Why evolutionary biology creates a problem for the Right
By PHIL GASPER
Phil Gasper should know better, and I am SURE he does know better, but can’t avoid the party line here of the so-called left on Darwinism.
It is hard to believe that he will end up actually losing an argument to Larry Arnhart.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Evolution at 2:45 pm by nemo
Behe quote from UD
Far and away the most extensive relevant data we have on the subject of evolution’s effects on competing organisms is that accumulated on interactions between humans and our parasites. As with the example of malaria, the data show trench warfare, with acts of desperate destruction, not arms races, with mutual improvements. The thrust and parry of human-malaria evolution did not build anything–it only destroyed things. Jettisoning G6PD wrecks, it does not construct. Throwing away band 3 protein does likewise…The arms race metaphor itself is misconceived…Real arms races are run by highly intelligent, bespectacled engineers in glass offices thoughtfully designing shiny weapons on modern computers. But there’s no thinking in the mud and cold of nature’s trenches…In its real war with malaria, the human genome has only diminished.
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07.30.07
Posted in History, Science & Religion at 8:12 pm by nemo
James comments on “ID gang worried about Buddhism”.
Buddhism is unique in the degree to which it has maintained a consistent tradition, but those days may be passing. With Hinduism, the history of the influence of theism on its doctrines is a somber one. Perhaps that influence is only on the surface, or in the minds of non-Indian intellectuals (if you can worship Shiva in a multitude of Hindu temples it hardly seems to run very deep), but it is there, and quite insidious. For example, the Yoga Sutras in one version came out under the title How To Know God, but as one Indian scholar points out (See the material on The Quest For The Historical Gita at history-and-evolution.com) the god reference in the sutras is a later interpolation!
I don’t speak here either as a theist, atheist, or agnostic. I try to stay ‘fluid’ beyond these categories, which devolves to a kind of ‘de facto’ atheism, i.e. the term ‘god’ has been hijacked by multiple religious bandits and is effectively unusable, leaving one simply struck dumb.
I don’t wish to devalue Chopra but it seems that the blend of theism and Indian religion produces a kind of inscrutable pantheistic ‘feeling god’ mixed with tidbits of yogic lore and spaced out quantum mechanics.
The instincts of the Darwinists are in a way understandable given this set of historical facts (which never makes it into the history books) because it shows how the steady pressure of obsessive theists (over not just decades, but centuries) can slowly but surely erode traditions by creating false hybrids.
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Posted in Evolution, Science & Religion at 6:38 pm by nemo
The Out Campaign
by Richard Dawkins
In the dark days of 1940, the pre-Vichy French government was warned by its generals “In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken.” After the Battle of Britain, Winston Churchill growled his response: “Some chicken; some neck!” Today, the bestselling books of ‘The New Atheism’ are disparaged, by those who desperately wish to downplay their impact, as “Only preaching to the choir.”
That’s a pretty dubious analogy, and a cheap shot to compare you philosophic foes with Nazis.
But, OK, don’t underestimate the rise of the New Atheism. To me, the problem is that the concoction might actually succeed because of its superficiality, even as it drives away a whole spectrum of ‘non-theists’ who don’t care to be railroaded into this house of cards based on Dawkins’ dishonest Darwin deceptions, and the rest of the biological/reductionist pablum that is made to prop up this curious new ‘cult’.
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07.25.07
Posted in New Age at 6:12 pm by nemo
Dogberry comments
you were offered…? I doubt if you got my point, not surprising.
Beyond that, you misunderstand me: I am not a New Age seeker who met a bad teacher out of a line up of good and bad. I have no connection to any of that. The Mephisto metaphor, a slap in the face metaphor, applied to people, viz. Shah and his gang (check out Sillykitty and the e.j. gold circuit) recognizably sufistic (???)
I was pointing to the way the dynamics of sufism is an exploitation, most sufistic public pronouncements misleading, and most indications of how to proceed without merit. Pull away from the whole game. You must reinvent the subject alone, a terrifically hard thing to do, but with all this ‘help’ actually you are worse off.
If sufism is so confused by fronts then why bother with it?
Don’t let this vicious process take up all your time and hope. It’s all garbage at this point. You will run out of time, and die of shock that you kissed the ass of a bunch of gangsters.
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Posted in General at 4:43 pm by nemo
SK sends link for Wikipedia on MK UlTRA:
With respect to:
Spies, occultists, gollum’s temptations,
I would say that the material on the CIA and MK ULTRA shows people/a social process too far gone to ever tune into anything (laughably called) ‘esoteric’. There is no simple or easy intersection between such different types. Thus the connections would be exceptional/individual.
People in spiritual circles proceed indirectly, witness the clear injunctions in, say, the Yoga Sutras. To be sure, people like Aleister Crowley look like exceptions.
Whatever the case, our concern here is to consider the hope we could warn the vulnerable as to what is afoot in the world of–I won’t say ‘cults’, since these operators are more clever by a half than most cult creators–those who exploit the spiritual searches of others.
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Posted in New Age at 4:57 pm by nemo
Dogberry sends me an email on an old post at ‘deeper_d@yahoogroups.com’, a discussion group for the Bennett group. He wishes more information on the ‘sufi secret’. Then posts two comments on the blog: Shah and Gurdjieff, Psychology of the sufi hyaena
Dogberry, I will comment further on this. UPDATE: next post discusses this: http://darwiniana.com/2007/07/24/dogberry-red-alert/
Thanks, in a way, for forcing the issue.
Let me note right off that the term ‘kundalini’ isn’t really appropriate here. It will cause you to go off on a wild goose chase in the wrong direction. The point was to think of a word for something that doesn’t enter ordinary experience.
There is another post on this at this blog, use the search box.
Dear John
I have just read your warnings about sufism on deeper_d, the systematics list at yahoo groups.
“The big sufi secret is impressive in one way, and worthless in another. It is a kind of refined kundalini, controlled, sometimes taken as ‘ belly seed’ baby process, ‘growing a soul’. It passes via fronts, and you never see the real operators involved. Only the front, a good example being a figure like Reshad Field. It happens real quick among those who get it, so if you have spent more than five years around a sufi derivative and don’t know what I am talking about you didn’t get it, and are involved in fake junk. … The whole thing is an occult nightmare, and the catch is that you never get to control the ‘baraka’. It is all a baited trap. … How do I know all this? I am actually strangely fortunate in being one of the few people who found out about the sufi secret without getting caught in it. You can be sure those people hate me for telling on them.”
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07.21.07
Posted in 1848+, In the News at 2:58 pm by nemo
http://tinyurl.com/392eff [Raw story]
Old-line Republican warns ‘something’s in the works’ to trigger a police
state
Read the rest of this entry »
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07.20.07
Posted in Evolution at 7:37 pm by nemo
H. Allen Orr, A Religion for Darwinians? (Subscription)
Living with Darwin: Evolution, Design, and the Future of Faith by Philip Kitcher
Read the rest of this entry »
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07.16.07
Posted in Evolution at 3:24 pm by nemo
The New New Atheism
Attacking “God” has become a lucrative book business. But there’s not much substance behind the latest atheist tracts.
BY PETER BERKOWITZ
Monday, July 16, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Evolution at 3:14 pm by nemo
Darwin or Design audiobook
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Posted in Science & Religion, you've got mail at 3:10 pm by nemo
When quote mining becomes quote mania:
Rabbi Slifkin derives science from the Torah
By Shmuel-Pairont de la Meyraque
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/SlifkinReview.cfm
The literary output by Rabbi Nathan Slifkin has been highly praised by a number of reviewers, including Professor Michael Ruse, several prominent rabbis, and university professors. Here is a review suggesting a very different opinion of Slifkin’s literary production.
published: Jul 15, 2007
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07.14.07
Posted in Evolution, Philosophy at 8:19 pm by nemo
An Atheist Responds.
Let us grant the contradictions and difficulties in the ethical teachings of the historical monotheisms. But the ethical myths now being ‘Sinai’d’ by the Darwinian coup d’etat are hardly any better, in fact, they are worse. Is it any less insulting/mythological to foist on humanity the Just So stories of kin/group selection using a theory that can’t even explain the evolution of a agent able to make ethical choices.
Meanwhile, the Kantian attempt to break out of the hopeless contradictions created by the Newtonianization of ethics is banished from discourse as technocratic bandits construct a clever theory to justify their dog-eat-dog capitalist style.
Ye gods!
…it is his own supposedly kindly religion that prevents him from seeing how insulting is the latent suggestion of his position: the appalling insinuation that I would not know right from wrong if I was not supernaturally guided by a celestial dictatorship, which could read and condemn my thoughts and which could also consign me to eternal worshipful bliss (a somewhat hellish idea) or to an actual hell.
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07.11.07
Posted in Critique of Evolutionary Economy, Evolution at 4:02 pm by nemo
Economists question dominance of free-market ideas
By Patricia Cohen Published: July 11, 2007
At least economists have some leeway for dissent. Evolutionary biology would be better off if the debate over Darwinism as real with students studying evolution, and selectionist theory taken as an ongoing hypothesis.
Read the rest of this entry »
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07.10.07
Posted in Booknotes, Evolution, New Age, The Axial Age, World History and The Eonic Effect at 8:26 pm by nemo
Hucklebird comment on Chopra post.
I don’t wish to get into sermonizing about making money with books, but the real issue is the motivation of the author. Did he consciously or unconsciously meld his message to match a large audience?
Beyond that is a certain bitterness in the way the New Age movement changed its character. At the end of all that effort, the result for most is nothing, sad. Chopra makes off with his bundle. Maybe there is no harm in it.
A lot of New Age types chose poverty (not directly) in the sense of not trying to indulge hype.
Beyond that, speaking for myself, World History and The Eonic Effect succeeds because it didn’t cater to any market, the result contains a genuinely new insight into the question of human evolution, however long it takes for that to become public knowledge. I could never have done that for a mainstream publishing initiative where the focus on market niche dominates the marketing decisions of publishers.
And I have to make sure the message will survive those who might realize what I am saying and try to sensationalize or distort it. I have to be especially wary of the Chopra types.
I have already suffered that fate with Karen Armstrong. Her trashy junk on the Axial Age after she obviously had read my first edition almost destroyed the whole discourse of the Axial Age.
She is a writer by profession, and has to put away a nest egg, and that obviously lurks in the background. She has to target an audience, and she incredibly manages to be so deceptively indirect as to sausage up the question for theists and atheists simultaneously. She is on record as an atheist (apparently) and yet she is giving lectures in Moslem countries as a religion expert. That’s what I call clever insincerity!
Chopra is no Armstrong, so maybe it’s me, allergic to money.
Still, I make no final judgment on Chopra, that’s the trend of information, a sort of involution, toward a larger and larger audience, in a watered down result.
Part of the problem is that I just don’t do things his way, e.g. the treatment of quantum mechanics, etc… So there is a parting of ways.
Meanwhile I wouldn’t trade my WH&EE for anything like Chopra’s success. Who cares about the money?
In a way that’s the value of Kant. He scares people away, and a format that echoes a few points of his thinking protects the discovery of historical structure from metaphysical exploitation.
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Posted in you've got mail at 6:40 pm by nemo
From Rad-Green
[this blog has a long commentary on Johnson's thinking--search 'Chalmers Johnson']
Chalmers Johnson on the decline of the American Empire – CBC
“Dispatches”
Read the rest of this entry »
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07.09.07
Posted in Evolution at 10:40 pm by nemo
Hucklebird, I noticed your Amazon review (reposted at chaosmos@yahoogroups.com) of Chopra’s The Book of Secrets. Btw, there is a book with the same title by Rajneesh (a multivolume work on a host of ancient spiritual teachings) and I could bet Chopra’s title echoes that in some way (by which I imply no plagiarism).
I have never read a Chopra book, so I am not in a position to pass judgment. But I recall, from my sidelines, the way in which the New Age movement changed gears in the eighties. The originals were suddely displaced and the profiteers took over. I always felt resentment and refusal to even pick up one of Chopra’s books for that reason (probably totally unfair to him), because I could see the original New Age movement (to which I never belonged anyway) was over.
I notice the curious version of the theistic design argument in your citations. I would say that Chopra seems to echo that strain of Indian spirituality that was the object of stealth theism, as the original non-theistic yogas slowly but surely chameleonized in confrontation with the spread of monotheism. In the end Buddhism was driven out of India.
You might check out a book called The Gita As It Was (there might be a copy at Amazon) from a number of years ago. It describes how the original ‘gita’ was turned into the book as we know it now, a curious theological mishmash.
Anyway, Chopra’s strange blend of pantheistic (?) mystical rhetoric and science jargon is a sweet sell for many, and grates on the ears of many others.
I should wonder what his book on Buddha is like. Let us know (??).
Read the rest of this entry »
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