The War Prayer – Mark Twain
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on..." The War Prayer, is a short story by Mark Twain about blind patriotic war and the God who is on both sides. Written around 1904, published after his death in 1923.
Part 1
Part 2
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the Read more [...]
Joseph Campbell – The Hero’s Journey
In The Hero with a Thousand Faces Joseph Campbell looks at myths and psychology - showing the connection between the stages of the "monomyth" seen in religion, movies and the journey of each of our lives. I'm using this book along with some other Joseph Campbell books and videos for my class...
"The mythological hero, setting forth from his common-day hut or castle, is lured, carried away, or else voluntarily proceeds, to the threshold of adventure. There he encounters a shadow presence that Read more [...]
Is “God” a Fractal?
When I inside and outside my "self", I see one thing: fractals. Fractals explain to me the microcosm and the macrocosm that our cells, bodies, societies, galaxies, and possibly universes and beyond, are a part of.
Have you seen the "Power of Ten" clip? This is a MUST. It zooms out at the power of 10 every second out to the edge of our universe and then zooms into through to the quantum quark inside your hand. Out of every youtube clip I've ever posted on this blog, this is my favourite:
Compare Read more [...]
What makes more sense?
What makes more sense? 1. That God selected ONE species to be his “chosen” species, abandoning all His other creations to nothingness. OR 2. That God values ALL of his creations. The idea that humans are the only creations with souls, is a narrative created by humans not God. What makes more sense? 1. That God selected ONE group of people to be His “chosen people, to help them conquer other groups of people (as long as they obeyed Him) and to punish all other people in the world who strive Read more [...]Can Buddha help us deal with the elephant?
I am starting to understand what Buddha meant when he said all life is suffering. No matter which financial situation you are born into, we always want more. It is very rare we reach a stage where we happily say “enough”. The more chocolate I have, the more chocolate I want. The more countries I go to, the more countries I want to go to. The more money I have the bigger apartment I can get, the better the car, the more vintage the scooter, the more designer the clothes, the better quality Read more [...]
Capitalistic karma: reinterpreting reincarnation
Walking up in the mountains outside Kathmandu I contemplated the connection between the world’s inequalities today, the actions of one’s ancestors, and the idea of karma and reincarnation that I had been reading about in some books on the Eastern Religions.
Be they the ancestors who split from the group to discover new worlds fifty thousand years ago, or be they the innovators of new technologies that won them last century’s battles, the connection is pretty clear... and I wondered, is this Read more [...]
Free Documentaries: The Truth Is Free
Bored? Never! Check out this website: http://freedocumentaries.org/index.php
In particular I recommend:
Manufacturing Consent - Noam Chomsky ... if you haven't seen this one you better watch it NOW!
The War on Democracy - The US manipulates politics of South America
The Power of Nightmares - The rise of the Religious Right in America, and Islamic Fundamentalists.
Jesus Camp - SCARY!
The Story of God - explores the history of humanity's search for our creator.
Zeitgeist - as I Read more [...]
The Spirit of the Times (Zeitgeist)
In the hidden-away tranquility beneath the branches of large shadowy trees, in the Secret Garden hostel in a mysterious little town called Vilcabamba, in Ecuador December 2008, I met a man with white hair and a white beard. It was from this man that I first learned of the Zeitgeist...
The word “Zeitgeist” comes from the German word Zeit, which means time, and Geist, which means spirit.
So basically Zeitgeist means the “spirit of the times” and according to wikipedia this Read more [...]
How to create a world war
Among my Internet surfing I came across a “creationist” website – the belief that the world is around 6000 years old – a figure derived from tracing back the genealogy in the bible from Jesus to Adam, and the seven-day creation. This belief is growing so much that more than 40% of Americans believe this and do not believe in evolution!
Obviously this creation story clashes with the Story of the Universe I am presenting in my Big History Blog Series. I think it is always important to read Read more [...]
How Religion Spread
You MUST check out this awesome animated map of history. It shows when each religion starts and how each one spreads across the globe – all in less than two minutes.
http://www.mapsofwar.com/images/Religion.swf
It’s been a busy week so I will start the Big History series, beginning with the Big Bang, very soon.
Have a good weekend!
Richard Dawkins and WHAT is God?
Interesting interview on SBS with Richard Dawkins last night. Stream it at this address:
http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/watch/id/600352/n/Interview-with-Richard-Dawkins
I left this comment and thought I'd share it with you:
There is a God VS there is no God.. haven't we forgotten to define WHAT is it we refer to as "GOD"???
I was a fundamentalist Christian for 20 years but now having rejected it I am getting closer to "God".
In evolution I see "God". In intuition I hear "God". Read more [...]
A time for everything
Time is the most valuable asset we have. We count as weeks and years go by, as we get older and our borrowed energy starts to dwindle. There's not enough time in our day. Not enough time in our weeks. Not enough time in our lives. And yet there is, we just have to accept that there is a time for everything:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A Read more [...]
Resolution Theory
So I (finally) finished reading Shantaram!!! It is a very long book, but well worth the time.
My favourite parts, besides Gregory David Robert's incredible use of adjectives, is the philosophy of life that Khader Bhai, the Mafia don, shares with Lin. Khader Bhai calls it Resolution Theory, and I think it's pretty similar to my own philosophy that I, for fun, labeled "Creativism". While Resolution Theory relates good and evil to the tendency toward or away from complexity, I like to think of Read more [...]
The Religion Debate
1. “Is there or isn’t there a God?”
2. “Is my god the True God or is yours?”
These debates are entirely based on one’s definition of the word “God.” So, shouldn’t we be a little more focused on the question as to what is God???
People define God in different ways, and then we call those different definitions “different gods”… but they are not. They are different definitions of God. Different interpretations of God. Different personifications of God – or a decision Read more [...]
Consumerised misinterpreted pagan traditions
Surrounded by the mayhem of people spending money in desperation to tick the boxes and announce that those glorious words: “I have finished all my Christmas shopping”, when something dawned on me. It is not the nicest thing to day one day before the holiday many people have looked forward to all year but to be brutally honest I realised I like Christmas about as much as I like loosing my ipod.
I looked down at my own list, cursing myself for not getting organised earlier, chewed down hard Read more [...]
Journey of an Inquisitive Christian
It is up to us individually to question everything we are told, everything we read and even those things we see and feel. We must always consider the source of our information, and what were those sources are influenced and motivated by.
When we read the Bible, we must consider the author, the author’s sources and the author’s sources’ sources. What were these people’s motivations and influences? In what context were they written, and what did the author’s original words and sentences Read more [...]
A scrap of paper from 2000
It was the year 2000, my first year out of school and first year of university. I would have been 17 or 18 years old. My strength at this time came from my strong faith in God. I went to church on Sunday nights, taught children's Sunday school on Sunday mornings. Friday nights were youth group at church and once a week on the evening i went to a bible study group at someone from the church's house. On top of all of this I had daily private times where I would read the bible or a biblical book Read more [...]God and fundamentalisms
This may sound strange but I LOVE our universe. I love that we are conscious of our selves, that we understand so much about our location in space and time, and I love that there is so much we don't know - the mystery and intrigue keeps life exciting. It reminds you of the importance of the process, not the result. Dreaming and working to achieve your dreams so that when you make it you can dream a new dream. There's always more to learn. There's always new ways to create. The universe has infinite Read more [...]
Meaning of life
Something sure to come up a lot on this blog is the question of meaning - why the f**k are we here on this planet??? It is something I contemplate regularly.
The human condition is a strange one - born no different from other animals we are educated into languages, enculturated into structures of thinking, sets of values, morals, dreams. We grow up and play out our roles in society, dedicating our life to our relationships, our religions, our jobs, the building up materialistic goods, searching Read more [...]
“A Little Inspiration for a Big Idea”
The Art Tree Exhibition - my series is called "A Little Inspiration for a Big Idea"...
The little inspiration
The Theory of Evolution is a HUGE idea. But like all ideas, it starts with one thing: a little inspiration. Something happens to you: a feeling, a thought, divine inspiration? Over time this develops, culminating in an idea which if it's a good one, can change the world forever.
Darwin took over twenty years to transform his thoughts into the massive idea unleashed into the Read more [...]
