Forum V: Archive
Compiled: Tues, Oct 03, 2000 at 09:16:19 (GMT)
From: Sep 18, 2000 To: Sep 29, 2000 Page: 3 Of: 5


Nigel -:- to Katie - reply to inactive post -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 19:50:25 (GMT)
__ Mel Bourne -:- to Katie - reply to inactive post -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 10:32:37 (GMT)
__ __ Nigel -:- I suspect you already know better than you let on -:- Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 00:38:33 (GMT)
__ __ Mel Bourne -:- Nigel, an apology and retraction -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 14:20:16 (GMT)
__ __ Jim -:- Bullshit, Mel -- you're just an opportunist -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 14:15:31 (GMT)
__ __ __ Mel Bourne -:- Bullshit, Mel -- you're just an opportunist -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 14:28:19 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Jim -:- You lost the benefit of the doubt a long time ago -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 04:05:19 (GMT)

ReadOnly -:- Sir David your not doing your job - AG moved -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 12:25:55 (GMT)
__ Sir Dave -:- Thanks but who's the hacker -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 23:53:51 (GMT)
__ __ anti hacker -:- hacker ZEN is again AROUND! (nt) -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 04:53:40 (GMT)
__ __ __ Zen -:- Lies and lies. I am not a hacker -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 08:18:39 (GMT)
__ __ Mw -:- Thanks but who's the hacker -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 00:06:56 (GMT)
__ __ Sir Dave -:- Maybe this is the answer -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 00:03:06 (GMT)

Robyn -:- Jim and other Science guys -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 12:25:53 (GMT)
__ G -:- a couple of links -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 01:39:37 (GMT)
__ __ ExTex -:- a couple of links -THEY ARE GREAT!!! -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 19:33:45 (GMT)
__ __ AJW -:- or as the man at Decca said... -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 16:32:55 (GMT)
__ __ __ G -:- 'A completely idiotic idea' -:- Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 15:40:28 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ G -:- a link to some disgusting garbage -:- Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 16:43:51 (GMT)
__ __ G -:- Scientific Censorship and Evolution -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 19:18:09 (GMT)
__ __ __ G -:- More censorship -:- Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 15:57:07 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jim -:- Dawkins' review of Milton's book -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 01:30:14 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ G -:- a misrepresentation by Dawkins? -:- Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 18:19:28 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- Don't watch that watch this: FOCD - JOIN US! -:- Tues, Sep 26, 2000 at 15:30:53 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ G -:- Yes indeed -:- Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 23:00:02 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ G -:- Dawkins' review -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 17:49:59 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- 'typical squawking from Dawkins. ..'? -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 22:42:08 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- 'the tooth fairy' -:- Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 00:22:39 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- 'the tooth fairy' -:- Tues, Sep 26, 2000 at 14:53:05 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ JohnT -:- Dawkins' spot-on review -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 06:19:05 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ G -:- evolution -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 16:37:18 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ JohnT -:- evolution -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 22:09:02 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- evolution -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 23:10:46 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ JohnT -:- 'random'; 'information' -:- Mon, Sep 25, 2000 at 22:50:34 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- 'random'; 'information' -:- Tues, Sep 26, 2000 at 05:55:30 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ JohnT -:- Sorry, you lost me. What are you saying? -:- Tues, Sep 26, 2000 at 08:21:49 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- evolution -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 16:51:05 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- PROVE IT -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 17:54:58 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- Sigh... -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 22:23:31 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ cq -:- Dark side of the moon? Huh? -:- Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 19:25:41 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- You know what I meant (nt) -:- Tues, Sep 26, 2000 at 13:35:39 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ cq -:- Savvy, squire (nt) -:- Wed, Sep 27, 2000 at 18:01:03 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- 'prove' -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 23:56:39 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- established beyond reasonable doubt, then... -:- Tues, Sep 26, 2000 at 14:27:34 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- Long post above just vanished! -:- Tues, Sep 26, 2000 at 16:25:11 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Prove yours, G -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 18:43:22 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- argument from authority -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 22:21:38 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- No, G, as usual, you're wrong -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 23:42:52 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- authority -:- Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 00:45:11 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- authority -:- Mon, Sep 25, 2000 at 07:54:26 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Read 'Climbing Mt. Improbable' (nt) -:- Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 01:41:40 (GMT)
__ __ cq -:- 'A new idea is delicate' -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 18:38:09 (GMT)
__ __ __ cq -:- After you, Jim. (nt) -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 15:10:10 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jim -:- Fuck off already, Chris (nt) -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 01:34:17 (GMT)
__ ham -:- You can map me any time you like Robyn! (nt) -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 21:30:41 (GMT)
__ Nigel -:- Jim and other Science guys -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 20:47:03 (GMT)
__ __ Robyn -:- other reply to G,ham,Nig, this one to Nig -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 16:42:21 (GMT)
__ __ Robyn -:- Jim and other Science guys -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 16:36:39 (GMT)
__ __ __ Nigel -:- Renaissance man? Gadzooks...! -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 21:47:56 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Robyn -:- Renaissance man? Gadzooks...! -:- Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 01:25:38 (GMT)

Salam -:- We are not the minority, EV is. -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 10:32:00 (GMT)
__ Mili -:- We are not the minority, EV is. -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 17:24:53 (GMT)
__ __ Salam -:- Does Mili stands for Milivoi Krkowitch? -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 01:27:55 (GMT)
__ __ Sir Dave -:- Is that the best you can do? -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 00:30:27 (GMT)
__ __ __ cq -:- It's the width - of Mili's inane grin, aint' it?nt -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 18:44:27 (GMT)
__ __ __ ham -:- Think you misread him Sir D -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 08:42:07 (GMT)
__ __ hamzen -:- Now that is funny Mili, a pleasant change (nt) -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 20:07:29 (GMT)
__ __ __ Nigel -:- Never mind the quality, feel the wit... -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 20:23:36 (GMT)

TED Farkel-new premie -:- I made an arti tray out of a hubcap...is this ok? -:- Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 22:02:46 (GMT)
__ Roger eDrek -:- Here's the words to Arti -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 01:02:21 (GMT)
__ EddyTheTurtle -:- Real Arti Stuff...no imitation -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 15:43:58 (GMT)
__ Loaf -:- as long as its still on the car - Fine !!(NT) -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 15:26:08 (GMT)
__ Sir Dave -:- Top tips for devotees -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 09:06:18 (GMT)
__ AJW -:- Sacrifice TED -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 08:55:12 (GMT)
__ __ Tonette -:- It may of been a cult but at least -:- Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 06:24:16 (GMT)
__ __ Salam -:- Sacrifice TED -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 13:05:27 (GMT)
__ __ __ AJW -:- Salam, how could you -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 15:35:03 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Salam -:- OK, Take 2 -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 15:40:54 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ AJW -:- Thanks Salam -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 15:54:00 (GMT)
__ __ Jean-Michel -:- Anth? Threats against animals! Threats threats FA? -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 09:33:30 (GMT)
__ __ __ AJW -:- J-M, it's for a higher cause. -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 11:00:09 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Jean-Michel -:- I thought you like blood stains? -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 13:11:03 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ AJW -:- My second bathtub -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 15:37:13 (GMT)
__ Jake Drone -:- Great Idea, Ted, just one thing -:- Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 23:46:57 (GMT)
__ __ ExTex -:- Stereotype Southbashing Blows -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 07:21:08 (GMT)
__ __ __ Cat On A Hot Tin Roof -:- Lost Your Funny Bone, Darlin' -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 14:31:46 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ ExTex -:- Lost Your Funny Bone, Darlin' -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 06:37:00 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jim -:- Uh oh! Somebody got hurt! -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 14:00:28 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ ExTex -:- Uh oh! Somebody got hurt! -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 07:00:06 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ cq -:- you gonna speak up for the morons too? -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 19:00:57 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Roger eDrek -:- This magazine may look like a Playboy, but... -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 00:45:30 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ ham -:- But I bet it was page 3 with Marilyn running -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 08:45:50 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Roger eDrek -:- No, no, no! Such impure thoughts are dangerous -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 19:23:43 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ ham -:- Teach, Roger's zipper's undone (nt) -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 20:10:01 (GMT)
__ __ __ Tonette -:- But texas isn't really considered -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 08:35:50 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ ExTex -:- But texas isn't really considered -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 07:19:07 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Tonette -:- Hey, are you from Texas? -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 08:15:19 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ ExTex -:- Hey, are you from Texas? -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 03:55:19 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Tonette -:- I'm here but am shy a little bit -:- Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 06:34:45 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ ExTex -:- shy a little bit -:- Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 09:29:54 (GMT)
__ __ GERRY -:- Are you picking on drones, Jake? -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 00:00:18 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jake Drone -:- Hey. no offence, dude!! -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 00:32:20 (GMT)
__ The observant -:- What are you Ted? -:- Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 23:14:47 (GMT)
__ __ Roger eDrek -:- Just ignore Mr. observant, TED. We'll help you! -:- Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 23:40:29 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jim -:- ****EVERYONE JUST HAS TO READ THAT***** -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 06:26:51 (GMT)
__ __ __ TED Farkel -:- thanks guys...you exes aren't so bad after all... -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 03:29:39 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Nigel -:- So who are you, Ted? -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 23:17:37 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Roger eDrek -:- Damn straight, we did! -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 04:02:31 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ anti dwarf -:- Is it true that M is a DWARF? nt -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 05:00:34 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Lolaji -:- Jacob??? that you?? ..well sheeeet dam! NT -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 08:58:31 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jake Drone -:- Voodoo chicken -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 00:50:37 (GMT)

Rudy -:- True Knowledge -:- Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 21:29:28 (GMT)
__ Jim -:- Ah, isn't that so sweet! -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 14:31:57 (GMT)
__ __ Steve -:- Jim come on- I know you have a heart........ -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 18:57:22 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jim -:- Problem, Steve, is I also have a brain (nt) -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 00:52:18 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Steve -:- No problem- all humans have too nt -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 14:22:47 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Now don't go getting all literal on me (nt) -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 16:17:59 (GMT)
__ __ Y -:- Science is toying with the gut-brain concept. -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 15:43:50 (GMT)
__ ExTex -:- A Nice Little Sentiment (nt) -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 07:03:47 (GMT)
__ Yves -:- True Knowledge -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 02:08:06 (GMT)
__ __ Tonette -:- Another ELK original -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 02:26:19 (GMT)
__ Marianne -:- Beware! Satsang poem above! nt -:- Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 22:53:34 (GMT)
__ __ People's Poet -:- comment from the muse below -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 17:36:26 (GMT)
__ __ __ gerry -:- Nice one, Peep nt -:- Mon, Sep 25, 2000 at 16:05:14 (GMT)

suchabanana -:- healing, sincerity, following our own hearts -:- Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 19:46:03 (GMT)
__ Steve -:- Your not really suchabanana - well said nt -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 13:47:33 (GMT)
__ ExTex -:- I Like Your Rap, Banana-Dude -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 06:30:10 (GMT)
__ billberry -:- fullfill this life? -:- Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 22:50:49 (GMT)
__ __ suchabanana -:- honest answers to your queries -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 03:13:16 (GMT)
__ __ __ billbarry -:- Bananananda Ji -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 05:51:07 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ suchabanana -:- words, concepts, and way beyond... -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 08:16:46 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ bill burke -:- Got another name? -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 04:31:20 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ suchabanana -:- Got another name? -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 07:52:35 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ bill -:- Got another name? -:- Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 15:24:01 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ bill -:- negativity here? -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 05:08:44 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ beezleburke -:- Got another name? -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 04:54:10 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ ExTex -:- The God Thing -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 06:54:56 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ suchabanana -:- The God Thing, toroids, inner/outer stargates... -:- Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 08:21:28 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ bill -:- The God Thing, toroids, inner/outer stargates... -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 05:12:04 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ suchabanana -:- universal connection, yes + you got it too... -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 08:50:37 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ bill -:- universal connection, yes + you got it too... -:- Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 15:31:07 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Edwin A. Abbott -:- Flatland? -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 03:41:49 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ suchabanana -:- Flatland? -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 05:07:40 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ ED-Not -:- It's a book and an author!(not me - 2nd pub. 1884) -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 05:57:02 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ suchabanana -:- It's a book and an author!(not me - 2nd pub. 1884) -:- Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 07:11:56 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ suchabanana -:- universal connection, yes + you got it too... -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 09:56:36 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ suchabanana -:- universal connection, yes + you got it too... -:- Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 09:42:19 (GMT)


Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 19:50:25 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: fitzroy@liverpool.ac.uk
To: Everyone
Subject: to Katie - reply to inactive post
Message:
Hi Katie - sorry for the cut and paste style and starting a new thread to do it, but your post to me is now inactive and there were a few things I wanted to reply to. You said:

It is very difficult for me to read threads like this where one person (Mel, in this case) makes a contrary statement and immediately gets challenged and criticized from all sides - including getting criticized for not answering all of the posts!

First, 'contrary statement'? I think Mel was being more than contrary and making less than a statement when all he said was:

Your post is definitely in poor taste this time, Jim.
Of course, though, I for one am not really surprised.
Surprise me, though! Be bold! Apologise and retract it!

I'd have said Mel was being deliberately provocative here and - yes - somewhat sanctimonious.

As for 'not answering all the posts' - well, I didn’t actually ask that Mel answer all the posts, I just suggested that he read them (ie. the posts from people other than Jim - which were his main focus) and think a bit. In particular I hoped he would read my reply to him after he had told me I had 'gone down in his estimation…'

Isn't it obvious that Jim's post (as well as the autistic posts above) hit a sore spot in Mel and that he reacted to that? Can't we just accept that it's an upsetting topic for him? I feel like you all are poking and prodding at him to get even MORE reactions out of him.

I know what you mean about the way a single premie post can attract a whole swarm of exes into action, but I guess Mel knows that will happen every time he pokes a stick into the ex-premie hive. On some level he must enjoy it, otherwise he wouldn't. He doesn't have to come here to get upset by what he reads, surely? And if he were genuinely upset on behalf of himself or anybody else, wouldn't he have better dealt with it either by emailing Jim or the admins? Again, I don't think he was personally upset. More like picking a fight he thought he could win (IMO)

Personally, although I am no arbiter of 'taste', I found Jim's post to be a bit shocking because there was no warning that it contained anything but the usual stuff he brings over from ELK. What a way to find out that someone that many people here had known had died!

Hmm, I sort of know what you mean here - if the death is recent news - but I could equally imagine (which is more likely) that many acquaintances might have only discovered that Nick had died from reading the ELK obituary - and might be no less upset to see his life reduced to his service role as stage-builder and sharer of satsang. And in that sense - which Mel chose to ignore - I still think Jim's post was a fair comment on the way things have to be phrased in order to be worthy of a mention in official EV circles. It's like when thousands are building the Great Wall of China you're lucky if someone will engrave a stone along the way to mark your passing - and then those who read it discover it was merely to commemorate how many stones you laid along the way. Unless you focus on the Great Wall, damned if you can mention anything else…

And as I commented to Mel, whereas there have in the past been posts on this forum mourning the deaths of both exes and premies, I promise you will never see a post on ELK commemorating the life of an ex-premie. The strongest word (I think) Jim used in the original post was 'sad'. And reading the obit I felt sad too, having once been in a personal situation where - under cult guidance - the real death of a real family member was made to take second place to the further glorification of Maharaji…

I also think that using the woman's post as an example of 'premie think' was way off target, simply because it is hard to write letters of sympathy in the first place - I know mine are almost always very awkward and generally contain platitudes.

Again, I know what you mean, but if she were sharing her memories in any other place I think she would have spoken or written it differently - it is the cult context which enforces this strange, warped slant, over and above the regular awkwardness we all feel when passing condolences. (BTW: Yes, Mel, I used that 'w' word again, because I think it's the right word.) She otherwise might have said 'what a great father', 'generous friend', 'sense of humour', 'lover of music' , 'good at chess' or whatever. Even platitudes are better than 'gratitudes', surely..?

Frankly, I think there are things which are far more important than the premie/ex-premie debate, and that make it clear that we are all just people. Death is one of them - along with serious illness, serious accidents, child abuse, suicide, and a lot of other things I can't think of right now. I know I get mad when premies minimize the child abuse and suicide that has occurred in Maharaji's organization, and I would guess that Mel might have felt that Jim's post minimized Nick's death, and thus reacted accordingly.

Agreed on the general points - assuming anyone truly close to the deceased didn't already know about it - but I didn't get the impression that Mel was reacting from a position of genuine hurt that N's death had been minimised. (And I think - strange as it may seem - Jim's post was coming from precisely that position, albeit obliquely.) Possibly the context is a bit recent, but - as Jim said - would ever there be a 'right' time to pass comment? The cult has never handled the deaths of premies well (if at all?) and I think the subject deserves an airing somewhere along the line…

From the way Mel worded his original post, I just thought he saw it as an opportunity to take the moral high ground over Jim. As I said in the same thread, I see the whole thing as being different from, say, interrupting a funeral or whatever - more like commenting on a published obituary. If I died - as I will one day - and someone from the university eulogised me in terms of my contributions in the workplace I would damn well hope someone would pass the comment 'how sad…! - wasn't he anything more than that? Did he exist before that work relationship? Did he exist outside it?' Ditto for my cult involvement had I died before I got out…

I find it interesting that Mel didn't respond to the only post on that thread which was offensive, IMO (from Jethro) which, I think, reinforces my point that Mel's terms of engagement were opportunist rather than empathetic.

Sorry, Katie, if that was a bit longer than I intended, but just wanted to do a reply - and am not trying to restart the whole debate, I promise :)

Love
Nigel

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 10:32:37 (GMT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: to Katie - reply to inactive post
Message:
Nigel

Sorry to butt in to this post intended for Katie, but it appears that I am the subject of it, so I felt I needed to respond.

Things may not be as they appear to you, but, I was and still am, genuinely annoyed by Jim's post whether you believe it or not. If you compare the tone of my posts in an earlier thread where Jim and I were discussing the Jagdeo business you should be able to notice a clear difference. In the earlier thread the tone was quite civil, but the tone of my posts in the later thread were quite obviously angry. You should be able to tell the difference quite easily if you care to read and compare them. Anger, as you would be aware, is by-product of being hurt, and my anger was quite genuine I can assure you!!

I read Jethro's post too, and I did find it offensive, I was simply too annoyed to respond to it so I chose to ignore it, but I did respond to it obliquely when I agreed with Rob that, although Jim hadn't been saying that he was glad about the death, others definitely had. (I think you expressed similar sentiments, BTW). I added that I considered these posts an issue for the moral 'guardianship' mentioned by Rob.

It is very easy for ex's, who themselves make an art form of picking on and ridiculing premies, to project these mischievious motives on to premies (in this case me), and it's difficult for me to refute your opinion, but that is all it is, opinion, and not the fact of the matter.

I have no wish to continue discussing the matter, but thought I needed to respond to your opinion

Mel

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Date: Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 00:38:33 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: fitzroy@liverpool.ac.uk
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: I suspect you already know better than you let on
Message:
..Mel. But it takes time.

Sorry to butt in to this post intended for Katie, but it appears that I am the subject of it, so I felt I needed to respond.

No problem, Mel, fire away as need requires..

Things may not be as they appear to you, but, I was and still am, genuinely annoyed by Jim's post whether you believe it or not. If you compare the tone of my posts in an earlier thread where Jim and I were discussing the Jagdeo business you should be able to notice a clear difference. In the earlier thread the tone was quite civil, but the tone of my posts in the later thread were quite obviously angry. You should be able to tell the difference quite easily if you care to read and compare them. Anger, as you would be aware, is by-product of being hurt, and my anger was quite genuine I can assure you!!

I didn't read your Jagdeo posts (and even if I had, why should I spend any time deciphering the differences in tone between that thread and the one in question?) I was simply commenting on the words I read. And I have no idea why you should feel 'hurt' by Jim's post. As far as I can see, you didn't know Nick or the person posting the eulogy any more than I did.

I read Jethro's post too, and I did find it offensive, I was simply too annoyed to respond to it so I chose to ignore it, but I did respond to it obliquely when I agreed with Rob that, although Jim hadn't been saying that he was glad about the death, others definitely had. (I think you expressed similar sentiments, BTW). I added that I considered these posts an issue for the moral 'guardianship' mentioned by Rob.

(Like the 'obliquely'. I used that word just before... )

Jethro's post was offensive and I said so. I didn't anywhere endorse it - but thanks for the retraction below.

It is very easy for ex's, who themselves make an art form of picking on and ridiculing premies, to project these mischievious motives on to premies (in this case me), and it's difficult for me to refute your opinion, but that is all it is, opinion, and not the fact of the matter.

I wasn't picking on or ridiculing you, never mind trying to start a new art form. I was simply replying to Katie and using the words you wrote to Jim as reasonable evidence. All you said was 'definitely tasteless - apologise and retract!' I said 'opportunist' and 'provocative' and still think so, for reasons offered in post above…

I have no wish to continue discussing the matter, but thought I needed to respond to your opinion

I didn't invite you to rejoin the discussions, nor do I require you to continue discussing. You responded, but I don't think you've remotely addressed anything I wrote. Anyway, my post was to Katie, not you - and although you were, of necessity, mentioned, the post was less about you (and your surely unnecessary forum addiction - don’t you know any better ways of getting damaged? There are interesting drugs I could recommend..) and more about the way the cult handles the subject of death, whether among premies or people around them. Read my journey, read Marianne's, for starters - there are others…

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 14:20:16 (GMT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Nigel, an apology and retraction
Message:
Nigel,

In my post I said .., although Jim hadn't been saying that he was glad about the death, others definitely had.(I think you expressed similar sentiments, BTW).

I have checked the archives and realised that I was incorrect in my bracketed statement. I apologise and retract it.

Mel

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 14:15:31 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: Bullshit, Mel -- you're just an opportunist
Message:
Give me a break, Mel. You saw an opening and you went for it. It's as plain as day.

I think the problem with people like you -- for the rest of us, I mean, people like me, Katie, Nigel or anyone for that matter -- is that we're simply not programmed to deal with long jags of fake sincerity. And you've been on nothing but that trip since you started posting here.

Mind you, it's not as if you don't blow your cover in every conversation. Sometimes you start off sounding like you might actually conduct yourself openly, fairly and rationally but that never lasts. As soon as the escapes close off you roll into a ball like an armadillo. You're not going to give in to any logic, not you, at least not as long as you can keep typing.

You're an asshole, Mel. You're an asshole to us, wasting our time as you do, but most of all (and, I don't want to sound like Jonathan Livingstone Seagull or anything) but you're an asshole to yourself. You're an otherwise smart guy, Mel. Too bad you've sold out your mind like this.

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 14:28:19 (GMT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Bullshit, Mel -- you're just an opportunist
Message:
Ok, Jim, believe what you like, you simply cannot accept what is said on face value, with trust and giving the benefit of the doubt, so I really can't be bothered arguing with you.

Mel

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 04:05:19 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: You lost the benefit of the doubt a long time ago
Message:
Mel,

I'm not stupid and neither are you. You know damn well what role you play here. You're a cult apologist.

Now back to work and quit whining.

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 12:25:55 (GMT)
From: ReadOnly
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Sir David your not doing your job - AG moved
Message:
AG has moved to:http://www.hotboards.com/plus/plus.mirage?who=forumlite

and his, David, other experiment moved to:

http://www.hotboards.com/plus/plus.mirage?who=premieforum

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 23:53:51 (GMT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: ReadOnly
Subject: Thanks but who's the hacker
Message:
Someone has already changed the link (at the top of the Anything Goes forum) to Chris Dickey's Foot-in-mouth forum to the correct Hotboards domain. I didn't change it. So how the hell did they do that? Any ideas?

And if some bright spark did hack into the config. please change something else just to prove you've done it. Maybe you already have and you've changed the password?

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 04:53:40 (GMT)
From: anti hacker
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: hacker ZEN is again AROUND! (nt)
Message:
nt
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 08:18:39 (GMT)
From: Zen
Email: None
To: FA:
Subject: Lies and lies. I am not a hacker
Message:
It checks if I was me.
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 00:06:56 (GMT)
From: Mw
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: Thanks but who's the hacker
Message:
I don't know, talk to Chad Peterson
chad@hotboards.com I followed his links to devine AG's and CD's URL
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 00:03:06 (GMT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: Maybe this is the answer
Message:
Unless it was the Hotboards people who changed the link for me. I didn't really think anyone here would have the ability to hack into my forum. After all, it was only Cerberus (aka several foreign premies speaking in broken English) who had any knowledge of such things here and he's long gone, hasn't he. I said, he's not here, is he.
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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 12:25:53 (GMT)
From: Robyn
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Jim and other Science guys
Message:
Just waiting to wake up here at work and remembered I thought of all you science guys when I met a professor yesterday walking to my car with my dog. I have done map projects for this professor in the past and we were exchanging pleasantries when she asked my dog's name. When I told her, Fable, she said, 'Well isn't that surprising, I think of you as a scientist type. With a name like Fable there must be more levels to you then I realise.' My first thought was Jim, like an ink blot test. :) Then I said to her, 'Oh, you'd be shocked!'
Miss you all, been thinking a lot of Mariane and Joe lately, and all the forums. I'll be back on line at home sometime in October so be forwarned. :)
Robyn
Map Scientist
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 01:39:37 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Robyn
Subject: a couple of links
Message:
Here are a couple of interesting links:

- Closeminded science (not the best title for the page, it has many links on science, skepticism, etc.)

- Against excessive skepticism - collected quotes

a sample:

'We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy.'
- Simon Newcomb, astronomer, 1888

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 19:33:45 (GMT)
From: ExTex
Email: None
To: G
Subject: a couple of links -THEY ARE GREAT!!!
Message:
Thanks for the links! I love it when people give a pointer to some interesting sites. These look like good places to spend a lot of time. I found this quote right off ....
I thought it summed up (among other things) why the longer one stays in a cult, the harder it is to break free even when it is painfully obvious that it is bogus. Thanks again. Here is the quote:

'I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the
greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most
obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of
conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which
they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by
thread, into the fabric of their lives.' -Tolstoy

Jai Satchitanand and Boiling Shriek Satguru Dead!! (FA- pun not threat)

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 16:32:55 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: G
Subject: or as the man at Decca said...
Message:
(that's the recording company) to the Beatles in 1962, when he rejected them, 'We don't think the line up of two guitars, bass and drums is going to catch on.'

Anth changing the subject for no reason

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Date: Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 15:40:28 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: 'A completely idiotic idea'
Message:

'A completely idiotic idea'
- Sir William Preece, regarding an 'incandescent electric lamp with a high-resistance filament' [I mean, really, how silly.]

For more, see Impossible, brought to you by that total idiot Richard Milton.

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Date: Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 16:43:51 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: all
Subject: a link to some disgusting garbage
Message:
Here's a link to www.bcvideo.com.

WARNING WARNING: this web site contains content
which has been described by the authorities as:

horrible, atrocious, garbage, anti-intellectual trash, evil, deliberate fraudulent misinformation, claptrap, utter rubbish, nonsense, a bunch of hooey, unadulterated hogwash, bullshit, a piece of junk, and crap.
Read this garbage at your own risk,
it might turn you into a blathering idiot.
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 19:18:09 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: all
Subject: Scientific Censorship and Evolution
Message:
Check out this web page:

Scientific Censorship and Evolution

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Date: Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 15:57:07 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: all
Subject: More censorship
Message:
.

From Bad for the career:


'Today it would be virtually impossible for any scientific paper that has anti-Darwinian implications to be published in Nature or in any serious peer-reviewed scientific journal, regardless of the scientific merits of its findings.

To be an exception to this rule an anti-Darwinian paper would have to be of paradigm shattering importance, like Cairns and Hall's experiment on directed mutation. Even then, publication of the results is likely to be hedged around with qualifications, argumenta ad hominem directed at the authors and technical quibbles that would never be directed at any paper supporting Darwinism.

A prime example of this academic censorship is the case of British biologist Warwick Collins. In 1976 Collins was studying biology at Sussex University under the eminent Darwinist Professor John Maynard Smith. Collins wrote a paper on sexual selection as an anomaly in Darwinian theory.' ...

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 01:30:14 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Dawkins' review of Milton's book
Message:
Every day I get letters, in capitals and obsessively underlined if not actually in green ink, from flat-earthers, young-earthers, perpetual-motion merchants, astrologers and other harmless fruitcakes. The only difference here is that Richard Milton managed to get his stuff published. The publisher - we don’t know how many decent publishers turned it down first - is called ‘Fourth Estate.’ Not a house that I had heard of, but apparently neither a vanity press nor a fundamentalist front. So, what are ‘Fourth Estate’ playing at? Would they publish - for this book is approximately as silly - a claim that the Romans never existed and the Latin language is a cunning Victorian fabrication to keep schoolmasters employed?

A cynic might note that there is a paying public out there, hungry for simple religious certitude, who will lap up anything with a subtitle like ‘Shattering the Myth of Darwinism.’ If the author pretends not to be religious himself, so much the better, for he can then be exhibited as an unbiased witness. There is - no doubt about it - a fast buck to be made by any publishers unscrupulous enough to print pseudoscience that they know is rubbish but for which there is a market.

But let’s not be so cynical. Mightn’t the publishers have an honourable defence? Perhaps this unqualified hack is a solitary genius, the only soldier in the entire platoon - nay, regiment - who is in step. Perhaps the world really did bounce into existence in 8000 BC. Perhaps the whole vast edifice of orthodox science really is totally and utterly off its trolley. (In the present case, it would have to be not just orthodox biology but physics, geology and cosmology too). How do we poor publishers know until we have printed the book and seen it panned?

If you find that plea persuasive, think again. It could be used to justify publishing literally anything; flat-earth, fairies, astrology, werewolves and all. It is true that an occasional lonely figure, originally written off as loony or at least wrong, has eventually been triumphantly vindicated (though not often a journalist like Richard Milton, it has to be said). But it is also true that a much larger number of people originally regarded as wrong really were wrong. To be worth publishing, a book must do a little more than just be out of step with the rest of the world.

But, the wretched publisher might plead, how are we, in our ignorance, to decide? Well, the first thing you might do - it might even pay you, given the current runaway success of some science books - is employ an editor with a smattering of scientific education. It needn’t be much: A-level Biology would have been ample to see off Richard Milton. At a more serious level, there are lots of smart young science graduates who would love a career in publishing (and their jacket blurbs would avoid egregious howlers like calling Darwinism the 'idea that chance is the mechanism of evolution.') As a last resort you could even do what proper publishers do and send the stuff out to referees. After all, if you were offered a manuscript claiming that Tennyson wrote The Iliad, wouldn’t you consult somebody, say with an O-level in History, before rushing into print?

You might also glance for a second at the credentials of the author. If he is an unknown journalist, innocent of qualifications to write his book, you don’t have to reject it out of hand but you might be more than usually anxious to show it to referees who do have some credentials. Acceptance need not, of course, depend on the referees’ endorsing the author’s thesis: a serious dissenting opinion can deserve to be heard. But referees will save you the embarrassment of putting your imprint on twaddle that betrays, on almost every page, complete and total pig-ignorance of the subject at hand.

All qualified physicists, biologists, cosmologists and geologists agree, on the basis of massive, mutually corroborating evidence, that the earth’s age is at least four billion years. Richard Milton thinks it is only a few thousand years old, on the authority of various Creation ‘science’ sources including the notorious Henry Morris (Milton himself claims not to be religious, and he affects not to recognise the company he is keeping). The great Francis Crick (himself not averse to rocking boats) recently remarked that 'anyone who believes that the earth is less than 10,000 years old needs psychiatric help.' Yes yes, maybe Crick and the rest of us are all wrong and Milton, an untrained amateur with a ‘background’ as an engineer, will one day have the last laugh. Want a bet?

Milton misunderstands the first thing about natural selection. He thinks the phrase refers to selection among species. In fact, modern Darwinians agree with Darwin himself that natural selection chooses among individuals within species. Such a fundamental misunderstanding would be bound to have far-reaching consequences; and they duly make nonsense of several sections of the book.

In genetics, the word ‘recessive’ has a precise meaning, known to every school biologist. It means a gene whose effect is masked by another (dominant) gene at the same locus. Now it also happens that large stretches of chromosomes are inert - untranslated. This kind of inertness has not the smallest connection with the ‘recessive’ kind. Yet Milton manages the feat of confusing the two. Any slightly qualified referee would have picked up this clanger.

There are other errors from which any reader capable of thought would have saved this book. Stating correctly that Immanuel Velikovsky was ridiculed in his own time, Milton goes on to say 'Today, only forty years later, a concept closely similar to Velikovsky’s is widely accepted by many geologists - that the major extinction at the end of the Cretaceous ... was caused by collison with a giant meteor or even asteroid.' But the whole point of Velikovsky (indeed, the whole reason why Milton, with his eccentric views on the age of the earth, champions him) is that his collision was supposed to have happened recently; recently enough to explain Biblical catastrophes like Moses’s parting of the Red Sea. The geologists’ meteorite, on the other hand, is supposed to have impacted 65 million years ago! There is a difference - approximately 65 million years difference. If Velikovsky had placed his collision tens of millions of years ago he would not have been ridiculed. To represent him as a misjudged, wilderness-figure who has finally come into his own is either disingenuous or - more charitably and plausibly - stupid.

In these post-Leakey, post-Johanson days, creationist preachers are having to learn that there is no mileage in ‘missing links.’ Far from being missing, the fossil links between modern humans and our ape ancestors now constitute an elegantly continuous series. Richard Milton, however, still hasn’t got the message. For him, '...the only ‘missing link’ so far discovered remains the bogus Piltdown Man.' Australopithecus, correctly described as a human body with an ape’s head, doesn’t qualify because it is ‘really’ an ape. And Homo habilis - ‘handy man’ - which has a brain 'perhaps only half the size of the average modern human’s' is ruled out from the other side: '... the fact remains that handy man is a human - not a missing link.' One is left wondering what a fossil has to do - what more could a fossil do - to qualify as a ‘missing link’?

No matter how continuous a fossil series may be, the conventions of zoological nomenclature will always impose discontinuous names. At present, there are only two generic names to spread over all the hominids. The more ape-like ones are shoved into the genus Australopithecus; the more human ones into the genus Homo. Intermediates are saddled with one name or the other. This would still be true if the series were as smoothly continuous as you can possibly imagine. So, when Milton says, of Johanson’s ‘Lucy’ and associated fossils, 'the finds have been referred to either Australopithecus and hence are apes, or Homo and hence are human,' he is saying something (rather dull) about naming conventions, nothing at all about the real world.

But this is a more sophisticated criticism than Milton’s book deserves. The only serious question raised by its publication is why. As for would-be purchasers, if you want this sort of silly-season drivel you’d be better off with a couple of Jehovah’s Witness tracts. They are more amusing to read, they have rather sweet pictures, and they put their religious cards on the table.

Richard Dawkins

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Date: Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 18:19:28 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: a misrepresentation by Dawkins?
Message:
From Dawkins' review of Milton's book:

... Perhaps the world really did bounce into existence in 8000 BC. ...

... Richard Milton thinks it is only a few thousand years old, on the authority of various Creation ‘science’ sources including the notorious Henry Morris (Milton himself claims not to be religious, and he affects not to recognise the company he is keeping). ...

Compare that to these statements from In the Beginning ... (Creationist web page) about Milton:

'We would also like to quote some figures in a discussion by an evolutionist about the age of the earth as determined by various methods of geochronology. The book is called 'The Facts of Life', and it was written by Richard Milton, who indicates in this book that he does not believe in creation. His book was written to illustrate the serious flaws in the methods and conclusions used by the evolutionist community in its assessment of dates and its interpretation of the fossil and geological records. Milton explains how he gets these figures ...

Method, Indicated Age of Earth
Radiogenic Helium in Atmosphere Less than 175,000 years
Poynting-Robertson Effect Less than 100,000 years
Persistence of Interplanetary dust Less than 100,000 years
Non-equilibrium of carbon 14 Less than 30,000 years
Persistence of short period comets Less than 10,000 years
Magnetic field decay Less than 10,000 years
Dissolved nickel in oceans Less than 9,000 years
Meteoric dust in atmosphere Recent origin of earth
Continental drift (ice-cap rupture) Recent origin of earth'

and this from Milton's web page Shattering the Myths of Darwinism:

'All radiometric methods of dating have been found to be deeply flawed. Uranium-lead, potassium-argon and rubidium-strontium have all been found to give wildly inaccurate dates. Dating scientists get around this unreliability by selecting 'suitable' rocks to date and rejecting 'unsuitable' rocks, their suitability being judged by Darwinian criteria.'

It sounds like Milton was not saying that the earth is young. He was instead criticizing dating methods. Are these methods accurate?

Here's Milton's Darwinism FAQ

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Date: Tues, Sep 26, 2000 at 15:30:53 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: fitzroy@liverpool.ac.uk
To: G
Subject: Don't watch that watch this: FOCD - JOIN US!
Message:
Friends of Charles Darwin - Join us!!

Following the success of our recent banknote campaign, membership just continues to grow and grow at an
unimaginably (yet appropriately) slow, gradual rate….

Charlie is my Darwin!

Follow the links to read about the campaigns, join the list of friends and claim your free bumper sticker!

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Date: Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 23:00:02 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: all
Subject: Yes indeed
Message:
Dawkins did in fact misrepresent Milton's book.

On page 49 of Milton's book:

'The fact is that it is impossible to say at present with any confidence how old the earth is beyond the fact that it predates human history.'

'It follows that I do not think the earth is 8000 years old or any other figure.' - Richard Milton

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 17:49:59 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Dawkins' review
Message:
The purpose of my post was not to put in a plug for books by Milton. It was about censorship and some issues about evolution, such as the Cairns directed-mutation hypothesis. I haven't read that book, so I'm not in a position to comment on it. If Milton is really saying that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, I disagree. However, I'd like to point out that a large part of Dawkins' review is attacks on Milton and the publisher, which is typical squawking from Dawkins. These attacks almost make me want to read the book, even given its apparent flaws. I wonder, what is in this book that Dawkins doesn't want people to read? What issues are not being addressed in the review? However, I think there are better books critical of neo-Darwinism.

Btw, I read a web page at Science Frontiers that questions the notion that 'large stretches of chromosomes are inert'. Untranslated doesn't necessarily mean inert and there are indications that 'inert' DNA may not be so inert after all.

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 22:42:08 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: G
Subject: 'typical squawking from Dawkins. ..'?
Message:
Give it a rest G. By your reasoning, any old Jehovah's Witness would deserve a fair hearing in the Times Literary Supplement. I could send them a few thousand words - and so could you - explaining why science is wrong about the tooth fairy. I would be very disappointed if they published it. Wouldn't you?

Think of Dawkins' piece as 'peer review' - not that Milton is remotely Dawkins' peer. The peer-review method is about as good as we can hope for, and why we have modern medicine, physics, chemistry, biology etc., all of which which, in general, tend to work (at least until better-refined models come along).

How, exactly, would you suggest we do science?

Not by listening to fruit-for-brains nutters like Milton who don't understand the first bloody thing..?

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Date: Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 00:22:39 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: 'the tooth fairy'
Message:

... explaining why science is wrong about the tooth fairy.

That is an hollow argument, similar to comparing the concept of a Creator (or whatever word someone wants to use) to Santa Claus. It is basically certain that the tooth fairy and Santa Claus do not exist. So what?

I think that Dawkins went beyond 'peer review', the harshness of the attack was not needed. I also wonder if he skipped over some issues that were not so easy to address. As to the dating issues, I think the young earth theory is false, but there may some validity to some problems that are raised.

I haven't read that book, so I don't want to get into a big argument about it. I think we're getting too focused on evolution, which has already been discussed. My posts were more about the nature of skepticism.

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Date: Tues, Sep 26, 2000 at 14:53:05 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: G
Subject: 'the tooth fairy'
Message:
I haven't read that book, so I don't want to get into a big argument about it. I think we're getting too focused on evolution, which has already been discussed. My posts were more about the nature of skepticism.

Your post may be about the nature of Skepticism, G, but you have used the emotive expression 'Typical squawking from Dawkins' to title your post. And since Dawkin's writings are typically about evolution, evolution is inevitably under discussion and I have (typically) joined in...

I don't think Dawkins is being anything like unnecessarily harsh. He is probably restraining himself under the circumstances: if Milton can confuse a fossil gene with a recessive gene then he truly doesn't know the first bloody thing. As RD says, an 'A' level biology student could rip the guy apart if that's the depths of his understanding of genetics. And so could I (who never studied biology) or anyone to took the trouble to read up on the subject properly...

Yet such weak arguments are invariably seized upon by scientific illiterates to mislead the public. Typically (but not exclusively) these are 'Creation Scientists'. Unfortunately many tabloid editors are also keen to stir up a bit of science vs. religion controversy and will serialise any old rubbish, such as that ludicrous 'Bible Codes' book a couple of years back.

In the interests of public education I'd say Dawkins was being necessarily harsh. Thank God for Skeptics, I say, and pray we never return to the Dark Ages. (And never forget that in the last year of the twentieth century the state of Kansas banned the teaching of evolution in its schools...)

In fact, this thread has prompted me to finally join the UK Skeptics. I see there's work to be done..!


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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 06:19:05 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Dawkins' spot-on review
Message:
Nice one, Jim. And to all those dudes who say 'Well, evolution's only a theory'...

Remember guys... Gravity's a theory - evolution is a fact!

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 16:37:18 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: evolution
Message:

'Well, evolution's only a theory'...

Remember guys... Gravity's a theory - evolution is a fact!

That depends on what is meant by gravity and evolution.

It is a fact that objects fall to the ground, whereas there are theories of gravitation.

Microevolution is a fact and there is strong evidence for macroevolution. The neo-Darwinian theory that natural selection acting on 'random' mutations is the one-and-only mechanism of evolution (both micro and macro) is not a scientific fact.

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 22:09:02 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: G
Subject: evolution
Message:
JohnT: Remember guys... Gravity's a theory - evolution is a fact!

G: That depends on what is meant by gravity and evolution.
It is a fact that objects fall to the ground, whereas there are theories of gravitation.

I suppose one should also say 'It is a fact that organisms evolve, whereas there are theories of evolution.' I take it you are partial to some particular theories?

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 23:10:46 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: evolution
Message:
I think that neo-Darwinism is partially true, but given all the unsolved puzzles, I don't think it accounts for all of evolution. It seems to be able to account for variation within a species, but I don't know about the 'unguided' notion. I can see the appeal of it, as did Darwin, as it lets 'God' off the hook for a lot of the crap that happens. I don't think mutations as a whole are 'random', I think the Universe is more ordered than that. I'm perplexed by the whole subject. The Cairns research seems to suggest that bacteria can change their own DNA, i.e. 'directed mutations'. If this is true, how widespread is this? Of course, it may not happen with other life forms. I think we still don't know much, there is still much left to discover. As for there being outright miracles involved where the 'laws' of physics are 'violated', I tend to think that is not needed, but I just don't know. I don't rule out the possibility, but would agree that that is not what to look for. In short, I go with theistic evolution (in the sense of synchronicity) with few or no miracles and with the possible involvement of DNA itself.
The origin of life is a more perplexing issue.
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Date: Mon, Sep 25, 2000 at 22:50:34 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: G
Subject: 'random'; 'information'
Message:
I think, like Scott T., you find the classical model of evolution hard to stomach. It may seem offensive aesthetically, but I feel this is be mistaken. In order for events to unfold in a truly open-ended and unimplicit way it is important that the mechanism of unfolding be unpredictable - and that means random. After all, it is a commonplace that unpredictability is an essential component of true creativity.

Secondly, and this may be more satisfying, the notion of information (qua generic instructions) is not simple.

As the redundancy in a set of data decreases the quantity of information (that can be) encoded increases. So a chess board contains little information - it's just a mosaic of black and white squares. A mosaic like a TV picture of a some scene contains far more information and is far less redundant than a finely pixelated view of a vast chess board. So an aperiodic crystal like DNA packs far more info than a regular crystal lattice. And seeming like a reductio ad absurdum a signal with no redundancy packs the maximum information but is indistinguishable from pure, random, noise.

We joked about this fundamental identity of formless chaos with logos way back, in the days when punched cards were used to encode computer programs. The more information was encoded on a card (by punching holes in it) the less card was left! Clearly the ultimate program would cut away ALL the card, leaving just a hole... Ah yes, my son, in complete emptiness lies true wisdom ;-)

Of course, whether talking about genetic code or computer code the information is only implicit in the aperiodic stream. It takes a playback device of an organism or computing machinery to decode and flesh out - give meaning to - the instructions. And a different playback device may give very different interpretations to the data stream (hence we note in passing the exteme unwisdom of cross-species genetic engineering of the human food chain).

But notice how this insight causes problems to any hopes of a directed evolution. If a change in the genetic code can affect the way the genetic code is interpreted, then ascertaining the 'meaning' of a change becomes vastly more difficult and arguably impossible.

And all this before we start concerning ourselves with the philosophical and psychological bases of probability (which we must, if we are to talk of random). Just a taster - there are at least a dozen different definitions of a random number sequence (the simplest imaginable example of randomness). The most intuitive is often felt to be the definition from Richard von Mises. Unfortunately Joseph Doob later showed no such sequences exist.

The ancients, incidently, would not have suffered nausea at the thought of chance shaping the forms of plants and animals. The ancient belief was that the Gods (THE God, even) communicated with us mortals through chance events. The Book of Samuel (1 Samuel 10:20-21) relates how the ancient Israelites chose Saul as their King by casting lots.

Perhaps our modern nausea in the face of chance as a fundamental shaping force of our lives is just a hangover from centuries of godless mechanical technology!

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Date: Tues, Sep 26, 2000 at 05:55:30 (GMT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: 'random'; 'information'
Message:
John:

In order for events to unfold in a truly open-ended and unimplicit way it is important that the mechanism of unfolding be unpredictable - and that means random. After all, it is a commonplace that unpredictability is an essential component of true creativity.

I'm not sure that 'open-ended and unimplicit' is an appropriate standard, but I'm pretty sure that creativity also requires a certain degree of predictability. In fact, it seems to work best if there's sufficient predictability than one can fashion the trajectory of a life from young adulthood to old age. It's true that routinizing everything is problematic and stultifying. I like the way Popper characterizes this. To him the creative arts exist in order to 'represent' the set of unknown, and probably random, futures. The problem is to find some sort of compelling ethic for this process, hence the problem of rules and where they come from.

In fact, I think the whole notion of 'aesthetics' is rather sickly and anemic. If beauty is the anima mundi, or 'value of values,' then aesthetics is nothing more than the fear of beauty. I think all of this went awry in the 19th century, producing a nexus of wrong-headed and distorted notions about almost everything.

As the redundancy in a set of data decreases the quantity of information (that can be) encoded increases.

This, I think, is one of those wrong headed notions. I mean, simply expressing a relation doesn't mean that the exstremes are implicitly desirable. Meaningful discourse and language require a certain amount of redundancy, and may even require a lot of it. Yet, we have an inate sense of when something is overly redundant, overly complex, etc. In a word, it's ugly.

Clearly the ultimate program would cut away ALL the card, leaving just a hole...

Hence the idea emerges that there's a sort of appropriate level of cutting, beyond which there are diminishing returns. Heck, we even seem to know the approximate level for optimization without even doing any analysis. Funny how that works...

But notice how this insight causes problems to any hopes of a directed evolution. If a change in the genetic code can affect the way the genetic code is interpreted, then ascertaining the 'meaning' of a change becomes vastly more difficult and arguably impossible.

The very definition of a 'Kant Do' kinda guy. Just leave out the observation of reality's consistencies and you end up with one helluvabubblegumrazzlebedazzlemess. Give us a break with the interpretive turn, already.

Perhaps our modern nausea in the face of chance as a fundamental shaping force of our lives is just a hangover from centuries of godless mechanical technology!

I don't think 'nausea in the face of change' is an appropriate descripton of our condition, Sartre notwithstanding. I think we are properly nauseated by certain things, and with equal propriety we find others attractive. The problem with evolution as an explanation for everything is that, so composed, it fails to explain anything. This is the problem of infinite regress that seems to captivate evolutionists to the same degree that trisecting an angle with a compass and straight edge captivates freshman geometry students. Just stop it at an appropriate point, perhaps determined by the level of resolution that seems appropriate. Or make some other pragmatic determination. There aren't any 'ideal points,' only real ones. Therefore, approximations are allowed even if they're bound to be wrong.

The only branch of philosophy in the last 300 years that has demonstrated the slightest inclination to deal effectively and practically with the interpreter is Pragmatism. All the others are reductionist in the sense that they see the interpreter as an insurmountable problem, and therefore not worth understanding. There's a clue.

In spite of the mess made of philosophy by the likes of Derrida, et al, this is not really rocket science. But you can dig a hole if you want to, so long as you use your own shovel.

--Scott

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Date: Tues, Sep 26, 2000 at 08:21:49 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Sorry, you lost me. What are you saying?
Message:
I was talking about the idea of 'information' and of 'random'.
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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 16:51:05 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: evolution
Message:
The neo-Darwinian theory that natural selection acting on 'random' mutations is the one-and-only mechanism of evolution (both micro and macro) is not a scientific fact.

Yes it is.

Nya na na NA na!

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 17:54:58 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: PROVE IT
Message:

You're more fanatical about this than I thought.

Prove your claim.

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 22:23:31 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Sigh...
Message:
'Prove' is the wrong word, G. You can apply it in maths - a self-referential universe where things are provable - but not to scientific discovery. (That the moon has a dark side is as yet unproven - but do you really doubt it?)

Evolution by natural selection is about the most rock solid, well-supported and not-yet-falsified theory going. Mendel's early work on genetics (unknown to Darwin) could so easily have shown Darwin to be wrong. But it didn't - it coloured in more squares on the Darwinian map. When Crick and Watson unravelled the DNA molecule, they might (if evolution was bunk) have found some biochemical mechanism incompatible with Darwinian principles. Intstead, what they discovered joined up the dots and explained how it works at molecular level.

(BTW: Something I have not yet noticed any Creationist doing to date..)

I don't understand where you're coming from G. Denying evolution by Natural Selection IS like denying the existence of gravity (IMO - of course). But I've never seen the dark side of the moon, either, so I might be wrong..:)

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Date: Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 19:25:41 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Dark side of the moon? Huh?
Message:
The only thing 'dark' about it is that it's never facing the earth. Dark in this context means 'hidden'.

When it's new moon on earth, the so-called 'dark side' ain't dark at all.

Just thought I'd counter a popular myth.

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Date: Tues, Sep 26, 2000 at 13:35:39 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: You know what I meant (nt)
Message:
wecwe
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Date: Wed, Sep 27, 2000 at 18:01:03 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Savvy, squire (nt)
Message:
dfgfdf
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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 23:56:39 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: 'prove'
Message:
The word 'prove' is not limited to mathematics. I mean 'to establish the truth or validity of by presentation of argument or evidence'. I'll add 'to a very high degree of probability'; I'm not looking for absolute certainty.

I don't think that has been done for fanatical neo-Darwinism. That the moon has a dark side HAS been proven, the astronauts saw it and there are videos of it. Even before then, it was an almost absolute certainty.

What I disagree with is the notion that all mutations and mutations considered as a whole are 'random', 'unguided' and 'unguiding' and that 'blind' natural selection does all the real work. That hasn't been proven, and you know what I mean.

Evolution cannot happen without mutations, with certain mutations surviving and others not surviving. I am not saying that natural selection acting on mutations does not occur, it has been observed to occur.

Why do you mention 'Creationist'? I am not a Creationist.

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Date: Tues, Sep 26, 2000 at 14:27:34 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: fitzroy@liverpool.ac.uk
To: G
Subject: established beyond reasonable doubt, then...
Message:
The word 'prove' is not limited to mathematics. I mean 'to establish the truth or validity of by presentation of argument or evidence'. I'll add 'to a very high degree of probability'; I'm not looking for absolute certainty.

Science aims at precisely that: make statements of probability re. the truth of some statement about nature. However, no scientific journal that I have seen will nowadays use the word 'prove' (at least since Popper). You can certainly, by experimentation, falsify the statement that 'agent x causes y', but never prove that x does cause y with 100% certainty, which is why it safer to avoid the term altogether.

I don't think that has been done for fanatical neo-Darwinism.

I know what neo-Darwinism is. What is 'fanatical neo-Darwinism'?
I believe that genetic variation with descent, with environment acting as 'blind' selector is both necessary and sufficient to account for evolutionary change. Does that make me a fanatic?

And for a start, you could read an excellent book by Jonathan Weiner, 'The Beak of the Finch' which documents numerous ongoing studies in the wild which have produced remarkable evidence for evolutionary change happening right now and by Natural Selection alone. The main study cited, in the Galapogos Islands, looks at the various species of 'Darwin's Finches' where the researchers have made detailed observation of, primarily, weather patterns, availablity of specific food resources and the comparative breeding successes of different genetic mutations. Over thirty years the accumulated evidence is overwhelming: unless you consider El Nino to be in some way 'guiding' or 'guided', the population patterns, near-extinctions, hybridisations and (beginnings of) speciation observed can only be explained in purely Darwinian terms.

That the moon has a dark side HAS been proven, the astronauts saw it and there are videos of it. Even before then, it was an almost absolute certainty.

Of course it was - but only because science provided the evidence. I could refuse to believe the scientists, since the Bible makes no mention of the moon being a lump of rock with a hidden far side - just as flat-earthers refuse to believe the Earth has a far side, and Creationists resist Darwin with every fibre of their being.

What I disagree with is the notion that all mutations and mutations considered as a whole are 'random', 'unguided' and 'unguiding' and that 'blind' natural selection does all the real work. That hasn't been proven, and you know what I mean.

El Nino is 'blind' to its effects on the Galapogos finch populations, wouldn't you say? In this sense (and from many other sources of evidence), 'blind' Natural Selection has indeed been shown not only to work, but to be both necessary and sufficient for speciation to occur. If anyone has evidence for an alternative mechanism, then the onus is on them to provide it.

Evolution cannot happen without mutations, with certain mutations surviving and others not surviving. I am not saying that natural selection acting on mutations does not occur, it has been observed to occur.

Why do you mention 'Creationist'? I am not a Creationist.

An evolutionary 'guide' would surely be a de factor Creator - if you mean some entity with intentions and sense of direction. Otherwise, why not just settle for 'random'?


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Date: Tues, Sep 26, 2000 at 16:25:11 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: fitzroy@liverpool.ac.uk
To: Nigel
Subject: Long post above just vanished!
Message:
Said something about a javascript fuckup. And I ain't going to type it out all over...
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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 18:43:22 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Prove yours, G
Message:
I trust the scientific establshiment.

Your links suggest that you endorse the view that the scientific community science can't be trusted.

Am I right?

Ok, that's your claim. Prove it.

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 22:21:38 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: argument from authority
Message:
That's just an argument from authority. Besides, many scientists don't claim that neo-Darwinism is a scientific fact and some think it is not true. Many view Darwinism in a theistic sense.

All you need is one counter-example of a non-random mutation and strict neo-Darwinism is refuted. The observations by Cairns might be such a counter-example. There are many anomolies that neo-Darwinism doesn't seem to explain.

I'm not questioning descent with modification. The main objection I have is the use of the word 'random', especially in an atheistic sense. It's quite a leap to conclude, simply from lab observations of some statistical randomness in mutations, that mutations in general are statistically random, 'unguided', and 'unguiding'. It's very hard to imagine that certain structures, such as the human eye or the wing of a house fly, developed gradually via small advantageous mutations. Maybe they did, but that is not at all certain.

In general, science and the scientific community can be trusted, but not absolutely. There is a difference between trust and unquestioning faith. Scientists, like the Pope, are not infallible, some have been known at times to falsify data or to be resistant to valid new ideas. When chaos theory was first being investigated, some people were told not to study it or their career would be endangered. That is just one example. I agree that science is a self-correcting system, but close-mindedness is one of the things that is corrected. Chaos theory was eventually accepted, but it took some time. It would have progressed faster if there had been less unwarrented skepticism. Having healthy skepticism is not a simple matter.

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 23:42:52 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: No, G, as usual, you're wrong
Message:
It's not an argument from authority. It's an argument about authority. Now tell me, do you understand the difference? My bet is you don't.

And what scientists think that neo-Darwinism isn't true? I can't imagine any biologists ever saying that. Do you know of any?

I'm not questioning descent with modification. The main objection I have is the use of the word 'random', especially in an atheistic sense.

What is the 'atheistic' sense of the word 'random'? You've lost me.

It's quite a leap to conclude, simply from lab observations of some statistical randomness in mutations, that mutations in general are statistically random, 'unguided', and 'unguiding'. It's very hard to imagine that certain structures, such as the human eye or the wing of a house fly, developed gradually via small advantageous mutations. Maybe they did, but that is not at all certain.

It's very hard to imagine ANY mechanism creating things like eyes or wings, guided or not. But evolutionary theory DOES offer an explanation that I, at least, find compelling. Do you have a better theory? Let's hear it.

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Date: Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 00:45:11 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: authority
Message:
Of course it's an argument from authority.

Behe and Shapiro have doubts about it. There are others.

If 'random' is used to mean 'having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective' then it can have atheistic connotations.

It's very hard to imagine ANY mechanism creating things like eyes or wings, guided or not. But evolutionary theory DOES offer an explanation that I, at least, find compelling. Do you have a better theory? Let's hear it.

I agree, it's hard to imagine. Neo-Darwinism is not the same as evolutionary theory in general, I agree that they evolved somehow. It seems to me that 'hopeful monsters' would be needed in some cases. I know there are problems with that, but I really don't see how there could be any intermediate forms for certain structures. It's perplexing. Maybe we just don't know enough yet to figure it out, there could be some unknown mechanisms that we know nothing about.

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Date: Mon, Sep 25, 2000 at 07:54:26 (GMT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: G
Subject: authority
Message:
G:

On the one hand there's the difficulty of explaining the emergence of life, and the generation of the universe itself. Well, that comes under the general heading of 'questions that cause science to spit up.'

Then there's the social problem that an explanation holding random mutation to be the only and ultimate mechanism behind the emergence of everything just leaves us in a state of perpetual nausea, unless the theory happens to be paying your bills or providing you with neat problems to solve. Call this the 'you can subsist on peanuts, but if forced to you'd have to eventually shoot yourself' problem. It's not that I *know* there's food other than peanuts, but... faaghh!

And finally, there are these really interesting and friendly people called the 'human ecologists' who have a raft of theories about how the primary evolutionary paradigm must now also be applied to human rules, laws, societies, and institutions... leaving me with the problem of comprehending why anyone who happens to be awake for any of this would bother following any rules. Call this the 'I really really *am* happy that Richard turns out to be the epitome of morality, insight and ethics' problem.

All of which leaves me with the 'am I just too dumb to love this, or is it really as sickening as it looks' problem.

So, perhaps it's all a 'double blind' experiment: Take a universe and allow nothing other than random mutation and selection to operate. (This requires an extraordinarily effective lobotomy.) If what emerges turns out to be beautiful then beauty is the anima mundi and we can relax. Everyone who tries to second guess the process deserves to be ridiculed since they are detracting from the experiment. If what emerges turns out, instead, to be as bland as peanuts, Marxism or Neoclassical Economics then establish a theocracy and burn heretics, scientists, and skeptics. Why not?

--Scott

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Date: Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 01:41:40 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Read 'Climbing Mt. Improbable' (nt)
Message:
kkkkk
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 18:38:09 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: G
Subject: 'A new idea is delicate'
Message:
'A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can
be stabbed to death by a joke, or worried to death by a frown on the
right person's brow.'

- Charles Brower

Never mind the 'right persons', (hi Gerry, Jim, et. al.) who 'need' to be seen to be in the right, even when in the wrong. Let them play their defeatist games, that so often discredit the self-same ex-premie.org that they post on, and claim to support.

Keep posting, G, this is good stuff.

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 15:10:10 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: After you, Jim. (nt)
Message:
345
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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 01:34:17 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: Fuck off already, Chris (nt)
Message:
ffff
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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 21:30:41 (GMT)
From: ham
Email: None
To: Robyn
Subject: You can map me any time you like Robyn! (nt)
Message:
a
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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 20:47:03 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: fitzroy@liverpool.ac.uk
To: Robyn
Subject: Jim and other Science guys
Message:
Hi Robyn, good to see you!

Well I ain't got a dog any more but I do have a 450- million-year-old trilobyte on my shelf called Great-great-great-great (ect x 450,000,000) Grandpa. (But I know him as 'Wrigley')

I also have an irrational love of poetry and Tom Waits' last album (not to mention that Cerys from Catatonia)

Not that I'm a proper scientist, but I try... Anyway, how ya doin?

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 16:42:21 (GMT)
From: Robyn
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: other reply to G,ham,Nig, this one to Nig
Message:
Dear Willy(Willy Krantz?),
Forgot to mention your trilobyte, love his name. :) I know what they look like from my college days, better then a pet rock, I'd say and less hassle then a dog! :)
Love,
Robyn
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 16:36:39 (GMT)
From: Robyn
Email: None
To: Nigel, G and ham
Subject: Jim and other Science guys
Message:
Hi guys,
I am staying at my new, to be, winter residence for the weekend, minding horse, dogs, rabbits, wood stove and am looking forward to seeing how it feels as home and overdosing on the internet so I'll check out those sites G, thanks.
ham, maybe we can have you tatooed with a map of the world combining art and science! :)
Nigel, you are like no other, such a renisance scientist/man! :)
Love,
Robyn
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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 21:47:56 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: Robyn
Subject: Renaissance man? Gadzooks...!
Message:
Is the codpiece that obvious..?

The thing is, Robyn, trilobytes can be worse than dogs. They might not need walking - sure - and even 450 million years ago they didn't require more than a quick daily browse of the plankton on a choker-chain - but they're getting pretty fussy these days, now they have evolutionists writing whole books in their memory. For a start, Wrigley is a right crosspatch in the mornings if you don't talk to him just so, tell him he's cool and admire his immaculately partitioned thorax. I mean, he believes that 'elders are betters' and is given to the ancestor-worship thinking so beloved of the modern Chinese. He don't like being on the brick ledge of my cellar and reckons he deserves a proper altar with photos and stuff - but buggered if I'm ironing extra linen on his behalf or getting the guitar out. Thought for the day: never let an arthropod make you feel guilty! Deal with it...;)

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Date: Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 01:25:38 (GMT)
From: Robyn
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Renaissance man? Gadzooks...!
Message:
Dear Nigel,
Your post was just what I needed, humorous and light.
Thing is, I had a rough day in some respects. This house I am suposed to watch was locked when I got here which meant I couldn't take care of the animals. In the first 5 min, while I looked for a possibly hidden key, my dog rolled in something horendously foul so I left her in the dog coop, wrote a note, 'U LOCKED ME OUT!!!', and went on to a friends and had a great time there, saw a bunch of people, shared stories and numerous splifs, I think that is your term over there, and came back to get my dog, feed the horse and put her dogs in the coop unfed and then go to the hotel, where I live and have to blow off these animals tomorrow which didn't sit well with me either.
Well when I got here and just happened to check for my note and it was gone and the door was unlocked! I fed the horse and dogs, put her dogs in the coop, gave Fable a bath and got here and read your post. Very calming. Thanks. :)
Sorry to go off but I feel lots better now.
Love,
your little snow bird :)
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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 10:32:00 (GMT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: We are not the minority, EV is.
Message:
I was diging around ELK web site, then this idea came to me.
I went and counted the number of posts on their “forum”. These are the result.

September 2000----18.00
August 2000-------27.00
July 2000---------36.00
June 2000---------31.00
May 2000----------50.00
April 2000--------36.00
March 2000--------43.00
February 2000-----45.00
January 2000------46.00
December 1999-----54.00
November 1999-----34.00
October 1999------32.00
September 1999----29.00
August 1999-------37.00
July 1999---------25.00
June 1999---------45.00
May 1999----------69.00
April 1999--------48.00
March 1999--------46.00
February 1999-----38.00
January 1999------63.00
December 1998----182.00
November 1998----117.00
October 1998-----109.00
September 1998----28.00


ELK has been online in bussiness for 25 months
Total number of post is 1288 or 51.52 posts a month. Compare that to the 500 or more posts on this page. I can very comfortably average that to 2000 post a month. Percentage wise, the ex-premie site is 3882% bigger than ELK

I have broken the original number into quarters as follows

6th------------28.00
5th------------43.50
4th------------41.50
3rd------------25.31
2nd------------50.25
1st quarter---117.75

I disregarded Sep 1988 as it was only 10 days. As you can see the attendance rate has dropped. If you compare the first quarter with the sixth, the percentage droop is 421%, While the difference in the last two quarters is 155%.

I think these figures shows that Premies are lossing the race and exes are heading for gold.

I also did a summary of whois their hero,

Sep-00

Ivete Belfort Mattos 10
Janice Wilson 3
Eleni Kyriakopoulou 2
Carole Jones 2

Aug-00

Ivete Belfort Mattos 10
Janice Wilson 3
Jim Sakshaug 2
Eleni Kyriakopoulou 2

Jul-00

Ivete Belfort Mattos 8
Carole Jones 6
Janice Wilson 2
Eleni Kyriakopoulou 2

Jun-00

Ivete Belfort Mattos 7
Eleni Kyriakopoulou 3
Janice Wilson 3

It looks like Ivete Belford Mattos takes the Tin medal.
S/he has appointed h/er self as the personal poet to gm.

Shroomji'post is atill up.

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 17:24:53 (GMT)
From: Mili
Email: None
To: Salam
Subject: We are not the minority, EV is.
Message:
It's not the quantity, but the quality that counts.
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 01:27:55 (GMT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: Mili
Subject: Does Mili stands for Milivoi Krkowitch?
Message:
You better go and increase your post count from 4 to something better.You are so profound you dork? Just to remind you of one of your posts

'The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.'

- Simone Weil, A Life

All you seem to be able of is copy what others have said. Not even that. Probably you have a book of quotations that you use to make you sound intelligent. 'Why do not you show us what you can really do, you cracked their code'.

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 00:30:27 (GMT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: Mili
Subject: Is that the best you can do?
Message:
Look Mili, I'm lookng for some good premie posts for my Words of Love page and all you come up with is some bland statement which has been said a thousand times before.

You are capable of much better than this.

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 18:44:27 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: It's the width - of Mili's inane grin, aint' it?nt
Message:
cheese!
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 08:42:07 (GMT)
From: ham
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: Think you misread him Sir D
Message:
He knows that they are all robotic software generated replies, and he was taking the piss out of them, come on Mili tell us it's true.

Ha ha ha

Getting an intelligent response from the vacuum called mili, we'll you'll wait longer than you would for Spurs winning the league.

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 20:07:29 (GMT)
From: hamzen
Email: None
To: Mili
Subject: Now that is funny Mili, a pleasant change (nt)
Message:
a
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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 20:23:36 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: fitzroy
To: hamzen
Subject: Never mind the quality, feel the wit...
Message:
If quality had anything to do with it, Ivette would be blocked and the post-count halved.

No, the reason ELK can't keep up is they have to check the ID and cult-credibilty of each sender and scour every expression for personal testimony that needs correcting.

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Date: Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 22:02:46 (GMT)
From: TED Farkel-new premie
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: I made an arti tray out of a hubcap...is this ok?
Message:
Hey guys- it's me again, Ted Farkel, transmission repair specialist from Mobile Alabama, and most of all,new premie, via the 'auto-knowledge' system.
I've got a question for some of you exes, because I wrote to the folks at ELK but they never responded, so I figured, what the heck,a lot of you guys have been around for a long time and know more about this stuff than I do anyway...
(By the way, thank you Mr. Roger eDrek, for your kind words of support, and I will try to get a copy of that 'auto-knowledge' session to you for napster.I don't know what 'napster' is, but I assumed it was related to 'hamster', and had something to do with our master.
Now here's my question...

My old friend, who turned me on to maharaji, he was visiting with me this weekend and told me about singing arti in the old days.He even gave me a copy of the lyrics and sang a few verses for me....it's quite a catchy tune, and right devotional too!

Well, after he left, I got to thinkin about how much I enjoyed singing that song and decided to make my own arti tray, just like he said they used to do in the old days, with a silver tray and ghee balls and everything...
Now I didn't have much to work with, but I was at the shop after the recent video feed, and fashioned an arti tray out of an old hub cap I had lying around the shop.I took about a dozen large nuts off of an old back hoe in the back, and put them on the tray.Then I filled them with a little used motor oil and pieces of old shop rags, fired them up and started swinging that tray!
I was having a great time. (and feeling good because it was used motor oil, so it was better for the environment.I try not to abuse our lord's creation as much as possible.)
But then I started wonderin,is this OK?
maharaji always said to 'come as you are', so is this allright?
I want my participation to be synchronized,as well as from the heart,and was just wonderin if you think this would be allright with our lord.
And, could I do it during the video feeds that I bring my buddies to?
TED Farkel
(Devoted transmission repair specialist)

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 01:02:21 (GMT)
From: Roger eDrek
Email: drek@oz.net
To: TED Farkel-new premie
Subject: Here's the words to Arti
Message:
TED, if you're gonna sing Arti, a traditional Indian folk song, make sure that you know the words.

The Words to Arti

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 15:43:58 (GMT)
From: EddyTheTurtle
Email: None
To: TED Fartkel-new premie
Subject: Real Arti Stuff...no imitation
Message:
If you really wana get into Arti...there is nothing better then the good ole Gee.. I could recommend a first class supplier in Bihar...they will send it by FedEx (Bihar branch)...normally by train to Delhi then if you are lucky it might get on a flight somewhere out of India..As far as getting to Alabama..not sure about that...this is the reall Indian Arti gee...you can even small the local Bihar dung..its a speciality...

Also they have a good range of holly water...different brands of different maturity dates...you know like good old scottish wiskey...kept in barrels for different lengths of time..depending if you wana pay $10 or more for 10 mls...

Dont go for this yello stuff you are being offered here...wouldnt trust that....cant tell if its real stuff or some strange liquid...be carefull if I was you....

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 15:26:08 (GMT)
From: Loaf
Email: None
To: TED Farkel-new premie
Subject: as long as its still on the car - Fine !!(NT)
Message:
What are you doing here ?

Ennn Teee. Nothing doin'. Nowt. Zippo, zilch, nada.

But since you are here, I think the Yves v DettMers thing is off the mark too. I agree with Anth and Susan.

I just thought I'd take this opportunity to get my oar in.

Sorry.

I'll go now.

Bye

Loaf

Xxxx

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 09:06:18 (GMT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: TED Farkel-new premie
Subject: Top tips for devotees
Message:
I've found that a bit of axle grease mixed with red lead paint makes an ideal mixture to smear on your forehead as a 'tilak' and makes you look like a geniune Hindu worshipper when waving the hubcap.

Try using sterilized water used in batteries as 'holy water'. It is free from all germs and so it must be holy. Only use neat battery acid as charanamrit if you are feeling especially devotional or particularly guilt ridden.

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 08:55:12 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: TED Farkel-new premie
Subject: Sacrifice TED
Message:
Hi Ted,

I’m sorry to say that your chosen form of expressing devotion is a little behind the times. As the Lord has grown in power, since his manifestation on Earth, so too should the disciples expression of devotion. Because I have now fully realised the true nature of ‘Knowledge’, and am constantly in ‘that place’, I may be able to give you a few tips to help you along the path of cyber-realisation.

To be frank Ted, engine oil and an old hubcap doesn’t really do the Master any justice. He requires offerings that complement his status on Earth as the most powerful Master of all time. That’s why I’m recommending ‘blood sacrifice’ as the way to really express your gratitude.

First you need an altar, with lots of pictures, flowers, incense etc. Then you need some sort of sacrificial slab- if you can’t find a marble block, the bread board will do. And, oh yes, a sharp knife of course.

I’d start off with something small, until you get the hang of it. If you live in the country, you could maybe catch a mouse or rat, but it’s easier if you live in the city. Then you can go to a petshop and buy a few hamsters, gerbils, or similar small mammal, to practice on.

You need to make the death part of a devotional ritual, so sing a few versese of arti, meditate and slash. Don’t be faint hearted. This is simply the non-vegetgarian version of picking a few flowers to place on the altar.

When you're comfortable with the small mammals, increase the size of the sacrifice. Try one of the neighbors cats, or a small dog.

Then, when your confident, you could have an ‘event’, like ‘Guru Puja’, where you could invite your premie friends around, and maybe even a travelling instructor, to lend an official air to the proceedings, and sacrifice something big, like a donkey or a goat.

Your journey along the path of devotion will be greatly speeded up when you sacrifice in the correct way. Good luck in your new spiritual career.

Anth the swatted a fly once;

PS I forgot to mention, the mammals must all be virgins.
PPS Do you have a firstborn?

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Date: Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 06:24:16 (GMT)
From: Tonette
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: It may of been a cult but at least
Message:
it's good for a few jokes. If I die tomorrow at least I die laughing!
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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 13:05:27 (GMT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: Sacrifice TED
Message:
You better sacrifice yourself you black magic Canadian ice munching goat voodoo chicken blood smeared hub cab arti tray grease covered old bolt tire eater guru hater premie basher nondevotional synchronized lead battery acid drinker monster.

And I said all in on breath.

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 15:35:03 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Salam
Subject: Salam, how could you
Message:
Salam,

'black magic ice munching goat voodoo chicken blood smeared hub cab arti tray grease covered old bolt tire eater guru hater premie basher nondevotional synchronized lead battery acid drinker monster', fine, but 'Canadian'- I'm mortified, how could you be so cruel?

I'm hurt Salam. I need a little time on my own to get over this.

Anth the Brit

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 15:40:54 (GMT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: OK, Take 2
Message:
You better sacrifice yourself you black magic Brit Mini driving ice munching goat voodoo chicken blood smeared hub cab arti tray grease covered old bolt tire eater guru hater premie basher nondevotional synchronized lead battery acid drinker monster
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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 15:54:00 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Salam
Subject: Thanks Salam
Message:
I can rest easy now the nasty stuff's gone.

Anth the bloody

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 09:33:30 (GMT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: Anth? Threats against animals! Threats threats FA?
Message:
Are you hiding you're a voodoo adept now?

I admit m always said k doesn't interfere with other belief, but haven't you gone a bit too far, haven't you?

You should really be sacrificing YOURSELF, cut you hair, shave your beard, and dedicate some of your energy (10,000 Francs minimum) to help him when he's here. I'd suggest you participate in renting his suite when he'll be in Paris, and behave yourself.

You're a shame on this forum!

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 11:00:09 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: J-M, it's for a higher cause.
Message:
Bonjour J-M,

All life is transitory. What better way for these creatures to serve their creator than being part of a ceremony honouring his earthly form?

I see Blood Sacrifice as a sort of Prasad, offered to the holy lotus feet.

Anth the Carnivor

PS Have you got anything to take these nasty dark stains out of my carpet?

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 13:11:03 (GMT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: I thought you like blood stains?
Message:
Have you got anything to take these nasty dark stains out of my carpet?

Next time you sacrifice a chicken or a goat, do that in the bathtub !!!

You actually have 2 bathrooms ! Use one of them to set your sacrifice altar!!

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 15:37:13 (GMT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: My second bathtub
Message:
Jean-Michel, my second bathtub is full of coal. There's no room to kill a large mammal in there.

Anth the Northerner

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Date: Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 23:46:57 (GMT)
From: Jake Drone
Email: None
To: TED Farkel-new premie
Subject: Great Idea, Ted, just one thing
Message:
Hi Ted,

My name's Jake Drone. I'm ELK's new-premie internet cyberbuddy syncronization team leader instructor. Sorry to have missed you over on ELK but this place is also part of my parish so here I am. My job is to patrol the forums and newsgroups of the web helping out newbies to the wild, wild world of Special K with any problems they might be having. It's really great to hear you've found a use for those old redundant nuts of yours. Also truly excellent to know that you're a grease monkey. The maharajah has been having a few problems getting all his rollers serviced recently. Can your fix planes? Staff is getting very hard to find, y'know.

Anyway, just a word of warning about the arti thing. The buzz from the top is it's OK but in private, please. It's also especially important not to do it outside in your neck of the woods, i.e, the South. We had an rather unfortunate incident a short while back. A small group of naturalist premies were having a night picnic out in the boonies, somewhere in Louisiana I recall. Totally crazed with devoted feelings they proceeded with the arti ritual. Unfortunately the flames attracted the attention of a passing group from the local KKK chapter who were on their way to a little bonfire of their own. They were not at all to pleased to discover a strange non-Christian religious ceremony being performed by a bunch of naked wierdos in their back yard. I'm afraid it all got a bit grisly. But hey, but that's the South for yah.

bye

Jake

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 07:21:08 (GMT)
From: ExTex
Email: None
To: Jake Drone
Subject: Stereotype Southbashing Blows
Message:
That's the south for ya! OH REALLY? Have you ever heard of IDAHO and the nice nest of Nazi/KKK morons that live there AND in Montana AND in California AND New York AND in Washington AND in Oregon (White Aryan Resistance) and in Canada and England and...etc. . This pretense that everyone in the south is a cross burning Klansman is VERY STALE! Check YOUR own backyard! It ain't any different. Hell even back in the civil war Lincoln had to recall a whole regiment back to NYC to put down the rioting NORTHERN UNION soldiers who 'weren't going to go fight for niggers'!!

I know you were making a joke but it's not funny anymore to a lot of people. Just for your info. Whatever....

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 14:31:46 (GMT)
From: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
Email: None
To: ExTex
Subject: Lost Your Funny Bone, Darlin'
Message:
Ex, Ex, Ex,

What am ah goin' ta do with ya? Come ovah heah and sit by me and sip this Mint Julep with me. Le's talk this out, sugah.

And heah's some realll church goin' folks for ya.

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 06:37:00 (GMT)
From: ExTex
Email: None
To: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
Subject: Lost Your Funny Bone, Darlin'
Message:
I already have that site bookmarked. Try www.christslove.com WARNING FOR ADULTS ONLY (SIN!)
I don't want to get into a big debate about it, and I think that I made myself perfectly clear. It is always convieniant for mud slingers to accuse those they sling mud at as 'not having a sense of humor'.
Racists are all over this damn country so the stale stereotype of southerners just reinforces the illusion that they are all a bunch of southern inbred racist hicks and the REST OF THIS COUNTRY IS SO FUCKING CIVILIZED!. That is a lie! IT AIN'T THAT SIMPLE AND A BIG FUCK YOU IF ME TELLING YOU THAT IS ANNOYING!
You obviously didn't know so I told you. SO WHAT?
Cat or Jake or whoever...
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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 14:00:28 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: ExTex
Subject: Uh oh! Somebody got hurt!
Message:
See what happens when you kid around?

Now, boys, everyone, back to your desks immediately. Ted, put down that thing, whatever it is, and Anth, get away from the hamster cage. And where'd this blood come from?

I leave this room for ten minutes and you guys can't keep it together at all, can you? And you guys are supposed to be grade six's? You're an example to your younger brothers and sisters? I'm sorry, it looks like there's a lot of growing up that has to happen in this class, especially if any of you expect to graduate this year.

Roger! Is that a magazine you're reading??! Bring that here!

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 07:00:06 (GMT)
From: ExTex
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Uh oh! Somebody got hurt!
Message:
NOT HURT...JUST REALLY BORED WITH THIS TYPE OF PREJUDICE AND IGNORANCE. BORED AND TIRED OF HEARING IT, where ever it pops up. It is just a stereotype and generalization. It is no different than saying that 'all negroes like de watermelon an sho' can dance' or 'all those big nose jews love is money' etc etc. 'Klansmen, THAT'S the south for ya.' Same kind of crap.

I know of MANY southerners (personally) who have stood up to klansmen and organized to tell them to fuck-off...face to face. (WHITES not just latinos or afro-americans) And this kind of generalization does not do the many many non-racist southerners justice. Racists are everywhere, unfortunately.I AM NOT HURT, JUST BORED WITH STUPIDITY.
So let's all have a big laugh at me cause I don't like my friends being lumped in with moron racists soley because of the geography of where they live. And I could not give a shit what any of you really think about me. I say what I want and do not intentionally try to insult anyone. End of topic, for me.

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 19:00:57 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: ExTex
Subject: you gonna speak up for the morons too?
Message:
Funny I should say that?

'I don't like my friends being lumped in with moron racists'

sez you.


'Morons - (and all other mentally handicapped people) are the niggers of the world.'

with apologies to Jim, (who still wears his badge that says: 'I'm NOT autistic, unlike anyone who disagrees with me') and John Lennon, who wouldn't want to be seen dead in this thread.

Tough, John. All good dreamers pass that way sometime.

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 00:45:30 (GMT)
From: Roger eDrek
Email: drek@oz.net
To: Jim
Subject: This magazine may look like a Playboy, but...
Message:
it's really an And It Is Divine!

I'm a fucking plant! A green fucking plant! A big green fern is what I am.

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 08:45:50 (GMT)
From: ham
Email: None
To: Roger eDrek
Subject: But I bet it was page 3 with Marilyn running
Message:
down the beach toward Mr semi-Monty
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 19:23:43 (GMT)
From: Roger eDrek
Email: drek@oz.net
To: ham
Subject: No, no, no! Such impure thoughts are dangerous
Message:
Warning: Lusting after the wife of the Lord of Universe can be detrimental to your health.
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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 20:10:01 (GMT)
From: ham
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Teach, Roger's zipper's undone (nt)
Message:
a
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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 08:35:50 (GMT)
From: Tonette
Email: None
To: ExTex
Subject: But texas isn't really considered
Message:
the South. Texas is a country all unto itself.
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 07:19:07 (GMT)
From: ExTex
Email: None
To: Tonette
Subject: But texas isn't really considered
Message:
Well you won't find a Texan saying that they're NOT from the south! Texas isn't the DEEP SOUTH (Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Carolina's, etc). Texas is it's own brand of the south...but it is still the south. BUT THE REFERENCE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH TEXAS.....It was a reference to the KKK and the phrase 'that's the south for you' Hell, I bet that there are more white supremists in Idaho than in Texas. There are a lot of black politician's elected in the deep south now. The reference is stale!
(Texas WAS a country all to itself, after they stold it from Mexico. Probably should have stayed that way...har har)
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 08:15:19 (GMT)
From: Tonette
Email: None
To: ExTex
Subject: Hey, are you from Texas?
Message:
I just assumed from your handle that you are. Like my dad says, 'You can take the boy out of Texas but you can't take the Texan out of the boy.' Don't take that the wrong way! My dad grew up in Texas. He's 83 now and a Marylander but will always be a Texan in his heart, or so he says.
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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 03:55:19 (GMT)
From: ExTex
Email: None
To: Tonette
Subject: Hey, are you from Texas?
Message:
I like your dad already!
I was born in Canada...but we moved when I was a lttle kid and I lived in Texas for 29 years of my life (that's long enough, ...TOO HOT!) So I'm a Texadian?? It is true what your dad said about Texas. And there is a lot of great stuff about Texas (George Dribble-yew ain't any of it...Jim Hightower is! Bill Moyers is!) and the south in general. A much misunderstood subject to those that haven't spent much time there. I now live in and love the pacific northwest very much. I might end up somewhere in south South America someday.
Now I think of myself as an Earthling, first and foremost.

Where are you these days, Tonette? (In general terms, of course.)

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Date: Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 06:34:45 (GMT)
From: Tonette
Email: None
To: ExTex
Subject: I'm here but am shy a little bit
Message:
about posting on the forum. I think I need to lay out in some Texan sun to toughen up my hide a little before I say too much here on the forum. I laugh like at fool at some of the posts though. I have grown very fond of you, Jim, Rob, Anth and others though. Generally I'm still here in Cabin John, Maryland. Dealing with issues at home too! But isn't that par for the course?
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Date: Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 09:29:54 (GMT)
From: ExTex
Email: None
To: Tonette
Subject: shy a little bit
Message:
I enjoy your posts and input. Glad you are here. I am growing fond of reading the posts by the usual gang of knuckleheads here, myself. I have taken care of a lot of loose ends that were in the back of my mind as a result of this site. I am glad that I stumbled upon it.

You want to know something really strange? I didn't realise it until I started reading the stuff on this site. It is this. I have not discussed my involvement with GM/DLM cult with ANYONE EVER since I split from it. Not once. At all. (Let alone critically discussed it) I just took that whole experience and the time that I was totally wrapped up in it...and compartmentalized it in some part of my mind....and reinvented myself. I was very heavily involved for about 6 years and then popped in and out of the scene for a good 5 more years! The last time that I saw M was in Dallas around 85, I think. And I snuck away to a program without my friends of the time even knowing what I was up to. Weird. Then not a word on the subject till now.

BUT I have kept doing meditation on and off to this day...without ever talking to anyone about it or giving it much thought. I think that is strange. Yup, I'm a knucklehead too. A lot of shame was going on there I believe. Whew.

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 00:00:18 (GMT)
From: GERRY
Email: None
To: Jake Drone
Subject: Are you picking on drones, Jake?
Message:
It's a psuedonym, right? Well I happen to represent the drones defense league. I was elected into the hall of drones early on: (gerry, you goddam drone!) People have misperceptions about us drones and hence we are discriminated against by the rest of society.

Anyone with an ounce of that understanding will appreciate the fact that a drone is a A male bee, especially a honeybee, that is characteristically stingless, performs no work, and produces no honey. Its only function is to mate with the queen bee.

I experience graditude when I realize this understanding...

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 00:32:20 (GMT)
From: Jake Drone
Email: None
To: GERRY
Subject: Hey. no offence, dude!!
Message:
Hi GERRY,

Yeah, I know all about being a Drone. Tell me about it. It ain't easy. Shit, you try working for ELK. No pay. Gotta find for your own petrol. Constantly being slagged off on the web. Having to feel grateful all the time about fuck all. It ain't good. And the food!!
-------------
Just take a look at some of the other meanings.
-------------
1 : the male of a bee (as the honeybee) that has no sting and gathers no honey
2 : one that lives on the labors of others : PARASITE
3 : an unmanned airplane, helicopter, or ship guided by remote control
4 : DRUDGE
---------------------
1 a : to make a sustained deep murmuring, humming, or buzzing sound b : to talk in a persistently dull or monotonous tone
2 : to pass, proceed, or act in a dull, drowsy, or indifferent manner
transitive senses
1 : to utter or pronounce with a drone
2 : to pass or spend in dull or monotonous activity or in idleness
------------

I'm depressed,

Jake Drone

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Date: Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 23:14:47 (GMT)
From: The observant
Email: None
To: TED Farkel-new premie
Subject: What are you Ted?
Message:
1. An X-P pretending to be a stupid DVD- PWK?
2. A PWK pretending to be an X-P pretending to be a stupid DVD PWK?
I don't get it. Some people will laugh of you, some peolple will laugh of your story. Who do you try to fool?
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Date: Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 23:40:29 (GMT)
From: Roger eDrek
Email: drek@oz.net
To: The observant
Subject: Just ignore Mr. observant, TED. We'll help you!
Message:
First, TED, just ignore that obsverant guy. He's just somebody who doesnt' like people, that's all. Ignore him and he will go away and come back as somebody else.

TED, I'm not sure who the Miss Manners of premie etiquette is. And I'm trying to think of someone here who might possess those qualities and all I'm coming up with is gErRy. I'm quite certain that gErRy swung a pretty mean Arti tray in his daze.

TED, back in the good old days EVERYONE had an opinion on how EVERYTHING should be done. You could hardly go to the bathroom without somebody having a real strong opinion on how he or she thought that Maharaji would want it to be done to ensure that the premie was doing everything with THAT feeling while being in THAT place.

More often than not the person who was most correct was the person thought to be the closest to Maharaji or a person operating with Maharaji's direct agya. Agya is Hindi for 'orders' as in direction given by the Master. And you were ever fortunate to have Maharaji tell you how to perform some action then you were truly blessed as such direction was
perfectly clear and without mind. In such a clear state all actions were done without karma and all actions became effortless - kinda like watching TV, something the Master did a lot.

At other times the person who was most correct was the person with the strongest and most devious personality. And these people often rewarded by being made Mahatmas, Instructors, or Initiators, officers at IHQ or the local DUO office, or even the most exalted of all, Servants at the Residence. Nah, actually the servants are pretty much only tolerated, ignored, and underpaid. The real goal is to become one of Maharaji's closest personal friends.

And, TED, I think that you've got just such an opportunity to become one of Maharaji's closest personal friends. You see, TED, because of Maharaji's excessive drinking and debauchery he just doesn't have very as many friends anymore and he is getting very lonely up there on the hill. The first thing you need to do to become one of Maharaji's closest friends is to continue to
'synchronize' yourself as you are doing. And the second thing is to send money directly to Maharaji.

TED, as an auto mechanic you have an advantage because Maharaji is a car connoisseur and he has a huge garage just chock full of cars that need to be cared for. Of course, Maharaji won't be able to pay you to work on his cars, but it's worth it. And, yes, it's a little expensive to live near Malibu, but it's worth it. A lot of premies when working for Maharaji in Malibu live in their cars in the nearby state parks.

So, TED, I am very appreciative and grateful that you are coming here and sharing your experience with all of us. You see, TED, there are really two schools of thought on the proper path of devotion. One is the new kinder and gentler version where Maharaji is only the Master and is no longer God school of thought. This is also known as the Western Gambit Phase II and is specifically designed to appeal to sophisticated and educated peoples living in the West or the First World. And the old school is the Third World Wild Worship version where Guru, Who is Greater Than God, is heavily worshipped and premies are simply expected to adorn their Master with lavish gifts of jewels and money. The Western Gambit Phase II requires a little more finesse and the money is coaxed from premies via the offering of shiny trinkets.

Interesting, TED, is that it would appear that you, living in Alabama, are somewhere between the First and the Third World - somewhere between a rock and a hard place. But, I see that you are making the best of it and you are synthesizing your own understanding of what it is to be a devotee of the living Master and Lord. The one drawback to this haphazard homebrewed plan
is that the Master is not particularly keen on people thinking for themselves and improvising. The Master prefers, no, the Master needs a very ordered and regimented life. Essentially, the Master is a CONTROL FREAK, TED. So, you need to be very careful that you, TED, do not get in the way of the Master and do things that might be seen as disorderly by the Master or anyone else who acts or thinks they are acting on behalf of the Master. Typically, in the case where you violate the Master's need for order you will receive a mild rebuke from the local or regional organization, Elan Vital. But remember, TED, this organization, Elan Vital, has no members and doesn't really exist as such. More severe rebukes might come from the Master's law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCoy of New York City.

Finally, TED, I don't have any really answers for you on what is right and what is wrong when it comes to the path of devotion. It's really a feeling, a growing feeling inside yourself that you need to tend to. I mean if it means that you are out back of your transmission shop one moonlit night and you are all naked and covered with chicken blood and swinging a hubcap full of used motor oil while singing Arti - well, who am I to say whether that's right or wrong? And if you want to invite your friends and neighbors and show them videos and learn 'em to sing Arti - well, why not? For that matter, TED, you can save them a lot of time by showing them how to meditate.

Just follow your bliss, TED. Follow your bliss and it will lead to appreciation and gratitude and finally the appreciatation of appreciation.

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 06:26:51 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Roger eDrek
Subject: ****EVERYONE JUST HAS TO READ THAT*****
Message:
That's both extremely funny and quite insightful. Cool post, Rog. You're obviously not working.
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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 03:29:39 (GMT)
From: TED Farkel
Email: None
To: Roger eDrek
Subject: thanks guys...you exes aren't so bad after all...
Message:
Hey Roger and you other guys:
You guys aren't so mean,nasty and negative after all.
You've got some great advice for a new premie like myself.
I'm getting a few things clear from all this.

First,I play it kind of cool,like that new type of western premie that roger talked about.I'll keep my participation synchronized with national and keep the gratitude under control when I'm in public.
But then when I get those devotional feelings, and that ole hubcap and used motoroil are callin,I can let it rip,just like you guys used to do in the old days...
By the way, my buddy mentioned something about drinkin maharajis bath water,and how it used to be drunk like some sort of homeopathic remedy.
You guys got any of that stuff lying around?
I wouldn't mind checkin out some of that stuff too...
My old dog Jake has arthritis and I'd like to see if it might fix him...

You guys sure do know a lot from the old days...
Did you really make maharaji dance on stage and get his feet kissed and take all your money, like Mr. eDrek said?
Take care
TED Farkel
'auto dv premie'

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 23:17:37 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: TED Farkel
Subject: So who are you, Ted?
Message:
I suspect Anon - maybe even Drek himself.. I'd have even blamed me if I didn't know better.

Admit it - you're way too all-knowing for a new premie. Aren't you?

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 04:02:31 (GMT)
From: Roger eDrek
Email: drek@oz.net
To: TED Farkel
Subject: Damn straight, we did!
Message:
Did you really make maharaji dance on stage and get his feet kissed and take all your money, like Mr. eDrek said?

You need to take my word on this, TED. I was there. We practically had to put a gun to his head and hold his family hostage to get him to dance in those skimpy little outfits. As Maharaji says on his website that he didn't want to be Master and he didn't want to be adored and worshipped. Maharaji is just a simple person, albeit an very successful private investor, pilot, inventor, poet, artist, musician, and more.

That's right, TED, you just keep it cool in public to keep those pesky EV folks out of your hair and in the relative privacy of your own junk yard or wherever you can git down and worship. Git medieval, man.

TED, I do just so happen to have some of that charnarmirth (aka Holy Water) left over from the good old days. The aging has caused it to yellow some, but that just gives it more kick. Send me some money to cover the shipping and $20 U.S. for my time driving into town to the Post Office and it's yours!

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 05:00:34 (GMT)
From: anti dwarf
Email: None
To: Roger eDrek
Subject: Is it true that M is a DWARF? nt
Message:
nt
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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 08:58:31 (GMT)
From: Lolaji
Email: None
To: Jake
Subject: Jacob??? that you?? ..well sheeeet dam! NT
Message:
NT
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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 00:50:37 (GMT)
From: Jake Drone
Email: None
To: Roger eDrek
Subject: Voodoo chicken
Message:
Jez love, the chicken blood. Very voodoo!!

Jake

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Date: Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 21:29:28 (GMT)
From: Rudy
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: True Knowledge
Message:

love's best glimpse should dawn for us at our birth
our heart should remain as at the first
but down we do forget as up we grow
planting those problems we come to hate so

time now to plant a better bouquet
time to parent love's true and secret way
but without that glimpse we parent confusion
without the glimpse heartmind is delusion

time now to let go of expremie pretense
time to live a life whose end will make sense
to nurture the glimpse - to parent love
to shake off rawatism and rise aove

our heart opens and inwardly we smile
when all earth's wellness we plan without guile

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 14:31:57 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Rudy
Subject: Ah, isn't that so sweet!
Message:
What a bunch of nonsense! Still subscribing to the myth that 'the heart knows', huh? We're born with pure love inside which somehow gets sullied?

Hm, that really does sound like a problem. Have you tried chanting Hare Krishna?

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 18:57:22 (GMT)
From: Steve
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Jim come on- I know you have a heart........
Message:
Or am I wrong and you're the world's only living heart donor?
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 00:52:18 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Steve
Subject: Problem, Steve, is I also have a brain (nt)
Message:
fffff
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 14:22:47 (GMT)
From: Steve
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: No problem- all humans have too nt
Message:
nt
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 16:17:59 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Steve
Subject: Now don't go getting all literal on me (nt)
Message:
ggggg
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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 15:43:50 (GMT)
From: Y
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Science is toying with the gut-brain concept.
Message:
It seem the digestive organs are filled with nerve cells. It has some marginal scientists toy with the idea we may have a 'brain' outside our skull. If that was to be proved, your assumptions Premie-Ji is out-for-lunch may take a beating. How's that for size?

Next, I'll prove god's non-existence. Stay tuned.

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 07:03:47 (GMT)
From: ExTex
Email: None
To: Rudy
Subject: A Nice Little Sentiment (nt)
Message:
nt
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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 02:08:06 (GMT)
From: Yves
Email: None
To: Rudy
Subject: True Knowledge
Message:
Maharaji is Like an Angel

My Lord is like an angel,
Who brighten my days.
In all kinds of wonderful,
Magical ways.

His thoughtfulness comes,
As a gift from above.
And I feel I am surrounded,
By warm, caring love.

Like upside-down rainbows,
His smile bring the sun.
And it fill ho-hum moments,
With laughter and fun.

Maharaji is an angel,
Without any wings.
Blessing my life,
With the most precious gift of Knowledge.

How's that for a start?

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 02:26:19 (GMT)
From: Tonette
Email: None
To: Yves
Subject: Another ELK original
Message:
Hey, you might win an award with that one. That is if they gave any rewards over on the ELK site.
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Date: Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 22:53:34 (GMT)
From: Marianne
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Beware! Satsang poem above! nt
Message:
nt
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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 17:36:26 (GMT)
From: People's Poet
Email: None
To: Marianne
Subject: comment from the muse below
Message:
The World turned inside out to sing,
'God is Everything'.
Sea of colour push on my skin
and maker dinner of me din
for all those years
(like watching telly)
fell to my knees
statues of saints drifted by on the breeze
when once I believed with an iron rod
switched my eyes off to chat with God
behind the badge with the guru's face
the termites nest begins.
Flick the switches and start the press
we're doing Mother Theresa next
we'll roll them out and serve them cold
pour the jelly into the mould
sit down shut up do what you're told
ain't no one here but us on Earth.
So press the buttons for all you're worth
And if the people in your head go wierd
because you smuggled drugs in under your beard
pumped down the arteries sucked up a vein
pepper-pot folk who live in your brain
And they wobbled and fell to the ground.
And you thought for a moment,
when everything stopped,
somehow thunder and light
somehow you could be God.
So you wobbled and fell to the ground.
lost your way,
you thought you'd found it
it's easy to say and sit there and do
(like watching telly)
there's nothing for you
so bury your doubts and banish your fears
walk like a prat with a bottle of tears
and if you're unlucky it can go on for years
lost in spiral town
seems to get less
than running on days for whispering,
'Yes. Yes I can kick it all.
Yes I can dance.'
I move like a sardine man,
deep in a trance
sorting spaghetti, not getting bored
sucking tomato sauce for the 'Lord'
selling the paper-weights, raking our kin
speaking the Word and banishing sin
quick take some photographs
get them all in
pretend you're a saint and pretend that it's 'Him'
pretend that it's 'Her', pretend it's a word
pretend you weren't crazy when you fell to your knees
whispering, 'Please Lord, come and take these
treasures so deeper than able to find
settled instead for a fight with my mind
kept myself busy for several years
(like watching telly)
there's nothing to sea
didn't notice the end of my life coming near
never felt it so clear
never wanted to be
just like watching tv.
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Date: Mon, Sep 25, 2000 at 16:05:14 (GMT)
From: gerry
Email: None
To: People's Poet
Subject: Nice one, Peep nt
Message:
nt
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Date: Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 19:46:03 (GMT)
From: suchabanana
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: healing, sincerity, following our own hearts
Message:
Dear Everyone:

I liked Carol's response to my earlier post. Actually, if one thinks about some of the axioms of DLM and M, and those who may be struggling right now:

Always have faith in God -- who do we believe in (or pray to, anyway [those of us who aren't atheists])? For me throughout my life, it's always been God, or the highest power of the universe -- and that connection is within us (and always has been). Personally, I can't deny the truth of my own spiritual experiences and some miraculous things that I've witnessed in moments of devotion to God.

Never delay in attending satsang -- what is satsang? company of truth. So, if we practice truth in our dealings with others and speak truthfully with compassion (not facetiousness or mocking) from our personal experience, then we actually are in the company of truth -- all by ourselves, and occasionally with others who do the same.

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today -- sounds like Ben Franklin - Poor Richard's Almanac. A good axiom for this short life, if this life means anything to us.

As for the techniques of Knowledge, they've been practiced for thousands of years by different people -- most people derive some benefit from doing the meditations. [That's why doctors, therapists, and medical schools recommend meditation now, too.] Furthermore, meditation does show one the workings of one's mind, and practicing diligently daily does give one a good focus and concentration skills that can then be applied in other areas of one's life. Natural meditations that aren't mantras or visualizations are the most direct way that I know of to access the deeper part of our consciousness -- again, within us.

Accordingly, we needn't throw the baby out with the bath water, friends. The real baby was the Knowledge, whereas the bath water = all those concepts that we can rinse off ourselves now. Most of us didn't initially go to DLM/EVI for M. anyway; we went for the Knowledge itself -- how to go within ourselves and tap in on that inner connection.

Enjoying life now, Carol and many others? Probably not for some; I'll bet a whole lot of people are struggling right now. I have, too.

But, you know: if you are doing some kind of selfless service in this life, in this world, then you are practicing karma yoga. There's Service for you, right there...

If you consciously try to do good and no harm and treat others the same way you'd like to be treated, then you are also following the so-called Golden Rule.

If you have devotion to God, and put that into practice in your life, then you are also following Bhakti Yoga, for example.

If you still want to meditate on the some of the techniques: Light, Sound, Breath, or Nectar (whatever), then you are practicing Raja Yoga.

If you speak truthfully and compassionately in tune with your inner experience, then you are giving satsang.

Now, as for the master -- if we were all truthful here, for example, a lot of us would admit that M. did actually inspire us at times over the course of many years. That can't honestly be denied. But, remember, too, (for the oldtimers) how we used to inspire each other, when satsang wasn't a video - but a group thing? That same inspiration is within every one of us. Just dump the concepts that don't work, and the cult-speak, that aren't real to us anymore.

It is also well known in some Buddhist monk circles that to attain higher degrees of enlightenment, one has to get past the actual image or concept of the master, or teacher. In fact, the concept of the master's image is thought of as a distraction, a barrier.

So, we can shed all these word labels and concepts (if we choose), and still go within (if we choose), and realize that, yes, we can fulfill this life and experience something beautiful, and that perhaps those years we spent with M weren't actually wasted, after all --- but part of a deeper learning experience, and that we may have actually gained some beneficial understandings as a result. What have we actually practiced in our lives, in our dealings with others, and within our deepest hearts? We can continue to work on those facets of the human experience -- with joy, faith, and peace.

That's the healthy outlook, my friends. It sounds like you -- Carol-- and many others do appreciate the healthy outlook -- not the negative, mocking, angry, cynical approach to life.

Yeah, lot's of us are upset and feel (or have felt) whatever: betrayed, deceived, abused, etc. in some ways. But, let's get beyond that, too, and see the good we can derive from our personal experiences and build even better lives because of the wisdom we've gained over the years.

Our personal and inner experiences are valid -- and people who choose to mock that experience or sincerity in others only mock themselves and their own existence. Live and let live...

So, Carol, and others who may have similar feelings, I hope you will read this and draw some assurance that others empathize with you -- and to continue practicing and looking for whatever rings true to your heart in your life. Yeah, we can actually practice what we thought we were doing -- all along, in our individual lives, without any b.s. -- and it's just between us and God.

Carol, I meant to stimulate some discussion on a bold, almost revolutionary thread you proposed -- and you clarified things well. On the surface, your original message seemed almost bizarre -- but then I thought about it more deeply, and thought 'why not post this here', because actually, if you take that thread even further, you end up realizing that what a lot of people are doing right now (exes, posties, and concerned premies alike) is actually consistent with what we were probably trying to do anyway, all along -- but without the trappings and b.s.

Please don't be upset. As for Jim, I hope he learns to be kinder here -- especially realizing that you never know who comes onto this forum who might be in suffering, torment, whatever. Joking around is good -- humor is healthy. But unsolicited personal putdowns are hurtful. There are some people who have come onto the forum who might even be despondent and suicidal over the cult stuff -- do we simply want to push them over the edge, huh?! Have we learned nothing at all from this life and our inner hearts? Come on, now. I'll bet most people here who went for Knowledge would still like to think of themselves as somehow spiritual beings, or at least trying to be...

Also, as for continuing on some kind of spiritual path within ourselves, I think what some people may be missing now is the support group, the network, and the genuine inspiration from others. I hope we might build a new support group, for those who are sincere and would like to participate as equals, and not lay concepts on each other, judge each other, or simply try to reinvent the heirarchy and organization all over again. That's very possible on the web, too. Maybe truth-seekers 'won't find any cake, here', after all, as one ex informed a postie. But, that doesn't mean that other sites won't be sprouting up soon for those exes, posties, and others who would like to share some inspiration with others -- and continue on an individual spiritual path with an inner experience.

Peace

PS I am registering a domain name and will be setting up a healing site later this year for those who might be interested. Please rsvp, if you are out there, and let me know if you would be interested in such a site. Thanks.

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 13:47:33 (GMT)
From: Steve
Email: None
To: suchabanana
Subject: Your not really suchabanana - well said nt
Message:
nt
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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 06:30:10 (GMT)
From: ExTex
Email: None
To: suchabanana
Subject: I Like Your Rap, Banana-Dude
Message:
I for one positively HATE to use the term 'GOD' about any of this stuff. I think it is the MOST DANGEROUS AND MEANINGLESS WORD THERE IS! But then again that is just a case of semantics.
For me there is NO REASON to even use the word. But then again that is MY opinion.

With that said right out front...(and this may sound hypocritical but it is not)...I agree with most of your post here. You are making some great points. I would be interested in your proposed site myself. AND I think that this site is generally interesting, important and serves a good purpose.
I think anger and calling bullshit BULLSHIT definetly is of worth. (It is all very subjective.) But equally I feel that positive, supportive, growth inspiring dialogue is very important. One isn't better than the other...it depends on the situation. Sometimes it seems more a question of if this site is going to be INCLUSIVE OR EXCLUSIVE! (For EX's)

I still use 3 of the techniques...in an informal casual way... that has over time just comfortabley become part of who I am. And for me it has NOTHING TO DO WITH GOD or trying to climb a spiritual social ladder. I just like it. To be really honest I don't know what the experience is or means. And I don't really care or think that I have to know what it means. I can talk ABOUT it but that ain't it. The dicipline of focusing one's consciousness (meditation) is NOT the private domain of Mr Rawat. IT NEVER WAS. The GM/EV/Premie trip does not disqualify meditation and the search to broaden one's perception of reality as worthless just because THAT RAWAT THING was/is bullshit. To let one's experience with GM/DLM/EV/etc ruin the rest of one's potential consciousness expanding experiences WOULD BE THE ULTIMATE FOOLISHNESS!

Take from one's life experience what one can...to learn, to grow, to survive, to find meaning (or no meaning) and move on. The experience gained from being indoctrinated in a cult and breaking free...can be useful. It is our choice. But we should also do whatever we can to keep others from having to go through being exploited as we were! To make amends as well as to spare others. Hell, how many people did I ensnare in the cult with MY oh so blissful satsang? I shudder to think!

Keep those posts coming you wacki BananaDude.

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Date: Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 22:50:49 (GMT)
From: billberry
Email: None
To: suchabanana
Subject: fullfill this life?
Message:
And what is it to 'fullfill this life'? what is your idea.
If buddhists think the master isa barrier, that is because thier eastern thinking has them thinking that after you see that the master is screwed up, you are supposed to then recognise that YOU are god. Standard eastern assumption.

What do you mean, 'deeper part of our conciousness'?

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 03:13:16 (GMT)
From: suchabanana
Email: None
To: billberry
Subject: honest answers to your queries
Message:
First, bill, I'll operate under the premise that you might be sincere, and not just someone looking to mince words, snipe, or pick a bone of contention with others.

Frankly, 'eastern thinking' and 'standard eastern assumption' are stereotypes I'm not familiar with as absolutes, bill. I don't believe in generically stereotyping cultures or billions of individual human beings. For instance, L.A. is east of India, India is west of L.A. Therefore, India is a western culture, right? No, this all relative, bill. For example, I used to belong to another popular eastern cult -- Christianity. In America, people think that's a western religion. Relativity...

If you'll notice, I said in 'some Buddhist monk circles'. That doesn't mean all 'buddhists.' In fact, I was referring to certain zen monk traditions, wherein the notions of student-master are seen as a final barrier to respectfully overcome in attaining higher levels of enlightenment.

Speaking of 'eastern' cults, Jesus himself said, 'the kingdom of God is within you.' Either you've truthfully experienced that kingdom, or you haven't.

'deeper part of our consciousness'? Please know that I'm not into debating here, bill, or quibbling about semantics -- because some folks just come here as flamers, dig? With all respect to you, the tenor of your message belies an attitude. Words are just words.

So, I'm not about to denigrate the many gifts and experiences that have been shown to me by my Creator, ok? I've only been meditating for about 30 years, too, so I'm also not an expert on this subject -- but I can tell you that as a person gets more experienced at stopping the internal chatter, the spaces of silence get longer and deeper, and in the silence comes a clarity, a peacefulness, and an abiding understanding. Various persons from all faiths all over the world have practiced such meditation, quietude, contemplation, whatever for thousands of years -- some have had deep spiritual experiences -- not just momentary flashes or a brief feeling of peace for a few seconds or minutes. I'm definitely not about to share my own precious spiritual experiences on any impersonal internet site.

Lastly, 'fulfill this life,' bill? To me, means: as long as it's peaceful and not harmful to others (or the earth), then go for the gusto, be the best you can be at whatever you do, fulfill your life's goals and dreams, follow your star - don't settle for anything less - and don't forget to smell the roses. For me, 'fulfill this life' also meant a sincere lifelong desire to know God, and be one with God, to understand the nature of existence -- and to directly experience it -- not just intellectualize about it, or believe in it, but to actually have a real spiritual experience of my own -- just like Moses, or Jesus, or Saint Francis, or Buddha, or Mirabai, or Kabir, or Rumi, or Black Elk, or Lao'ste, or Meister Eckhardt, or Yogananda, etc. Sure, lots of people don't understand that desire -- or that fulfillment, either. But it's real, nevertheless. Believe or not...

Again, I believe in live and let live. Different strokes for different folks? Fine...

Peace

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 05:51:07 (GMT)
From: billbarry
Email: None
To: suchabanana
Subject: Bananananda Ji
Message:
Greetings Bananananda Ji
If my questions had a tone, it was probably my reluctance to wade into this subject matter after a vacation from it.
However, just like you did some judgeing to decide that you were not 'christian', I cant help but judge any concepts that come my way at least in the field of religion.

You might understand my sensitivity to the kind of thinking that spawned our own lord guru maharaj ji and a host of derivitive groups and ideas that are equally based on assumptions and vagueness and promises of 'higher conciousness'.
I am referring to some of the folks you mention as examples.
They didnt say things like you did in your post just now, but they went on and on painting this whole diagram of how life is.
And thier ideas steer a person into directions and actions and beliefs that are false and wasteful and are not reality.
Your own disernment could be called into question when you list some of them as if they were just nodding at the idea of doing a helpful 'quieting of the mind' or spiritual experience when instead they pour on the delusion and misperceptions of life in chapter after chapter.

Are you sure you want to grant approval to such a big list when only shards of what they said was correct. It is like all those guys are piles of straw and man you have to look to find the few sentences that are useful and you have to watch it or you get dragged into thier thinking.
That is exactly what happens time after time. People build and build these constructs around the concept of either a god or a oneness that is either concious or unconcious depending on thier thinking.


Fine, you got me on the 'eastern' tag. I will avoid it in the future.
Yes you did mention 'some' buddhist groups but then again, all the same groups say in one way or another, that you are the student and then you become the teacher. Or you realize that YOU are his equal. And in many of those groups, when the time comes to graduate, to only way is to imagine you have attained this or that -samadhi- or whatever and you are now god, or a reasonable facsimilie.
And in buddhism there is an unconcious oneness, a 'wheel' of spots you can occupy after you die until you let go enough to just leave your conciousness and plunge into the 'unconcious'.

There is lots in your post, but let me start with this question.
In your present understanding or guess or experience,
Is there a self aware thing that is not in a body, and I dont mean one of the guys that occupy the buddhist wheel who were buddhists in a last life.
Is there a 'unconcious' oneness.
Is this a dna creation and conciousness sprang from matter.
Is there a fourth option?

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 08:16:46 (GMT)
From: suchabanana
Email: None
To: billbarry
Subject: words, concepts, and way beyond...
Message:
Dear Bill,

You sound a lot more sincere now -- good. Now, I can relate...

Look, all those folks I mentioned were inspirational to me, at some point in my life; that doesn't mean that every thing they said or wrote was like scripture or the holy grail, dig?

I don't know about any 'fourth option'.

Also, yes, there is a self that is aware that it is not a body -- not astral projection, either. I had this experience in deep meditation once back in 1973 in Houston, and it actually took some effort and willpower to regain physical body consciousness. I can't really describe it, because it was so different from anything I had ever felt before. Then, I regretted coming back, later -- you can't win! ha ha But, although it was peaceful and fantastic, it was almost too powerful an experience for me to handle then. Yet, it showed me something really transcendent that I can't quite ever put into words. [I guess you could call it some kind of samadhi -- but that's still a concept to me.]

I guess if you pursue the Buddhist course, one strain of the theology teaches that you can either merge with the big ocean or retain the separate ego-consciousness, when you leave this world. Who knows?! To me, that's still a concept. But, based on what I just told you here, I have a hunch there's some truth to it. However, most of us are kind of attached to our egos (our separate indentities).

I really can't answer your other questions. If I don't know something, the best response always is the truth.

I can tell you truthfully, though, that I have also experienced the inner light to be brighter than 10,000 suns. It was so bright and intense sometimes, I thought it would blind me. It's funny, though, because I don't experience it like that anymore -- and sometimes I really miss that experience now. But, I mostly feel peaceful, all the same. Maybe I needed to experience some things -- and so those mysteries were shown to me. Once, and this was before I ever met M, I was praying silently to God in the middle of the night and the inner light was so bright that my girlfriend, Barbara, woke up and started screaming, afraid -- because my body was literally lighting up the whole room -- No joke. That's when I packed up and decided to go on a spiritual quest and seek out someone who could explain this experience to me.

This is probably the wrong place to discuss these things, because some people wouldn't understand at all (or mock it), if they were reading this. This, after all, is my secret spiritual existence -- in the outer world, one has to be real guarded around most people. On the surface, I'm an older, established person, conservatively dressed now, etc. I'm no saint, no mahatma, don't go to programs anymore -- just a person who's been blessed in a lot of ways. For that, I'm truly and deeply grateful to God.

I came to this site originally, because although there was a lot of negativity here, at least people were talking about their genuine concerns and things they've suppressed for too long. I've shared these same issues, feelings, and struggles, too.

I honestly would like to help create an uplifting, healing site that isn't cult-based, but just speaks about life and an inner experience, without crediting it (or referring) to any individual or organization. I certainly don't want to be a guru, too, or prop up any new ones.

I hope something said here has reached you. I wouldn't have responded again had I thought you weren't somehow sincere, too. Yeah, I've got loads of books on spiritual subjects, but they're just words (and concepts), after all, not the book of life itself... One minute of actual experience is worth a lifetime of reading spiritual books. It's true.

Peace

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 04:31:20 (GMT)
From: bill burke
Email: None
To: suchabanana
Subject: Got another name?
Message:
Hi there.
Your post has a lot in it, but after reading it a few times over the course of a few hours, I am going to just type what strikes me this last time.

Others can and have said it better than whatever way I do now as I just wing it.

Where people in religions try to adjust and guide my relationship with life, they do a poor job.
The reason, well, I think it may be a case of misplaced priorities and a general misperception of reality. Without listing the endless styles of lunacy and distraction....

It seems to me that careing about and enjoying those around me
and being interested in them and thier interests, and engageing thier minds without likeing them any less because of thier personal limitations and having patience and enthusiasm, and having self discipline and an understanding of how murphys law keeps butting into our day, and hugging those that can be hugged, and forgiveing lots of inevitable bad behaviour in others, and trying again and again to make moments special and give TIME to others, and pursue my own dreams as well, ect ect,

well,this is some of how I approach living with a 7, 10, 19, 22, year old boys and a 48 yr old wife and an 78 yr old woman.
And the neighbors and business folks.

If there was a religion or group that wanted to help me in my life they could inspire me to do the above. And offer tips and suggestionsthat were down to earth practical and useful in living
succesfully happily in my beautiful lifetime and body.
You know, stuff like that.

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 07:52:35 (GMT)
From: suchabanana
Email: None
To: bill burke
Subject: Got another name?
Message:
Beautiful!!! you sure sound like you're on the right track there, bill burke, especially with human relationships.

Simply put: If we would love others as ourselves (like it sounds you're trying to do), have compassion, patience, and forgiveness in our hearts, and don't trip out negatively in our heads -- but just be calm by being consciously in tune with our very breath, and have faith in the power/energy that operates this universe (and call on it whenever necessary - for guidance or help), then I think we're headed in the right direction.

You really can't go wrong, bill, if you can actually put all that into practice as the simple basis of your life.

Also, (I don't know if you already do this) but you might try and find some time each day to devote to your inner self -- sitting in silence in a quiet, private place, closing your eyes, and just putting your mind at rest -- focus your attention on the flow of the breath (through the nostrils), and just observe it happen, naturally. If thoughts come in, when you notice 'em, just bring your focus right back to the calmness of your breath. 1/2 hour daily, twice a day, whatever, or more. I ain't no guru, but this works very nicely for me (among other things). Keeping life in balance, uncomplicated, not going overboard -- and feeling good.

I sometimes say to my wife (when she's upset, freaked out, or in a bad mood): 'Do you want to feel good right now, or do you want to feel shitty? It's up to you. And if I can help somehow, I'll try, too...'

Name? I've been called all kinds of names in my life -- right now, though, I just feel like --

suchabanana (another name laid on me by a former 'premie' - so, I kinda like it now)

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Date: Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 15:24:01 (GMT)
From: bill
Email: None
To: suchabanana
Subject: Got another name?
Message:
Greetings Such....
Well, frankly, I also do the breath thing quite a bit.
And as I wade through the various religions and trips, I cant help but think that for the sake of free will and confusion and challenge and other things that I dont have the mindset to elaborate on this morning, that we are not meant to have 'unity'
and are not designed (if you will) to all agree on any particular
view of this life.
Lots to talk about on those issues and it IS interesting, but not this morning. Maybe we could continue this tomorrow night up near the top. I will track you down and change the subject of some thread up there.

You know, on one hand I just collapse in the face of all the differences and the abuse we give each other in the great effort folks make to 'share' the proper view of this life and god.

Kind of why I crawled around my close environment like a kid going 'does anyone want to play?'
Allowing for ALL the bad behaviours of all my potential 'playmates' (if you will), and just trying to trigger the best in them. That effort has paid off in getting better at
makeing the moments fun and getting better at rescueing folks from thier snags,(momentarily anyway) and also freeing myself up from my own.

Talk to you later.
vouching for the breath feeling brings up a lot of issues also but despite those issues, and my guesses as to 'why', I have to admit I like to feel the breath. It IS helpful.

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 05:08:44 (GMT)
From: bill
Email: None
To: bill burke
Subject: negativity here?
Message:
You say it is negative here,
well, I never make that comment.
This is not a place for anything goes.
Many come here and will make it a satsang hall or something similar. The gaurds here get my support even if they go overboard. I dont have it in me to deal with many of the people that come here and try to take over with thier hallucinations.
Those that DO gaurd here may go off in directions and show no diplomacy, but I cant do the job they try to do so I dont think I can complain about them.
When I was needing help, some of the gaurd dogs here would bark at those that would try to undermine my walk to freedom from cult programming.
Intolerance here sometimes is an intolerance for poor thinking and massive reliance on assumptions.
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 04:54:10 (GMT)
From: beezleburke
Email: None
To: bill burke
Subject: Got another name?
Message:
having said that, I very much DO have to recognise that if I dont watch it, others will try to use and abuse me in thier
hallucination about life.

Others will take my approach and try to get me to join them in a chorus of 'cant we just get along?' and 'all you need is love' and 'imagine'. Or a host of other variants of not facing reality and not properly judgeing others and thier views on life.

Face it, religion and telling others about life is mostly misperception.
How I gaurd against words and ideas and extract those that pass my own standards is an area that could be helpful in life.
Who runs that course?
Good luck getting that from your dad, clear headed wisdom is not
traditionally what gets passed on from generation to generation.
The 'golden age' is not when we all get lost in various god obsessions. But when we share clear headed common sense and lose the hand me down nonsense misperceptions of reality.

Accepting the fact that we are not meant to become 'one' but can find a way to enjoy our human nature in spite of its pain in the ass features, is step one.
step 2 is outwardly enjoying life and others despite the minefield of troubles that comes with it. Loving others or at least trying is rewarding.
I say if 'god' really wanted us to obsess over 'god' then those that do would not be so screwed up.


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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 06:54:56 (GMT)
From: ExTex
Email: None
To: billbarry
Subject: The God Thing
Message:
Sucha and Bill your last 2 posts above are exactly why I prefer to go for experience and ditch the God word and all the eons of conceptual baggage that it brings. I kinda like the way quantum physics approaches the subject of reality and consciousness. (and NO I am not scholarly in my understanding of q. p.).

Why quibble over all the bullshit about saint's, guru's, afterlife, and all the other stuff that is hearsay. But that doesn't mean that one cannot change one's consciousness, deepen it, get more awareness etc. It is called learning. Learning about your own consciousness! Not someone elses. Scientifically examining one's own consciousness AND scientifically examining the physical world...these things bring more awareness and deeper understanding of our experience of being alive.

What we don't understand from scientific experience...we mythologize..thus RELIGIONS! I just hope that I have more to learn and understand about my experience of this business of 'being alive'....I can't think of a better thing to do while I am 'being alive'. How about you?

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Date: Thurs, Sep 21, 2000 at 08:21:28 (GMT)
From: suchabanana
Email: None
To: ExTex
Subject: The God Thing, toroids, inner/outer stargates...
Message:
To ExTex:

You're 100% absolutely right, too, brother. Have you checked out the cool website 'Sacred Geometry'? Incidentally, r.e. the toroid within the third eye chakra (acupuncture point) -- according to some physicists the toroid principle is a means of interstellar time-related travel and experience of the universal energy field -- a stargate! Some have also related it to ancient wisdom and archaeological proof, too.

I like what you said about examining one's own consciousness; that's what I try to do, too. 'The life not examined is not worth living.' The only problem with conventional science is that it too often tries to apply physical terminology to things that aren't physical. spiritually based quantum physics at least tries to go beyond the 3-D molded prison. Of course, I'd rather have the experience itself, frankly.

Peace

PS Yep,the 'God' word can sure be intimidating -- but then, we'd just have to create another relativistic term, right? Pretty soon, that word would become loaded, too... infinite or 'cosmic consciousness', or 'the cosmic force'? Personally, I like the word 'Universality'. There's always 'the Source' etc. 'the unspeakable', 'that which can't be named', etc. (here we go... haha) I think the Hebrews already tried some of these. Shema Yisrael, adonai elohinu, adonai ekbad

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 05:12:04 (GMT)
From: bill
Email: None
To: suchabanana
Subject: The God Thing, toroids, inner/outer stargates...
Message:
Your first paragraph in that post is the kind of sentences that
I bet you get 'negativity' on here right?
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 08:50:37 (GMT)
From: suchabanana
Email: None
To: bill
Subject: universal connection, yes + you got it too...
Message:
hi bill!

so, maybe some insecure flamer will cut a stinky, but who cares, right?! That paragraph of my post was really in response to ExTex -- I was just trying to reciprocate, and stimulate a little creative dialogue, fellowship, and use of the ol' noggin' and keep those neurons from atrophying, dig? ExTex likes scientific observations and explanations, not God jargon. I recently sat in on a scientific conference all about toroids, mandalas, and the apparent universal connection between consciousness, quantum physics, and infinity; it was really neat (if a bit conceptual)!

Additionally, for those folks who have practiced the inner light technique for a substantial amount of time, there are these swirling toroidal patterns, then a brilliant golden doughnut (as we used to fondly call it) aka 'third eye', then focussing into the center (where there is also a blinding flashing white light) - all kinds of incredible things may manifest on the journey within. Groovy -- there are a lot of worse ways to chill out, you know. And we ain't talkin' hallucinations or imagination here, either. (What happens further within is a secret I won't divulge here -- you simply have to experience it for yourself -- it's precious for each human being who experiences it for themselves. To talk about it further just demeans the beauty and miracle of it.)

But, hey, this planet earth, after all -- Flatland, right? Galileo almost got himself torched until he recanted, right?

But, you also won't find this stuff talked about on 'enjoying life' or other similar generic censored sites that I'm aware of. You want the truth? Well, then, take it from an old blubbering yogi like me...

-- suchabanana


PS a good axiom: Judge not, that ye not be judged -- aka -- we're all bozos on this bus, right?

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Date: Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 15:31:07 (GMT)
From: bill
Email: None
To: suchabanana
Subject: universal connection, yes + you got it too...
Message:
I also like the science world.
I read discover mag.
and scientific american when I find it.
I do have a peeve with the many halfway researched papers and news blips that come at us.
Not fair of those that are trying to prove thier idea with assumptions bridged with science.
I would be interested in hearing a bit of detail.
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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 03:41:49 (GMT)
From: Edwin A. Abbott
Email: None
To: suchabanana
Subject: Flatland?
Message:
After I had concluded my defence, the President, perhaps perceiving that some of the junior circles had been moved by my evident earnestness, asked me two questions: --

1. Whether I could indicate the direction which I meant when I used the words 'Upward, not Northward'?

2. Whether I could by any diagrams or descriptions (other than the enumeration of imaginary sides and angles) indicate the Figure I was pleased to call a Cube?

I declared that I could say nothing more, and that I must commit myself to the Truth, whose cause would surely prevail in the end.

(A Square Flatlander, imprisoned for life for not recanting personal experience of 'Spaceland'.)

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 05:07:40 (GMT)
From: suchabanana
Email: None
To: Edwin A. Abbott
Subject: Flatland?
Message:
Edwin:

Dude, excellent - that was clever and really cute! I see we both enjoy figures of speech -- as well as some underlying sincerity, too, hopefully?

You know, Galileo was only physically imprisoned. Au contraire, Flatland is a state of mind -- historically and metaphorically, the apparent modus operandi of most of homo sapiens -- not a very highly developed species in the overall cosmic picture -- a species that likes to persecute, kill its own kind, destroy its supportive environment, and use its nascent technology to blow things up (but let's not judge here, because we'd be judging ourselves, too, after all). Supposedly a 'crown of creation', too, but that probably doesn't speak entirely well of creation, does it? -- at least at this material level.

I don't know that much about a conceptual 'spaceland', either. I do know, however, what my own experience has been. Words and terminology are clearly inadequate.

I think perhaps we might be both sharing ze little secret, huh? Bust out, dude, and enjoy! As the eminent Albert Einstein once said: 'Great spirits have always been ____________________' ?

Peace

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 05:57:02 (GMT)
From: ED-Not
Email: None
To: suchabanana
Subject: It's a book and an author!(not me - 2nd pub. 1884)
Message:
to continue in a highly limited way ...

'Hence I am absolutely destitute of converts, and, for aught I can see, the millenial Revelation has been made to me for nothing. Prometheus up in Spaceland was bound for bringing down fire for mortals, but I--poor Flatland Prometheus--lie here in prison for bringing down nothing to my countrymen. Yet I exist in the hope that these memoirs, in some manner, I know not how, may find their way to minds of humanity in Some Dimenson, and may stir up a race of rebels who shall refuse to be confined to limited Dimensionality.

'That is the hope of my brighter moments. Alas, it is not always so. Heavily weighs on me at times the burdensome reflection that I cannot honestly say I am confident as to the exact shape of the once-seen, oft-regretted Cube; and in my nightly visions the mysterious precept, 'Upward, not Northward,' haunts me like a soul-devouring sphinx. It is part of the martyrdom which I endure for the cause of the Truth that there are seasons of mental weakness, when Cubes and Spheres flit away into the background of scarce-possible existences; when the Land of Three Dimensions seems almost as visionary as the Land of One or None' nay, when even this hard wall that bars me from my freedom, these very tablets on which I am writing, and all the substantial realities of Flatland itself, appear not better than the offspring of a diseased imagination, or the baseless fabric of a dream.'

Thank you for your posts, suchabanana ... (a name so dear to my heart!)

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Date: Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 07:11:56 (GMT)
From: suchabanana
Email: None
To: ED-Not
Subject: It's a book and an author!(not me - 2nd pub. 1884)
Message:
Wow == love ya!

guess I just reinvented the light bulb, huh? whatever... like my truest sentiments, too ('and in my nightly visions the mysterious precept'), almost exactly -- whoa, dude! Cosmic!!!!!

Edwin Abbott was the author, huh? OK.

well, Thank YOU, too, my friend.

Peace

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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 09:56:36 (GMT)
From: suchabanana
Email: None
To: suchabanana
Subject: universal connection, yes + you got it too...
Message:
nt
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Date: Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 09:42:19 (GMT)
From: suchabanana
Email: None
To: bill
Subject: universal connection, yes + you got it too...
Message:
nt
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