Richard Dawkins: Dogmatic Materialism ftw

I watched Richard Dawkins - The Enemies Of Reason - Part1 - Slaves to Superstition yesterday and thought it was mostly ridiculous and unnecessary. Richard Dawkins starts out very fair and takes on some easy targets like pop astrology and dowsing, and also does some great work together with Derren Brown exposing Cold Readers - who I can't stand for their shamelessness. But then finishes up talking about the internet and how "anti-semites are now blaming jews for 9/11 disregarding the evidence and connecting with each other much easier now." (paraphrased) Oh and that's reason? Nice investigation Richard, would this be ignorance, bs censoring or agenda pushing conspiratorial on your part? :p

Frankly what all these proponents of reason don't realize, is that reason is just one form of intelligence and while absolutely necessary in this world, when used alone a cold and boring one at that. These reason proponents to me are just dogmatic materialists. It's not about debunking all 'irrational' activity on earth, it's to defend their materialist belief system, what you see is what you get BS - just as emotionally (and irrationally) as people with non-rational belief systems, discarding or belittling evidence that disputes their findings. Like all the scientific advances regarding consciousness, like Dawkins will touch those. And anything relating to consciousness like intuitive, shamanic or spiritual experiences are discarded by an old paradigm way of thinking.

"The materialist fundamentalists are funnier than the Christian fundamentalists, because they think they're rational!" Robert Anton Wilson

Besides, South Park has even shown how in their Wii episode that in the future even an entire Earth population of atheists can still be as divided by their different atheist Belief Systems as any other collection of BS ;p

Daily Dedroidify: The trial of Socrates & the shameful ignorance of fear of death.

Daily Dedroidify: The trial of Socrates & the shameful ignorance of fear of death.

In 399 BC The Athenian public court was induced by three leading public figures to try Socrates for corrupting the minds of the young by teaching them to question anything, and of atheism; believing in supernatural things of his own invention instead of the gods recognised by the State. Hidden behind these accusations was the ego of the elite, who resented Socrates because their reputations for wisdom and virtue were debunked by him.

By a very narrow margin, the jury of 501 Athenians found him guilty. Next, Socrates and his prosecutor suggested competing sentences. Socrates openly mocked the court and jokingly suggested free meals at the Prytaneum, but then finally settled on the insultingly small fine of thirty minae. His prosecutor urged death and so he was found guilty as charged. Socrates chose drinking hemlock poison to be his death sentence, a slow working poison, so he could speak to his students for some more time. As is shown in the painting.

Socrates' belief in the purity and goodness of the soul is truly revealed when he responds to his verdict. He accepts the verdict with composure, as he had anticipated this. Socrates tells the jury that he cannot be harmed by the so-called punishment of death. It is only his physical body that can die, but his true nature is an eternal soul made of purity and goodness. His soul cannot be vanquished. He makes it clear that despite the court's verdict he will not resort to dramatic emotions or petition to live even a little longer.

"To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?"

See Plato's Apology for the trial. Socrates has been revered since his execution as a beacon of free speech. The execution was delayed for a month so he had ample time to escape. Socrates's followers encouraged him to flee (see: Crito), and indeed the city fathers expected this and were probably not averse to it; but he refused on principle and took the poison hemlock himself. Apparently in accordance with his philosophy of obedience to law, he carried out his own execution, by drinking the hemlock poison provided to him. He was, thus, one of the first of a limited number of strictly intellectual "martyrs". Socrates died at the age of 70. (See: Phaedo) As Plato describes it, Socrates' last day on earth was spent discussing the the question of the immortality of his soul with his friends Cebes and Simmias.

There's a story of Chaerephon, who went to the Oracle at Delphi, to ask if anyone in the land was wiser than Socrates. When Chaerephon reported to Socrates that the god told him there is none wiser, Socrates saw this as a "divine mission" to find someone wiser than himself.

Poll closed

5 posts a day got the most votes. But the most people voted for more than five posts. So I will try to post between 5 and 10 a day. Though this may vary greatly.

The Cleaver: What Lies Beneath: Is Belief A Big Con?

The Cleaver: What Lies Beneath: Is Belief A Big Con?
It is useful to consider belief as a psychological condition rather than a philosophical standpoint. Belief is often perceived as the forerunner to knowledge; knowledge being classified as proven, true belief. Though the concept of criteria for truth seems vaguely preposterous to me. Belief is a propositional idea, a suggestion, a work of conjecture. It is at best a working model. Though this does not dilute the potency of belief in any way. On the contrary, belief is a blade that sculpts wood as readily as it cuts throats. Is the wielder of a belief as responsible for its use as the originator of the belief?"

Read the entire excellent post here at The Cleaver Blog

Also see Awakening, Eschatology & Entheogens 2012

UFO vantage points: McKenna Vs. Kaku

UFO vantage points: McKenna Vs. Kaku at the philosophy explained blog

See the link for a video with some similar thoughts of McKenna (The great Shamanistic Approaches to the UFO) and an informed introduction at the great philosophy explained blog.

Michio Kaku On Aliens, On Physics

Terence McKenna Quotes

Terence McKenna was a multi-disciplinary commentator on the exploration of Humanity and our particular place in the Universe.

An advocate for the use of Shamanic technologies and the wisdom that the psychedelic plants share with those that interact with them, he brought fresh and novel insight to many aspects of reality- with humour and good nature.

"Animals are something invented by plants to move seeds around. An extremely yang solution to a peculiar problem which they faced."

“The apocalypse is not something which is coming. The apocalypse has arrived in major portions of the planet and it's only because we live within a bubble of incredible privilege and social insulation that we still have the luxury of anticipating the apocalypse. If you go to Bosnia or Somalia or Peru or much of the third-world then it appears that the apocalypse has already arrived."

“Ego is a structure that is erected by a neurotic individual who is a member of a neurotic culture against the facts of the matter. And culture, which we put on like an overcoat, is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviors are acceptable."

“We are so much the victims of abstraction that with the Earth in flames we can barely rouse ourselves to wander across the room and look at the thermostat."

"If the words 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on."

"Right here and now, one quanta away, there is raging a universe of active intelligence that is transhuman, hyperdimensional, and extremely alien."

"I think People are in love with the journey. People love seeking answers. But if you were to suggest to them that the time of seeking is over and that the chore is now to face the answer, now that's more of a challenge!"

"We have to recognise that the world is not something sculptured and finished, which we as perceivers walk through like patrons in a museum; the world is something we make through the act of perception."

Thanks a lot CàM

GrimSkunk - Gotta Find A Way Live Bxl

You'd better read along with the lyrics to make sense of the song, live version and not so great quality though it's the only one I could find online until I upload some self-made vids myself.

GrimSkunk - Gotta Find A Way Live Bxl

I got a real problem with your attitude
I take your messed-up world and throw it back at you
You make me sick with all your endless fighting
You cast a shadow on the road I'm lighting
So start the final countdown
There's nowhere left for us to go
4-3-2-1 ignition
It's ready to explode
I gotta find a way

I watch Israelis fight the Palestinians
Protect the Holy Land like God was alien
Walk on the broken heart of your messiah
If you can't forgive, you can't put out the fire
You call this religion
You shoot each other in the head
Is it worth your Holy mission
When you're countin' all your dead
I gotta find a way

To rise above the shit
That surrounds me everyday
And keep my head held high
Keep my self-pride
Never change what I stand for
Always stand by what I say
I've got to find a way

Oh, how I believed the promises of freedom
I was so naive, I must've been dreaming
Now there ain't much point in denying America is dying

Come smell the burning ground of war-torn nations
Come feel the empty sound of desolation
Walk on the broken hearts of your children
I wish I could just show you
how to love them
They grow up on gun powder, land mines and bad water
They never even had a chance
I gotta find a way

Timothy Leary on Ralph Waldo Emerson: Divinity Lies Within

Timothy Leary on Ralph Waldo Emerson: Divinity Lies Within

Daily Dedroidify: Alan Watts: The course of Time is very much like the course of a Ship.

Daily Dedroidify: Alan Watts: The course of Time is very much like the course of a Ship.

Here's the ship, it leaves a wake, the wake fades out and that tells us where the ship has been. In just the same way that our past tells us what we have done. But as we go back into the past, and we go back and back, to prehistory and we use all kinds of instruments & scientific methods for detecting what happened. We eventually reach a point where all record of the past fades away in just the same way as the wake of a ship.

The important thing to remember in this illustration is that the wake doesn't drive the ship. Anymore than the tale waggs the dog!

"I have realized that the past and future are real illusions,
that they exist in the present,
which is what there is and all there is."
Alan Watts

Alan Watts Streaming Vids

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor: How it feels to have a stroke (Must See!)

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another. http://www.ted.com Ideas worth Spreading

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor: How it feels to have a stroke

Absolutely amazing, watch the video first before you read on here. This neuroatonomist had a wonderful experience and indirectly explains a lot of how spiritual practice and psychedelics work.

"To understand neurological space, Dr. Leary assumes that the nervous system consists of eight potential circuits, or "gears," or mini-brains. Four of these brains are in the usually active left lobe and are concerned with our terrestrial survival; four are extraterrestrial, reside in the "silent" or inactive right lobe, and are for use in our future evolution. This explains why the right lobe is usually inactive at this stage of our development, and why it becomes active when the person ingests psychedelics (or engages in other right lobe activating practices.)" - Robert Anton Wilson

So the practice of quieting the inner dialogue, thinking in images and not words, meditation, yoga, tai chi and so many other practices make so much more sense now. I went out right after seeing this and really observed my senses without inner dialogue and it's amazing. In a way I already knew this but this lecture really validates it and shakes you up. Enlightenment is not a far off ungraspable state of bliss. We have access to it right now, always and with practice can remain in the state and stay in Nirvana. If more and more people start meditating and engaging in right lobe activating practices we will evolve towards the green state of Spiral Dynamics and beyond. Heaven on Earth has always been in our reach, with the knowledge we have now we can make it happen.