Monday, March 05, 2007

The Messiah, the Establishment, and Political Halitosis

Reader Brian, who stimulated my thoughts on Paul a couple of days ago, has a couple of follow-up observations and questions. He begins with Joan's argghhument that perhaps Paul's "zeal for what he thought was Truth, was ultimately the open door for the Light."

But prior to literally seeing the light, Paul was, as Brian writes, "obviously a bastard. However, I do think he thought he was serving God. This could perhaps differentiate him from the likes of Caiaphas who probably didn't give a damn about Truth and just wanted to be sure he didn't find himself irrelevant."

Brian continues: "So I'm led to see a potential parallel between Paul and Caiaphas and today's lefties who cynically manipulate folks for their own utopian control-freak nihilism, vs. those who honestly think that liberal policies are better (usually younger people who haven't really thought stuff through yet). Both are Pharisees, but I suspect only one of them commits the 'unpardonable sin.'"

Furthermore, "Perhaps many of today's former moonbats (i.e. David Horowitz) who have since seen the light were never quite like Jesse Jackson, despite the similarities of the policies they advocated. On the other hand, I have no doubt whatsoever that deep down Ted Kennedy is nothing more than a nihilist.

"If I bring up a good point in an intellectual discussion, a nihilist will out-shout me, subtly change the subject, call me a name, accuse me of hypocrisy, or do whatever it takes to 'win' the argument. Occasionally, I'll discover someone who will respond with, 'I never thought of it that way before. Hmmmm...'

"I would argue that both saint-killing and supporting affirmative action are evil. Nevertheless, Jesus died because a Pharisee wanted power, Maybe Stephen died because another Pharisee really thought Stephen opposed God. In both cases, Saints unjustly died, but was there a difference? After all, the former Pharisee damned himself, but the latter became a Saint himself.

"Do you think my analogy makes any sense? Do you think that the differences between cynical power-hungry leftists and those who are just dumb are in any way fundamental, or am I giving the idiots too much credit?"

*****

There is much to cogitate upon here. First, I do not necessarily regard Caiaphas as one of the grand archetypal characters in the arc of salvation, more of a stock character or a "plot device," so to speak. In his theory of groups, Bion writes of the "messiah" (or sometimes "mystic") in a particular way. Using his terminology -- and ignoring for the moment any purely religious implications -- if Jesus is the "messiah," then Caiaphas represents the "Establishment." If nothing else, viewing it in this more abstract manner helps to remove any specifically anti-Semitic connotations with regard to Caiaphas. His Jewishness is incidental to his being voice of the Establishment. At various times, Christians have been their own worst Establishment.

In Bion's system, "The exceptional individual can be described in different ways. One can call him a genius, a mystic, a messiah." Bion used the term messiah "to refer to exceptional individuals in any field, whether scientific, artistic, or religious." Likewise, he used the term Establishment "to designate those who exercise power and responsibility in the state or in other institutions."

Please also bear in mind that when Bion talks about the group, he is also always talking about the individual, for a group can think and behave like a unitary entity, just as an individual mind is a protean, restless group with incoming thoughts and outgoing behavior that come from many different levels.

(In fact, a commenter expressed it quite well the other day. Let me see if I can go back and find it.... Be right back.... Found it.)

Reader Quake wrote, "An important point that Bob treated in passing should be emphasized: the human mind is not a closed system. The sum of all thoughts that you have on any given day are not all 'yours.' Some seep in from other people (yes, there is a fuzzy and unreliable cross transference). Some come from other 'planes' of being which interpenetrate ours (for instance, a plane or world of mind, inhabited by entities of pure thought-form). There is another plane of 'vital' forms that are made of emotions, and these can give you suggestions to misbehave. There are higher spiritual planes inhabited by angels and other high forms, and these can give us suggestions too. And some, like Bob's O-mail, come in from God [well, a Coon always does his level best, anyway -- ed]. A person's mind is a goulash of thoughts, and untangling what comes from where should be attempted. Raccoons probably do an automatic sorting of influences."

Quake has done a good job of describing an important aspect of Sri Aurobindo's yoga, which precisely involves sorting through and disentangling our own "mental group" and determining what is coming from where. For within your own mind is a "messiah" and an "establishment," just as the group, looked at in a certain way, has an "ego."

For example, this is what popularity polls attempt to gauge, say, how the country feels about President Bush, or the war, or Hillary Clinton, or socialized medicine. You will notice that the operative word is "feels," because trying to take a snapshot of the group's "mood" at any given time is an entirely irrational process. Now the group is relatively in touch with reality and accurately perceives Saddam as a threat and wants to topple him; now the group feels anxious and regrets it, and begins going into denial; now the group feeds its own anxiety with self-verifying delusions of propaganda and wants to run from Iraq. This is why trying to be a leader is like trying to preside over an unruly, petulant child with bipolar disorder, and why an "indulgent parent" such as a Clinton is such a poor leader.

Back to the group and the messiah. One thing the group -- any group -- is always hoping for is the messiah. For example, in recent months we have seen this play out to a ridiculous extent with the liberal media's bizarre adoration of that empty suit, Barack Obama. Please take me literally, for Bion's theory explains exactly why this deeply irrational process is going on, and why secular liberals would be most prone to the need to invent a messiah out of whole cloth in order to sustain the fantasy that they might be "saved." For the same reason, history ironically demonstrates time and again that leftists are most in need of a "satan" precisely because they do not believe evil exists.

One of the dangers of any systematic form of "establishment thought" is that it superimposes a rigid grid, so to speak, over O. But this is always "whistling past the graveyard," for the ghosts of what your artificial thought system excludes will always baby boomerang back to you, very much in the manner of someone who attempts to repress, say, all sexual thoughts. You can try to do that, but the unintegrated thoughts will simply seep back in like water through the floor boards, the walls, and the ceiling (furthermore, since they are repressed, they will remain primitive and unable to undergo growth).

It is just so with religion. Repress it and you will only see it everywhere, either in a hysterically threatening form ("the Christo-fascist takeover!) or in a transparently messianic form (Obama and, of course, the "Goracle"; the other day, the boneheaded Katie Couric actually referred to him as a "secular saint," but she is just stupid enough to say out loud what the liberal group mind is thinking). Do conservatives do the same thing with someone like Ronald Reagan? They certainly do. The difference, of course, is that Reagan was an actual political messiah who was completely at odds with the Establishment, whereas figures such as Obama and Clinton represent the Establishment par excellence. The Establishment will turn the genuine messiah into satan, which is exactly what the left did with Reagan and what Caiaphas did with Jesus.

(You will also note the truism that one of the difficult things about voting is that you never know if a Republican is just pretending to be a conservative [i.e., a political messiah] or whether a Democrat is just pretending not to be a liberal [i.e., an Establishment figure in disguise]. This speaks volumes about how one must know the truth in order to be able to lie about it.)

According to Bion, "the mystic or genius, bearer of a new idea, is always disruptive for the group; The Establishment tries to protect the group from this disruption. The problem that arises from the relation between the mystic-genius and the institution creates an emotional configuration that repeats itself in different forms throughout history."

Importantly, the messiah can be creative or nihilistic (e.g., Nietzsche, Marx), "and will certainly be considered both -- at some point -- by different parts of the group. It is a fact that every genius, mystic, or messiah is both things, as the nature of his contributions is bound to destroy certain laws or conventions, the culture or coherence of the group, or of some subgroup within a group." As such, "the Establishment must achieve, as one of its functions, an appropriate containment" so as to limit the messiah's "disruptive power."

Rome (the Establishment) could not contain this threatening messiah, so they put him to death. And from the self-interested standpoint of the Establishment, they were entirely warranted (so to speak) in doing so, even though it ultimately backfired. For this messiah could not even be contained by death, and ended up toppling the Establishment anyway.

Think about that one for a moment. Again, as we were discussing the other day, the deeper the cause, the deeper the effect. The cause of this messiah was so deep that its shattering effects continue to be felt today -- again, even if you only look at it in purely Bionian terms, let alone religious ones; for if truth is catastrophic, then Truth must be the biggest catastrophe of them all, shattering every man-made idol with which it comes into contact.

Understood in Bion's sense, it is not the least bit of hyperbole to say that the United States is the "messiah among nations." With this understanding in mind, it is entirely predictable that the Establishment -- e.g., the UN or the international left -- would react to us the way they do. The truly messianic liberal principles embodied in our founding documents absolutely shatter the leftist agenda into into so many bits of totoiletarian fasces.

Look at it this way: what do you call a passionate truth seeker whose object -- Truth -- is excluded by his own a priori assumptions? Why, you call him a secularist, or a materialist, or a leftist. By definition, they can never attain what they are seeking, for it can only be found in a vertical realm that is precisely excluded by his materialistic assumptions. Thus, any vertical man will be seen as a threat to horizontal man, so he will be attacked with the time-honored mechanisms of of envy, contempt, and triumphalism -- for example, in the contemptuous James Cameron's triumphant debunking of Christianity. Cameron no doubt congratulates himself for being such a revolutionary messiah, but he could not be a more petty voice of the establishment. He is Caiaphas. ("Prince of this world!")

Now, what is the difference between, say, Noam Chomsky and David Horowitz, one of whom is still an anti-messianic voice of nihilsim, the other of whom saw through that sinister world and came around to the other side? Like Paul, both are passionate truth-seekers, but one had his Road to Demascus experience and became blinded by truth, if not Truth. How to explain the difference?

I'm not entirely sure, and to a certain extent, only God can say, since we are in the realm of "weighing souls," and it is not ultimately up to us to judge the soul, only the behavior. Having said that, I certainly have no hesitation in proposing the idea that there is something thoroughly rotten about Chomsky's soul, whereas there was obviously something redeemable in Horowitz's. For when we sin, we can sin with the husk or we can sin with the kernel.

Speaking for myself -- but which seems to apply to most people who eventually grow up -- "when I was young and stupid, I was young and stupid." However, despite my youthful stupidity, looking back on it, I cannot think of any bad thing I ever did that either truly reflected my kernel or damaged it. Rather, it was always done with the husk, often out of insecurity, or anxiety, or some other neurotic motivation. Furthermore, when the light was shown to me, I did not -- could not -- reject it. Rather, my kernal was attracted to it in spite of my husk. From there, it was just a matter of throwing off the husk as the kernel grew in the presence of the light.

Like Paul, even when I was most confused, I was nevertheless a passionate truth-seeker. As such, I knew that appearances could not be the reality, and that deeper forces must be at play. However, if you are not religious, then you will look for these deeper forces elsewhere. This is the appeal of a Chomsky (and of all neo-Marxist ideologies of the left), as he essentially provides a paranoid conspiracy theory that serves as a replacement for the non-paranoid "conspiracy theory" of religion. For con-spiracy simply means "breathing together," so be careful with whom you breath. After all, the "breath of life" that was breathed into man is what lifts us into the vertical and distinguishes us from the tenured.

33 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dr Bob says:
"Speaking for myself -- but which seems to apply to most people who eventually grow up -- "when I was young and stupid, I was young and stupid." However, despite my youthful stupidity, looking back on it, I cannot think of any bad thing I ever did that either truly reflected my kernel or damaged it. Rather, it was always done with the husk, often out of insecurity, or anxiety, or some other neurotic motivation. Furthermore, when the light was shown to me, I did not -- could not -- reject it. Rather, my kernal was attracted to it in spite of my husk. From there, it was just a matter of throwing off the husk as the kernel grew in the presence of the light."

That certainly sounds like me to a "T". Spring is coming and I think this 'coon still has some shedding to do.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Amen to that, Rickster.

Some of it is pretty hard encased around there, but God seems to have a plan for removing it.

It sounds like...

You know you're over the enemy when you start receiving flak.

And the enemy thinks he's grounding my airships!

Anonymous said...

Perhaps in telling what's going on our souls we should ask, "are you worshipping that idol because you think it's God, or do you worship it because know it's not?"

We can't always tell the difference, but I"m pretty sure that God can.

Anonymous said...

I don't know how many "kernel" cycles I've been through now. Each time the kernel seems to become smaller yet has more sustaining power.

Then there's that mustard seed, which is still smaller than I'm yet willing to see, so I too expect more husking before I'm done.

Excellent coondiments for thought today.

Anonymous said...

As such, "the Establishment must achieve, as one of its functions, an appropriate containment" so as to limit the messiah's "disruptive power."

I think this is the truly the
"unpardonable sin": To see real Truth, and know it is true, and then deny it for your own interests.

The Phairasees saw Jesus heal a man. The knew what they were seeing. They denied the Truth of it, said He was in collusion with darkness, and further slandered the Good. All for their own ends.

The Miraculous Truth of blind eyes seeing, deaf hearing, or lame walking would have been just as much a "Damascus" experience for the cynical heart as Saul's blinding light. Imagine the swirl of new information streaming into your proletarian soul upon witnessing someone else being restored not just to health, but to the possibility of "selfhood" within a brutal society.

Of course, politics was risky business in Rome,too, with murder and assassination being a very real threat to those who would stray from the Establishment, so I'll give a minor bit of craven, cowardly slack to the 'Sees.

In fairness, most of us haven't been called to put our very lives and livelihood on the line for the Truth. Still, most of us haven't seen with our own eyes miraculous physical healings, either.

But when you do experience Truth, it's best to let go of everything else as quickly as possible and make room for more truth. I think this is what Saul did for three days and then about 14 years. Kept emptying out all he knew until he knew what to do. His conversion was immediate, but his usefulness was refined in many years of unlearning and re-learning all he ever knew. (btw, is the past-tense of "gno" gnu?

wv: rmhiku? No, her are haiku!
(I think I got Robin's word-veri!)

Anonymous said...

:~)!

robinstarfish said...

Hey, I want that back! :-)

You can have this one: njpvxxr

Van Harvey said...

"The truly messianic liberal principles embodied in our founding documents absolutely shatter the leftist agenda into into so many bits of totoiletarian fasces."

Oh! A Roman nose coffee spurter! And me trying to read quick before dashing out to an appt... now I gotta change.... Ben, we may need to start a support group for this.... Ah well, clothes can wait, back to the reading....

Anonymous said...

"Like Paul, both are passionate truth-seekers, but one had his Road to Demascus experience and became blinded by truth, if not Truth. How to explain the difference?"

Sorry, Bob, but I must disagree. I do not think that Noam is a truth-seeker in any sense. He operates from the false assumption that the West is a singular evil and uses facts only insofar as they will support that thesis.

Conversely, Thomas Sowell was a Marxist, but when confronted by the Truth that government can't be our messiah, he changed. Shelby Steele was also a radical, but there was a still small voice within him that told him he was being a self-righteous prig, and he eventually listened to it. I suspect that if God directly asked Jack Murtha "Why are you persecuting me?" he would likely respond "Because I'm the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee so I can."

And when Joan said, "'As such, 'the Establishment must achieve, as one of its functions, an appropriate containment' so as to limit the messiah's "disruptive power.'

"I think this is the truly the
'unpardonable sin": To see real Truth, and know it is true, and then deny it for your own interests."

That's a fantastic observation. I've been seeing this manifestation of Pilate via Cauphas lately among the Republican establishment, as well. I worked for a state GOP recently, and I saw countless good ideas discounted largely because they defied institutional inertia. My congresswoman began as a wonderful woman who now is more concerned with paying homage to her growing Washingtonitis than to doing the right thing. Just try giving a congressperson or party bigwig a good ideat that's outside the box and see how they respond.

Not unlike the Church that subverted freedom while claiming to worship Christ, we now have a GOP that prioritizes perpetuating power while nearly worshipping the Reagan of "government is the problem."

Caiphas is the institutional left, but Pilate are the Republicans who know better but succumb to Cahphas anyway.

Anonymous said...

“James Cameron's triumphant debunking of Christianity.”

Anybody else watch this backslap-fest?
I wasn’t far off my critique of the pre-stories about this so-called documentary last week. As I said then, any real scientist should be offended what is being sold there as science. Non-science. If I can see it, why can’t they?

Help please, I’m having trouble with this equation:
Step 1.
If you’re Camera-on (which is the best thing about this doc is that Mr. Camera-on is not in it - so far anyway – I fell asleep 1 ½ hours into it) and you are trying to prove Jesus was a fraud I think that means you don’t ‘believe’ in all this who-ha. Check.

Step 2.
If you’re not a believer then why do you go to all this trouble?

I think Camera-on is on his own road to dumbasskiss at the moment judging by the collective gaping yawn in the MSM this morning. I think even they may be embarrassed.

When I hear a lib say some truly basic non-sense, I just don’t have the energy to argue. I couldn’t be less interested.

Now just so there’s no misunderstanding, I enjoy good documentaries. But when they start being more about the doc maker and not the doc subject and they are no longer offering something of value to the watcher, it’s just repulsive.

Anonymous said...

As for myself, I have trouble figuring out which of my sudden insights were a result (or direct copying, more likely) of something Bob has already said :-{}

An interesting thing I have seen is that once one consciously speaks and acts contrary to truth, seeing truth becomes even harder the next time around... a never-ending spiral down into untroothiness.

Joan: So if gnu is the past tense of gno, do we hang ourselves with gnusis?

Van Harvey said...

"Look at it this way: what do you call a passionate truth seeker whose object -- Truth -- is excluded by his own a priori assumptions? Why, you call him a secularist, or a materialist, or a leftist. By definition, they can never attain what they are seeking, for it can only be found in a vertical realm that is precisely excluded by his materialistic assumptions. "

So tru...woops, I mean True.

What I'm curious about, is the ability, or maybe 'intent' would be a better word, to see 'truth' not only as separate from 'Truth', but superior to it, more truer than True, so to speak. How is someone able to separate a statement they see to be true, from its moral/vertical aspect? It wouldn't take too much thought to turn '2+2=4' into a moral discussion "... using Reality as a guide, we know that there is a correct and an incorrect answer to this, and because reality is gnoable, we can also see that there are correct and incorrect ideas and those ideas lead to correct or incorrect behavior..." Way back when, even Socrates' targets all knew they were in deep trouble the moment he started talking geometry.

Any thoughtful consideration of Truth soon leads a person into a 3-D view of reality and heirarchies naturally abound; how does a person manage to keep a 2-D flatland view of things? There has to be a preconceived rule, a filter as someone mentioned recently, that any lifting of the eyes is Bad! Stop IT! Back to the horizontal, keep it real now! That's Bad... I mean wron... er, well anyway don't go there, just keep turning left....
How is contemplation of Truth kept to an amoral level?
Hmm... I smell a post brewing.

robinstarfish said...

motion camouflage
there's no mountain then there is
lion in long grass

Anonymous said...

Joan of Argghh said:
“Of course, politics was risky business in Rome too, with murder and assassination being a very real threat to those who would stray from the Establishment, so I'll give a minor bit of craven, cowardly slack to the 'Sees.”

Is this likewise possible with the ‘moderate’ Muslim today?
I’ve heard of them but I’ve yet to meet one however – in person or in print. Does Islam have any redeeming qualities? (I’m serious – this is not a rhetorical question). I haven’t read the Quran but I’ve seen enough evil-type passages quoted to make me think otherwise.

I’m trying to figure out the attraction. Is it just a terrible well-rooted mind parasite that’s passed on to the next generation and builds and builds onto itself?
What’s the attraction that so many seem to have for this religion?

Anonymous said...

Is it just a case of “Well my Mom and Dad are Muslim so…what’s not to like?”

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Udderly fantastic, Bob!
You even threw in some solid food and red meat, BBQ'ed to juicy perfection!

Like this tasty entree:
"Quake has done a good job of describing an important aspect of Sri Aurobindo's yoga, which precisely involves sorting through and disentangling our own "mental group" and determining what is coming from where. For within your own mind is a "messiah" and an "establishment," just as the group, looked at in a certain way, has an "ego."

Sortin' through the goulash (or perhaps the goolish and ghoulish in some cases).

Or, in computer speak, sloshin' through the spam.

Some folks develop a taste for spam goolash it seems.

After you discover rib-eye or t-bone, why would anyone want to return to half-baked spam goolash?

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Ricky R. said:
"Spring is coming and I think this 'coon still has some shedding to do."

Amen to that!
Reminds me of that song...I don't recall the title, but it went something like this, far as I remember anyways:
When it's shuuucklin' time in Nebraskaaa...

That's all I recall...and it looks kinda stupid now that I see it in virtual print, but the main thing in any event, is the corn and shucking, so there you go.
:^)

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Joan said:
"I think this is the truly the
"unpardonable sin": To see real Truth, and know it is true, and then deny it for your own interests."

'Xactly! As Skully would say.
That is perhaps the best definition of 'unpardonable sin" that I have ever read.

It's the intent, stupid! Which seperates the lost from the damned, and the found from the lost.

Anonymous said...

>>One thing the group -- any group -- is always hoping for is the messiah.<<

Speaking of which: how about this new self-proclaimed messiah, Jose Miranda of the Growing In Grace ministry. (http://www.cegenglish.com/) Evidently, Miranda's flock is now large enough - and Miranda wealthy enough - to garner some national media attention.

Miranda's agenda is decidedly neo-gnostic, in the heretical sense. We can't sin anymore, he says, because Christ washed away all sin. In fact, the devil doesn't exist anymore, and as soon as we accept this, things'll be fine.

Further - and things get a bit murky here - Miranda claims that after the Resurrection, Christ became the anti-christ. (I'm assuming that Miranda is re-defining "anti-christ" into something other than its traditional meaning) Anyway, now Christ has returned - in the form of Jose Miranda, naturally. Which means, of course, that Miranda is both Christ and anti-christ. And so he claims.

This intermingling of Christ with Satan is nothing new in the annals of heretical gnosticism. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Miranda's version has gained considerable traction with more than a few followers of his, many of whom are gleefully tattooing themselves with a 666. No sin, no burden of guilt, no self-work necessary, etc. Plus there's an inviting hint of free license. I do tend to think, however, that the main attraction is Miranda himself, who must have some sort of beguiling charisma working for him.

Messiahs have always been in demand, of course, but if these are indeed the days when "Spirit pours out on all flesh" - a.k.a. the Rain of Prana or the Universal K - folks looking for a messiah are likely to find one, and a very compelling one too. Thus the need to stay awake.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Van said:
"Oh! A Roman nose coffee spurter! And me trying to read quick before dashing out to an appt... now I gotta change.... Ben, we may need to start a support group for this.... Ah well, clothes can wait, back to the reading...."

Yes we do, Van.
I don't know how many times I was reading at OC in between changing!

Mandatory disclaimer: In a truly platonic, truth-seeking, non-perverse kind of way, of course.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Will said:
"Messiahs have always been in demand, of course, but if these are indeed the days when "Spirit pours out on all flesh" - a.k.a. the Rain of Prana or the Universal K - folks looking for a messiah are likely to find one, and a very compelling one too. Thus the need to stay awake."

Yes indeed! It's gotten to the point that I now stay awake almost constantly when I sleep, in my dreams.

This has produced, or unveiled many O--k realizations for me.
I'll actually be meditating and contemplating posts and comments from the OC oasis of ideas, musings, truths and Truths.

Because Truth, by it's very super-nature, directly opposes compromise, negotiation and "middle ground"; that 'feel good' and comfortable illusion that glorifies the self over God,
and lust over Love, and falsehood or truth over Truth.

What you see is what you get, and what you get, is what you see, where Reality is allowed to smash illusion to nothingness within.
Die mind parasites, die!

Van Harvey said...

Will,
Well that's a cheery link! A sign of the times, no doubt.

Anonymous said...

"One thing the group -- any group -- is always hoping for is the messiah."

Is it not a short jump to say that in recent months we have seen the same misplaced behavior coming from the President of the Iranian Republic, with his absurd assertions about the Madhi returning soon [as soon as we get out nukes completed] to establish the Caliphate [and "save" Islam from the evils of non-believers by annihilating them]?

In the meantime, Ah-ma-deen-ah-ZHAD and his Shi'a group are busying themselves with building alliances with the other Islamic Establishment: Abdullah, King of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Back in the States now - they've been weighing in at JihadWatch.org today on the likelihood of major reforms coming about within Islam. I'm inclined to vote 'No', at least not within the next, say 1000 years, what with the 'no escape' clauses and no freedom to seek the Truth and certain death being the consequence for making a public breach with the Islamic Establishment. The only slim chance I can see is if a charismatic, Islamic prime-mover appears in the West and burns Muhammad's book on primetimeTV beamed around the world for 40 days, then Islam might have a snowball's chance in hell of entering a Reformation Age.

Anonymous said...

Good Gnus: "God is working incredibly among the Muslim community [of Iranians who have moved to Belgium -ed.]

Anonymous said...

More Good Gnus: The Saint Petersburg Declaration.
Released by the delegates to the Secular Islam Summit, St. Petersburg, Florida on March 5, 2007

Anonymous said...

Thanks Ms. E.,
That news is encouraging.
Just a little gun shy as I’ve heard their Sharia law permits them to lie about such things. That particular clause scares the ---- out of me.

Anonymous said...

When I was depressed, I developed a fear of sleep that has stayed with me, in one form or antoher, ever since. Only now am I beginning to understand it.

For me, dreams are the bane of restful sleep. When I dream, it's often of things that are just next door to reality - I'm often tricked into thinking myself awake, and for some reason this leads to my awakening twice as tired as I was when I went to bed.

Anonymous said...

Ms. E.,
If we can take these conversions as sincere it’s interesting how TV is somehow breaking through to them. Maybe this is why their leaders fear Western values so much – it’s ability to break through.

I’m watching the Bill Evans links on YouTube that Dr Bob sent and what a treasure they are: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm6V7bWnVpw
Beam this type of content to the Middle East and it’s bound to have an effect eventually. Watching Evans speak and spontaneously think out loud must be obvious to anyone …of Evans’ genuine sincerity here. A sharp contrast is the obvious brutal-ness and fake-ness spewed by the Amadinijads and the Mullahs.

Anonymous said...

Jacob C.

I suffered a bout of depression myself about 15 years ago. Had to reach an emotional rock bottom… the end of the bungee… before I could begin to spring back. Someone I had neglected was waiting for me there. But even then I didn’t fully realize who it was. As horribly painful as it was to go through I am thankful for it. A bit difficult to describe…like there was no stopping it coming on and something that had to happen when it did. I hope you have recovered from yours.

RE the dreams, I had a similar experience, but at the same time felt I desperately needed sleep. Like a crashed computer that needs a reboot.

Anonymous said...

Will,

Ay, Dios mio! That link is scary!

It's worse in Spanish, too.

***

But speaking of better Spanish, just a little while ago I was marveling that the expression for "childbirth" in Spanish, is "dar a luz" or, "to give Light."

:)

Anonymous said...

Ricky,
I can understand your reservation about the authenticity of the signers of the St. Petersburg Declaration. My understanding is that all of the signers are apostates from Islam and only one is still a Muslim. Given that, I do not suspect them of taqiyya (deception).

I'm in suspended judgment mode at this time leaning toward
hopeful. I see it as a positive start and it's appropriate that is was written and "posted" by Muslims living in the West as semi-untouchables. It's hard for me to imagine this will turn out to have the same impact on Islam as Luther's "95 Theses" did on Catholicism and gnowing the awesome Power of God to work miracles I'm turning it over to Him and will await further revelations and instructions.

(It's fun instructing my spell check dictionary to 'learn' coonspellings.)

Anonymous said...

Alan,

When I saw your "gnusis" comment earlier, it gave me quite the mental picture...

Anonymous said...

ricky raccoon:

The same thing happened to me at about the same time, and the strange thing was that it was a dream that appreared to bring me back. I dreamed I was a different person, answering to a different name (!), and living a similar life in a similar town-- but with a few odd things about it, since it was a dream after all. When I woke up I realized that I had been depressed for years without having been able to put my finger on what was wrong (my prayers consisted mostly of "HALLLP!"). I guess it worked as sort of a vacation or a breather... in any case, my depression went away and never came back.

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