Hello Bill, I noticed that your screen name on the group website is rather long. It reads: William L. Houts William L. Houts Lukaeon William L. Houts. I was wondering if this was your intention.
Maybe yes. Just so much, I do differentiate between heaven and afterlifeand their individual usability for corruption. Both terms are somehow related to the future, but the access is different. Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Gabby (short for Gabriele), I am a Protestant, my first language is German, and I believe in God. I like to listen to other people's stories which is why I have learned to keep my own very short. Nice meeting you. :) On Friday, September 28, 2012 7:17:08 AM UTC+2, William L. Houts William L. Houts Lukaeon William L. Houts wrote: > > > > > > > I wonder if humans do dream of uncorrupted worlds, in general. You'd > think that would be universal, and it does seem to be borne out by > Western mythologies, with some exceptions. For instance, the Greeks had > Olympus, but except for Heracles no one got to go there; everyone else > went to Hades, which was gloomy and boring if you were lucky enough to > land there in general population, and terrifying if the gods put you in > Tartarus. And the Romans didn't seem to place faith in any sort of > afterlife at all, which is one of the main reasons whyChristianity sold > like hotcakes. Eastern religions such as Buddhism had various hells and > heavens, but they were sort of besides the point: your karma is / was > supposed to boil down to nothing and liberate you from the Wheel of > Rebirth, which was supposed to put you in Nirvana, which was less a > Heaven than it was a Nowhere. And Taoism doesn't have much to say about > heavenly afterworlds; its whole point is to make this world more just > and balanced and leaves heavens to the individual to figure out. > > But as to your question of whether humans long for uncorrupted worlds, I > think that besides the Abrahamic religions noone takes them very > seriously. And I think they've got a point: I mean, if you're taking > your present existence at all seriously, then just what is an afterlife > supposed to be about? Are we supposed to be eating bonbons all day and > living in some version of American luxury? I'd like to believe in > Heaven --which for me looks like a kind of liberal college town, with > libraries and funky old cinema houses-- but all of that seems kind of > empty if there's no gravitas, no seriousness. Without death, without a > final marker which howls at us, Do what you must do NOW and die knowing > that you've used your life well--without that, I think heaven would > become kind of slouchy and boring, or worse. Unless, of course, what's > waiting for us on the other side is something superrational but > beautiful, like being absorbed into the godhead, if such there be. > > So in answer to your question, I think we do dream of uncorrupt worlds, > but if we examine them too closely, they tend to be bustable soap > bubbles. And maybe I lack imagination, but I wonder, how could it be any > other way? Frankly, I'd like to be told how. I sound sensible about all > of this if a little pessimistic, but in reality I'm a scared ex-Catholic > who is terrified of death and wants to solve the Big Question before > they're performing Last Rites on his sorry ass. > > > --Bill > > > > > On 9/27/2012 7:20 PM, rigsy03 wrote: > > I wonder where you put the mythological and religious other-worldlies- > > from gods to guardian angels, etc.? Or the construct of Dante's > > "Divine Comedy", for instance. Do humans long for uncorrupted worlds? > > > > On Sep 27, 6:23 pm, William L Houts <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I'm with the pragmatists on the question of intelligent alien species. > >> Many scientists who speculate on this sort of thing --though there > >> really aren't that many of them-- say that such species wouldn't > >> resemble anything so comforting as a humanoid physiology, but I think > >> they're partly mistaken. Surely there would be surprises in the way > >> nature cooks up life on other planets with radically different > >> chemistries than our dear old Mama Earth. But I think there's reason > to > >> suppose that many alien species would resemble us. After all, any > >> species we might imagine has to cope with gravity as it evolves. So > >> they're much more likely to evolve some form of locomotion which > >> involves two, four or six pedal extremities (as Fats Waller calls > them) > >> rather than three or five: even-numbered legs are less wobbly and > more > >> amenable to balanced movement which consumes fewer calories. . Also, > >> sense organs like eyes and ears are likely to be located in or close > to > >> a head, as there is survival value in having sense organs located > close > >> to a brain, or whatever such species might use for brains. Finally, > >> everyone in the cosmos requires energy to get going, so they're either > >> going to evolve photosynthesis and take their energy directly from > their > >> sun or suns, or they're going to take their sunbeams indirectly by > >> consuming something lower in the food chain. I'm sure there are lots > of > >> evolution pathways I'm leaving out, seeing as I'm a curious poetrather > >> than a serious scientist type of guy, but I think these notions are, > as > >> Allan named other ideas of mine, sensible provisos. > >> > >> PS. I left out centipedes and millipedes with their scores of legs, > but > >> I think y'all's get what I'm saying here. > >> > >> --Bill > >> > >> On 9/27/2012 3:57 PM, archytas wrote: > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >>> I haven't seen any UFOs and tend not to be much interested in people > >>> who claim to have - at least without Bill's sensible provisos. The > >>> speed of thought as a brain process is slower than light-speed - but > >>> then I'm basically a tropical fish realist. I'd have a bet that no > >>> one in this group would really have much of a definition of light- > >>> speed and the Ricel curvature tensor, Euler Langrangian and the rest > >>> of Einstein's field equations. I mean no offence and don't do much > of > >>> this science myself. > >>> If you point out to a physicist that the people from the future who > >>> have invented the time machine are in extraordinarily short supply in > >>> our present he may come up with some mathematical guff on the shape > of > >>> the universe that explains this or makes time travel only possible to > >>> the future. I have seen demons - plodding back to camp after a > week's > >>> endurance exercise with no food for two days I was visually convinced > >>> the sentries were vampires but still asked them where the Naffi was. > >>> My guess is that we travel through space as primitive life-forms with > >>> evolution built-in and waiting to unfold. We may thus have come from > >>> a much more advanced civilisation than ours bound by the speed of > >>> light, capable of the biological engineering but not space-flightmuch > >>> more advanced than our own. Calculations give 28 years as the time to > >>> reach the edge of the known universe - but this is the time insidethe > >>> ship accelerating to near light speed fairly slowly. Space is not > >>> friction free and it's doubtful we or our instruments could take the > >>> radiation of light-speed flight. > >>> I rather hope there are some nice, genuinely civilised aliens > thinking > >>> of coming here. In my speculation, intelligent life tends to worry > >>> about food chains led by apes as these have been notoriously war-like. > > >>> I'm into bees and ants rather than UFOs at the moment. Bees use > >>> 'pharma' to combat fungal infections. Ants take slaves - killing the > >>> adults of another species and taking the larvae. These slaves then > >>> raise the slaver brood. Interestingly, the ant slaves rebel and kill > >>> the pupae of their masters - an act that does not favour the > >>> individuals a they will die, but does seem to be altruistic in favour > >>> of other colonies of the enslaved species. I mention this to suggest > >>> science is not a human invention, just something in evolution we are > >>> expanding. > >>> UFOs remind me of religion generally - people seem to bond around > >>> ludic claims about golden salamanders and what cannot be proved. I > >>> guess we will find life or past life-sign on Mars. Salvation may > come > >>> from a mother-ship, but my own feeling is that our inability to > >>> develop science as we could is a more important thought experiment. > >>> In respect of this problem I recommend 'Bad Pharma' by Ben > >>> Goldacre, He finds a �600 billion industry in which more money > is > >>> spent on marketing than on research and development, where the > results > >>> of clinical trials of new drugs are massaged, and in which regulators > >>> fail to regulate. Papers supposedly by respected academics are > >>> ghostwritten by drug companies, and patients' pressure groups are > >>> covertly sponsored by pill manufacturers. > >>> I can't for the life of me work out why we aren't directing our > >>> collective towards tapping into the asteroid belt and beyond instead > >>> of ADMASS. > >>> On 24 Sep, 20:15, William L Houts <[email protected]> wrote: > >>>> I'm placing my bet on thoughtspeed. It's a great concept and it's a > >>>> great word. How could I do any better than that? > >>>> --Bill > >>>> On 9/24/2012 7:17 AM, Don Johnson wrote: > >>>>> I agree with Allan the distance challenge is daunting. In an endless > >>>>> universe there's also no doubt in my mind there are other > inhabitable > >>>>> planets out there but very unlikely any "aliens" will be visiting > us. > >>>>> But there is hope.... > >>>>> http://www.npl.washington.edu/av/altvw81.html > >>>>> It's fun to speculate. The ball is in your court. > >>>>> dj > >>>>> On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 4:51 PM, William L Houts <[email protected]> > wrote: > >>>>>> I've been around for a while now, so I thought I'd put in a topic > for > >>>>>> discussion. I'm very interested in the UFO phenomenon and wonder > what the > >>>>>> singing minds here have to say about it. As for me, I don't have > a dog in > >>>>>> this fight --I tend to think that there's something to them, > something very > >>>>>> unusual, but I'm not at all certain that they're even piloted. > Jacques > >>>>>> Valee, one of the more interesting theorists on the subject, says > that > >>>>>> they're something like external dreams. Well, he doesn't say that > exactly, > >>>>>> but that's how I interpret him. Carl Jung, who was also very > interested in > >>>>>> the topic, says something very similar. > >>>>>> I have an experience to relate, too. About fifteen or sixteen > years ago, I > >>>>>> was flying down to Las Vegas on Southwest. Looking out of my > window I saw, > >>>>>> perhaps 20,000 feet below us, a disc-shaped object. It was > featureless and, > >>>>>> in the bright sun and from this angle, almost perfectly white. It > wasn't > >>>>>> particularly fast and other than the fact that it was round, it > wasn't all > >>>>>> that interesting. I told my three travel mates, and they all > basically > >>>>>> called me a liar. (I was very interested in occult topics in > those days, so > >>>>>> my judgment was highly suspect.) I'm not convinced that it wasn't > something > >>>>>> like a military test craft or something like that, but it was a > UFO both in > >>>>>> the high woo woo sense and in the sense that it was an unfamiliar > flying > >>>>>> object. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. > >>>>>> Tennis, anyone? > >>>>>> --Bill > >>>>>> -- "I just flew in from the Land of the Dead and boy are my arms > tired." > >>>>>> -- > >>>> -- > >>>> "I just flew in from the Land of the Dead > >>>> and boy are my arms tired." > >> -- > >> "I just flew in from the Land of the Dead > >> and boy are my arms tired."- Hide quoted text - > >> > >> - Show quoted text - > > > -- > "I just flew in from the Land of the Dead > and boy are my arms tired." > > --
