Fanfare for the fanfare

And here it is.

Keyboards a bit low in the first part. Then it starts kicking in.

Wow.

(Update January 30th - the link is now off again - not wow.)

Atheism falsified

Of course, it was bound to happen one day.

As reported on talking squids:

The properties of one of Saturn’s moons may ring the death-knell for atheism, NASA/JPL announced today. Astronomer Gerhard Baalschmidt was routinely
scanning the files of the hundreds of small orbiting objects imaged by the Cassini-Huygens space probe when he came across a newly-identified moon that caught his attention.

Next : The discovery of the Cosmological Knob Panel.

Counterknowledge

Damian Thompson, my fav and not a little candid catholic exposer of Conspiracy Theories and Counterknowledge in general, is out with a new book.

In Counterknowledge: How We Surrendered to Conspiracy Theories, Quack Medicine, Bogus Science and Fake History, Damian takes on many of the latest, and a some of the older, claims on what's really going on behind the curtains, who's really in control, what really happened and all that and some more.

He has a big disadvantage, though. The website 9/11, The Bigger Picture and the Quest for Truth now reveals that Damian shares surname with the director-general of the BBC, Mark Thompson.


Say no more. Or read about it here.

If you check the comments you will also discover the amazing story of Oliver Panic. Even if historians in a millennium or two will presume that the name is pure invention .

GKC and JRRT - as Theologians

It had to happen in the end.

After some hundred studies of their Biographical, Cultural, Ethical, Historical, Literary, Mythical, Parodical, Periodical, Philosophical, Poetical, Political and Witty writings and achievements (from various Biographical, Cultural, Ethical, Historical, Literary, Mythical, Parodical, Periodical, Philosophical, Poetical, Political and Witty angles), now the time even has come for a study of perhaps the most important aspect that powers Chesterton and Tolkien's works. In short, Theology.

Though the author, Alison Milbank, is not the Milbank of Radical Orthodoxy fame, Chesterton and Tolkien as Theologians: The Fantasy of the Real seems well worth reading (and hopefully easier to grasp).

Especially when the price is a bit down.

The Santa Delusion

Chris Tilling continues last years competition on convincing the most kids that Father Christmas doesn’t exist or really is Beelzebub.

The latter scores two points. You'll also get awarded extra for each kid you manage to reduce to tears.

Read all about it here.

A more long term strategy may be to write a book.

Happy Holliday!

ELP Reunion in 2008?

While of course it is too good to be true, the rumours about an ELP reunion mentioned at my friend Tony Ortiz' My Space is a warming thought at midwinter.

It will never be 1974 again, still it may indicate that Christmas is a time when some people of good will do leave their more or less solitary confinements as solo artists - or in other groups.

In the meantime, here is this year's Christmas greeting from Keith.

Fanfare for the Reunion Reviews

What a night it must have been at O2 yesterday!

Perhaps the most telling about Led Zeppelin's stature these days, is that both fans and media for once agree. In any case, how irrelevant the punk and press slamming of the "dinosaurs" in the late 70's seem, when looking at the footage from the reunion.

Among raving Zep reviews, there are also some that mentions the opening acts (and pictures of one of them at Getty Images).

"There were several opening acts rotating across the stage, mainly hosted by former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman. Paul Rodgers, Keith Emerson and Foreigner got the biggest cheers."

Watch Zep reviews and footage here.

One you will not find at that link is "diamondgeezer" who at ELP-disc reported that the opening act playing Fanfare For the Common Man had

trumpets at the start but Keith was drowned out at first and only during his solo did they boost his sound. At his more theatrical moments the crowd (it was half full at that stage) responded. How this man deserves more of this kind of stage to show his talent.

After the improv. they went into a crossover bit of Zeps Kashmir and Squires The Fish before coming back to the conclusion of Fanfare. Afterwards Emo tried to thank everyone but both mics he tried weren't on! eventually he found one that worked and thanked the band and especially his roadie. It was a thankless task opening on a such a night. Even Foreigner seemed apologetic for holding up proceedings. Mind you it was a naff version of I wanna know what love is (yuk!)

Zep were brilliant. Whatever you may or may not think of them believe me this was as good if not better than when I last saw them in 75' at Earls Court and Jason Bonham was a credit to Bonzo senior.

Good to hear while waiting for the DVD. If Jimmy allows.

Where is science fiction going?

Ideas come in many shapes, not to mention forms. Some are even new, also when dealing with the future. Still, it is as hard as ever to make good predictions.

G. K. Chesterton observed this with his usual wit a hundred years ago in The Napoleon of Notting Hill.

The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called "Keep to-morrow dark," and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) "Cheat the Prophet." The players
listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. Then they go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.

Lovers of science fiction witness this whenever we read or watch the classic stories from the 30's or 50's, not to mention SF TV-series from the 70's and 80's. The brave young captain of the transgalactic space ship in AD 3 000 easily solves engineering problems with his slide rule. The moon landing was described in all possible details in hundres of stories before 1969, and they all got it wrong on perhaps the most important aspect. It was directly televised.

So what is a SF author to do these days? The field may not be quite as fertile in ideas as ten or twenty years ago, still there are great stories being written. However, one idea has caught my attention more that others lately. We are talking about Eric Brown, known for his Helix novel. In a recent interview with Scifi Chick , he reveals one of the more interesting ideas ever:

I’m a big fan of G.K. Chesterton, best known as the creator of the Father Brown detective stories. (I’ve recently sold a novella to PS Publishing featuring Chesterton and Edgar Rice Burroughs meeting on Mars, improbable as that might seem.)

Naturally, as a Chesterton fan, Eric follows the grand tradition of including him in a story. Gaiman and Dickson Carr are far from alone in realising that someone so alive in his writings, perhaps more than any author, deserves to come alive again.

However, the intriguing thing here is matching him with Burroughs, perhaps the most widely read pot boiler ever on late 19th century Romantic values from the Noble White Man (except Russians), Evolutionism and Religion as mostly about Human Sacrifice, to getting as far away from the modern city as possible. The most noble is not just a return to nature, it is a return to the trees. No wonder he was my fav author when I was ten.

Who better then, than Chesterton to make for an ahem... interesting... dialog?

I am not in the habit of playing at children's games and predict which ways science fiction is going. Still, this particular road is one it hopefully will teleport even more.

The Alien Agenda

We all know aliens are out there, however their agenda has not been all that clear.

Why do they stop car engines? Why make all those patterns in crop fields? Why make people pregnant and then removing all traces? Ever wondered why Christians so eagerly deny the existence of UFOs?

And why there is such a conspicuous absence of the ufo subject at every and all Church Council?






The explanation is simple. Some as always truth seeking Gnostics have seen the light:

Judeo-Christian elites and their oppressive ideology (which also drove European Empires), led in turn to the development of modern Western civilization. Therefore, the prejudices by official institutions in Western civilization, (against the free and open discussion of UFO phenomenon and varied human contacts with intelligent Extraterrestrial life), can be illuminated by appreciating Gnostic insights on the alleged motivations of the Judeo-Christian-guided Church which backed founders of Western civilization.

The whole problem is that Western civilisation has been driven by manipulative Christians to seemingly emphazise on science and reason. In reality it has all been a plot by the aliens themselves, who have infiltrated the major theistic religions.

John Lash, in Metahistory.org illuminates, that the original attempt to cover-up and to deceive humanity on reported UFO-related phenomena, is the result of the use of organized religion by the aliens that sought to create opportunistic blinders to critical human awareness of the reality of alien contact. John Lash specifically traces the origins of the cover-up of UFO related phenomena, to the represented Manipulative Extraterrestrial infiltration of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Debunkers of ufo theories don't really follow reason and evidence. Skeptics like Dawkins are controlled by Christians and alien agents. They are deceived by intelligences beyond their own, which are not difficult to find. Fortunately Gnostics are not so easily fooled.

Indeed, interestingly, the denial of UFO related phenomena including alien sightings tends to be more pervasive in societies where these particular organized religions of Christianity, zionistic Judaism, and fundamentalistic Islam, have been dominant. In China, for example, were Buddhism has been relatively dominant, governments, and the state controlled mass-media in contrast, have been more open to the reporting of UFO phenomena. The traditionally Hindu societal milieu of India has also shown more "tolerance" to reporting on UFOs, than in the West.

Aboriginal and indigenous societies which include those in Africa, and other parts of the world, (who have been able to maintain an independent spirituality from the West), continue to very openly relate historical accounts of varied forms of contacts with UFOs and aliens.

This should lead to a whole new direction for Religious Studies. Comparative Religion and all that has been blind to this for too long. There is a need for bold new paradigms and field studies.

The conclusion is hard to avoid:

Christianity, as a religion, in relation to the Gnostic-represented "doctrine of the aliens", can thus, be viewed as an apparent attempt to deceive humanity from recognizing and understanding the ultimate demonic agents of their oppression, who operate by social engineering to execute the exploitation of humanity.

Still, while alien infiltration may explain some of the more odd behaviour among bishops and muftis, it is easy to see where it all breaks down. Real aliens would have made a far better job at stopping the Gnostic publishing and conference business than just releasing all those anti Da Vinci Code books.

Should have been easy with their broad range of mind control, ray guns and teleportation devices. So there is a lingering doubt that those Gnostics may not have quite got it quite right after all.

Anniversary

Whether you're into conspiracy theories, brave new worlds or surprises by joy, this is just to remind you that today marks the 44th anniversary for the untimely departures of Aldous Huxley, John. F. Kennedy and C.S. Lewis.









If you wonder what they talked about on their way to Purgatory, here is a report.

Spin Off Doctors

Having just ordered Season 3 of Doctor Who (and Series 1 of Torchwood to get more mileage from Royal Norwegian Customs handling fees), it is good to notice that the series and its spin offs are alive and well.

Living in Norway means we are one or two seasons behind BBC, so these DVD's are ordered in faith (which as we all know should not be blind or in the teeth of evidence).

The latest news (November 20, 2007) is about The Sarah Jane Adventures where part one of The Lost Boy was watched by 1.3 million viewers.

The BBC's Doctor Who website has also just announced that the writers of Doctor Who Series 3 have won the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for Best Soap or Series (and strengthened my belief in the existence of clever and creative atheist writers - Russell T Davies be praised, Lem is far from the only one).

The praise and prizes are nice to see for someone who was a bit worried when witnessing the hype in London (especially in BBC programs, for some reason) on the premiere of the first program in Series 3. Still, hype is not always the opposite of quality, as fans of Beatles and ELP have known for decades.

Seems there may be a slight hope to survive the dark evenings of the Pre Season Season again.

Secular Anti-Humanism

It is often illuminating (or making one pause a tad, depending on my mood) to look at some of the slightly hyperatheistic blogs out there.

This time it is the fearsome pharyngula that raised my brows. One of Darwin's present bulldogs, PZ Myers, has read a rather humane Secular Humanist, Richard Norman's thoughts about the New Atheism.

Myers is as usual frank

"First, I have to confess: I'm not a humanist. I'm just not that keen on defining myself by my species, and I'm not going to join a group that willfully excludes squid. Still, I sympathize with the aims of secular humanism and I'm willing to work alongside them, just as I'm willing to work with reasonable Christians and Muslims - I'm just not ever going to be one of them, and I'm not going to hold fire and abstain from criticizing them."

Myers touches here one fundamental dilemma when attempting to build a basis for values in an atheistic universe.

a) How to establish the dignity and value of humans (and human values at all)?
b) How to make sure this does not exclude animals (but bacteria)?

It is not an easy excercise if you want animals on your team. However, embracing squids and squirrels, does seem to provide a feeling of a moral higher ground to some (though they rarely mention snakes in the same breath) . That is fine with me, as long as one does not use it to denigrade human value. However, it is hard to avoid some stealthy anti-humanistic attitudes creeping in here, below the radar.

Whatever the psychology and moral notions involved, some atheists definitely don't consider Secular Humanism to be kosher. The very term Humanist is a red flag. Most interesting about Myers' blog this time, however, are the comments. Why is it so wrong of atheists to be Humanists? Here are some replies.

"When I began to deliberately identify as atheist I was encouraged by friends to attend humanist gatherings and I found I was generally put off by the tenets that promoted human proliferation. Although my run-ins with humanism (and Unitarianism) have given me a clear idea of what I don't believe, I'm still at a loss for what we call a philosophy that explicitly rejects speciesist views but still embraces rationality and goodwill as virtues among humans."

When human proliferation becomes a bad sign for some, it is needed to raise not one, but two eyebrows. However, all is not rational out there.

"Over the last dozen years or so I've gotten into the habit of attending humanist, atheist, skeptic, and Unitarian Universalist conferences and events. What I've found in practice is that the skeptic and humanist groups are the most oriented towards method, reason, philosophy, and science. The atheist groups are a bit more political, and I always seem to run into at least one person who's into alternative medicine, psychic powers, or some sort of wacky conspiracy theory -- and thinks that because they are "rational" enough to be an atheist their other beliefs are of course rational, too. Very frustrating."

One can imagine. So that makes for the question "What labels are there for non-humanist atheists to embrace?" Not surprisingly, one answer is

"Scientist. Seriously. It's almost 2 at night, so I won't give it any deeper thought and just say that all philosophy other than science theory is useless."

Fortunately later commentators notes that science theory is a poor basis for any philosophy. However the comment above is one of severel that indicate not only an aversion against Humanism, there is almost as much against Philosophy.

"I tend to look upon philosophizing as nothing more than mental doodling, but not all of it is useless in the real world. "

Where the guy comes from may be derived from him pointing at Jiddu Krishnamurti as

"a very deep thinker, and very worthwhile reading. Of course, I'm not sure you could, strictly speaking, call him a "philosopher"".

No, not quite, which may be why he is recommended. Some, however, are a bit more willing to consider Humanism:

"Mostly, I just think of philosophy as a bunch of really hard to read books. But there is something there. Science can't be the simple answer to everything. Science doesn't give me a reason to give a crap. When I eventually admitted to myself that I was an atheist, it enabled me to answer a lot of difficult questions. But without an invisible man in the sky, I need some other place to root my values and beliefs. So here it is: Human suffering is bad, and human happiness is good. I think that's all I need to be moral. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that makes me a humanist. I'm big on principles and reason, not so much on labels."

And perhaps not on what makes for solid ground to build values on. The commentators may however agree a bit more on making sure to avoid silly and sentimental Christian values:

"I hope the lecture on the ethics of genetic manipulation does not rely on so-called "moral intuitions" that can be traced back to socialisation within a society which has long been influenced by Christian notions of morality and virtue. I'm just saying ...I mean, maybe the person giving the lecture will be a hardline transhumanist. That would be refreshing. But there are too many biocon irrationalists like Leon Kass, Jurgen Habermas, Margaret Somerville, Francis
Fukuyama, Bill McKibben, etc., etc., floating around, all claiming to base their views on secular thinking (and all, surprise surprise, at least deferential to religion)."

And you have the more profound (well, perhaps not, it takes all kinds to make commentators) thinkers:

"We are all human beings here - well, most of us anyway - whether we like it or not. Are we in any way special? In the absence of a god, who is to say? Well, actually, we can if we choose. That human beings done things of which they should be ashamed is, I would say, beyond question. Is it equally true that they have achieved things in which they may take justifiable pride? I would also say:
yes, they have. Does any of that makes us special? In some ways, but not as much as does our capacity to ask such a question."

It boils down then, to our abilty to "choose" (whatever that is to the more avid new atheists) and our capacity to ask good questions (whatever they are). However, few animals are able to ask such questions.

So this guy may be a Humanist, and hence (by the Myers Doctrine) a speciesist.

The horror.