What's the Verdict???

"J. Robert Oppenheimer was a respected theoretical physicist, an organizer-director who earned the loyalty of hundereds of scientists, technicians, and military personnel, and a troubled philosopher of the responsibilities of his mission (Shattuck 176)." Oppenheimer's mission was the overseeing of the creation of the atomic bomb during World War II. The fruits of his and many other people's (including Albert Einstein's) labor was the dropping of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II. Oppenheimer later gave a talk where he expressed "'a legacy of concern' left by World War II and the development of the atomic bomb...[Oppenheimer said that] 'despite the vision and the far-seeing wisdom of our war-time heads of state, the physicists felt a peculiarly intimate responsibility for suggesting, for supporting, and in the end, in large measure, for achieving the realization of the atomic weapon. Nor can we forget that these weapons, as they were in fact used, dramatized so mercilessly the inhumanity and evil of modern war. In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose (Shattuck 175-176).'"

'[The Human Genome Project] is the grail of human genetics...the ultimate answer to the commandment, 'Know thyself.'" - Walter Gilbert, 1986.

So the verdict comes down to this question, "Does scientific research, backed by immense technological and political support, represent the ultimate sin of Western civilization? Or is it the grail we seek as our only remaining form of salvation? (Shattuck 173)"

Please put all answers in the comment section of this blog. If you want to know more, check out these links here and here. Talk to you soon, ME!!!

Marianne Williamson Night

‘your leaving now, it’s in your eyes, their’s no disguisin it, it really comes as no surprise, that you planned it all along.’ I love this song, I finally downloaded it after wanting to for so long and I finally got it, so I’m happy about that. But back to the subject matter, is why I think that pure science is impossible. Besides the fact that corporations hire and fire scientists and deny researchers and professors tenure at their jobs if their research will cost the corporation money by decreasing sales, I believe that people’s political agenda’s impede their ability to search for the truth. Robert Anton Wilson said that what the thinker thinks, the prover proves. Because the researcher is looking for a specific answer for whatever reason, they will find that answer. Because the researcher is looking for a specific answer to refute the former researcher, they will find that refutation. Where is the truth in this? But not only do politics and personal biases for whatever side of an argument come into play impede the search for truth and pure science, but some philosophers believe that this ‘objective, unbiased, filterless’ viewpoint is impossible. This is what some people believe nietzsche was talking about with the death of God, that the death of god really means the death of the objective viewpoint from which to view the world. Or maybe just the realization that we never had this viewpoint in the first place. It has come to be called perspectivism in philosophical circles and my former professor at Millikin University is writing a book about it. So that is all that I will discuss on this topic for now. Chew on this, leave me some feedback about what you think, I will think on this some more, I always do.

Next, I saw Marianne Williamson speak tonight. She is the author of a course on miracles and some other books. I was skeptical going into it, like I am now skeptical of a lot of new age thought that I was ready and willing to accept only a few years ago. I am skeptical for a couple of reasons. One of them has to do with Plato’s rejection of sophism and the sophists, who went around athens charging people for the wisdom that they had. Plato thought that this was wrong and that true wisdom does not come at a price and I agree with him. The second reason why I am skeptical about the ‘new age’ is that Socrates, Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, you name it, they never charged people money to hear their wisdom. But now with the media blitz we have, every so-called new age spiritual author is looking to make a buck and they have their audiobooks and books and recorded lectures etc. etc. is this what a spiritual person would do? Is this what a true prophet would do? Isaiah and Jeremiah didn’t charge people for their divine wisdom, but many in the new age movement do today. Maybe I am just holding them to a much higher standard than what they should be held too. Who knows? The last reason is because in the new testament he says that many will come in my name saying that I am He. I see this in the new age movement now with james tyman claiming to receive messages from yeshua and for a few bucks, he will put in a good word with you to him. Maybe this is inaccurately reflecting what is really happening, but this is no different than the indulgences of the catholic church that martin luther had such a problem with way back when. I guess that this is also what televangelists do as well, to a much worse degree I believe, but what irks me so much is that so much of this new age stuff seems true to me. I get it and believe it really is spiritual wisdom, so I feel as if I’m being decieved somehow in a way that I cannot put my finger on. I don’t know what to think of it. But I just know that I will never charge anybody for any wisdom that I have, if I can help it. Maybe economics and the world today forces some people to charge to make a living, but there has got to be a better way. Anyways, that’s all for tonight folks, hope you have enjoyed it, leave me some comments to let me know that I don’t live a meaningless, purposeless existence. Talk to you soon - me

Does Pure Science Exist?

I don't think it does and to cite an example of what I am talking about, see here and here, but even beyond this example, there are many other reasons why i don't think that pure science exists or can possibly exist. these reasons i will talk about in my next post. see you then!!!

The Hurricane

So I’m fucking tired, it’s like 3:30 am on a Sunday morning, I have to be at jan’s house tomorrow at like 11am and I cannot sleep, I just cannot sleep, I’ve tried to sleep but I cannot sleep, to many things on my mind tonight I guess, ususally these are the best writing sessions as well, when I cannot sleep because so much stuff is on my mind, so let’s see, what’s on my mind tonight, lust, christ, everything, I don’t know, but I guess let’s get started. I have a problem, my problem is lust, but not just sexual lust, although that is a problem that I have as well, but my lust is not only a sexual lust, but a spiritual one as well, what augustine callecd ‘a lust of the soul,’ my insatiable curiosity, usually this would be a good thing, post-modern day society considers it a good thing, academia considers it a good thing, I even have considered it a good thing, but I am beginning to rethink that thought. Why do I want all fo this knowledge, I try to justify my academic lust by saying that I’m a philosopher so I’m a lover of wisdom so I should want to know a lot of stuff, but that’s the word right there isn’t it, know, a philosopher is not a lover of knowledge, he is not a philognosis, he is a philo sopia, a lover of wisdom not of knowledge, and that is all the books I read are giving me is, knowledge, not wisdom, I can read an infinite amount of books and gain an infinite amount of knowledge, but all that knowledge, added together, beaches and beaches of it, may only amount to a few sand grains of wisdom and the funny thing is, I know all this wisdom without reading a book, books are only tools, crutches, to help us understand and uncover the wisdom which is always, has always, and will always be inside of us, all religion and philosophy is only a means to bringing this out in us, is only a means for making the soul that we are shine through this filtered glass we call our selves,
but let’s see, I’ll make a paragraph break to make it easier for you to read jan, I know my writing is difficult and I used to be lazy in my punctuation and grammar because of stupid reasons, but if I really want somebody to read it, to get some use out of it, I’m going to have to stop being selfish and start making it more accessible to all you lay men and women out their, you are all the reason I write anyways, I tried to fool myself in the past my saying my writing is only for me and that I only want me to read it, but that is all a big line of bullshit, I write for you and only for you, but since I write for you, the only person that I write for is me, know what I mean, I hope so, if not, keep reading so that one day, you won’t have to read, know what I mean, but anyways, I guess all my writings have been one big blog, I have just realized it as of recently, but they have been, they are totally meant for the outside world, I guess I’m just scared because I do some really strange role playing in my earlier writings so I don’t want people getting the wrong idea about me, or me getting the wrong idea about me, but it was only me trying to figure myself out the best way that I know how, assuming identies because I didn’t have one of my own or because my ego wanted one that was greater than the one that I had, I still do this even to this day and the only thing that I have to say to that is that if you see the buddha in the mirror or on the road, kill him, because it is the false-buddha, the anti-christ, satan himself, whom I was in some of my earlier writings, now I know that it was that side of me that needs to die in order so that I can resurrected in His image, in the True image and I guess I should elaborate more on what I mean by this.
I watched the movie ‘hurricane’ tonight with denzel washington which is the story about ruben carter and the man bob dylan sang the song about, what I realized while I was sitting in bed trying to fall asleep but couldn’t is that his life is almost exactly like christ’s, not exactly, but yes exactly, what I mean by this is that his life conforms to the, what the heck do I even call it, the mystic christ, which is not only in the new testament, but also in the old testament and in the mystical writings of all the other religions, read the jesus mysteries or thus spoke zarathustra or the sufi sidi mohammad and music of the soul to understand what I’m saying. It’s the same story over and over again, that is why these people compare some of the pagan myths to the christ story, because it is the same story, but that doesn’t mean the christ never existed or that he did exist, it means that the historical jesus doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter at all, if you think that jesus existing matters to christianity or religion or existence or life, you miss the whole point of jesus and of the gospels and of religion and philosophy and christianity and existence, it doesn’t matter, christ actually existed, christ didn’t actually exist, WHO CARES!!! If you do, you miss the whole point of the teachings of christ, what matters is the story and how you can apply that story to your own life, this isn’t coming out as well as I wanted it to, how can I explain it better, it’s the death of your self in order to become YOURSELF, it’s in the Bhagavad-Gita, seeing the Self through the self, dying to what you think you are and being reborn to what you really are, doing the stations, cleaning the nafs, I’m getting all bogged down in language and this isn’t coming out the way I want it too, but I guess the point is that ruben carter, the hurricane, lived this life out in modern times, you must live this life out in modern times if you want to achieve the ideal set forth in the scriptures, you must rise above the injustice that hurricane faced in order to be reborn in the Image you were meant to be reborn as, that is the point of the story of Job, that is the point of why children survived the tsunami disaster, because as nietzsche teaches us, this suffering, this injustice, this pain, if overcome, turns man into the soul he is, this overcoming will eventually kill the self in order to be a beacon of the Self, that is why in the book of genesis, the people all took on new names when they encountered God, abram became Abraham, jacob became Israel, this name changing symbolozis what I am trying to convey with this writing, and I guess that I need to overcome this in order to become Jason, not a God or God himself, but the Soul that I am, the Soul that we all are, in order to complete the Great Work, the manifestation of God on earth, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven, the final step, the reunification of the God-Soul, the cool thing is that rueben carter is just another living modern day example of what each of us needs to go through in order to die to ourselves so that we can become Ourselves, what a great movie, and I guess I’m going to blog this and add some quotes to my blog which will hopefuly, clear up a few things, talk to you all later, maybe I can get some sleep now, luego……….

First Real Blog Ever

So this is my first document of 2005, I never write much anymore, so I guess that when I do I want it to be good. Sara also convinced me to start a blog, I wonder whether I will put this writing on my blog or not, who knows, I guess that we’ll see when I get finished with it. But there seems to be a recurrent theme in my life as of late, well, to be honest with you there is always a recurrent theme in my life, it’s weird how my life works that way, or how the universe works with my life in order to semminly teach me a lesson or two, this used to happen a lot in college, at least I noticed it a lot in college, too much so in fact that it weirded me out on too many occassions, I don’t notice it as much anymore, I don’t know why, maybe because the daily 9-5 and living with my girlfriend in the ‘real world’ doesn’t give me as much time to reflect on it as I used to in college, who knows, but when I was watching these superman cartoons, that I bought on a dvd for a dollar at target the other day, your welcome sara and paul, I have watched four episodes so far and they all seem to have a recurrent theme, that theme being technology gone awry and superman, who is an alien, has to come to save humanity from some human using machines and technolgy in order to hurt other humans. Mostly the common 40’s criminal stuff, like stealing and ransoming and power grabs, but it seems that all the supervilians in the cartoons are geniuses who have used therir intelligence to create machines that allow them to do whatever they want to the rest of us powerless, useless humans, which brings out many themse I think, one of which I think is the human feeling of powerlessness, uncontrollability, I tink that we all have these feelings from time to time and I’m sure that one could argue that our creation of technology is in response to these feelings of powerlessness and helplessness. Nietzsche wrote about this extensively in his writings, that is why the will to power is so important an d central in theme, because he knew more than anybody those feelings of weakness, inferiority, powerlessness and he hated them, so he idealized what he thought was their oppossite. There’s a lot more in nietzsche of course, but this is definitely one of his surface themes. I am also reading a book right now called forbidden knowledge by roger shattuck, which deals with the curses that intelligence and curiousity and advancing technology can have on us. First, he deals with adam and eve and paradise lost and frakenstein and faust and all the rest of that stuff, I am only half way through his book, but I think that the main thesis of his book is that we have limits on other things in this world, but not on knowledge and he wonders if knowledge is something that should be unlimited. It makes me think of liberals and conservatives, his book is definitely the latter, and maybe it should be. I was watching another thing today, a star trek next generation episode, where picard and co. was about to make first contact with a world about to achieve warp energy, a whole bunch of shit ensued and riker almost died, but the president of the world decided to not allow the federation to make first contact and asked them to leave, until a time when their world was ready to be let inot the federation of planets and achieve the technological success of warp core energy. The moral in all these stories seems to say that if we move too fast, technologically speaking, we will bring bad things upon us. This is one of the themes. Back to the consservative thing, maybe that is why there are conservatives and liberals, the latter makes us progress up that evolutgionary ladder, technologically, morally, socially, etc. etc., and the conservatives and reactionaries are their to make sure that this progression doesn’t go to fast, goes at the right and most healthiest pace for us. So maybe that means that as the liberals get more and more extreme, the conservatives get more and more extreme in countermeasure to that. It’s like deep down in all of us, there is this like collective mind (maybe) that guides our actions and is wha tmakes some people conservative and others liberal in just the right balance, and the more extreme one side get’s the more extreme the other gets in order to balance each other out so that humanity can evolve at just the right pace. Maybe that is why I read liberal and conservative stuff, I see good stuff in both of their rightings, I probably lean more toward the liberal side, but the conservatives have an important role because if we move too fast, disastrous stuff may happen, like the villians in superman cartoons. Another interesting thing that I wanted to talk about within these movies and stuff is the idea that humanity cannot save itself, in the superman cartoons, it takes an alien to save us, being superman, in religion, it takes god or jesus who whomever to save us, it seems that maybe deep down, a lot of us feel like we cannot save ourselves and we need some kind of outside interference to protect us from ourselves, god, aliens, government, parents, whatever. But I was also watched the movie I robot tonight with will smith and the theme seems to come out there as well. The computers, human technology, goes out of control and it actually takes a special robot, sunny, with some help from humans, to save humanity from the evolved supercomputer niki, but the same thing seems to apply to all of these thigns. So how am I supposed to interpret this. Is this only apply to me, is it god or the unvierse or my unconcious or aliens or something trying to tell me that I am moving too fast with my intellectual pursuits, is it these same things trying to tell me that humanity is moving too fast with these intellectual pursuits, is it both or neither, is it just because I am reading this book forbidden knowledge and that in order to better learn and understand the lesson that this book is trying to teach me all this other stuff is ‘brought’ into my life in order to impress the lesson on me. This is actually a pretty common occurrence in my life, it seems that my life events seem to help me understand the stuff that I am reading, this has happened ever since college and probably before then, it is probably happening to all of us all the time, I just think that I might notice it a little bit more than the rest of people, but not all of the people. My friend alan watts from border’s had this stuff happen to him, maybe even more so than myself. I will never forget my conversations with him and in that moment of trepidation and self doubt in borders, he was praying to god to give him something, he was calling out to god for help and what do you know, the next thing that he looked at was a book called ‘my own worst enemy’ and who was it by, alan watts, which is his name. That is even too synchonistic for my taste. But I guess for some people, it takes more hitting them on the head than other people. I know that it took a big hammer to hit me on the head before I realized a bunch of things. But anyways, so what is the point of all of this. I don’t know, it’s just me tring to make sense of my existence I guess. So the next question becomes, do I put this on my blog, my new blog, I don’t know, I don’t’ think my fellow bloggers will appreciate this, you have to have a certain sense of familiarity with my writings to understand some of the stuff that I say here and my there are so many grammatical and spelling errors and why I want it that way, basically to prevent dogmatism, if you can understand what that means, I can hear sara telling me that is a stupid way to prevent that, maybe, but it’s the deeper meaning that the misspelling is mean tto imply which is important, which is what I am really trying to get at, whom my true readers will know and understand and appreciate. I’ve learned so much from nietzsche, I can’t wait to get the gay science and human, all too human, which I’m gong to order pretty soon and read, so much I learned that semester which impacts me even to this day. My girlfriend is in the other room trying to fall asleep I wasn’t tired because we had a snow day today and I sleep till almost noon, and I can never fall asleep before I’ve woken up, you know what I mean, probably not but that’s allright, what else should I talk about. I hate religion, I can never swallow any religion whole and I don’t like that fact. Judaism sucks because of how evil god is in the old testament, there are so many passages where he tells the israelites to kill kill kill and leave nothing left alive, islam is the same way, but not to that degree if you can believe it, but of course, there is the infamous ‘slay the idoloters wherver you see them lay in wait for them and attack them, but if they accept allah and stop trying to kill you, forgive them, surely allah is merciful, all forgiving,’ or something like that, so those two religions are out, chrisitanity sounds good, but if you only knew how much of paganism chrisitanity really is, you probably woldn’t be christian, read ‘the jesus mysteries’ or ‘the two babylons’ for more on this subject, but I guess I am christian and on that beliefnet survey I scored 100% neo-paganism and after what I read, christianity and paganism might as well be identical, so whatever that means, the eastern religions are good, but I don’t like buddhism ‘s emphasis on ascetisism because buddhist ascetisicim is unbuddhistic, shelley, asceticism is not what the buddha taught, taoism is good, but it is only the liberal spiritual version of confucianism, there are two sides of the same religion, yin and yang if you will, to be honest with you , I am starting to lean more and more toward the bahai faith, but I’m sure that I will find a problem with it and then not be able to swallow it whole, I am about 85% all the religions of the world and anotehr 15% not any of the religions of the world, but I guess the even better question is, why do I care so much, what is wrong with being an interfaith mystic philosopher that I feel like I have to lebel myself some denomination, is it because everybody always ask me what I am…hiold on…so my girlfriend is calling for me to go to bed, I guess that I should go to bed, I can only type for about 2-3 pages anyway before my shit starts gong bad and I start ramblingh and raving even worsle than I do for the first 1-2 pages, but but but but…what else was going on today, my girlfriend was raving about the whole middle eastern issue, specifically israel and palestine, I dind’t know she cared so much about it, it like really hit home with her today for some reason, I don’t know why, it was interesting to observe , I don’t’ know what to make of it really, humh…so I guess that I will think more about this topic of forbidden knowledge and knowledge going to fast and hopefully I willl come to some conclusions and if I caome to some conclusions, hopefully I willl write them down so that ya’ll can read them and then com eto your own conclusions I guess that will be all for now, so do I blog this one or not…geez sara, my writing is private, I really don’t even like marie reading a lot of it, but I guess she get’s to listen to it anyways, so who cares, huh, but by putting it on the internet, I let the world inside, I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet, yeach the idea about getting a book deal and stuff sounds cool, but to be honest with you, I don’t care about that shit, I don’t really want to get a book deal and publish a book and make a lot of money and all that bullshit, I want to be a truth finder and a truth teller, whatever that means, it’s my job, it’s what I was trained to do, it’s what I got my degree in, it’s why I want to be a teacher, not becaues I care about any of the bullshit, I care about the truth, I know that sounds hopelessly noble, but it’s true, I pray that it’s true, I pray to god to be open to the truth and to find it wherever I can and not to let my own small mindedness and biases and whatever get in the way of my quest for truth, I actually see this quest for truth obscured and not at the universities and in academia like I thought it was when I was in school and is absolutely fucking sickens me. I was talking to alex on the way to the movie kinsey and I asked him, does pure science exist??? No matter what, our biases and other shit seems to get in the way, what scientist can be totally objective, what robert anton wilson said is true to a certain extent, what the thinker thinks, the prover proves, their will be 6 scientists who find evidence to support a claim and 3 scientists to find evidence to dispute a claim, who is correct, who is doing science, does pure science exist in this situation, if pure science doesn’t exist, what does that say about science, about religion, about salvation, about politics, about a whole slew of shit. This is what nietzsche talked about when he talked about the death of god, not the death of God, but the death of objectivity, the death of the objective nonbiased viewpoint from which to view the world. Who has this, who plato, can escape this fucking cave and see reality for what it really is, I’d like to believe that I had a moment once, a few years ago, where I got to escape the cave, for just one brief moment and see what reality was really like, but how do I know how pure that was? So does all science come down to politics and everybody’s own agenda? I fucking hate politics and to think that academia isn’t about the search for truth but about finding evidence for and supporting your own political agenda, your own idea for what the truth is, your own idea of what science is and should be, makes me want to cry. The more I learn about academia, the more I don’t want to be a part of it. I don’t know what else I want to write anymore, but I guess I covered a lot of topics and distance today, oh my god, I’ve spilled onto my fourth page, I never ever do that, I guess that this was a good session, but I wish I had a cigaretter, I miss smoking so much. I may go see my good friend mortdog next weekend, so I’m happy about that. I wonder if I write different if I know I’m going to blog this entry than if I did pre-blog days, well I guess we all evolve and who knows, maybe someday someboyd will actually read this and be able to read in it, and not just on the surface, somebody will be able to peake inside my own soul through these words and through my own soul, see his own soul staring out at him, tha is what the truth is, or at least my version of it…talk it easy kids, till next time, luego…..

Sara is a Goddess!!!

i just wanted to write this blog, my first blog, to thank sara for creating my blog and for inspiring me to become a blogger in the first place. thanx for putting up with my bullshit sara and for creating my blog for me, i really do appreciate it. i was thinking about some shit that i should say for my first blog, some ground rules, but i figure that the only ground rule for my blog is that there are no rules, at least not yet. i am tired right now, but i will write more later. take care ya'all...

ps - i would also like to thank paul for introducing sara to blogging who in turn introduced me to blogging, bloggers of the world, UNITE!!!