Thursday, December 17, 2009
Blogging
Writing these blogs over the past semester has been interesting. At the start I really didn't much see the point, but I have grown to enjoy them. As I have said, I enjoy learning, and I think, for the most part at least, this has done just that (especially these last 10 or so, with each averaging around 500+ words apiece). While I doubt I'll continue doing the blog, I do plan on continuing with the idea of it. I've found it interesting just googling random things and seeing what I get, and learning a bit more about the randomness out there that there is to learn.
The Art of War
Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War,’ was written around the 6th century, and is one of the most influential boos on was and military strategy ever written. Among the famous individuals claimed to have read the book include: Napoleon, George Patton, Douglas MacArthur, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, and General Paul Van Ripper said that it influenced his planning of Operation Desert Storm.
A famous narrative involving a young Sun Tzu and Ho Lu, King of the Wu state sealed Sun Tzu’s mastery of war in ancient times. In it, the king asks him to test his theory of war, using women from the palace, to which Sun Tzu agreed to. He separated 180 women into two groups, with one woman in charge of each. He ordered a left turn, to which the women only burst into laughter. He blamed himself for not being clear enough, so he gave the command again. Again, laughter. This time he blamed the head officers, and had them beheaded. After that the women answered his every order without hesitation or smile. He then told the king, “Your soldiers, Sire, are now properly drilled and disciplined, and ready for Your Majesty’s inspection. They can be put to any use that their sovereign may desire; bid them go through fire and water, and they will not disobey. The king answered by making him a general. Whether or not this actually happened, Sun Tzu really was a general who won battle after battle, leading King Ho Lu to gain much land and acclaim.
The book is divided into 13 chapters: laying plans, waging war, attack by stratagem, tactical dispositions, energy, weak points and strong, maneuvering, variation in tactics, the army on the march, terrain, the nine situations, attack by fire, the use of spies. He elaborates when an army should attack, when it should retreat, when it should hold ground. It discusses moral, and how to raise your armies and lower your opponents, and many other things that we now view as common warfare, but Sun Tzu put it into such simple terms, that works, that even today in modern warfare people still use The Art of War. Even businesses sometimes use the book to describe how to be successful in what your goals are.a
Sidereus Nuncias
References:
Sidereus Nuncias or The Sidereal Messenger by Galileo Galilei
Sidereus Nuncias is the text that famously got Galileo imprisoned by the Catholic Church. It is simply a lab wite-up, in which he describes what he saw through his telescope, the moons of Jupiter. The telescope that he used he actually made himself, because the common ones made were not perfect enough for him, magnifying only 3-4X, whereas his magnified 20X. He had to actually teach himself how to make and polish glass lenses for his telescope. The book might very well be the most important scientific book ever written, as it not only changed the Aristotelian view of science, in which only logic was needed to verify science, to a view of empirical evidence.
Galileo made everything perfect in his tests, not wanting anything to be wrong. He waited until it was well past midnight, at its darkest. He even didn’t look through the telescope longer than a brief moment at a time, so that the vapors from his eye wouldn’t fog up the lense.
The book also describes what he saw when he looked at the moon, the mountains and trenches, and his calculations on how tall or deep they were.
The book is full of his illustrations of what he saw, helping to prove the movement of stars and of the moons around Jupiter.
Sidereus Nuncias or The Sidereal Messenger by Galileo Galilei
Sidereus Nuncias is the text that famously got Galileo imprisoned by the Catholic Church. It is simply a lab wite-up, in which he describes what he saw through his telescope, the moons of Jupiter. The telescope that he used he actually made himself, because the common ones made were not perfect enough for him, magnifying only 3-4X, whereas his magnified 20X. He had to actually teach himself how to make and polish glass lenses for his telescope. The book might very well be the most important scientific book ever written, as it not only changed the Aristotelian view of science, in which only logic was needed to verify science, to a view of empirical evidence.
Galileo made everything perfect in his tests, not wanting anything to be wrong. He waited until it was well past midnight, at its darkest. He even didn’t look through the telescope longer than a brief moment at a time, so that the vapors from his eye wouldn’t fog up the lense.
The book also describes what he saw when he looked at the moon, the mountains and trenches, and his calculations on how tall or deep they were.
The book is full of his illustrations of what he saw, helping to prove the movement of stars and of the moons around Jupiter.
Satansim
Books used in reference:
The Satanic Bible by Anton Lavey
The Satanic Scriptures by Peter H. Gilmore
This blog I hesitated to do, based on the rather taboo subject, but I feel that taboo’s should be brought to light, so that people learn more about them, lessening the taboo. While I do not claim to hold the beliefs laid down by them, as I have previously stated, I hold an innate fascination in all religions, and Satanism definitely queued my interest when I first learned of its existence.
Modern Satanism, or that of the Church of Satan, was founded on April 30, 1966, by Anton Lavey. Contrary to what the name implies, those who classify themselves as Satanists are atheists, fully denying God and any afterlife. It is more a philosophy than a religion, one based on humanism. Satanism insists that since this is the only life that we have, that we should live it to the fullest extent possible, enjoying it however we feel.
To them, Satan represents an image, not an entity that actually exists. He is a symbol for the carnality that exists within the animal that is man.
Rituals are performed, but not the murdering, child-sacrificing sorts that have been used mostly as propaganda throughout history. Satanists believe that humans have an inborn need for dogma, which is one of the reasons so many flock to religion for answers and to be with others. There are many specific rituals cited, including The Satanic Funeral Rite, the Rite of Ragnorok, and the Ritual of Destruction. These are done simply to ‘let loose,’ and get rid of pent up aggression in a positive way that hurts no one.
Satanism also denounces the notion of ‘love thy neighbor,’ and ‘turn the other cheek,’ and instead argue that one should love those who deserve it and respect those who have earned it.
There are nine cardinal sins of Satanism, in order they are: stupidity, pretentiousness, solipsism, self-deceit, herd conformity, lack of perspective, forgetfulness of past orthodoxies counterproductive pride, and lack of aesthetics.
There are also nine satanic statements that are to be lived by, including:
Satan represents indulgence, instead of Abtinence!
Satan represents vengeance, instead of turning the other cheek!
Satan has been the best friend the church has ever had, as he has kept it in business all these years!
I found some very interesting philosophy in the 'Satanic' works, as well as some good humor. It didn't purport to take itself so seriously, which is something I feel people of a religious background are doing far to much of these days. I especially agree with the notion of 'live and let live, as long as they do the same.'
The Satanic Bible by Anton Lavey
The Satanic Scriptures by Peter H. Gilmore
This blog I hesitated to do, based on the rather taboo subject, but I feel that taboo’s should be brought to light, so that people learn more about them, lessening the taboo. While I do not claim to hold the beliefs laid down by them, as I have previously stated, I hold an innate fascination in all religions, and Satanism definitely queued my interest when I first learned of its existence.
Modern Satanism, or that of the Church of Satan, was founded on April 30, 1966, by Anton Lavey. Contrary to what the name implies, those who classify themselves as Satanists are atheists, fully denying God and any afterlife. It is more a philosophy than a religion, one based on humanism. Satanism insists that since this is the only life that we have, that we should live it to the fullest extent possible, enjoying it however we feel.
To them, Satan represents an image, not an entity that actually exists. He is a symbol for the carnality that exists within the animal that is man.
Rituals are performed, but not the murdering, child-sacrificing sorts that have been used mostly as propaganda throughout history. Satanists believe that humans have an inborn need for dogma, which is one of the reasons so many flock to religion for answers and to be with others. There are many specific rituals cited, including The Satanic Funeral Rite, the Rite of Ragnorok, and the Ritual of Destruction. These are done simply to ‘let loose,’ and get rid of pent up aggression in a positive way that hurts no one.
Satanism also denounces the notion of ‘love thy neighbor,’ and ‘turn the other cheek,’ and instead argue that one should love those who deserve it and respect those who have earned it.
There are nine cardinal sins of Satanism, in order they are: stupidity, pretentiousness, solipsism, self-deceit, herd conformity, lack of perspective, forgetfulness of past orthodoxies counterproductive pride, and lack of aesthetics.
There are also nine satanic statements that are to be lived by, including:
Satan represents indulgence, instead of Abtinence!
Satan represents vengeance, instead of turning the other cheek!
Satan has been the best friend the church has ever had, as he has kept it in business all these years!
I found some very interesting philosophy in the 'Satanic' works, as well as some good humor. It didn't purport to take itself so seriously, which is something I feel people of a religious background are doing far to much of these days. I especially agree with the notion of 'live and let live, as long as they do the same.'
Voltaire
The books referenced for this blog:
The Portable Voltaire
Philosophical Dictionary by Voltaire
The Italian Renaissance Reader
Voltaire is yet another of my favorite authors. Born in 1694, Francios-Marie Arouet was educated in a Jesuit school in Paris. He spent a great deal of time in prison during his life, because he was great at causing controversy, and is granted as one of the greatest satirists to ever live. The French Enlightenment is often referred to as ‘The Age of Voltaire.’ Many of his works were outlawed in countries, such as his ‘Philosophical Dictionary’ and ‘Letters on England.’
No topic was too taboo (or illegal) for him to discuss. A Deist, he openly scorned and mocked organized religion. He was especially disgusted by the priests and those in religious power. In the section entitled ‘Priest’ in his ‘Philosophical Dictionary,’ he claims that the priests are hypocrites who encite wars, and who hold themselves greater than they could ever hope to be. In his stories, the Catholic priests are presented as fat, lazy, and who steal from the poor, whereas the people who hold scorned religions, like the Jesuits, are truly good people, who wish for nothing other than to help the poor and impoverished.
His ‘Philosophical Dictionary’ is written in alphabetical order, in which he writes about his views on virtually everything, from Hell and Fraud, to Bees and Cannibals. It was full of irony, sarcasm, maxims, and quotes. He wrote it in this way on purpose: it made it extremely hard to counter his arguments. Whereas others wrote about one thing and left it at that, he wrote such great volumes that the people he angered had little chance to stop him. The book itself was outlawed, but this didn’t stop the public from getting the book, piece by piece. A brief aside: Thomas Jefferson owned a full set of the original publications.
He also has claim to what I view as one of the greatest, and funniest, last words spoken ever. On his deathbed, a priest came to him and asked him to repent and denounce Satan. His reply: ‘Now’s no time to be making enemies.’
The Portable Voltaire
Philosophical Dictionary by Voltaire
The Italian Renaissance Reader
Voltaire is yet another of my favorite authors. Born in 1694, Francios-Marie Arouet was educated in a Jesuit school in Paris. He spent a great deal of time in prison during his life, because he was great at causing controversy, and is granted as one of the greatest satirists to ever live. The French Enlightenment is often referred to as ‘The Age of Voltaire.’ Many of his works were outlawed in countries, such as his ‘Philosophical Dictionary’ and ‘Letters on England.’
No topic was too taboo (or illegal) for him to discuss. A Deist, he openly scorned and mocked organized religion. He was especially disgusted by the priests and those in religious power. In the section entitled ‘Priest’ in his ‘Philosophical Dictionary,’ he claims that the priests are hypocrites who encite wars, and who hold themselves greater than they could ever hope to be. In his stories, the Catholic priests are presented as fat, lazy, and who steal from the poor, whereas the people who hold scorned religions, like the Jesuits, are truly good people, who wish for nothing other than to help the poor and impoverished.
His ‘Philosophical Dictionary’ is written in alphabetical order, in which he writes about his views on virtually everything, from Hell and Fraud, to Bees and Cannibals. It was full of irony, sarcasm, maxims, and quotes. He wrote it in this way on purpose: it made it extremely hard to counter his arguments. Whereas others wrote about one thing and left it at that, he wrote such great volumes that the people he angered had little chance to stop him. The book itself was outlawed, but this didn’t stop the public from getting the book, piece by piece. A brief aside: Thomas Jefferson owned a full set of the original publications.
He also has claim to what I view as one of the greatest, and funniest, last words spoken ever. On his deathbed, a priest came to him and asked him to repent and denounce Satan. His reply: ‘Now’s no time to be making enemies.’
Dante's Inferno
This blog is about one of my all-time favorite books and, in my opinion, hands down one of the greatest books ever written: Infierno (or The Inferno) by Dante Alighieri.
A book that has been held in critical acclaim from its first publication to present day, it is without argument the most influential book on the Western perception of Hell. While Dante took many of facets of his work from early Christian Apocalypses, he melded them together with other modern perceptions in such a way that only a true master of language could possibly attain. The first book in his trilogy “The Divine Comedy,” in which Dante travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, finally seeing God in person, it is by far the most well-known and well-read. What truly fascinates me is just how flawless he managed to make his work, because of the sheer layout of the ‘Divine Comedy.’ It is divided into three books, each book has 33 cantos (chapters), each canto is divided into 33 stanzas, and each stanza is three lines, following an ABACDC rhyme scheme, and each book ends with the word ‘stars.’ When I first learned that, I was dumbfounded, and truly awestruck that a man was capable of doing this six centuries after he had died.
The Inferno follows Dante through Hell itself, lead by the poet Roman Virgil, whom in real life Dante greatly admired. Hell exists as an inverted cylinder, sinking further and further into the Earth, until the very center is found, with Satan himself trapped. Each level holds punishments worse than the next, each for sinners of greater and greater sin. The circles of Hell hold sinners as follows: virtuous pagans and unbaptized children, the lustful, the gluttonous, hoarders and wasters, the wrathful, the heretics, the violent, simple fraud, and finally compound fraud. The greatest sin is reserved for those who are treacherous to their benefactors. The three greatest sinners of humanity: Cassius, Brutus, and Judas, are forever chewed by Satan, who is himself trapped for all eternity in a lake of frozen ice.
The punishments Dante doles out to sinners is an ironic twist on their sin. Those who were gluttons in life spend their death bloated and sickened, those who were wrathful drag giant boulders behind them while attacking tooth and claw others who share their fate.
A book that has been held in critical acclaim from its first publication to present day, it is without argument the most influential book on the Western perception of Hell. While Dante took many of facets of his work from early Christian Apocalypses, he melded them together with other modern perceptions in such a way that only a true master of language could possibly attain. The first book in his trilogy “The Divine Comedy,” in which Dante travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, finally seeing God in person, it is by far the most well-known and well-read. What truly fascinates me is just how flawless he managed to make his work, because of the sheer layout of the ‘Divine Comedy.’ It is divided into three books, each book has 33 cantos (chapters), each canto is divided into 33 stanzas, and each stanza is three lines, following an ABACDC rhyme scheme, and each book ends with the word ‘stars.’ When I first learned that, I was dumbfounded, and truly awestruck that a man was capable of doing this six centuries after he had died.
The Inferno follows Dante through Hell itself, lead by the poet Roman Virgil, whom in real life Dante greatly admired. Hell exists as an inverted cylinder, sinking further and further into the Earth, until the very center is found, with Satan himself trapped. Each level holds punishments worse than the next, each for sinners of greater and greater sin. The circles of Hell hold sinners as follows: virtuous pagans and unbaptized children, the lustful, the gluttonous, hoarders and wasters, the wrathful, the heretics, the violent, simple fraud, and finally compound fraud. The greatest sin is reserved for those who are treacherous to their benefactors. The three greatest sinners of humanity: Cassius, Brutus, and Judas, are forever chewed by Satan, who is himself trapped for all eternity in a lake of frozen ice.
The punishments Dante doles out to sinners is an ironic twist on their sin. Those who were gluttons in life spend their death bloated and sickened, those who were wrathful drag giant boulders behind them while attacking tooth and claw others who share their fate.
The Eleusinian Mysteries
The sources for this blog are:
Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries by Mylonas
Classical Myth by Barry Powell
The Eleusinian Mysteries was a cult in ancient Greece, centered around the fertility goddess Demeter at the town of Eleusis. In mythology, only members of this cult could travel to the Underworld while still alive, and so every hero that did so (Herakles, Orpheus, Odysseus, etc.) was initiated into the Mysteries. Also, the only way to reach the Fields of Elysium (effectively the equivalent of our modern perception of Heaven) was to join the cult. In order to reach the fields, a shade (what was left over after a person died and travelled to Hades) had to say specific things to specific characters from mythology, the last of which was Achilles at ‘The Gray Oak Tree,’ after which the shade was allowed into Paradise. Almost everything that had to be said, and to whom, is known today, except for the last part. Scholars know that only once fully initiated was a person allowed to know the final secret. It was celebrated by a huge ceremony, that culminated in a High Priestess of Demeter opening a box that held the final secret. It has never been found what was in the box, if anything.
The strictest of secrecy was required of all initiates, and even the government of Athens made is a crime to let loose any of the secrets of the cult. In one instance, a member got drunk, and proceeded to act out certain parts of a secret ceremony. Because of this, he had all his property taken, and in another instance a person told all the secrets, to which the government ‘offered one talent for him dead, two to anyone who captured him alive.’
There were five stages or degrees of initiation. The first involved an initial purification, the second a mystic communion, third the initiate was granted the right to view holy object, fourth a crowning of garlands that proved full initiation into the cult, and finally a happiness resulting from a direct communion with the gods.
Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries by Mylonas
Classical Myth by Barry Powell
The Eleusinian Mysteries was a cult in ancient Greece, centered around the fertility goddess Demeter at the town of Eleusis. In mythology, only members of this cult could travel to the Underworld while still alive, and so every hero that did so (Herakles, Orpheus, Odysseus, etc.) was initiated into the Mysteries. Also, the only way to reach the Fields of Elysium (effectively the equivalent of our modern perception of Heaven) was to join the cult. In order to reach the fields, a shade (what was left over after a person died and travelled to Hades) had to say specific things to specific characters from mythology, the last of which was Achilles at ‘The Gray Oak Tree,’ after which the shade was allowed into Paradise. Almost everything that had to be said, and to whom, is known today, except for the last part. Scholars know that only once fully initiated was a person allowed to know the final secret. It was celebrated by a huge ceremony, that culminated in a High Priestess of Demeter opening a box that held the final secret. It has never been found what was in the box, if anything.
The strictest of secrecy was required of all initiates, and even the government of Athens made is a crime to let loose any of the secrets of the cult. In one instance, a member got drunk, and proceeded to act out certain parts of a secret ceremony. Because of this, he had all his property taken, and in another instance a person told all the secrets, to which the government ‘offered one talent for him dead, two to anyone who captured him alive.’
There were five stages or degrees of initiation. The first involved an initial purification, the second a mystic communion, third the initiate was granted the right to view holy object, fourth a crowning of garlands that proved full initiation into the cult, and finally a happiness resulting from a direct communion with the gods.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Diabology
This blog is over the difference between the Judeo-Christian’s ‘Satan,’ ‘Lucifer,’ and ‘the Devil.’ Contrary to what people now believe in the United States, and in Western Civilization as a whole, these three names were not always interchangeable, and actually described 3 different entities. The information comes from these books:
A History of Hell by Alice Turner
The Prince of Darkness by Jeffrey Burton Russel
A Dictionary of Angels by Gustav Davidson
The Holy Bible (King James Version and Revised Standard Version)
Satan derives from the Hebrew word hassatan, which means ‘The adversary,’ and held no official title, it was merely a description of a person. It is generally accepted that ‘Satan’ merely happened over time after a scribe dropped the prefix ‘ha-.’ The first, and only, instance of the entity Satan that exists in the Old Testament is in the Book of Job. In ancient times, this Satan was not an evil entity, even though that’s how most people today perceive it. Instead, he is merely ‘the adversary of God’ when God says that Job is the holiest person on the planet. Satan simply says it is because of what God has done for him. Satan, here, is an angel of the class of ‘Watcher.’ These angels, go figure, watch over humanity, because God does not view the entire planet, does not know what is going on on the entire planet, and so has these angels go to Earth, and then report back to God, telling him what he wants to know about the happenings of humanity.
The word Lucifer appears only once in the entire Bible, and even then it’s a typo. This is because it exists only in the Latin Vulgate (an early translation of the Bible, in which the Greek Septuagint was translated to Latin). The King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, which is the most read version of all time, is an English translation of the Latin Vulgate. The KJV gives Isaiah 14:12 as saying “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” It is the only translation that gives the word ‘Lucifer.’ Lucifer was actually the Roman God of the morning star, or Venus, which is so bright that it can sometimes be seen during the day. However, in the original Hebrew, the individual Isaiah 14:12 is talking about is King Nebuchadnezzar, not a fallen angel. But tradition dictates that Lucifer is Satan in Heaven, before the fall, but Lucifer became Satan when he reached Hell (even though, historically speaking, this is incorrect).
It is not until the New Testament that we get the Devil. Out of these three names/entities, the Devil is the only one who is inherently viewed as evil. About one to two centuries before the birth of Jesus, there came a notion of the Devil, an embodiment of evil, whose name was also given as Satan. This is the entity who tempts Christ (although this may or may not have been an evil act in and of itself), and the one spoken of in Revelations.
A History of Hell by Alice Turner
The Prince of Darkness by Jeffrey Burton Russel
A Dictionary of Angels by Gustav Davidson
The Holy Bible (King James Version and Revised Standard Version)
Satan derives from the Hebrew word hassatan, which means ‘The adversary,’ and held no official title, it was merely a description of a person. It is generally accepted that ‘Satan’ merely happened over time after a scribe dropped the prefix ‘ha-.’ The first, and only, instance of the entity Satan that exists in the Old Testament is in the Book of Job. In ancient times, this Satan was not an evil entity, even though that’s how most people today perceive it. Instead, he is merely ‘the adversary of God’ when God says that Job is the holiest person on the planet. Satan simply says it is because of what God has done for him. Satan, here, is an angel of the class of ‘Watcher.’ These angels, go figure, watch over humanity, because God does not view the entire planet, does not know what is going on on the entire planet, and so has these angels go to Earth, and then report back to God, telling him what he wants to know about the happenings of humanity.
The word Lucifer appears only once in the entire Bible, and even then it’s a typo. This is because it exists only in the Latin Vulgate (an early translation of the Bible, in which the Greek Septuagint was translated to Latin). The King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, which is the most read version of all time, is an English translation of the Latin Vulgate. The KJV gives Isaiah 14:12 as saying “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” It is the only translation that gives the word ‘Lucifer.’ Lucifer was actually the Roman God of the morning star, or Venus, which is so bright that it can sometimes be seen during the day. However, in the original Hebrew, the individual Isaiah 14:12 is talking about is King Nebuchadnezzar, not a fallen angel. But tradition dictates that Lucifer is Satan in Heaven, before the fall, but Lucifer became Satan when he reached Hell (even though, historically speaking, this is incorrect).
It is not until the New Testament that we get the Devil. Out of these three names/entities, the Devil is the only one who is inherently viewed as evil. About one to two centuries before the birth of Jesus, there came a notion of the Devil, an embodiment of evil, whose name was also given as Satan. This is the entity who tempts Christ (although this may or may not have been an evil act in and of itself), and the one spoken of in Revelations.
Holocaust Deniers
Micheal Shermer’s book , “Why People Believe Weird Things,” is both entertaining and enlightening. One of the books that I am currently, actively, reading, Shermer is the founder and an editor for ‘Skeptic’ magazine, and his book shows it. In it, he explains, and then debunks, topics including pseudoscience, creationism, cults, and holocaust deniers. The one that I chose to write this blog about is the Holocaust denier’s, because 1)I just finished the chapter about 15 minutes ago, and 2) I was fascinated by some of the things that I learned about the Holocaust that I didn’t previously know. Shermer, among other things, is a very well-regarded Holocaust historian, and has been on many shows in which Holocaust deniers lay their claims, and he is there to debunk them.
I feel that this is something that should be critically looked at, and not simply given up as a 'conspiracy theory,' because as long as there are a fairly large number of people who believe in something, it will persist. So instead of simply saying that those people are nuts (Holocaust deniers, 9-11 conspiracy thinkers, etc.), I prefer to look at their arguments and weight them against the counterarguments. So far, the conspiracy theories are nothing more than that, but I like to hear what someone has to say before fully disregarding what they have to say.
Holocaust deniers do not actually deny that the Holocaust happened, this is a media-induced misconception. Also, many of the Holocaust denier’s are not neo-Nazi’s, and many have advanced degrees in history from accredited schools, and other than these views, are well-respected in what they have written. What they do is define the Holocaust differently than history textbooks, and there are three things that they specifically take problem with, of which I will elaborate on each and explain why their views are wrong: 1) There was no Nazi policy to exterminate European Jews, 2) Gas chambers were not used to kill Jews, and 3) between 300,000 and 2 million Jews were killed in ghettos and camps, not the 5-6 million quoted by historians.
1) There was no Nazi policy to exterminate European Jews. They claim that whenever a Nazi spoke of the “Final Solution to the Jews,” what they were actually meaning was that the Nazi’s were going to deport all of the Jews out of the Reich, which they did at the beginning of the war, when they were winning, but towards the end, when they were losing, they were forced to place Jews in camps and ghettos due to lack of funds and manpower.
They defend these points by quoting specific instances, but for the most part they take quotes out of context. They also completely ignore the Nuremburg Trial Confessions, because the defendants were scared for their lives, but whenever a quote comes up they can use, they do not hesitate to do just that. They question the definition of the German word ‘ausrotten,’ which means extermination, but they claim that during the time of WWII, it meant ‘movement,’ even though they are the only ones to accept this.
2) Gas chambers were not used to kill Jews. Instead, the gas chambers were only used for delousing clothes and blankets, and crematoriums were only used to despose of Jews that died of disease and starvation (something they claim is the fault of the allies, because we bombed supply lines) Deniers claim that there were shooting and hangings of Jews, but not from mass gassings.
Documents prove that large amounts of Zyklon-B (the gas used to kill Jews) were ordered to the camps, and there are countless eyewitnesses who verify that the Nazi’s did indeed kill Jews via gas chambers.
3) Only between 300,000 and 2 million Jews were killed in ghettos and camps, not the 5-6 million quoted by historians. Instead, the remaining Jews that are not accounted for at the end of the war, had simply emigrated to other countries.
This one is easy enough to debunk. Approximately 4 million people did not just emigrate with no paper trail, and without them coming out of the woodworks saying they are there. Again, deniers simply pick and choose the information they want to use.
While I do not accept anything that the Holocaust denier’s claim, I feel they do bring up some very valid points that very few of us accept, myself included. At one point, Shermer quotes a denier who uses Orwell’s ‘1984’ ‘Newspeak,’ using this to show how people in today's society can become truly ignorant without fully realizing it. As proof: the Nazi’s never made soap from the fat of Jews’. This is accepted by the Holocaust community, as no bar of soap has ever tested positive for human fat. It is all a myth. And yet I have grown up ‘knowing’ this as fact. Shermer admits this, but I still wanted verification. A brief google search helps to confirm this idea, from reputable sites. And yet I have been told this as truth since I was young. Stepping away from what I currently ‘know,’ (keeping in mind that I do not agree with anything they believe) what if the denier’s were actually right? How would I know? The simple fact is that I never would. I have grown up with an almost ingrained belief in what has happened, that I cannot possibly perceive of any way in which it is wrong. And yet what I was taught was wrong: soap made from the fat of murdered Jews never happened. I had the same overall feeling when I first read ‘1984,’ in which I started to look at things a little differently. I already had an innate skepticism of newspapers and television news programs, but when it comes down to it, does that really matter? So many people watch the news, and take it as the God’s Honest Truth. How many people pick and choose the information they ‘know’ on a day-to-day basis? At what point does history, knowledge, and information cease to be that, and instead turn into a Newspeak invention of doublethink?
I feel that this is something that should be critically looked at, and not simply given up as a 'conspiracy theory,' because as long as there are a fairly large number of people who believe in something, it will persist. So instead of simply saying that those people are nuts (Holocaust deniers, 9-11 conspiracy thinkers, etc.), I prefer to look at their arguments and weight them against the counterarguments. So far, the conspiracy theories are nothing more than that, but I like to hear what someone has to say before fully disregarding what they have to say.
Holocaust deniers do not actually deny that the Holocaust happened, this is a media-induced misconception. Also, many of the Holocaust denier’s are not neo-Nazi’s, and many have advanced degrees in history from accredited schools, and other than these views, are well-respected in what they have written. What they do is define the Holocaust differently than history textbooks, and there are three things that they specifically take problem with, of which I will elaborate on each and explain why their views are wrong: 1) There was no Nazi policy to exterminate European Jews, 2) Gas chambers were not used to kill Jews, and 3) between 300,000 and 2 million Jews were killed in ghettos and camps, not the 5-6 million quoted by historians.
1) There was no Nazi policy to exterminate European Jews. They claim that whenever a Nazi spoke of the “Final Solution to the Jews,” what they were actually meaning was that the Nazi’s were going to deport all of the Jews out of the Reich, which they did at the beginning of the war, when they were winning, but towards the end, when they were losing, they were forced to place Jews in camps and ghettos due to lack of funds and manpower.
They defend these points by quoting specific instances, but for the most part they take quotes out of context. They also completely ignore the Nuremburg Trial Confessions, because the defendants were scared for their lives, but whenever a quote comes up they can use, they do not hesitate to do just that. They question the definition of the German word ‘ausrotten,’ which means extermination, but they claim that during the time of WWII, it meant ‘movement,’ even though they are the only ones to accept this.
2) Gas chambers were not used to kill Jews. Instead, the gas chambers were only used for delousing clothes and blankets, and crematoriums were only used to despose of Jews that died of disease and starvation (something they claim is the fault of the allies, because we bombed supply lines) Deniers claim that there were shooting and hangings of Jews, but not from mass gassings.
Documents prove that large amounts of Zyklon-B (the gas used to kill Jews) were ordered to the camps, and there are countless eyewitnesses who verify that the Nazi’s did indeed kill Jews via gas chambers.
3) Only between 300,000 and 2 million Jews were killed in ghettos and camps, not the 5-6 million quoted by historians. Instead, the remaining Jews that are not accounted for at the end of the war, had simply emigrated to other countries.
This one is easy enough to debunk. Approximately 4 million people did not just emigrate with no paper trail, and without them coming out of the woodworks saying they are there. Again, deniers simply pick and choose the information they want to use.
While I do not accept anything that the Holocaust denier’s claim, I feel they do bring up some very valid points that very few of us accept, myself included. At one point, Shermer quotes a denier who uses Orwell’s ‘1984’ ‘Newspeak,’ using this to show how people in today's society can become truly ignorant without fully realizing it. As proof: the Nazi’s never made soap from the fat of Jews’. This is accepted by the Holocaust community, as no bar of soap has ever tested positive for human fat. It is all a myth. And yet I have grown up ‘knowing’ this as fact. Shermer admits this, but I still wanted verification. A brief google search helps to confirm this idea, from reputable sites. And yet I have been told this as truth since I was young. Stepping away from what I currently ‘know,’ (keeping in mind that I do not agree with anything they believe) what if the denier’s were actually right? How would I know? The simple fact is that I never would. I have grown up with an almost ingrained belief in what has happened, that I cannot possibly perceive of any way in which it is wrong. And yet what I was taught was wrong: soap made from the fat of murdered Jews never happened. I had the same overall feeling when I first read ‘1984,’ in which I started to look at things a little differently. I already had an innate skepticism of newspapers and television news programs, but when it comes down to it, does that really matter? So many people watch the news, and take it as the God’s Honest Truth. How many people pick and choose the information they ‘know’ on a day-to-day basis? At what point does history, knowledge, and information cease to be that, and instead turn into a Newspeak invention of doublethink?
Black Holes
I was recently going through my book collection, and have realized all the things that I haven’t read in years, and how my memory of things has grown fuzzy. So, in the spirit of learning (or re-learning, which can be just as gratifying), my next few blogs will be over things from my non-fiction books.
This one will be elaborating on things from Stephen Hawkings’ ‘A Brief History of Time.” (Yes, I know, I am a nerd)
Black Holes
Chapter 6 goes through what is currently known, and what isn’t, about the concept and existence of black holes. The term ‘black hole’ was originally coined in 1969 by John Wheeler, but the concept of a star could have enough mass that its gravitational pull that even light could not escape was first offered by John Mitchell, all the way back in 1783. This is the actual definition of a black hole, it is neither black nor a whole, but simply a body of mass so great, that individual particles of light (theoretically the fastest that anything can physically move) would be sucked into the mass. This means that, if looked at, a black hole would simply look like a black spot in space, because it would emit literally no light, nor allow any light to pass by it for that matter (ignoring some really screwy equations in which the cone of light created by, uh, light, bends around the gravitational pull of the singularity if passing just beyond the event horizon).
For a black hole to form, a star with a mass 30x or greater than the Sun must be formed from a protostellar cloud of gas and dust (a in human biological terms, a protostellar cloud would be a fetus) . When the star starts to run out of full, it begins to cool off, and contract in on itself. From here, there are four forms that the dying star can go into: a brown-dwarf, a white dwarf, a neutron star, or a black hole. (A supernova will generally leave behind a white dwarf or a neutron star, contrary to popular notion that a supernova fully obliterates the star)
The hardest thing that I find to grasp about black holes is how they affect time. According to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, time is completely relative to everyone’s individual perception. So if a person were falling towards a black hole, he would go on seeing time as we see it normally. But to someone watching the man fall towards the black hole, the closer he got, the slower he would fall, until he reached a point were he would stop falling altogether, at a point known as the event horizon. The hard thing for me to grasp, is that the person falling would have fallen through the event horizon at a certain point, but after he’s past that point, anyone watching him would see him as he was before reaching the event horizon. He would be in two places at once, all depending on who you asked!
A non-rotating black hole is, again theoretically, the only true sphere in the universe. It would have absolutely no marks on it, and would be perfectly spherical. However, since the odds of a star collapsing without moving is vitually zero, black holes should tend to bulge out at the center, like the Earth or the Sun.
There are also primordial black holes, which have existed since right after the Big Bang. After the explosion that created the universe, there were parts of space that held more matter than others, and in places where the matter was highly concentrated, a black hole could form.
This one will be elaborating on things from Stephen Hawkings’ ‘A Brief History of Time.” (Yes, I know, I am a nerd)
Black Holes
Chapter 6 goes through what is currently known, and what isn’t, about the concept and existence of black holes. The term ‘black hole’ was originally coined in 1969 by John Wheeler, but the concept of a star could have enough mass that its gravitational pull that even light could not escape was first offered by John Mitchell, all the way back in 1783. This is the actual definition of a black hole, it is neither black nor a whole, but simply a body of mass so great, that individual particles of light (theoretically the fastest that anything can physically move) would be sucked into the mass. This means that, if looked at, a black hole would simply look like a black spot in space, because it would emit literally no light, nor allow any light to pass by it for that matter (ignoring some really screwy equations in which the cone of light created by, uh, light, bends around the gravitational pull of the singularity if passing just beyond the event horizon).
For a black hole to form, a star with a mass 30x or greater than the Sun must be formed from a protostellar cloud of gas and dust (a in human biological terms, a protostellar cloud would be a fetus) . When the star starts to run out of full, it begins to cool off, and contract in on itself. From here, there are four forms that the dying star can go into: a brown-dwarf, a white dwarf, a neutron star, or a black hole. (A supernova will generally leave behind a white dwarf or a neutron star, contrary to popular notion that a supernova fully obliterates the star)
The hardest thing that I find to grasp about black holes is how they affect time. According to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, time is completely relative to everyone’s individual perception. So if a person were falling towards a black hole, he would go on seeing time as we see it normally. But to someone watching the man fall towards the black hole, the closer he got, the slower he would fall, until he reached a point were he would stop falling altogether, at a point known as the event horizon. The hard thing for me to grasp, is that the person falling would have fallen through the event horizon at a certain point, but after he’s past that point, anyone watching him would see him as he was before reaching the event horizon. He would be in two places at once, all depending on who you asked!
A non-rotating black hole is, again theoretically, the only true sphere in the universe. It would have absolutely no marks on it, and would be perfectly spherical. However, since the odds of a star collapsing without moving is vitually zero, black holes should tend to bulge out at the center, like the Earth or the Sun.
There are also primordial black holes, which have existed since right after the Big Bang. After the explosion that created the universe, there were parts of space that held more matter than others, and in places where the matter was highly concentrated, a black hole could form.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Alestorm
This is a band I have just found, and I'm now horribly addicted to their album 'Black Sails at Midnight.' They are a power/folk metal band (power metal focuses on fast guitar playing, folk metal uses folk songs/celtic songs in their outlining of the songs) but the band describes itself as "True Scottish Pirate Metal," which is actually a joke in reference to 'True Norwegian Black Metal). They hail from Perth, Scotland, and have been recording since 2004. They have two albums, the one I mentioned, and "Captain Morgan's Revenge."
I just love the album, because it doesn't take itself too seriously, and still manages some really good music, if you're into this rather obscure form of metal. The instrumental song "No Quarter" uses the basic tune of Hans Zimmers' compositions from "Pirates of the Carribean," adding their own style to it.
Progressive Theology
In one of my previous posts I discussed apoctastasis, and claimed that it was my personal choice for an explanation of theodicy, but have since come across what has become known as 'progressive theology.' I learned about this in my activities with the on-campus group 'Atheist-Theist Connection,' in which a reverend who also attends the meeting brought it up. Progressive theologians/Christians have an open willingness to question contemporary tradition. The main tenet of progressive theology is that there is no way to successfully explain how God can be all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful simultaneously, and instead argue that God is not, in fact, all-knowing. They use the Bible to verify this, especially the Old Testament, in which God seems to either not know about something (The Book of Job in which he seems ignorant to the happenings of Earth outside the Jews), or changes his mind (Genesis where he decides to not kill Noah and his family.
Progressive theology also takes a more "liberal" standpoint on other issues, encouraging an acceptance of human diversity, an emphasis on social justice, care for the poor and oppressed, and being environmentally green. Progressive Christians focus more on Jesus' teaching of 'Love one another,' than on any other part of the Biblical teachings.
Source: Reverend Charles Allen; progressivetheology.wordpress.com
Progressive theology also takes a more "liberal" standpoint on other issues, encouraging an acceptance of human diversity, an emphasis on social justice, care for the poor and oppressed, and being environmentally green. Progressive Christians focus more on Jesus' teaching of 'Love one another,' than on any other part of the Biblical teachings.
Source: Reverend Charles Allen; progressivetheology.wordpress.com
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