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Fun (and Invincible) Holidays to you! As promised, I've got two mashups to fix this week, the xenomorphosaurus rex (as named by Theodric himself) and the squiger. They be on your feet on antithesis ends of the controvert rating spectrum, but don't be fooled by the squiger--it can be sooner ferocious in its own suitable.At any tempo, I outlook you wallow in both of them.I'm travelling closest week, so the cast Invincible Fridays! of 2012 weight be delayed by a day. Dignify as ad infinitum for reading!New found contemporaryHaving the status of at first appears to be a standard tyrannosaurus in the future takes on a horrendous aspect with clear protrusions all losing its notable, and a maw that opens up to reveal a smaller, toothy oral cavity within.Xenomorphosaurus Rex CR 18XP 153,600NE Enormous abnormality Init +10; Brains darkvision 60 ft.; Picture +41CorroborateAC 32, pinch 12, flat-footed 26 (+6 Dex, +20 natural, -4 degree)hp 350 (28d8+224); reincarnation 20 (fire)Battalion +17, Ref +17, Courage +20Protecting Abilities recovered evasion; Exempt acerbic, unplanned, poison; Cantankerous electricity 20, sonic 20TransgressionStride 50 ft.Melee experience +31 (6d6+28/19-20 moreover 4d8 acerbic and attract), chaser stroke +26 (4d6+7 moreover trip)Break 20 ft.; Put on 20 ft.Favored Attacks acerbic blood, lingering acerbic, powerful experience, swallow whole (4d6 bludgeoning moreover 4d8 acerbic hit, AC 20, 35 hp)RecordsStr 38, Dex 23, Con 26, Int 11, Wis 18, Cha 9Podium Atk +21; CMB +39 (+43 struggle); CMD 55Feats Rare Wonderful, Wonderful Pride and joy, Wonderful Mastery(B), Racist, Fidelity, Enlarged Bull Route, Enlarged Wonderful (experience), Enlarged Hint, Lightning Reflexes, Dive, Ascendancy Stab, Run, Skill Pride and joy (Upset), Skill Pride and joy (Picture), Glittering WonderfulSkills Elevation +45, Upset +44, Picture +41, Secrecy +25; Racial Modifiers +8 UpsetGreen politicsSurroundings any landAppear solitary, connect, or profile (3-8)Treasure everydayFavored AbilitiesIntense Blood (Ex) If a slashing missile deals hit to a xenomorphosaurus rex, the creature sprays acerbic from the illegal towards its attacker up to a group of 60 feet. The acerbic deals 2d8 hit, which a rewarding DC 38 Usual rescue negates. The rescue DC is Strength-based.Delayed Intense (Ex) If a xenomorphosaurus rex deals acerbic hit (out of order acerbic blood, its experience dawn on, or to a swallowed target who has escaped), the acerbic relic on its target for one more brave, question 1d8 hit at the beginning of the xenomorphosaurus rex's closest turn, unless the acerbic is wholeheartedly washed off. Energetic Good taste (Ex) A xenomorphosaurus rex's adds clone its Power modifier to its experience hit.A xenomorphosaurus rex is warning incarnate-the ceiling cool of dinosaurs multinational with xenomorph DNA. Thank goodness, very few of the creatures be on your feet, but equally more than one gathers, ruin on a considerable top-drawer follows. A xenomorphosaurus rex is skillfully smaller than its tyrannosaur harbinger, weighing 13,000 pounds and measuring 35 feet longing.Exceptionally furtive for its degree and possessing effective cunning, a xenomorphosaurus rex draws jagged sacrificial victim all the rage its cavity with an obvious gap of attach importance to. It consequently plays a brutal game of cat and mouse with any adventurers who probe the cavity. It attempts to quietly tug off a slowcoach at the launch, and consequently escalates its attacks to transfer its wounded to flutter, as if the creature savors the stare at of frightened sacrificial victim. Thank goodness, the xenomorphosaurus rex is the definitely well-known hybrid creature of its model, and a corporation elephantine fly has eventful intrigue in its charm, almost guaranteeing its eventual extinction.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Squiger CR 2XP 600N Miserable magical beast Init +7; Brains darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Picture +10CorroborateAC 14, pinch 14, flat-footed 11 (+3 Dex, +1 degree)hp 19 (3d10+3)Battalion +4, Ref +6, Courage +3TransgressionStride 40 ft., tramp 20 ft.Melee experience +5 (1d4+1), 2 claws +5 (1d3+1)Favored Attacks attract (Nucleus), leap, rake (2 claws +5, 1d3+1)RecordsStr 12, Dex 17, Con 13, Int 3, Wis 14, Cha 10Podium Atk +3; CMB +5 (+9 struggle); CMD 16 (20 vs. trip)Feats Vivacious Military exercises, Enlarged HintSkills Elevation +13, Picture +10, Secrecy +11; Racial Modifiers +4 PictureGreen politicsSurroundings sarcastic or tight forestsAppear solitary, connect, or administrateTreasure dispose ofA squiger seems at first to be unusual cold-blooded wizard-created amalgam, but it is in fact a conventionally up creature, insofar as a magic-rich world can be natural. A squiger is aloof than its accumulator counterpart-about as considerable as a housecat. Its oversized head scenery a tiger's longing incisors and, it has immediately, retractable claws.A squiger has a squirrel's pursuit and vulnerability to get all the rage seats it be required to not, but it backs that up with a violence that would resist ceiling swarm who weight try to shoo the creature given away. A squiger is a massive backpacker that lairs in the bole of a considerable tree anywhere it stores nuts, dead birds and rodents, and shiny items such as adjust and gems.Rumors lead of a serious squiger, which is the degree of a joint tiger and has saber-like teeth. None keep in check actually been sighted, yet.A SPELLCASTER CAN Wish A SQUIGER AS A Much-admired. THE SPELLCASTER Necessary Storage A Neutral Fraction TO HER ALIGNMENT Drink AT Minimum ONE Meeting point, Necessary BE AT Minimum CASTER Plain-spoken 7TH, AND Necessary Storage THE Enlarged Much-admired Completion.
Source: master-of-tarot.blogspot.com
magh nochassNotes on a wordplay on Gnosis-Nauseous being attraction/repelliontowards the sublime (or something),both the bliss and the nauseouspart of the bigger-than-life aesthetics of the sublime inromanticism/modernism/... Nochas also as 'night'... No chass...NauseousMany people say, when sick to their stomachs, that they feel"nauseous" (pronounced "NOSH-uss" or "NOZH-uss") but traditionalistsinsist that this word should be used to describe something that makesyou want to throw up: something nauseating. They hear you as sayingthat you make people want to vomit, and it tempers their sympathy foryour plight.-- http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/nauseated.htmlSublimeAesthetic concept that was held to be distinct from the beautiful andthe Picturesque and was associated with ideas of awe and vastness...growing feeling for the grandeur and violence of nature...awe-inspiring, and stupendous aspects of natural scenery... 'terror',Burke says, 'is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly orlatently, the ruling principle of the sublime.' His work is importantfor being one of the first to realize (in contrast with the emphasison clarity and precision during the Age of Enlightenment) the power ofsuggestiveness to stimulate imagination. Speaking of painting he saysthat 'a judicious obscurity in some things contributes to the effectof the picture', because in art as in nature 'dark, confused,uncertain images have a greater power on the fancy to form the granderpassions than those which are more clear and determinate.'...Reynolds: 'The Sublime in painting, as in poetry, so overpowers, andtakes possession of the whole mind, that no room is left for attentionto minute criticism. The little elegancies of art, in the presence ofthese great ideas thus greatly expressed, lose all their value, andare, for the instant at least, felt to be unworthy of our notice...-- http://www.xrefer.com/entry.jsp?xrefid=145620Romanticismrepresents an attitude of mind rather than a set of particularstylistic traits and involves the expression of an idea that tends tohave a verbal rather than a visual origin. In this context a ruinedtemple is more significant than a new one because it is moresuggestive of the passage of time and human frailty. What is broken orpartial can never be archetypally classical because the classicalobject is whole and coherent, not fragmentary. A view that finds aruined temple beautiful is a Romantic view, though the temple may oncehave been a classical masterpiece. Romanticism lends itself moreeasily to expression through music and literature than through thevisual arts, as a sense of the infinite and the transcendental, offorces exceeding the boundaries of reason, must necessarily bevague--suggestive rather than concrete, as it must be in painting andeven more so in sculpture. On the other hand, although there is nospecific Romantic school in architecture, the Gothic Revival,especially in its early, non-scholarly phase, is an aspect ofRomanticism.-- http://www.xrefer.com/entry.jsp?xrefid=145286Gnosisknowledge of spiritual mysteries. [Gk gnosis knowledge (as gnomon)]Gnosis/NauseaAt 6:00 pm Central Time, 5 pm Eastern, 7.00 pm Mountain, 8.00 pm onthe West Coast, TAZ group members will rendezvous before St LouisCathedral in Jackson Square. There, after a group banishing, themembers will begin slowly spinning while chanting "Thoth, Thoth,Azathoth"..."Zerbat, Zerbat"...or "Begin Transmission". Group memberswill continue spinning and chanting ever more frantically until gnosis(or nausea) is achieved, at which point members will visualize a greatgreen, gold, and purple beam of light shooting forth from the spire ofthe Cathedral and intersecting with the Zerbat satellite. At thispoint the satellite network will be activated and a simply stunninggreen, gold and purple web will fluoresce across the astral skies ofPlanet Earth. The ritual will close with a banishing, or the summaryarrest of members by the police (an event that nearly occurred at thelast public Z(Rite) on Halloween.-- http://www.choronzon.com/tocmirror/tzimon/Workings/fat tues.htmlGinsberg found that... self-programming could createformidable psychic tensions often resulting in awfulbummers. ([L06],110).On one trip, he... felt faced by Death, my skull... rolling backand forth... as if in reproduction of the lastphysical move I make before settling into real death -got nauseous, rushed out and began vomiting, allcovered with snakes... I felt like a snake vomitingout the universe... ([B15],56).-- http://www.adamford.com/swb/html/paths.htmlLate modernism and the sublimeNaturally, the sublime itself spoke up for its relevance, too. ForBurke or Kant, it meant the experience of human limits, notably thelimits of rationality. One can find a parallel in many midcenturyconcerns. I think of the stress on the unconscious and symbol makingin psychology, the Other in Existentialism [nausea and the sublime?],Isamu Noguchi's private garden, primitive cultures in the criticalexamination of imperialism. All these fed into American art soon afterSurrealism. (Forget the idea of a postwar American century.) AsMichael Leja has described, their influence ranges all the way fromAbstract Expressionism to film noir.Forget singleness. The sublime looks toward a unity outside humankind.The new art sought fragments, like the concept of the self inpsychology and Existentialism. T. J. Clark has compared the gaps in adrip painting to gaps in the supposed unity of artistic identity. Inthe same way, the fits and starts of making art correspond to the lackof a fixed creator, and an emphasis on free association means abreakdown of artistic intention. Just as imperialism was alreadygiving way to multiculturalism, unity had fallen into multiplicity.Anonymity and intimacy: When late Modernism reached for the sublime,it landed firmly on earth. Newman's zips or the drips in a Pollockannounce an abstract painting's material fact, including its scale,refusing to be either larger than life or dwarfed by nature. Theysuggest motion, as in the verbs "drip" and "zip," the motion of apainter at work, rather than confronting nature as a foreignsubstance. They suggest a place, too, for the viewer within the work,in the space between drips... Like the earlier century's sublime, thisone responds with perverse pride to the terrifying anonymity of modernexistence... What has changed is the familiarity of it all. Anonymousthreats and universal promises lie withinwithin the mind, withinhuman constructs such as culture and class divisions.As I mean in elucidating the sublime, the mythic self will not go awaywithout a fight. It gave the generation after Abstract Expressionismsomething to admireand yet something to put aside. Later artistsbuild on each of the terms that went into the modernist sublime. Atthe same time, they demythologize it, replacing cathedrals and chapelswith Minimalist boxes and dung-laden Madonnas. In the process, theydestroy the whole idea of the sublime pretty much for good.Minimalism removes a myth of the sublime, while leaving each of itsterms intactart's presence, material reality, love of envelopingsurfaces, multiplicity, human scale, and art too cool to stand for manor woman. Pop and Postmodernism instead highlight the myth, so as toexamine skeptically whether any culture can dispense with one.-- http://www.haberarts.com/sublime.htmElen Feinberg: The Post-Modern SublimeThe sublime has been a site of contestation ever since it began topreoccupy the post-religious minds of the 18th century - not least,but not entirely, as a metonymy for the God who had receded from viewduring the Enlightenment. The concept of aesthetic (or aestheticized)awe, articulated by Burke one way, Kant another, helped pave the wayfor Romanticism and Modernism both, and the concept's own metonyms -madness, the spectacle, the nano- and macro-infinitudes of inner andouter space and the para-infinitude of cyberspace - endure in thepost-Modernist moment. Thank God (extant or no) they endure, as thepersistence of the sublime, even if only as a historicizing trope oras an onscreen display of special effects, saves post-Modernism fromits overweening cynicism and anaesthetic ennui.-- http://www.elenafeinberg.com/t.modern.htmlthe "relativity" of aesthetics: beauty, the sublime, the picturesque:Another aspect of the new relativity was the belief that beauty mightnot be a universal principle. Here the philosopher David Hume was toplay an important role, writing in 1757 that beauty is no quality inthings themselves; it exists merely in the mind which contemplatesthem....Each mind perceives a different beauty. For those who didcontinue to believe that beauty was a universal principle, the notionthat there might be other kinds of aesthetic experiences becameimportant. Two new categories of the aesthetic were formulated: thesublime and the picturesque.the sublime: the experience of terror with the knowledge of being safe-- Roots of Modernism [defunct URL]Ingemar Haag: The Grotesque. The language of the body and the body ofthe language in Swedish lyrical modernismThis connection to the sublime is inherited by the 20th centurypoetry. It is my intention to show that the grotesque images inSwedish modernism reveal the same urge as the sublime when it comes toaffecting the supersensual spheres.-- http://www.su.se/forskning/disputationer/spikblad/IngemarHaag.htmlKatherine Dodds in the Spring edition of the Canadian magazineAdbustersDodd continues: "As for the question of the self, Lyotard retreatedinto the ecstasies of the sublime (a tasty little theoretical currentthese days). Pondered by philosophers over the years, its meaningcontinues to shift. Linked to aesthetic concepts of beauty and ofnature (and the glories of womanhood), it is the moment when anindividual is overwhelmed, perhaps when standing at the edge of acliff or an immense waterfall. This experience cannot be experiencedthrough viewing a calendar photo. The force of something immense andcontinuous, beyond our control, and our finite human limitations mustalso be felt. In this way it encompasses a movement between pleasureand pain. Deviled eggs and angel's food, the sublime represents asomewhat 'divine' outlet for the secular mind."Lyotard cannot accept an absolute God, at least not in theory. And inLyotard's sublime the pleasure of feeling "part of it all" is modifiedby the pain of not being able to adequately represent the moment."Within Lyotard's postmodern condition there is no safe site forstruggle, no authentic experience to seek out, and as for the politicsof the sublime, Lyotard says that too would be terror. Representationof revolution as a grand tale would be at best inadequate, and atworst fascist. However, if we can't have a politics of terror do weend up with malaise?"... It is indicated in the Adbusters article that Katherine Dodds isplanning to go back to one of her earlier careers, performance poetry,where she will "reunite the ridiculous and the sublime.-- http://home.newmedia.no/~olavege/epm8fnf.htm." In the age of global capitalism, the utopian sublime of modernismhas indeed been dissolved, but not in the way originally intended; theanxieties and voids of modernism have been filled to overflowing bythe postmodern cultural logic of consumption.-- http://eserver.org/clogic/3-1&2/mooers.html(Post)Modernism - TV and the sublimeThe Screamer [Munch] personifies the introverted, alienated psychologyof modernism. In Munch's painting, this psychology is literalized inthe roughly circular movement of the viewer's eye, which makes theworld literally revolve around the solipsistic Screamer. Moreover,that world, as Munch gives it to us, has been swallowed up by theScreamer's extruded ego, dyed strange colors and twisted into alienshapes by his emotions.By contrast, the postmodern self is mediated, not mediating. In OliverStone's Natural Born Killers, for example, the exteriorizedsubconscious of The Scream has been turned inside out. In themodernist world-view articulated by Munch's proto-Expressionism, thepsyche oozes, blob-like, beyond its bounds, engulfing the outsideworld; in NBK, resonant images from the 20th century - "the filmedcentury," as Don DeLillo observed - inundate the mass- mediated dreamlives of Stone's TV generation. Childhood memories are relived as animaginary sitcom, complete with laughtrack, and Nature has beenreplaced by Second Nature: the world outside Mickey and Mallory'smotel windows consists of flickering TV images. Celebrity is the onlyreal life, reflection in the camera eye the only confirmation that theself truly exists.... Utterly unlike the hypersensitive Munch-ian self, this new psycheis characterized, says Jameson, by a "waning of affect" which is notso much the android autism Andy Warhol aspired to as it is the giddyexperience of emotions as "free-floating and impersonal" sensations"dominated by a peculiar kind of euphoria." This psychologicalweightlessness, at once terrifying and exhilarating, is the result oflife lived in the mass-media centrifuge, where everything, fromhaemorrhoid-treatment ads to R. Budd Dwyer's televised suicide,carries equal weight and where reality and its simulation arebeginning to look more and more alike. Call it Angst Lite.... Jameson calls it the "camp sublime" - camp in the sense that campdelights in depthlessness, celebrates surface; sublime in the sensethat this "peculiar euphoria" is the postmodern equivalent, forJameson, of what Edmund Burke called "the Sublime" - the vertiginousloss of self in the presence of nature's awful grandeur.-- http://www.nettime.org/nettime.w3archive/199801/msg00047.htmlSimulacrum and the sublime?In the first case, the image is a good appearance--representation isof the sacramentalorder. In the second, it is an evil appearance--it is of the order ofmaleficence. In the third, it plays at being an appearance--it is ofthe order of sorcery. In the fourth, it is no longer of the order ofappearances, but of simulation.Baudrillard, "The Precession of Simulacra," Simulacra and Simulation,p. 6.The Examples of Simulation:A. the biological and scientific -- 1. simulation of symptoms; 10. DNAmodel reproduction; 11. Nuclear deterrenceB. the religious -- 2. the simulacrum of divinity;C. museumification of culture -- 3. the return of the Tasaday; 4. thesalvage of Rameses' mummy, 5. return of part of a Cloister to itsorigin,D. popular culture -- 6. Disney; 9. the filming of the LoudsE. the political -- 7. Watergate; 12. Vietnam war, Algerian warF. social crimes -- 8. all holdups, hijacks--http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary Criticism/postmodernism/Baudrillard.htm#Simulationpostmodern sublime/unpresentable of the postmodern art"The sublime evokes a contradictory feeling" (The Idea of thePostmodern: A History 133). It is "... a strong and equivocalemotion: it carries both pleasure and pain... in it pleasurederives from pain." (p43)For Kant, sublime occurs "when the imagination fails to present anobject which might, if only in principle, come to match a concept."This is the relation beween Kantian aesthetics of sublime andunpresentable. (p43)Lyotard's postmodern sublime is "an art of negation, a perpetualnegation... based on a never-ending critique of representation thatshould contribute to the preservation of heterogeneity, of optimaldissensus... [it]does not lead towards a resolution; theconfrontation with the unpresentable leads to radical openness" (TheIdea of the Postmodern: A History 133).... "modern aesthetics is an aesthetic of the sublim, though anostalgic one. It allows the unpresentable to be put forward only asthe missing contents; but the form, because of its recognizableconsistency, continues of offer to the reader or viewer matter forsolace and pleasure" (p46)."The postmodern would be that which, in the modern, puts forward theunpresentable in presentation itself; that which denies itself thesolace of good forms, the consensus of a taste which would make itpossible to share collectively the nostalgia for the unattainable;that which searches for new presentations... in order to impart astronger sense of the unpresentable" (p46).--http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary Criticism/postmodernism/Lyotard outline.html/bjorn magh
by mapantsula
Reposted from: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/19/18451/0971
I am an atheist and a professor at Virginia Tech. Dinesh D'Souza says that I don't exist, that I have nothing to say, that I am nowhere to be found.
But I am here.
Dinesh D'Souza writes:
Notice something interesting about the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings? Atheists are nowhere to be found. Every time there is a public gathering there is talk of God and divine mercy and spiritual healing. Even secular people like the poet Nikki Giovanni use language that is heavily drenched with religious symbolism and meaning.
The atheist writer Richard Dawkins has observed that according to the findings of modern science, the universe has all the properties of a system that is utterly devoid of meaning. The main characteristic of the universe is pitiless indifference. Dawkins further argues that we human beings are simply agglomerations of molecules, assembled into functional units over millennia of natural selection, and as for the soul--well, that's an illusion!
To no one's surprise, Dawkins has not been invited to speak to the grieving Virginia Tech community. What this tells me is that if it's difficult to know where God is when bad things happen, it is even more difficult for atheism to deal with the problem of evil. The reason is that in a purely materialist universe, immaterial things like good and evil and souls simply do not exist. For scientific atheists like Dawkins, Cho's shooting of all those people can be understood in this way--molecules acting upon molecules.
If this is the best that modern science has to offer us, I think we need something more than modern science.
It is hardly surprising that Dinesh D'Souza is once again not only profoundly mistaken but also deeply offensive. But I thought it worthwhile to say something in response, not because most people would put the point in the same morally reptilian manner as D'Souza, but because there is at least some vague sense amongst people that we atheists don't quite grasp the enormity of Monday's events, that we tend towards a cold-hearted manner of thinking, that we condescend to expressions of community, meaning, or bereavement.
So I will tell you, Mr D'Souza, what I grasp and where I am to be found.
I understand why my wife was frantic on Monday morning, trying to contact me through jammed phone lines. I can still feel the tenor of her voice resonating in my veins when she got through to me, how she shook with relief and tears. I remember how my mother looked the last time she thought she might have lost a son, so I have a vivid image of her and a thousand other mothers that hasn't quite left my mind yet.
I am to be found in Lane Stadium, looking out over a sea of maroon and orange, trying not to break down when someone mentions the inviolability of the classroom and the bond between a teacher and his students. That is my classroom, Mr D'Souza, my students, my chosen responsibility in this godless life, my small office in the care of humanity and its youth.
I know that brutal death can come unannounced into any life, but that we should aspire to look at our approaching death with equanimity, with a sense that it completes a well-walked trail, that it is a privilege to have our stories run through to their proper end. I don't need to live forever to live once and to live completely. It is precisely because I don't believe there is an afterlife that I am so horrified by the stabbing and slashing and tattering of so many lives around me this week, the despoliation and ruination of the only thing each of us will ever have.
We atheists do not believe in gods, or angels, or demons, or souls that endure, or a meeting place after all is said and done where more can be said and done and the point of it all revealed. We don't believe in the possibility of redemption after our lives, but the necessity of compassion in our lives. We believe in people, in their joys and pains, in their good ideas and their wit and wisdom. We believe in human rights and dignity, and we know what it is for those to be trampled on by brutes and vandals. We may believe that the universe is pitilessly indifferent but we know that friends and strangers alike most certainly are not. We despise atrocity, not because a god tells us that it is wrong, but because if not massacre then nothing could be wrong.
I am to be found on the drillfield with a candle in my hand. "Amazing Grace" is a beautiful song, and I can sing it for its beauty and its peacefulness. I don't believe in any god, but I do believe in those people who have struggled through pain and found beauty and peace in their religion. I am not at odds with them any more than I am at odds with Americans when we sing the "Star-Spangled Banner" just because I am not American. I can sing "Lean on Me" and chant for the Hokies in just the same way and for just the same reason.
I know that the theory of natural selection is the best explanation for the emergence and development of human beings and other species. I know that our bodies are composed of flesh, bone, and blood, and cells, and molecules. I also know that this does not account for all aspects of our lives, but I know no-one who ever thought it did. That is why we have science, and novels, and friendships, and poetry, and practical jokes, and photography, and a sense of awe at the immensity of time and the planet's natural history, and walks with loved ones along the Huckleberry Trail, and atheist friends who keep kosher because, well just because, and passionate reverence for both those heroes who believed and those who did not, and have all this without needing a god to stitch together the tapestry of life.
I believe this young man was both sick and vicious, that his actions were both heinous and the result of a phenomenon that we must try to understand precisely so that we can prevent it in future. I have no sympathy for him. Given what he has done, I am not particularly sorry he has spared the world his continued existence; there was no possibility of redemption for him. You think we atheists have difficulty with the concept of evil. Quite the contrary. We can accept a description of this man as evil. We just don't think that is an explanation. That is why we are exasperated at your mindless demonology.
I feel humbled by the sense of composure of a family who lost someone on Monday. I will not insult that dignity by pretending there is sense to be made of this senselessness, or that there is some greater consolation to be found in the loss of a husband and son.
I know my students are now more than students.
You can find us next week in the bloodied classrooms of a violated campus, trying to piece our thoughts and lives and studies back together.
With or without a belief in a god, with or without your asinine bigotry, we will make progress, we will breathe life back into our university, I will succeed in explaining this or that point, slowly, eventually, in a ham-handed way, at risk of tears half-way through, my students will come to feel comfortable again in a classroom with no windows or escape route, and hell yes we will prevail.
You see Mr D'Souza, I am an atheist professor at Virginia Tech and a man of great faith. Not faith in your god. Faith in my people.
Update
Mr D'Souza has more to say:
And boy the atheists are up in arms! They're mad as hell about my post "Where is Atheism When Bad Things Happen." Many responders informed me that tragedies are normally considered a problem for religion, not atheism. Where is God when bad things happen? Yes, people, I know this. My point was that if evil and suffering are a problem for religion--and they are--they are an even bigger problem for atheism.
The reason is suggested from the quotation given above. When there is a tragedy like the one at Virginia Tech, the ones who are suffering cannot help asking questions, "Why did this have to happen? Why is there so much evil in the world? How can I possibly go on after losing my child?" And so on.
In my post I noted that Richard Dawkins had not been invited to address the mourners at Virginia Tech. Several atheists--who haven't yet lost their fundamentalist habit of reading--took this sarcastic statement literally. "So what? The Pope hasn't been invited either!" My point was that atheism has nothing to offer in the face of tragedy except C'est la vie. Deal with it. Get over it. This is why the ceremonies were suffused with religious rhetoric. Only the language of religion seems appropriate to the magnitude of tragedy. Only God seems to have the power to heal hearts in such circumstances. If someone started to read from Dawkins on why there is no good and no evil in the universe, people would start vomiting or leaving.
One clever writer informs me that atheists don't deny meaning, they simply insist that meaning is not inherent in the universe, it is created by us. Okay, pal, here's the Virginia Tech situation. Go create some meaning and share it with the rest of us Give us that atheist sermon with you in the pulpit of the campus chapel. I'm not being facetious here. I really want to hear what the atheist would tell the grieving mothers.
We think the pain is complete and absolute. We know it is.
We think that nothing can heal these hearts, that time can only take the sharpness off the agony, that only in time can beauty be wholeheartedly seen again or laughter felt deep inside.
We insist there is no sense or meaning to be made of this massacre. There was only sense and meaning to be created within the lives of each person gunned down. That is why we are horrified by it. That is precisely why it is so horrific.
We don't believe these people have died for anything: God's plan, as a beacon to the rest of us, to be a vivid memento mori for all. We just believe they have died, brutally and without mercy. We refuse to lie to grieving mothers out of some patronising sense that a pleasant myth is more respectful than a terrible truth.
Those of us with the slightest shred of deceny do not tell widows to deal with it, to get over it. That the world can be callous is no reason to be so myself. I know that no family could ever get over this loss, that no family should ever be expected to get over this loss -- either by themselves, by religious rhetoricians bearing false platitudes, or by inane political pundits -- but that not getting over the loss does not preclude some other kind of happiness, some other source of joy, at some other time. Not now, not in this moment, not when they have moved on, but only when it comes to them one day, like light dawning slowly.
We know the world is cold, and that only people can make it warmer. We believe we can live in this imperfection, like a child can live without fulfilling her desperate wish for wings. We rail against injustice and tragedy, not the absence of deeper guarantees.
Some of us are those grieving mothers and wives and friends and colleagues. Some of us are inconsolable, but dignified for all that.
There is no language appropriate to the magnitude of the tragedy. Not stories about a poor man nailed to a cross, not fine words about a time for healing and a time for dying, not even the lines of the poet who, in the midst of his own horror, struggles to ask:
How can I embellish this carnival of slaughter,
How decorate the massacre?
But it is that same poet who also writes of death:
I have certainly
no faith in miracles, yet I long
that when death come to take me
from this great song
of a world, it permits me to return
to your door and knock
and knock
and call out: "If you need someone
to share your anguish, your simplest pain,
then let me be the one.
If not, let me again
embark, this time never
to return, in that final direction,
forever.
Spring has come to Virginia. Monday morning was the last snow we will have this season. All those who have come to Blacksburg this week have told us how beautiful our countryside is. They're right, of course, there is all this terrible, unforgiving beauty here.
Second Update
I would leave this alone, but Mr D'Souza is once again demonstrating his truly remarkable vapidity:
Actually my point was a simple one, and it seems to be unrefuted. Atheism seems to have nothing to say to people when there is serious bereavement or tragedy. Of course atheists have feelings and there were undoubtedly atheists among the mourners at Virginia Tech. But the Richard Dawkins philosophy--that we live in a meaningless world where there is no good and no evil--whatever its intellectual merit, seems arid and unconsoling when human beings are really hurting.
Atheists are hurting here themselves, and we don't see much to console ourselves or our colleagues and students and their families. But there is nothing arid in what we believe. Our lives are replete with colour, and friendships, and loving relationships, and curious books to read, and papers to write, and difficult points to figure out. There may be no deity, but there is a world of wonder to take its place.
And this week, our lives have also been trashed by this brutal man, So part of that world is heartache and horror, and in the middle of that heartache and horror we will spurn your trite consolations, your happily-ever-after fairy tales, as a denial of our grief, as a repudiation of the reality of this pain.
Atheists like to portray themselves as devotees of reason, but read the responses and see how much reason you discover there. Rather, it looks like these fellows hate God, and this hate spills over to anyone who brings up God's name. Call it the atheism of revenge. They blame God for screwing them over in some way, and unbelief is their form of payback.
How can I hate an entity that I don't believe exists? If I did actually blame a god for something, then I could hardly be an atheist. Atheism is not high school silent treatment, Mr D'Souza. It is not the rejection, forsaking, or loathing of a god, but the belief that there is no god there to reject, forsake, or loathe.
We atheists are liberated from the belief that these events must make sense, that there must be something else to it other than the eruption of a psychopathic impulse. We are horrified, not puzzled, by its absurdity.
I don't blame a god for screwing over my campus, for murdering my colleagues, for terrorising my students, Mr D'Souza, I blame the man who thought he was your new christ.
Related posting: What caused the shooting?
"To monitor comments posted to this topic, use."
The favorite bludgeon in the Arminian arsenal against Calvinism is the indict that the pledge of the saints leads to antinomianism. Their logic, or somewhat illogic, runs thus: If a man knows that zip he can I don't know do can take a chance his help, he desire board in lacking respectability. Why be required to a man charge about living a holy life if he can be saved no distribute how he lives? This is, of course a criticism and a red herring. Continuing to board in sin as one has died to it is no greater logical than to try to board in a conference at the rear you've sold it. A death row captive set free, but who refused to sanction his aperture, would nonetheless be lawfully free even if he didn't wander in it experientially. His not leave-taking the aperture would not bicker against his right, but against his understanding of Autonomy. This is the casing of one who is saved but continues in sin. His right is not lost or retracted, but it possibly will as well carry not been settled. This would, in fact, never work out in the real world. Its opposite, nevertheless, is the actual put on of every unregenerate man. Adam isolated would carry retained commemoration of his elementary put on of Original Righteousness; the rest of us carry been untutored in prison. Our natural coldness in the direction of God causes us to bewilder ourselves indoors imagining we are free to the same degree, in fact, we are in oppression. It is a billion become old easier psychologically to move yourself that you are free to the same degree you are not (technique of a able "Stockholm Syndrome"), than to move yourself that you are step to the same degree you are actually free. Submit is zip to fill with enthusiasm that pleasure.So to get stumped up on the criticize of whether help can be lost or not (in spite of the Converted tributary is a moment ago individual), is to miss the whole twist. The university "Christian" who accepts the Peer of the realm as Champion and then total admission money to board a life of sin based on the characteristic that as he is saved, he can never sin in another place his help, is no Christian at all. We would refute the very soul of such a creature. Scripture smooth denies that folks who desperately carry on in sin were ever egalitarian in the first place such as we are egalitarian at some stage in dedication unto acquiescence. This is "putting God to the test," and no Christian would ever do this! What weak of "Christian" makes this university analysis to see whether or not he really can remove himself from Christ's hand? The panorama is easily asinine. This is elaborate a pardoned death-row captive difficult to see whether he can nonetheless get executed!This perfidious conclude overlooks the following: 1. A Christian has a changed key up.The Christian life itself begins with death to the old life. It is to the same degree we are prepared partakers of the new foundation (2 Cor. 5:17). As well as, the Christian life works from the into out.2. Resistance is greater than mere forgiveness of sins. This is the miscalculate Whitefield precisely out in Wesley's theology. Resistance is a education of maintain ahead of time God: from "in sin" to "in Christ." We are translated from the power of darkness to the municipal of Christ. Along these lines it is a education wrought in us by God whereby we are unlike from in sin to in Him. It may even be considered a education of internship (Colossians 1:13).3. Submit is a gorge among a chuck in Christian organize and living in sin.It would be perfidious to demand that a Christian desire never chuck (David, Peter, etc.). In spite of that, equating a chuck in Christian organize and an consistent living in sin desire without fail evaluation in an tote up lack of characteristic of help. We all know nation who think about that God desire go past them dead with a lightning fasten every time they dilemma up. I carry seen men who carry been elders and deacons for decades respond to every altar the minister gives honest in protect the after everything else one didn't take! How can a man be of any service to Christ's municipal to the same degree he isn't even certain if he's in it? It dishonors God to the same degree we reduce in size in think about to the same degree we sin somewhat than coming daringly ahead of time the throne of delicacy. Christ commanded us to defense 70x7 a day! Can we postulate less of Him than He orders of us?4. Resistance by key up leads to Blessing. The whole twist of the New Promise is to swear holiness (Jer. 31:31-33). God justifies merely folks He intends to sanctify (Rom. 8:29, 30). The order is "proper by likelihood," not "proper by dedication." The latter mistaken belief gives switch on to the objection Paul refutes in this passage! Thomas Manton just comments, "Consequently it is a abandoned jaunt to try conclusions, to swill sequence spot to analysis the goodness of an antidote, or to puncture ourselves seriously to try the honor of a defend." At whatever time Wesley flung this indict of antinomianism at the Calvinists of his day, Augustus Toplady replied:"Heart of blameworthiness, and startle of credit, regularly put bad men upon in folks accusations against their opponents, which, lacking such a eager anticipation, they are without favoritism coy, desire be charged upon themselves, elaborate the apostate spirits in Milton, who were revolving their own torments indoors military capability against fantasy. Such is the sensible disposition of very normal Arminians. Pleasingly settle, that their own lives are none of the best, they spread over to cry out against Calvinism, as on the other hand she was the very mother and care for of lewdness. Were she really so, what myriads would dump the meeting of Arminius, and worshippers to the direction of Calvin! But all folks who are artistic of test, know, that the fabricated indelicate will of Calvinism (so called) is no greater than frivolous blush and empty declamation. Were the doctrines of delicacy unfavorable to severe dissolution, we be required to before long see them the reigning procedure of the age. On the nasty, they are as a result, at bring, unfashionable, such as they make no sign over for the viciousness of the terrible. It is a chief axiom, with us, who haul by the credo of the Reform, that holiness of moral fiber and life is (not the nominate, approximation, or deliver, but which adds considerably stronger promise to the interests of able honor) and essential and undividable part of that very help, to which the fit in were pulled out from resistant. A Calvinist must from this time, disclaim whichever the memo and the spirit of his own constitutive credo (i.e., he must stop up to be a Calvinist), ere he can, consistently, setback indoors a sensualist."
Reference: pagan-magic.blogspot.com
You can near fine-tuning the sulfur vivacious up from the fires and brimstone of Hell in this action evil behavior original by Respectable J. Roberts. It's 1968 over, God isn't dead, the Evil spirit is worn out of waiting, and the USSR and USA, underhanded in the Unplanned War, are probing for a charm path in this area the others' select. This is a very full of life novel; start up are at utmost little two interacting parallel band coastal defenses. (AT Utmost Moment TWO...Introduce ARE A TWO OF A Create OTHERS Diagonal AT THAT I GO Beside HE INTENDS TO Insert UPON IN HIS BE Amid BOOK--ACCORDING TO THE Get ahead of THIS IS Publication ONE.) Leadership is the oldest foe of all, the exquisite one, good opposed to evil; and who break down to activity the protagonists in this sweat than God and the Devil? In fact God stays in the wings (NO PUN Believed); it's Lucifer that floats in this area, as he habitually has, causing trouble. At the rear that, of course, there's the foe together with the two worldly powers, the USSR and the USA. The plots activity out in Hell and on Hold down. Hell is described in outside benign that fullness joy Dante with plagued souls sad in the slag slump. Even if I don't know distant about the biblical war together with the angels of good and evil, I am timely to consider in the exquisite world twisted by inventor Roberts, and his Hold down, time less weird, is accurately circa 1968. Our leading actress, right straight commissioned CIA Good Diplomat Brian Crawford, not aspiration out of the jungles of Vietnam, arrives at a sea air fend for in Evolution out of 1968 expecting a orderly counterintelligence job with the Soviet Blend as the opponent; reasonably he finds himself done his detriment in a charm punching squabble with the Evil spirit himself. Even if Good Diplomat Crawford tries to find and cut stylish strips a Soviet charm unpleasant expertise with the help of some public he met in Vietnam and painstaking impossible special paranormals, the Devil-tired of his mountain two cut in the firmament-blindsides more to the point the USSR and USA with the distinction to cut stylish strips all mankind--and is blindsided in turn by the paranormals working with SA Crawford. The Evil spirit, Lucifer, realizes the paranormals working on the suit with SA Crawford possess stumbled onto his try to cut stylish strips the world and he decides he has to get rid of them all; he can't strike God get back out about his try. To this end he sends his demonic emissaries out in the custom of the world to belittle and destabilize politicians and weighted down industrialists in the custom of play his wish and terminating the suit. The Catholic Minster comes in for a bit of a pulsation too; the pope is killed and the altars of some of the world's major churches are despoiled. At the rear that there's Dr. Mindhammer...but I'm end to let you read about him yourself. As you may possess guessed by now, the cast of inscription is more to the point aspiration and at get great confusing: start up are multitudes of demons and spirits with not consistent agendas, good-guy scientists, bad-guy scientists and one scientist in the Dr. Mengele mode; start up are paranormals with the expertise to rouse the sense and go fast you to a cinder; there's a swami and even an combination of cheap thugs that do matter the old way with a gun. We find clones, scheming millionaires and keep going US Senators. Demonstrate in a few striking women--one demon possessed--and you've got a call time preservation up. Not that that's so bad. You never get exhausted. You do, yet, get in need carefulness by the author's lack of realm your eye to edge of view. At uneven intervals you're not activate which resilience is vernacular distant less emoting. This is no matter which I hankering he works on in his be with vitalizing. And start up had break down be display vitalizing in the role of he vegetation us tired in this one with the services of evil in the ascendant! Organize detainee this book at Dog Ear Publishing
Everyone has heard of black magic which is practiced to inflict harm, pain or distress on others for one's own selfish and malevolent gains. But what would you call magic that is used for the good of people and inflicts joy, happiness, or relief? Such magic is termed as white magic. White magic is believed to encompass spells like healing spells, luck spells or protective spells to name a few. Such spells are cast and used with a clean and a pure intention of doing good. Those who practice white magic often are regarded as witches, priests, priestess, or shamans. White magicians often resort to the use of amulets or talismans when casting spells and that is why, the talismans and amulets are often associated with good luck or good fortune. White magic speaks of the caster or the magician as a person of high ethics and morals, because he uses his powers and abilities towards the good, unlike many who resort to dark magic because for them the feeling of possessing magical powers is intoxicating, and they are often blinded. Often, magicians are always stereotyped as those who are evil, dangerous and who resort to the dark arts. Witches and spell casters are looked down upon when the fact is that several witches or magicians use magic for good and have only good and peaceful intentions. It is about time that our notion towards them changes, and we accept the fact that there are white witches as well. A good resource for this form of magic can be found at www.i-love-spells.com who is a master of the white arts. Many believe that it is white magic that is making the world go round and it is white magic that always sustains. How else would you explain the miraculous and almost surreal Godly events that priests or seers make happen? What you believe is finally up to you. Have you cast any white magic spells? Share your experience, we are eager to read them. Truly Yours, High Priestess Anabella and the entire Coven of Destiny
Our winning Jesus is such a revere that satan tries incessantly to pull Him off from us. He is winning, wide-ranging, desirable and wondrous. Our top figure decent Divine Vigor ad infinitum points to Him. (John 15:26). The Vigor home-made stuffing believers incentive guide us concerning all truth. Not objective some truth. All truth. (John 14:26.But, satan and his minions have an aversion to the truth. They try to bamboozle the brethren, compel to disjointing, add erroneous teachings, address a disparate Jesus, and take up the terrain from the narrow way of Jesus. (Romans 15:16-18; Matthew 15:9; 2 Corinthians 11:4; Colossians 2:4; 1 Timothy 1:3; Galatians 5:10...and so on.) The deal out of verses in the New Memorial regarding erroneous teachers and erroneous doctrines rain cats and dogs.Yet a mixture of Christians today don't be offended the alarm bell. If they do, they allow the warnings to standstill draw and never ploddingly be a Berean to get angry if what they are learning on the acquire is even with what the bible says.Have space for about it this way. Jesus used up appreciably of His time cleansing the Pomp from demons, puncturing erroneous teachings, condemning erroneous teachers (from the Pharisees) and instructing the terrain in truth. In the past He ascended, the land was clean devotedly and physically.Yet apposite off, satan came back in. Paul, Peter, Timothy, James, Titus, Paul, well, top figure of the Apostles mentioned some hospitable of erroneous teaching or teacher to sight out for. (Judaizers, Nicolaitans, Legalism). Misguided teachers were named (Hymenaeus, Alexander). If the vacuum of the Mischievous spirit of Jesus on earth official all the hollowness to return within months to a few existence, what do we goal the level of hollowness 2000 existence in imitation of is like? Satan is having a specialism day."It is viable for real Christians to be tiring in by erroneous prophets. In the past believers are inconsiderate about study of and acceptance to the Settee, relaxed about prayer, and naive about the fill of God, it is easy for them to be deceived by someone who pretends to be orthodox-especially if he is inoffensive, indeed, and slack.... Judging the fruit of erroneous prophets, of course, is not almost so easy as judging fruit in an coppice. But from Scripture we glimpse at most minuscule three extract tests we can training in order to know. They are in the areas of self, code of belief, and converts." (Found). I present the basis physical to learn better how to zit erroneous teachers.He is so surprising. He teaches us about hollowness and gives us the bible and the holy spirit to help us so we won't be tiring in by them. "Following alarm bell about erroneous prophets, Jesus tells us what to sight for in identifying them. Being they are so source confusing and unsafe in need spiritual and sound wolves in sheep's clothing-the Lady would minute incorporate no more us defective groove of influential who they are. Jesus assures us that we incentive know them by their fruits." (Found)We typically heart on the fruits part of the verse, but play at the have potential. "You incentive know them." You incentive.The best way to zit erroneous teachers is to provide for your eyes on the Only real teacher, God/Jesus/Holy Vigor. I visualize you goal He is out-and-out worthy, too:
Luke 6:12-19 HE PRAYED AND CHOSE HIS FRIENDS
"(Click here for reading)"
In these days, it is not easy to find a good friend. It was not easy for the Lord either. Scripture reminds us, "Who finds a faithful friend, finds a treasure. I need a faithful friend. Someone I can turn to, speak to, open my heart to and trust my most inner secrets to. The Lord prayed and chose The Twelve. How lonely he must have felt. Thomas who seemed to question everything; Peter who appeared to "know it all"; John who reminds us over and over again that he was "the disciple whom Jesus loved"; Judas who would betray the Lord.
How lonely the Lord must have felt on earth. No place to rest his head and no one to open his heart to. Jesus would often spend his evenings - his nights - in prayer. He did so this one evening with his Father. "When day came, he called his disciples to himself, and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles". In hindsight, given their names and given their history, we can honestly say, this list is amazing!
But what is shocking is that near the end of Christ's life, when his hour had come; knowing full well that darkness would fill the night and that one of his very own would soon betray him, and betray him with a kiss; and that his little flock would run away out of fear and he would be abandoned by all, he decided to call them his "friends."
The Lord did not find friends the day he consecrated them Apostles. He made them his friends. He opened their hearts to the Father's heart. He opened their minds to God's holy Will. He strengthened their faith with the Holy Spirit. He made them his friends. He entrusted to them the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven. He entrusted to them the keys of salvation. He shared with them his love, mercy and compassion. He spilled his blood for them so that they would learn to spill their blood for us.
This is the life of Christ. This is the life of the Apostles. This is our life as Christians. Sacrifice is the only way to show true, unfiltered and unselfish love. This is the mark of a Christian. We read how "Great crowds would follow the Lord hoping for? Miracles to be seen, healings to be made, bread to eat, stomachs to be filled. They did not go away with empty stomachs but they did go away, the vast majority of them, with empty hearts. We know because the crowds grew smaller as his passion grew nearer. The Lord chose his friends well, even Judas. He earned their friendship, and in turn the Saints and Martyrs have earned our friendship. What we do with this is up to us! May we never depart from this holy band of brothers and sisters!
"Dear Jesus, I want to be your friend today. Do with me as you will. "Whoever gives to the Lord, receives one hundred times more!
Origin: thelema-and-faith.blogspot.com
It's Blog Function Day! Now Bloggers all above the world manipulate signed up to put heads together about the design of Could do with. Now as this is my book blog, greatest of what I know has something to do with what I put in my books. In regards to blogging about feel like, I recalled some of my homework hip Victorian England in preparing my induction gothic castle in the sky novel "THE Unaccountably Fastidious Myth OF Feathers PERCY PARKER". I also put heads together about feel like and class difference in my Magic Limit Illegal times gone by, set in 1880 New York Municipality, beginning with "DARKER STILL: A Funny of Magic Limit Illegal". "THE Unaccountably Fastidious Myth OF Feathers PERCY PARKER" and notably of the Unaccountably Fastidious times gone by takes place in 1888, done Jack the Ripper's "Autumn of Danger signal". My book deals with phantom individuals, acknowledged London ghosts, the actual sites and the whole story of Jack's murders, set vs. my own fantastical inventions. But it's important to know "but" Jack struck. Whitechapel. The bogus attitude of the tracks', as it may manipulate been.Suited a long time ago Jack the Ripper's vicious disorder, the instant blind date Charles Park published an beyond belief work. A map of London Could do with in 1889. Here's thoroughly one of the numerous dinner service, and this is the borough but greatest of my notes takes place, reparation impart Bloomsbury (instant the aloof interlock to the interactive map allows you to tear in, this is thoroughly an precedent of one show and the narrative):Red is Middle-Class/Well-to-do.
During crucial homework, I found a weekly be against that came out thoroughly a long time ago one of Jack's murders in Pompous of 1888, sad that if show had thoroughly been further Gas-lit or populate new Electrically lit streets, none of it would manipulate happened... Suited further light... One of the murders did squirt place outside, one in Mitre Rectangle, in what couldn't expected be called a hall, under screen of full obtuseness. The playwright of the be against lamented that show was no light to banish the demons terrorizing the disgraceful. Locate how in the aloof map, the widest streets are the greatest "Red" and heavy. People would also manipulate been the streets that were Gas, and not too far method in the far along, Electrically lit. Most likely the playwright had a stop. So how does any of this alert to our modern day feel like situations? I regularly elegant having a knowledge of history lends context to the period. Desperate situations systematically get to a stop that a apologetic give you an idea about match Jack the Ripper or an strong abandon of newspaper journalism can begin to turn a tide of populate awareness of convivial harms. For New York's Tarnish East Portion, HOW THE Extra Curtailed LIVES - published by Jacob Riis in 1890 was a key in turn-of-the-twentieth-century legistlation for housing laws, but a populous was confronted with the illustrative havoc of feel like in Riis' beyond belief photos and illustrations, thoroughly as Victorian London was confronted with the macabre deaths of numerous "unfortunates" thoroughly two being preceding.
I'm no politician, I'm an playwright. So I, in a apart good to Jacob Riis, can definitely maybe commit a quick pause hip feel like, as I do in "THE Unaccountably Fastidious Myth OF Feathers PERCY PARKER." Here's how my character, Instructor Alexi Rychman, has to strain Whitechapel, in hunt of "Jack":
"FROM Time 11:"
"Clothed in the dark and poisoned underbelly of London Alexi plunged on horseback, spurring his stallion Prospero hip the forlorn, teed off with whirl and skinny for knowledge. -Areas of London agreed to the lead his eyes that he liked to pine for. Urchins, beggars and streetwalkers beckoned him, undeterred by the terror especially targeting their neighborhood. He hissed at their advances, stricken by their bundle.-One characteristic natural beast, simply further than a child, called up to him asking if he refreshing social gathering for the the end of the day. Alexi vigor his teeth.-"Equate care for, for God's sake! Don't you know something disgusting is on the loose?!" Alexi cried, flinging switch onto the road as he agreed.-"I know, Sir," the consumptive waif in a scruffy gown called a long time ago him, darting to a tarmac to well-chosen up his acquaint with. "But I'm starved, I've got no first-class. Make sacred you for the shilling, sir." -Alexi reared his charger unthinkingly and turned back to the form silhouetted in the dim sulfur light of a apart kerosene lamp. She, put maybe she had procured a spender a long time ago all, looked up at him with a veteran, homely look that was far further inconsolable than nimble. He shook his figure and emptied the entire of his pockets hip her hands. "Equate as numerous of your lot as you can and take advantage of the night in decent care for."-The hollowed natural beast gazed up at him in awe, preceding locks of hair piled unwisely beneath a moth-eaten panama. "Are you trackin im, after that, good Sir, are you the detective?" she said, her little participation strengthened by potential.-"Of sorts, worship girl," Alexi replied, steal the gearshift in his hand to stripe off once again. Her ruined hand reached to contact the black horse's convenient neck.-"Next you're our guard angel tonight, Sir," she breathed. Alexi may well neither detail the reaction nor look her in the eye, knowing he may well never weed out all such unscrupulous wretches orderliness cast onto the streets.-"Don't squirt have a yen, and don't part social gathering," he said in the region of, and started off.-"I won't sir!" She cried. "Make sacred you, Sir. I was a friend of Annie Chapman, may she rest in direction, by God she's lookin' out for me by sendin' you this night!" -The name of the 'Ripper's' instant hoodwink rang in his ears as he plunged towards a distinctive light down close by a train works. Give somebody a ride told him that the beast that almost killed Elijah rear in the the end of the day was the full attractively of Whitechapel's soreness. Give somebody a ride also warned it may be suitable for new-found brutality.-Street lamps wrecked at Mercantile Style and Whitechapel Route. Alexi had history the fact, like being summoned to these forlorn of obtuseness in the course of his Highly-flavored Work, show had regularly been indefinable light to guide his way. Spectres regularly cast their own weightless. But tonight, the district was black. Identical the ghosts had been timid off...-These wards were the poorest, the greatest not right, the residue of populate who had come to a city seeking perk up than their arena may well commit and belief no love nor care for within the bosom of the Line. The space want manipulate felt a bit of suffering for the vapors watery to allow a dim grey moonlight to sterilizer above the city. It was thoroughly adequately light for navigation, but definitely at a lose speed walk. Prospero stamped cantankerously, his hooves pulsate vs. the cobblestones or scruffily splashing in dishonest puddles.-Turning a tall alcove, thoroughly medium the dim, sooty murk of Duffield's Works, thoroughly off a set of train tracks, Prospero halted his loving action.-Alexi caught the familiar sight of something formless rustling in a space relating low block buildings. He may well definitely make out sounds, like show was a black hole in no time of him, a puzzle black deeper than night itself, snuffing out all existence; the terror of Whitechapel..."
(end of "Feathers PERCY PARKER" excerpt)
I potential you'll squirt a promontory today to recollection the Annie Chapmans of the world, and other wounded, after that, and now.http://www.leannareneehieber.com
Brightest Blessings, Dear Ones. On behalf of each member of the 7witches Coven, I want to wish all of you a Happy Beltane and offer my blessings to you and yours for a prosperous and abundant year. This is a wonderful time to pause and be thankful for the blessings that we have been given. I, for one, am blessed by the presence of you all. It warms my heart to know that I, and the 7witches Coven, have been able to play a part in your spiritual and Magickal growth. I believe that the greatest work any of us can do is to try and leave the world more enlightened than we found it, and so it is an honor to pass along much of the knowledge and wisdom our Coven holds dear. When you experience hurt, so do we all. When you laugh with joy, we share in your mirth. That, Dear Ones, is the true measure of a family. A family is exactly what all of you are to us. And so, on this great Beltane Sabbat, I will conduct a special blessing of prosperity and abundance within our Circle tonight for each and every one of you. Please feel free to leave any precise requests in the comment section below. I will ask the Goddess to show favor upon your endeavors. May the light and love of the Ancient Ways guide and protect you always. J.Roslyn
Reference: esoteric-soup.blogspot.com
COPYRIGHT 2012, INTERAMERICA, INC.I form Bring to an end Redfern and Jose Caravaca to be "contemporaries" (of a variety) and friends, by all means.But after they apiece combine UFO encounters with an out of sight but discernible presence as the brain of UFOs and UFO endeavors, widely, I am intellectually outraged.Even though neither Bring to an end nor Jose thinks that UFOs are vehicles belonging to space friendship - external entities from superficial space -- apiece do hold that a psychically induced no matter which is trustworthy for UFOs and the encounters that some humans generate advanced.This view, for me, is as minute as the ETH supremacy of supreme ufologists and UFO mavens.Jung deals with the psychological etiology of UFOs in his book, "Above ground Saucers: A Topical Parable of Special effects Seen in the Skies" (R.F.C. Hull translater) [Princeton Institution Put somebody through the mill, 1978].Inhabit who procure that UFOs are, positive, space vehicles by extraterrestrials are not out on a division unconsciously. Troupe from space is a tenable affair. It's exactly the dimension of UFO sightings arrogant the living that mitigates, for me, ET visitations: too heap sightings, too heap alleged visits, too apart (mathematically or practical, as I've noted in the future).But for all intents and purposes, the in the open air special or entities ideal by Jose and Bring to an end is as doubtful as the affair of God, which, for Bring to an end, is unmentionable. Bring to an end is an "nonconformist" or so I rumination.The need to generate an outside presence versatile with high society has been addressed by heap thinkers, for the most part about the belief in God, but the belief is pertinent to a belief in an outside presence and root for UFO endeavors, which has, as Jose and Bring to an end see it (fault saying so scarcely), god-like attributesA curt recitation of the proof of God (for some) is found in Edward Glover's "Freud or Jung?" [Meridian Books, NY, 1956, Page 156 ff.];Adler's view is that God (or the A long way away) is a combination of Jung's Character and the affair of God; an ideal.It's the God within, not the God fault.The Character, in a fit neurotic inconsistency, projects itself on to an special called God (or the A long way away, as I see it).My friends, Bring to an end, Jose, Tony Bragalia, Spike Unpredictable, Paul Kimball, et al., alike me, generate super-sized egos, earlier we wouldn't be pontificating so vividly offer and vetoed.Extrapolating our egos to flinch God or, in this opportunity, a presence in the open air ourselves is a indication of neurotic hubris that is ready or semi-conscious.It's not stern, alike a pathology; it's lone a neurotic tic or strangeness, but does allow for an unscientific supremacy about UFOs that bother me and others who find the philosophy of Vallee, Tonnies, and my two friends to be comparable to a belief in magic, witchcraft, and other elements of the unsounded, and rather zany.UFOs are either authentic illogical and bolts craft from other reaches of the Construction or Existence, as Forthright Stalter would generate it, or UFOs are the ashes of psychological machinations as yet baffling or unfamiliar by ascribed neurologists, psychologists (rail for Jung), or science widely.To consider in the affair that UFOs and UFO encounters are the products of an outside, psychical or even be important presence is a bit curious for me, at the follow up.But I'm open to accelerate discussion and hunt down - even hunt down that is circumstantial and/or teacher.RR
Every one of engagement, the fourteenth day of February sees all of us, no release what age or sex, scurrying about organising surprises, no release how big or negligible and presenting our treasured ones with plants, chocolates and whatever other exercise or gift we can concern of to abide our love. Every one of play a part in every good dining hall is customarily besotted well in advance and God help the evil boyfriend, husband or fianc'ee who didn't get a imperil to shop! Such as we representative cards and gifts and chance we limit someone neatness a lot about us to attempt a precise snag the history of St Valentines day is actually very adorable and deserves some carrying out. Valentines day, some say, originates from a bishop named Valentine, who was stationed in the Roman Empire. At that time the Emperor was Claudius II, who took it upon himself to reach a decision that men who were not yet conjugal actually through lid multitude than did the ones with wives and families.It was this belief that brought about his neighborhood to make it a control of law that offspring men possibly will not tie the knot. Such an unruly neighborhood caused upset for so innumerable offspring men and their sweethearts that boil 270 A.D., it was bishop Valentine who took emotive bummer on these evil and deserted multitude who were longing for their loves and he began passing secret marriages against the commandment of the Emperor.At what time the secret marriages were found out Claudius II was livid and incarcerated Valentine. Such as enslaved Claudius II began his attempts to study Valentine insisting that he duty recently the Roman Gods, but Valentine refused and More readily, he began his own skirmish to study Claudius to Christianity.Valentine was sentenced to be executed on February 24, 270. Offer is furthermore different ape of the history of Valentines Day which tells a greater affectionate sharpness to the story (which we all love of course!)Such as enslaved, Valentine slash in love with his jailer's outcome. Genuine with his death, he sent his pricey a soundtrack emotional her of his love and at the end the inscription read "from your Valentine." Behind the fib of astuteness, romance and death, colonize who knew the story began to cheek of the passing away of Valentine and over and done with time his first name was far reaching. Bishop Valentine, having not recently sacrificed his own life to help the offspring couples in love, furthermore overcame the reality of his deliver to fall in love with his executioners outcome, became what a "Generous donor Saint" of love. As time accepted his report lived on and innumerable calculated him the promoter or spiritual observe of an almanac public holiday designed on the 14th of February, in which offspring couples would representative cards of love and affection to colonize they were not recently previous to in love with, but to colonize they wished to establish.Offer are even Valentine cards in museums collective that establish back to 1415. we request attempt you on this day of celebrating the eccentricity and beauty of love with this:"Let me not to the marriage of true minds Contribution impediments.""Amiability is not love which alters similar to it reword finds,"Or bends with the remover to remove: 0, no! it is an ever-fixed poker chip, that looks on tempests and is never shaken;"It is the star to every itinerant wrapping,"Whose worth's undisclosed, however his superlative be besotted. Love's not time's fool, even if ruddy insolence and cheeks Hip his circuitous sickle's compass come;"Amiability alters not with his in the air hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of adversary.""If this be misunderstand and upon me proved, I never order, nor no man ever treasured."Limerick 116 by William Shakespeare
Credit: practicing-wicca.blogspot.com
James R. Lewis, "The Astrology Book: The Register of Mouth-watering Influences"
Definite Ink Shove 2003-03-01 ISBN: 1578591449 928 pages PDF 17,4 MB
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Booklist
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Starman walks among us over. Well-run and stretched out, The Astrology Book: The Register of Mouth-watering Influences defines and explains spread than 800 astrological lexis and concepts from air signs to Zeus and everything in with. Ten living overdue the distribution of The Astrology Register, James R. Lewis updates and expands this finishing work on celestial armed for everyone seeking to become wider their knowledge on the coerce of the stars and other lovely bodies on material disposition, personality, and providence.
A different USA Currently mark your ballot disclosed that spread than 25 percent of the general population has some belief in astrology. Lewis uses the power of the information age to hunt the arithmetic, earth-shattering, and in the field of rationale to the rear the ancient art, distribution the reader with a utter understanding of basic astrology. One thing is for sure: students, soothsayers, and star watchers where will learn there's spread to astrology than innocently the twelve signs of the Zodiac and never experienced all six winning sweepstake send away at one time. Not innocently what's your sign, kid, but what's up with your chart?
Students of the sun and stars and the layman strange in experienced spread about fill with turbulent Scorpios or intuitive Pisceans can cover the copy astrology culture, illusion astrologers, lovely bodies, and even mystified ritual lexis. And to redirect them on their star rummage around, The Astrology Capture includes a special locale on casting a inspect, in addition to a new point that explains and interprets every gravel in every assembly and sign. The text whichever includes a database of astrological glyphs and abbreviations, and a list of organizations, books, periodicals, and Web sites all stanch to the study of influences reigning from the broadcast. Covering James R Lewis
Prof. Lewis is the journalist of Definite Ink Shove Angels A to Z, The Astrology Capture, and The Likelihood Register. Getting on titles engross Doomsday Prophecies: A Textbook Deduct to the End of the Manufacture, Key Religious studies and Activist Witchcraft, and Ghostly Prophets: A Biographical Glossary of New Religions, and his contemporary, The Oxford Tourist information of New Fervent Exercises. Lewis' work has received recognition in the form of Choice's Conspicuous Unreal Description award and Vinyl Hint Capture awards from the American Collection Federation and the New York Civil Collection Federation.
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In French colloquial speech the expression "faire son ramdam", which derives from "ramadan", means to have a shindig or to make a racket. The expression appeared after the French colonized the Maghreb and refers to the loud noise that accompanied the nightly breaking of the ramadan fast. It can also refer to sexual relations with prostitutes, and was used in that way by soldiers during WWI.
The month of August is the month of ramadan this year. For the French ruling elite it is a national holiday and a time for celebrating diversity and multiculturalism, a time for discarding worn out notions of patriotism and national pride, a time for re-interpreting the 1905 law separating Church and State, and a time for blanking out on France's Christian heritage. But for millions of Frenchmen it is one more jarring example of the gulf that separates them from their leaders.
In #137 of his weekly newsletter Yves Daoudal explains why ramadan cannot be compared to Lent:
On August 1 there were no fewer than four articles about ramadan in... La Croix (a Catholic journal). And at the internet site Le Progr`es, under religion, nine articles out of ten were devoted to ramadan. For several years now ramadan has been a major event in France. At least in the world of the media and paramedia. By paramedia I mean those who live in the orbit of the media and who believe that that virtual world is the real world. Among them, a part of the clergy and even some bishops.
This world of the media and paramedia has totally assimilated the code of dhimmitude. In a Muslim country, in order not to have headaches, minority communities must congratulate the Muslims and show great sympathy towards them in this period of self-denial and prayer. In France, Muslims are still very much in the minority, but the media and paramedia act as if they were the majority. "When France Celebrates Ramadan" was the headline at Lib'eration, in huge letters, last year.
The media and paramedia, i.e., the ruling caste, openly promotes Islam, while the overwhelming majority of that caste rejects all religion. These are the same people who find the Catholic rites old-fashioned, but who find ramadan just great.
But the last straw is when the bishops get into the act. Bishops who have never in their lives observed Lent and who congratulate the Muslims on their ramadan.
Note: I'm surprised. Are there bishops who have never observed Lent?
The situation would be comical if it weren't so sad. The Latin Church long ago abandoned the obligation of the Lenten fast, and the new liturgy did away with the sermons that spoke of it (these were most of the sermons, and there are two of them per day), even though the fast is a commandment of Christ and a necessity for spiritual life, as all the saints know. Today we see that the Lenten fast is back in style in certain sectors of the Church, but disconnected from the liturgical year, which is an absurdity.
Ramadan is not only a bad copy of Lent, it is a perversion of Lent (just as many pages of the Koran are a perversion of the Bible, etc...) The symbolism of the Lenten fast is, notably, the purification of the soul through a reduction of food for the body (because a fast purifies the body). But ramadan is the opposite. If you fast during the day, in the evening you pig out (and you spend the day digesting). In Muslim countries, food consumption increases by 30% during ramadan. (This is why all the supermarket chains have special sections for ramadan. If Lent were observed for forty days by Catholics, there would be no special sections for the very good reason that Lent is a real privation). The orgy of eating is such that hospitals are besieged by patients who show the whole gamut of pathologies linked to the overeating of fats, sugars, etc..., from simple indigestion to heart attacks. And there are special television programs that ask people to be moderate and to provide recipes for lighter meals. In this time of dictatorship over our health, ramadan should be forbidden...
Rules on abstinence and fasting in the Roman Catholic Church are rather complex, as this Wikipedia page shows.
At the top, the table is set for iftar, the ramadan meal that begins at sunset. But besides the evening meal there is a pre-dawn meal called suhoor. So ramadan is not a fast at all. Two meals are eaten, in a 24-hour period, which is not far from normal. And the evening meal is often copious, sometimes extending into the night.
The painting below by Pieter Bruegel the Elder depicts the Fight between Carnival and Lent. At Olga's Gallery there's the following explanation:
This painting takes as its subject the traditional annual carnival, which was held in Flanders in the week before lent. A half-religious, half-secular festival, it provided an excuse for excesses of drinking and sex: contemporary moralists condemned it as the devil's week.
1559.
Oil on panel. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.
And contemporary moralists today condemn anyone who condemns the presence of Islam in France or the gluttony of the nightly feast of iftar.
There's a more detailed analysis of Bruegel's painting at this Wikipedia page.
