Perspective

Manipulated and Standardized

The enemy of women is not men. No, and the enemy of the black is not the white. The enemy of capitalist is not communist, the enemy of homosexual is not heterosexual, the enemy of Jew is not Arab, the enemy of youth is not the old, the enemy of hip is not redneck, the enemy of Chicano is not gringo and the enemy of women is not men. We all have the same enemy. The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind. There are authoritative blacks with dull minds, and they are the enemy. The leaders of capitalism and the leaders of communism are the same people, and they are the enemy. There are dull-minded women who try to repress the human spirit, and they are the enemy just as much as the dull-minded men. The enemy is every expert who practices technocratic manipulation, the enemy is every proponent of standardization and the enemy is every victim who is so dull and lazy and weak as to allow himself to be manipulated and standardized. ~ Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

Einstein: The word God is the product of human weakness

Found here originally:

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/10/word-god-is-product-of-human-weakness.html

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In January of 1954, just a year before his death, Albert Einstein wrote the following letter to philosopher Erik Gutkind after reading his book, 'Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt,' and made known his views on religion. Apparently Einstein had only read the book due to repeated recommendation by their mutual friend Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer. The letter was bought at auction in May 2008, for £170,000. Unsurprisingly, one of the unsuccessful bidders was Richard Dawkins.

Translated transcript follows.

Recommended reading: Einstein and Religion.

Translated Transcript

Princeton, 3. 1. 1954

Dear Mr Gutkind,

Inspired by Brouwer’s repeated suggestion, I read a great deal in your book, and thank you very much for lending it to me ... With regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common. Your personal ideal with its striving for freedom from ego-oriented desires, for making life beautiful and noble, with an emphasis on the purely human element ... unites us as having an “American Attitude.”

Still, without Brouwer’s suggestion I would never have gotten myself to engage intensively with your book because it is written in a language inaccessible to me. The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. ... For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong ... have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything “chosen” about them.

In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision...

Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, i.e. in our evaluation of human behavior ... I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.

With friendly thanks and best wishes,

Yours,

A. Einstein

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And from here, the following:
http://log24.com/blog/0902a.html

Einstein’s view of God and Judaism.
Eric B. Gutkind (1877-1965), philosopher; author of Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt, 1952.
Albert Einstein - see also lot 497

Sold for £170000
Sale 649, 15th May 2008

Here is a close reading of the part of the letter itself that Bloomsbury gives in English, transcribed from the above images.

Line-by-line transcription of paragraph 2, starting at line 4 of that paragraph: (text linked to Google translate)                   

 ... Das Wort Gott ist für mich nichts als Ausdruck
und Produkt menschlicher Schwächen, die Bibel eine Sammlung
ehrwürdiger, aber doch reichlich primitiver Legenden. Keine noch
so feinsinnige Auslegung kann (für mich) etwas daran ändern.
Diese verfeinerten Auslegungen sind naturgemäß höchst mannigfaltig
und haben so gut wie nichts mit dem Urtext zu schaffen. Für
mich ist die unverfälschte jüdische Religion, wie alle anderen
Religionen, eine Inkarnation des primitiven Aberglaubens. Und das
jüdische Volk, zu dem ich gern gehöre und mit dessen Mentalität ich
tief verwachsen bin, hat für mich doch keine andersartige
Qualität als alle anderen Völker. So weit meine Erfahrung reicht,
ist es auch um nichts besser als andere menschliche Gruppierungen,
wenn es auch durch Mangel an Macht gegen die schlimmsten
Auswüchse gesichert ist. Ansonsten kann ich nichts "Auserwähltes"
an ihm wahrnehmen. 

The Guardian of May 13, 2008 stated that the following was "translated from German by Joan Stambaugh"--

... The word God is for me nothing more than the expression 
and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection
of honourable, but still primitive legends 
which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no 
matter how subtle can (for me) change this.
These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold
according to their nature and have almost nothing to 
do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion 
like all other religions is an incarnation of 
the most childish [German: primitiven] superstitions. 
And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose 
mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for 
me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, 
they are also no better than other human groups, although 
they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. 
Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them.

Phrases by Stambaugh that do not appear in the German text are highlighted.

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I am making this material available in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107: This article is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License

stacking DOS commands with &&

The double ampersand can be used to 'stack' DOS commands:

net stop spooler && net start spooler 

dir c:\ && dir d:\

dir c:\ && net stop spooler && net start spooler

And so on...

Alan Watts - Way of Zen

Reading some Watts... 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be free from convention is not to spurn it but not to be deceived by it.
It is to be able to use it as an instrument instead of being used by it.
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For He is the Knower, and the Knower can know other things, but cannot make Himself the object of His own knowledge, in the same way that fire can burn other things, but cannot burn itself.

The point is that, as light has no need to shine upon itself since it is luminous already, so there is no advantage to be gained and, indeed, no meaning in the notion of Brahman’s being the object of his own knowledge.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Those who know do not speak;
Those who speak do not know.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Enjoy (ɘpubs and some моʙι)

Alan_W_Watts_Collection.zip

A Psychedelic Experience
Alan Watts Lectures and Essays
The Book (On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are)
From Time to Eternity
Myth & Ritual in Christianity
Psychedelics and Religious Experience
The Joyous Cosmology
The New Alchemy
The Philosophies of Asia
The Soul-Searchers
The Way of Zen
Wisdom of Insecurity

Another day of the dead rising up and BRAINS!!!!

That whole 'Rising From the Dead' thing that Christians go on about is of course simply the retelling of the 'Descent of Inanna' originally from Sumeria about 9000 years earlier.

Read the original story and one can only deduce that both Jesus and Inanna before him must be zombies.

While I'm not sure about Inanna wanting 'BRAINS'... In modern times we know for a fact that Jesus has no interest in BRAINS and has been able to not only subsist, but also maintain his carnage solely upon the contents of collection plates.

Ten more...

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   1.        Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.

   2.        Do not think it worthwhile to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.

   3.        Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.

   4.        When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your spouse, significant other or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.

   5.        Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.

   6.        Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.

   7.        Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

   8.        Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.

   9.        Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.

10.        Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

- Bertrand Russell

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