Intentional Effects: How Trump’s pick for Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, will Spark a Return to American Manufacturing Leadership.

Is it worth giving up on the dream of real equal access to education?

The Trump campaign ran on an education policy grounded in re-routing federal education funds from public to private schools.  The Trump educational problem statement was this: "How do we spend less on public education and improve student test scores simultaneously?"  The President-Elect is following through and answering that question by selecting billionaire Betsy DeVosof Michigan for Education Secretary.   Betsy DeVos has been a leader in the anti-public school funding movement; she has the experience and the contacts to alter the flow of federal funds away from public schools (which focus on normalization of educational standards) to private schools allowing for differentiation in educational strategies for students of various locals.  The taxpayer and the American manufacturing sector can, and many are betting will;  benefit from this change.  But to what ends?

Here are two examples of how this change may affect two distinct student bodies:

1) The Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD)-Arizona - SUSD boasts some of the highest ranked public schools in the nation.  They have well received academic, sports, and arts programs.   The population in this district also have a relatively high percentage of students from affluent families attending even higher ranking private schools.   When the new program (of DeVos) is enacted, and SUSD loses much of its federal funding, the community will step in to pick up the cost locally as it is a wealthy tax base.   A second effect is federal dollars will now be flowing into the local Scottsdale high-end private schools – allowing a higher percentage of local students to attend schools aimed at preparing students for elite universities - all very good for the Scottsdale area. The new program will not harm, but overall benefit the Scottsdale community.

2) The second example is a rural Arizona school district.  Arizona rural school districts rank toward the lower end of the national spectrum.  These are districts which have cut their arts programs to keep academics afloat and fund some of the most ‘important sports’ such as High School Football.  The students in these areas have a relatively low percentage of students attending private schools.  When the new program (of DeVos) is enacted, and the rural schools lose much of their federal funding, the community will not have a tax base to step in to save their public schools. These schools that are currently receiving Cs and Ds when ranked nationally will drop to Ds and Fs.  There are little to no private schools located in the economically challenged areas to help.  However, now DeVos will have the funding to open new “Trump” style private Elementary schools, Jr. High, and High Schools.   Trump has already told us what these new schools will focus on “Test Scores.”   The schools will de-emphasize STEM and the arts; these programs are too expensive and quite frankly there are already enough college bound students from wealthy school districts such as SUSD that focus on STEM and the arts to hold up the economic growth in these areas.   These new rural ‘Trump’ schools will train our new American blue collar working class, quickly and efficiently.   Programs such as band, and history are not feasible, in the spirit of thrift, for the rural kids.   Rather our economic future requires a large group of students to focus on level 1 and 2 math, computer usage skills, proper language and communication. The Trump economy requires a base of workers to be proficient in plugging a number into an algebraic expression, convert fractions to decimals and finding the average or arithmetic mean.   However, this same economic growth does not require funding the base worker to study chemistry, physics, biology, self-awareness, or master a violin and study the math of harmonics.

The Trump/DeVos educational system will work to improve manufacturing productivity in America– it is designed to do this.  The plan, if enacted by Congress,  may create a well-trained blue collar workforce; returning America to the global manufacturing leader.   But is it worth giving up on the dream of real equal access to education?   To accept DeVos; is to accept government-sponsored class based education programming – labeling it with the euphemism of ‘school choice.'

Mapping 1st and 2nd-Century Jewish politics and the excommunication of the “Followers of the Way” from the Synagogues - To the evolution of the Synoptic Gospels and with the 4th Gospel John.

My thesis, at this moment, will be based on the following assumptions (meaning I won’t argue them but accept them to be true):

• The Christian dating system (BC/AD) did not exist before 525 AD.   What we call today 1st century Israel was contemporarily dated from the Roman AUC. 
• The Roman prefect-procurator Pontius Pilate served in Judaea from  311 to 321 AUC.   The best historical guess of the year of the crucifixion, was based on Pontius Pilate’s service dates by those who have devoted the most study to this issue, is 317 AUC; midway thru Pontius Pilate’s tenure in Judaea.
• Paul set the stage for Christianity when he wrote between the years of 336 AUC to 349 (51/64 CE).
• Mark, the 1st-Gospel was written ~42 years later in 359 AUC.   This is 2.8 generations after the crucifixion assuming a 15 year generation gab at this time.
• Matthew, the 2nd-Gospel was written in 369 AUC.
• The Scholarship on the writing of Luke, the 3rd-Gospel, is anywhere from 365 to 425 AUC.  This thesis will place the writing of Luke at 373 AUC.
• John, the 4th-Gospel was written no sooner than 385 AUC but before 425 AUC.  Between 5 and 6 generations after the crucifixion.

One may argue any of the points above, but this is the best scholarship we have at the moment.   These are not my arguments; I am however using the above positions as a baseline in my research.   Here is a current outline, which I’ll turn into a abstract before February.

I will provide evidence in my research either for or against the following main ideas.   I don’t know whether it will be for or against yet because I suspect it will take two years of research to complete.

• Mark was written during the time that one sect of Jews had an audacious political goal to add Jesus as a disciple/prophet in the Jewish tradition.   They were bold and pushed a Gentile-friendly argument.  This political force was approximately 18 years before the Jewish Orthodox excommunicated the “Followers of the way.”   The Roman destruction of the Second Temple happened the same year as Mark was authored (what we now refer to as 70 CE).  The destruction of the Temple rendered the “Followers of the Way” to be willing to take on this dauntless charge of change.
• Matthew rewrote Mark ten years later not only to fix and improve on it but also to reverse its too-Gentile-friendly argument.  Unlike Mark, which favors a brand of Christianity developed by Paul (in which Torah observance was an option), the author of Matthew comes from a community of Torah-observant Jewish scholars.   The change in tone from Mark to Mathew is a result of the changing political environment.  It was realized that the push of Mark to canonize Jesus in the Jewish tradition would not happen without the support of Torah observance.
• The political change in Matthew was not enough to stop the excommunication.  When diplomacy broke down, and it was realized the split (between the “Followers of the Way” and the Jewish Orthodox) was inevitable; Luke was written.  Neither Mark or Matthew contained history in the writings, there is no sense or focus on incorporating current secular events into the books which would allow historical dating or past interactions.
• Luke, in a response to a newly found Christian independence, was the first Gospel to represent itself as history overtly.   Luke writes like a historian, adding superficial historical details as local color to bring legitimacy to the newly formed cult.  (the word cult is used to describe a relatively small group of people outside the Orthodox.  It is not utilized for a negative connotation as it is sometimes used today.)   Luke creates a resurrection narrative that is engineered to answer skeptics of Matthew’s account.  In 2016 history is still void of material of the crucifixion and resurrection from the contemporary time of the events.  Luke, written approximately four generations after the resurrection would not have had access to original material either, nor did anyone else at the time.  Thus, Luke was free to create a narrative to fit his currently found political arena.
• John, written four to five generations after the crucifixion and at least two generations after the split; is a free redaction of the previous Gospels.  John, written by multiple authors, leveraged Mark, Matthew, and Luke to aim a rebut to a theme common to them all:  that ‘no sign shall be given’ that Jesus is the Messiah.   Mark was written before miracles had been imagined for Jesus.  The ideas suggesting that Jesus was pre-existent, that he was of one substance with God, are introduced by John in the late tenth decade; politically driven by the new idea contained in John, that Jesus is the new Moses.  
• The political stage for the next millennium was set; Christians were no longer attempting to reconcile with Judaism; rather they were directly competing with Judaism; Christian antisemitism was engendered by these competing ideas for the future of the "True Faith".  .
• Christianity was a developing story from the year 336 AUC (51CE) to the completion of the 4th-Gospel of John ~90 years later.  During this century-long journey, Christianity had many a sojourn driven by multiple political realities in which the faith was required to adjust with to survive.  Not only did Christianity survive these political struggles, but within two hundred yeas Rome had outlawed all other forms of Religions (some exceptions were made for  Jewish tradition). 
• Christianity within two centuries was vaulted to the largest, most dominant religion, and force of the common era.

Masters of Religions Studies thesis

Idea 1:

My thesis, at this moment, will be based on the following assumptions (meaning I won’t argue them but accept them to be true):

• ·         The Christian dating system (BC/AD) did not exist before 525 AD.   What we call today 1^st century Israel was contemporarily dated via Rome’s AUC.
• ·         The Roman prefect-procurator Pontius Pilate served in Judaea from  311 to 321 AUC.   The best historical guess of the year of the crucifixion, was based on Pontius Pilate’s service dates by those who have devoted the most study to this issue, is 317 AUC.  Midway thru Pontius Pilate’s tenure in Judaea.
• ·         Paul set the stage for Christianity when he wrote between the years of 336 AUC to 349 (51/64 CE).
• ·         Mark, the 1^st-Gospel was written ~42 years later in 359 AUC.   This is 2.8 generations after the crucifixion assuming a 15 year generation gab at this time.
• ·         Matthew, the 2^nd-Gospel was written in 369 AUC.
• ·         The Scholarship on the writing of Luke, the 3^rd-Gospel, is anywhere from 365 to 425 AUC.  This thesis will place the writing of Luke at 373 AUC.
• ·         John, the 4^th-Gospel was written no sooner than 385 AUC but before 425 AUC.  Between 5 and 6 generations after the crucifixion.

One may argue any the points above, but this is the best scholarship we have at the moment.   These are not my arguments; I am however using the above positions as a baseline in my research.   Here is a current outline, which I’ll turn into a abstract before February.

I will provide evidence in my research either for or against the following main ideas.   I don’t know whether it will be for or against yet because I suspect it will take two years of research to complete.

• ·         Mark was written during the time that one sect of Jews had an audacious political goal to add Jesus as a disciple/prophet in the Jewish tradition.   They were bold and pushed a Gentile-friendly argument.  This political force was approximately 18 years before the Jewish Orthodox excommunicated the “Followers of the way.”   The Roman destruction of the Second Temple happened the same year as Mark was authored (what we now refer to as 70 CE).  The destruction of the Temple rendered the “Followers of the Way” to be willing to take on this dauntless charge of change.
• ·         Matthew rewrote Mark ten years later not only to fix and improve on it but also to reverse its too-Gentile-friendly argument.  Unlike Mark, which favors a brand of Christianity developed by Paul (in which Torah observance was an option), the author of Matthew comes from a community of Torah-observant Christians.   The change in tone from Mark to Mathew is a result of the changing environment.  It was realized that the push of Mark to canonize Jesus in the Jewish tradition would not happen without the support of Torah observation.
• ·         The political change in Matthew was not enough to stop the excommunication.  When diplomacy broke down, and it was realized the split (between the “Followers of the Way” and the Jewish Orthodox) was inevitable; Luke was written.  Neither Mark or Mathew contained history in the writings, there no sense or focus on incorporating current secular invents into the books which would allow historical dating or past interactions.
• ·         Luke, in a response to a newly found Christian independence, was the first Gospel to represent itself as history overtly.   Luke writes like a historian, adding superficial historical details as local color to bring legitimacy to the newly formed cult.  (the word cult is used to describe a relatively small group of people outside the Orthodox.  It is not utilized for a negative connotation as it is sometimes used today.)   Luke creates a resurrection narrative that is engineered to answer skeptics of Matthew’s account.  In 2016 history is still void of material of the crucifixion and resurrection from the contemporary time of the events.  Luke, written approximately four generations after the resurrection would not have had access to original material either, nor did anyone else at the time.  Thus, Luke was free to create a narrative to fit his currently found political arena.
• ·         John, written four to five generations after the crucifixion and at least two generations after the split; is a free redaction of the previous Gospels.  John, written by multiple authors, leveraged Mark, Mathew, and Luke to aim a rebut to a theme common to them all:  that ‘no sign shall be given’ that Jesus is the Messiah.   Mark was written before miracles had been imagined for Jesus.  The ideas suggesting that Jesus was pre-existent, that he was of one substance with God, are introduced by John in the late tenth decade; politically driven by the new idea contained in John, that Jesus is the new Moses. 
• ·         The political stage for the next millennium was set; Christians were no longer attempting to reconcile with Judaism; rather they were directly competing with it and with that Christian antisemitism was born.
• ·         Christianity was a developing story from the year 336 AUC (51CE) to the competition of the 4^th-Gospel of John ~90 years later.  During this century-long journey, Christianity had many a sojourn driven by multiple political realities in which the faith was required to adjust with to survive.  Not only did Christianity survive these political struggles, but within two hundred yeas Rome had outlawed all other forms of Religions (some exceptions were made for  Jewish tradition).  Christianity within two centuries was vaulted to the largest, most dominant religion, and force of the common era.

Idea 2:

The Gospels of Mark, and Matthew, were written (at least started) by Jewish authors in the synagogue during the eight and ninth decades, before the excommunication of the Jewish sect called “Followers of the Way” in the year 841 AUC (what we now call 88 CE). These books go back and forth on the idea of what a Gentile is. Luke may have been written in 841 AUC creating a catalyst for the excommunication, or more likely as an attempt to repair the new divide, but that is a fluid idea either way. The fourth Gospel, John, was started in the late tenth decade; it was the only one of these four books without scholarly disagreement clearly originating after the excommunication. The post-excommunication fourth Gospel is where the ideas of Jesus as pre-existent, one with God, the Trinity, etc. began to evolve; along with it antisemitic ideas also began to take hold. The beginning of the 2nd-century was a time of political struggle as the new cult (the word cult is used to describe a relatively small group of people outside the orthodox religion), now separated from the synagogue grappling to remain relevant. The fourth Gospel reflects the struggle in the changing of the Jesus narrative as the next Moses. John is a political statement to the orthodox that "I am" part of the Jewish tradition. But the attempts to rejoin the orthodox failed. Christian antisemitism is a direct result of the excommunication; it has nothing to do with the crucifixion story, as this took place in time about 52 years before the split. This gap represented three and 1/2 generations in 1st century Israel. Thus, the concept of Christianity, and therefore Christian antisemitism did not exist until more than three generations after the crucifixion story as dated by the recall of Pontius Pilate to Rome in 789 AUC. Christian antisemitism took hold with the writing of John in the 2nd-century but was unable to progress beyond a small group until Constantine raised Christianity to the status of “legal” in the fourth century. Later that century Constantius II outlawed other religions and race discrimination exploded in Europe from this moment forward. Antisemitism continued to flourish in western society for more than a millennium but took a major blow in 1791 with the writing of the First Amendment of the United States, which declared adoption of a state religion as illegal; challenging 1400 years of Christian governmental rule. Antisemitism wasn’t crushed by any means and still grew in Europe until reaching a zenith during the Holocaust. Galileo remained convicted of heresy until 1992, but the Church did not expel a single leader of the Third Reich. Therefore, no matter how sickening the majority of modern people now viewed race prejudice, the measure was still active in the church during the 20th-century. A pursuit that started within the 2nd-century writing of the book of John, driven by the excommunication of the sect, and empowered by the Romans has been with us since. As Christian America continues to lose members, the surviving population is growing more fundamental as the number of churchgoers continues to decline; 40% of American millennials now consider themselves as non-religious. In 1970 90% of Americans identified as Christian, this number is expected to drop below 50% by the end of the 2020s. Percentages of Christians in the west will slump to a level not known since before the fall of Rome. Will this second excommunication, a fall from mainstream relevance, create a social structure for a return of an antisemitic dominance within the church by 2030?

Idea 3:

How do we promote 1st century Christian scholarship? Our best scholarship places Paul’s writings between the years 51 CE and 64 CE. In so Paul would have written I Thessalonians, Galatians, I and II Corinthians, Romans, Philemon and Philippians. Epistles such as Hebrews were not attributed to Paul until the King James translation in 1611, such stories are political, that’s all – they are not historical - , if you could connect your story with Paul, you had political power! . . . . Miracles dint’ show up until the 8th decade with Mark. And all the “Drink my blood/Eat my Flesh” ideas didn’t come into play up until the tenth decade in the 4th Gospel after the Messianic Jews were excommunicated. People were writing these stories, but we only talk about the stories written. Behind the writings, from the 5th to the 14th decade, there are stories - stories of people, people writing of their God (people waiting on their God).

Promoting a Productive Mind in an Era of Disjointed Political Directions

This is one of my shorter blogs as the method of promoting a productive mind in an era of disjointed political directions, is well, rather simple; When watching election coverage or reading a post from a Facebook friend, identify the material as associated with a conspiracy.  I don’t mean propaganda in the traditional sense, I mean mustache twirling conspiracies.

Eric R. Weinstein, an American mathematician, and economist wrote on conspiracy theory: “All smart people are conspiracy theorists.”   Before taking this out of context, using Weinstein’s words to promote the idea that the Bush family and Margaret Thatcher are shape-shifting alien reptiles, hear the stipulation connected to this claim:

Take the position of saying, even if just to yourself; this is what I really think is true; that Margaret Thatcher is an alien reptile.  Now put on a different hat and steelman the counter argument on plausibility.  Develop enough self-authorship of your mind to explore things that might be nutty and then do the editing to see whether or not you achieved something in the nutty state.   And then go back and forth.  Camp and decamp.

When you don’t camp and decamp, your mind is not solving problems.  The tension between these modules in the mind creates productive thinking.  Temporary suspension of rationality is sometimes needed to achieve mental progress.

Now apply the method to contemporary events concerning possible political outcomes, example: Sean Hannity recently said:  “If in 96 days Trump loses this election, I am pointing the finger directly at people like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham and John McCain.”

1.       The initial reaction to that statement would be; False, if in 96 days Trump loses he has no one to blame but his own odd behavior.
2.             Embrace the statement (a.k.a conspiracy to use Weinstein’s terms).  If I think like a hyperpartisan political contributor; it makes perfect logic to voice this statement.  Because if everyone in the party unified behind Trump, this re-assurance will pull undecided voters over. 
3.       Third, look at our own nutty mind from step two, self-edit and ask did we achieve any new knowledge?  I’ll conclude that yes we did achieve new knowledge; that it is perfectly rational for Hannity to make this statement.  However, in our editing, it is hard not to think of the children’s tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”  Without Paul Ryan and John McCain, who will tell the Emperor he has no clothes?

Thoughts of Freedom on Independence Day Weekend.

A common family tradition at Thanksgiving is for everyone at the table to tell everyone else what they are thankful for; this is not so common of families on the 4^th of July.  We are more caught up in BBQ, parades, and nationalism.  We rarely hear sediments connected to the Preamble: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The Preamble is about welfare for all people, protected by justice, tranquility, and common defense.

 

Looking at the news, the week leading up to the 4^th of July weekend, there were many stories that show how special interests are constantly a threat to justice, tranquility, and welfare for all - here are three:

1       . Ralph’s Thriftway v. State of Washington Department of Health

2       . Opposition to SB 1146

3       . iPhones versus seer stones

 

The first story, Ralph’s Thriftway v. State of Washington Department of Health, starts on a common theme today, but then takes a bizarre twist.  The short description of this case is; Washington State passed a law on the distribution of pharmaceuticals.  The state was then taken to court as Ralph’s Thriftway requested a second law be created for Christian pharmacists.

One may agree or disagree with the either of the purposed laws; it doesn’t matter which law one supports.  The important focus is, that to protect justice and tranquility; all American’s must be subject to one law.  Further, the first sentence of the Bill of Rights reads “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”  Thus, it is against American’s founding to create a special law for Christians.  And therefore, Ralph’s Thriftway case lost.  But oddly the case made it all the way to the consideration of the Supreme Court last week, however, then as expected the SCOTUS

did not grant certiorari.  So what is the bizarre twist?  The curious writing is Justice Alito’s dissent, posted @  http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/15-862_2c8f.pdf.   In the short 15-page dissent Justice Alito asked multiple times -  if pharmaceutical laws can be secular based, why not have religious based laws too?  This is an extraordinary question as the law the land, that we cannot have religious laws, was put into place by the Founders to protect justice and tranquility for all.  The Justice knows this, and therefore it is peculiar as why he would promote allowing us to open the slippery slope back to the tyranny of religious law.  Luckily the other Justices were not confused, but it still reminds us that even those at the top of the American judicial system can lose focus, and our freedoms are not guaranteed.

Last week the opposition to California SB 1146 also began to grow.   http://www.opposesb1146.com/    The bill states that post-secondary schools which receive public funding cannot practice discrimination.  The bill does not mention religion, but the right wing is fighting SB 1146 to allow religious discrimination to remain in place and for it to be publicly funded.   There are two simple takeaways from this; one don’t discriminate, but if you do don’t be a whiny little bitch when taxpayers do not support you.  This is an example of freedom the Constitution goes not grant, and one that should never be expected.

 

The third story this week which reminded me of the delicate freedoms we have, may not immediately seem on the subject.  I will connect the relevance back in - in the next few paragraphs.  The story is a post by Dieter F Uchtdorf, who is a senior representative of the LDS church.  Before I move forward with this third example I must disclose that some of the greatest people I know (like my father and my brother) are LDS, I grew up LDS, and my family is still LDS; 99% of LDS members I know are good, kind, caring people.  But this does not grant immunity to the LDS leaders that they can write or say anything they like without being held accountable for their actions.

Last Tuesday Mr. Uchtdorf posted on his Facebook page that stones can translate ancient languages to English, comparing stones to iPhones “My mobile phone is like a “seer stone.” I can get the collected knowledge of the world through a few little inputs. I can take a photo or a video with my phone and share it with family on the other side of our planet. I can even translate anything into or from many different languages! ” Our freedoms allow us to post and say anything we wish, and adults are free to believe what they want, and have their opinions.  However, those in an influential position must be held accountable for what they say.  This is especially true when children are involved.

Why is this danger to our freedom?  First, let us establish that religion does not and cannot claim invariance, That is to say, if one scientist in Utah finds a new method, this method is then tested and eventually a proof is found that is also true in New Jersey, South America, Europe, Mars, and Jupiter and outside our solar system.  If we ever did meet alien life, the same laws of physics would apply to both them and us.  And this is how we as humans normalize our ideas and judge how things are true or not true, by the scientific method.

If we teach children to believe ideas which do not have invariance, we are teaching them it is okay to believe anything authority tells you without applying the “bull shit detector” of the scientific method.  

Rocks do not translate language any more than talking snakes slither around hoodwinking unsuspecting victims.  The danger to our freedoms is that if one teaches children to forgo skeptical thinking, then these children could grow up believing anything.  Which is a danger to us all.

This last week also brought deaths of hundreds of people due to religious ideology.  A terrorist in a Bangladesh café was quoted as saying “God wants you to die.”   If you can convince a kid that rocks translate language, it isn’t much of a stretch to move to “God wants you to die." taking all of the freedoms from people that the 4^th of July represents.

Finding Gods in the Static

Part 1:

The Pyramid Texts tells us Ra-Atum made humans out of tears.  Mayan art reviles Kukulkan made humans out of corn.  The Hebrew Bible states Yahweh made humans out of dust.  In Greek religion, Prometheus made humans from clay.  Viracocha (God – Incan) made humans from rock; Bumba (God – Central Africa) made hums out of vomit; Nüwa (Chinese goddess) made humans out of mud; Kamuy (Japanese for God) used a bear. Odin as we were taught in fourth grade, made us out of logs; and Coyote, a North American god, made humans out of a beaver.  

Did each of these gods and goddess have a binary beginning or is all mythology linked?  Radcliffe G. Edmonds commented on this question in his book on myths:  “The Greek poetic and mythic tradition provides the models of and models for the society, models which are given authorities status as a description of the way the cosmos is constituted and of the proper modes of behavior with it.  Thus, these constructs, the traditional tales, have a paradigmatic function; their elements are symbols that enunciate a model with general application.  Each myth, each telling of a traditional tale, presents a different version of the model, as the teller shapes the narrative according to his perceptions of the cultural models.” (1)   Again Edmonds: “This symbolic system provides a language by which the myth-teller may communicate with his audience.  As a result, every myth is shaped by its context and the motivations of its narrator.”

In this sense, all of the gods listed above are ‘myth’.  The Incan (1000*), Mayan (2200*), and Coyote (2500*) gods evolved from North American Archaic Shamanism (6500*), which itself can be traced back to Shamanism of Central Asia (14,000*).  The Hebrew myths (2950*) are based on Zoroastrianism (3100*), Atenism (3350*), Canaanite (5000*), Egyptian (5000*) and Mesopotamian (6000*) religions.  Ra-Atum (5000*) grew out of Middle East Shamanism (14,500*).  Odin (1800*), and Prometheus (4000*) are tails based on Proto-Indo-European Polytheism (5500*).  Bumba is a spin on Nilotic Animism (5000*).  Nüwa and Kamuy are tales evolved from South Asian Shamanism (12,000*).  Middle East, Central Asian, South Asian, Paleo-Indian, and Proto-Indo-European Shamanism are all individual evolutions of Animism dating back possibly 100,000 years.

* years before present.

Each story and god developed from an earlier story and an earlier god.  The Encyclopedia of GODS, published in 1993 lists more than 2,500 deities humans have created (2).  All of which have an evolutionary path back to Animism.  Charles Segal adds: “Myth comprises a system of symbols, verbal, visual and religious.  Each myth is built up of already existing symbols and forms and, like all narrative, reforms and reorganizes those symbols in its own structures.” (3)

Myth telling of religion has existed for possibly one hundred thousand years, but about 500 years ago something changed.  Around 1550 CE, new gods stopped being created from older gods.  There are some exceptions; there are some myths that were founded rather recently, such as Wicca, Mormonism, Scientology, Voodoo, Hoodoo, Umbanda, and Santo Daime.  However, for the most part, the major gods constructed in the Iron Age, have been somewhat constant.  Even if humans change the tone of a given god over time to reflect the consensus of morality in the current population.  For example, Pope Francis, the 266^th Pope, has changed the Catholic Church to reflect the progression of Catholic rank and file; in positions of sex abuse, divorce, and climate change.

In the last 100 years, the use of myth evolution in creating a new religions has almost vanished.  Why?  This change reflects how we as people see the world, and the greater universe.  The idea of a greater universe itself is new to humans; the modern era of physical cosmology is just now, in 2016, beginning its second century.  There have only been three generations which have been exposed to the fact that the Earth is just one small part of a greater cosmos. 

 

In the last ten years, the change has intensified.  The invention of the iPhone and similar personal devices killed miracles and myths paralleled to when barbed wire killed the wild west – just far faster.  Anyone today can video and event, and they do.  When someone creates a story out of an event, hours later a video will appear on YouTube showing the actual incident, and the new myth is busted before it had a chance to advance.

Something else has changed in the last decade along with the invention of person devices, which allows anyone to access and record information; that is the fastest growing religion in North America, Australia, and Europe is the non-religious (4).  Access to information is putting religion in a tailspin.  What has taken 100,000 years to evolve, may be extinct by the close of the 21^st century due to the introduction of devices that allow all to access the same data.

So why is access to intelligence killing mythology?  A modern study from the University of Texas at Austin may have the answer (4).  The study presented groups of people two tests; the first test was a bit of a ruse.  The first test allowed one group to feel in control of their answers.  The second group was exposed to questions they could not answer – or were given negative feedback on any particular answer submitted.  In the second part of the test (the real test), both groups were given a grainy picture and asked to find meaning in the image.  The first group who had a feeling of control from the first test found nothing in the static.  The second group, who were left feeling no sense of control from the first part of the test, found meaning in the static.  The conclusion of the study:  “Individuals who lack control seek to find and impose order in the world through superstition, rituals, and conspiratorial explanations.”  Wow, this study may explain much of what the human experience is.

Part 2:

Allow us to look at an example of how access to information changes a common myth.  When I was a child, my parents took me to a church where I was exposed to writings of the New Testament.  One story I remember from Mark is when Jesus calms the sea, and of course when Jesus walks on the sea.  As a child in the 1970s, I had no control over how to interrupt the writings of Mark other than based on the instruction of the youth teacher of my parent's religious preference.

    

Today we have countless interruptions available to consider.  One of these comes from David Growler, professor of religion Oxford College.  Growler describes how students of literature in the first century were taught to write.  Specify the teachings of Chreia and Progymnasmata: “Progymnasmata were a standard part of first-century CE educational curriculum, and the exercises found in them represent widespread educational practices from the early first century BCE.  The work performed in these texts prepared students to use chreiai rhetorically within extended prose composition (Bonner 1977: 250, 276; Hock and O’Neil 2002: 81-83).  These exercises took youths one step at a time through the skills required to construct more complex rhetorical compositions.  The basic emphasis was to develop students’ abilities to say and write the same thing – or variations of the same thing – in different ways.  This exercise thus also greatly influenced student’s skills of oral argumentation.   The rhetorical handbooks and other chreia elaborations in ancient literature demonstrate that speakers/ authors were free to vary the wording, details, and dynamics of chreiai according to their ideological and rhetorical interests.  Speakers/Authors were taught and encouraged to make minor and/or major changes to bring clarity and persuasiveness to the point they wanted to make with a chreia in specific contexts.” (5)

Now that we have insight into the instruction of first-century authors, let us examine a few verses in Mark on the crucifixion and compare them with writings in Psalms, an older book from the Hebrew Bible:

Mark 15.24: ‘They part his garments among them, casting lots upon them.’	Psalm 22.18: ‘They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon them.'
Mark 15.29-31: ‘And those who passed by blasphemed him, shaking their heads and saying, “. . . Save yourself . . . “ and mocking him, saying “He who saved others cannot save himself!”’	Psalm 22.7-8: ‘All those who see me mock me and give me lip, shaking their head, saying “He expected the lord to protect him, so let the lord save him if he likes”.'
Mark 15.34: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’	Psalms 22.1: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

The above table is a simple and clear example of how Mark was not writing from a historical viewpoint.  Instead, he is reconstructing an earlier myth to fit the current political environment.  Based on this unassuming example and knowing Progymnasmata was in practice at the time, a person can now begin to interpret Mark differently than my Sunday School teacher did.

Mark also used other sources; here is a short description of the ninth book of Homer's Odyssey:

Ulysses and his legion came ashore to an island overrun with wild goats, which had meadows that in some places came down to the sea shore.  Ulysses and his men walked to a cave on the island to meet a cyclops whose name was Polyphemus.   Upon meeting Ulysses, Polyphemus asked Ulysses in a loud voice ". . do you sail as rovers, with your hands against every man, and every man's hand against you?"  Polyphemus asks Ulysses his name, to which Ulysses answers "Noman."  Ulysses cast out Polyphemus's eye and escaped under the belly of the cyclops' sheep.  When Ulysses boarded his ship and left the land he called out to Polyphemus, "Cyclops, if anyone asks you who it was that put your eye out and spoiled your beauty, say it was the valiant warrior Ulysses, son of Laertes, who lives in Ithaca." As Ulysses sailed away, Polyphemus begged Ulysses to stay to which he answered no.

Mark 5: 1 - 20, here is a description from these verses:

Jesus and his disciples came ashore to a land that was overrun with pigs, which had meadows that allowed the pigs to walk down to the sea. Jesus and his disciples walked to a tomb and met a man so strong that no chain could bind him.  The man asked Jesus in a loud voice "What have you to do with me, Jesus . . . do not torment me." Jesus asked him his name, to which he replied "Legion."   Jesus cast out the legions from the man into the pigs of the land.  When Jesus boarded his ship to leave the land he told the man to "Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he had mercy on you."  As Jesus sailed away, the man asked to come with Jesus, to which he answered no.

The author of Mark reused the poetry of Homer.  Replacing Ulysses with Jesus, goats with pigs, cave with tomb, the Cyclopes with a possessed man and so on.   Robert M. Price, PhD New Testament, provides a deep dive into this and other New Testament reuses of the writings of the Septuagint, Homer, Euripides' Bacchae, and Josephus, in his 2005 book "New Testament narrative as Old Testament midrash".

The historian Richard Carrier from Columbia University offers a third and more complex example:  “Like Moses, Jesus begins each sequence of five miracles with a sea miracle (a rather conspicuous coincidence), in which he proves his dominance over the waters of chaos.  Like Moses, Jesus treads on them and commands them – and in the same order: Moses parts the sea, then crosses; so in sequence one, Mark has Jesus calms the sea, then in sequence two, Mark has Jesus walk on it.  --  Jesus heals the sick (for which we are given two full narratives each, conspicuously the same number in each sequence, and in one sequence both are women, while in the other, both are men), corresponding to the second miracle of Moses, in which the faithful are assured power over diseases.  Jesus also exorcise demons (for which we are given one full narrative each, also conspicuously the same number in each sequence, and in one sequence a woman, in the other a man, this time reversed), corresponding to the fifth miracle of Moses, which exhibits power of the forces of evil (except demons in this case rather than soldiers), And near the end of each sequence we get a miraculous feeding, echoing Moses’ power to call mana from heaven. (and thus, miraculously provide sustenance for his flock, this third miracle in Exodus). Like Moses,  Jesus’ miraculous feedings take place in the wilderness, involve ‘gathering up’ the food, everyone is fed, and they end up with more than they start with (compare Exod. 16.4-5 with Mk 6.43; 8.8; and 8.19-20).” (6).

Carrier, Robert M. Price, and others have listed in great detail how the book of Mark is an adaptation of early writings – modified to fit the contemporary political environment.  Combine this with the knowledge Growler provided, that first-century literature promoted the reuse of earlier stories; I now come to a different conclusion on Mark’s writings than when I was a youth attending church -- I don’t believe the author of Mark ever expected his writings would someday be looked at in a historical context!
 

Mark wrote a fictional political construct based on earlier stories which were available to him as he was taught to do by the educational system of the time.  Matthew, Luke, and John followed this tradition, basing their writings on Mark.  This practice is the method employed by the evolution of mythology.  As Price pointed out “The Quran was assembled from a variety of prior Hagarene texts (hence the contradictions re Jesus’ death) in order to provide the Moses-like Muhammed with a Torah of his own . . .”   This practice continued over the next millennium, slowing by the mid 16^th century, but appeared again in the 19^th century.  It reappeared, although rather differently, in the form Chiasmus displayed in the book of Mormon where major themes familiar to the author are inverted to form rhetorical parallelism; As Joseph Smith re-used earlier forms of writing from the Bible and other ancient Middle Eastern texts.

Today we have a plethora of information available to us, a considerable change from merely 20 years ago.  The world in 2016 allows humanity access to material that was never possible before modern technology was introduced to the public; many of these introductions have been made in the current decade.  Technology allows us to understand the world around us; more and more people have control of their physical surroundings.  And thus, the evolution of supernatural myth is virtually extinct.  Myth in someways has been replaced by propaganda, which while still an issue, propaganda is based on, for the most part, natural events;  Opposite to the intrinsic supernatural settings of myth. Today far fewer people find gods in the static, however most of the 'news' we are exposed to is created.  In general news is based on actual events, but then adopted to stimulate controversy, debate and conflict, by professional storytellers.  These storytellers are employed to appeal to audiences on the left, and audiences on the right.  Thus, while humanity is digging itself out of a past based on religious mythology, we find ourselves in a new breed of fictional political constructs.

1.      978-1-107-40730-5 - Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the ‘Orphic’ Gold Tablets.  Radcliffe G. Edmonds III, p. 6.

2.      0-8160-2909-1 – Encyclopedia of GODS.  Michael Jordan.

3.      Interpreting Greek Tragedy: Myth, Poetry, Text.  Charles Segal  1986, p 49.

4.      The World’s Newest Major Religion: No Religion.  National Geographic. April 2016 < http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160422-atheism-agnostic-secular-nones-rising-religion/>

5.     The Chreia in The Historical Jesus in Context.  Princeton University Press.  David Growler. Chapter 7.

6.      On the Historicity of Jesus.  Richard Carrier. 2014 p 416-7   

Dao De Jing

The past few evenings I read the Dao De Jing as translated by Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall.   Rozann put it in my stocking this past Christmas, it is not the type of book I would normally pick to read.  Philosophy in general is obsolete.  However Rozann is traveling this week, and the books I have been reading I managed to leave behind in the Santa Clara office.  So I needed to do something during my off hours this WW -- one thought from each chapter:

Chapter 1:

 The nameless is the fetal beginnings of everything that is happening,

            While that which is named is their mother.

              

             Google was a backrub in 1996.

Chapter 2:

 As soon as everyone in the world knows that the beautiful are beautiful,

            There is already ugliness.

The smuts we are, we can't help but to put things in boxes, and then label the box before filing. It is too hard not to.

Chapter 3:

               Not prizing property that is hard to come by

               Will save them [others] from becoming thieves.

The Dao De Jing was writing in the Iron Age as was the Hebrew Bible; these were horrible times in human history.  It was a very dark time after successes of humanity in the Bronze Age were lost.  Mothers didn’t expect their kids to make it to adulthood.  If you had something good, you were best to keep it to yourself.

Chapter 4:

               I do not know whose progeny it is;

               It prefigures the ancestral gods.

I like this idea; we think of 600BCE as the ancients.   It is obvious from this phrase the Chinese in 600BCE had their own concept of ancients to them.  And it makes me consider those who will live on Earth in the year 4000CE will look at us as their ancients.

Chapter 5:

The heavens and the Earth are not partial to institutionalized morality.

This phrase stands on its own; it did then, it does now.

Chapter 6:

               The life-force of the valley never dies.

They didn’t understand (or even care as far as I can tell from the reading) what happens when the Sun runs out of hydrogen.  I suppose I don’t care either, as it is so far off, but we do know now that we live in a special time, a time where we have a visible universe.  Billions of years from now the universe grow dark, and the life-force will die.  Iron Age ignorance bliss it seems.

Chapter 7:

The reason the world is able to be lasting and enduring

Is because it does not live for itself

This it is able to be long-lived.

This reads like complete garbage, what a philosopher from Sedona would tell you today if you paid them to read the lines in your hand.

                 

Chapter 8:

               The highest efficacy is like water,

               It is because water benefits everything.

               Good thought for thinking inward – and outward.

Chapter 9:

               It is better to desist

               Then to try to hold it upright and fill it to the brim.

Many things come to mind when digesting this thought, most of them will be smarter than my comment to follow; but hey, let’s face the music and dance tonight while the moon is still out – tell me the rest tomorrow.

Chapter 10:

Are you able to become a newborn babe?

No, Nix, Go fish.

Chapter 11:

This chapter is 100% philosophical rubbish, nothing worth quoting.

Chapter 12:

               The five flavors destroy the palate.

I am sure this is an early version of Matthew’s “no one can serve two masters”.   But if the author were to watch the food network in 2016, different words would have been used.

Chapter 13:

 . .  whenever favor is bestowed, both gaining it and losing it should be cause for alarm.

All primates are sentient social beings who will come into favor and drop out of favor.  To not do so would be as expected as it would be for teenagers to abstain from sex.   But, I would agree, it is good to keep track of when favors come and go; smart.

Chapter 14:

               Groping and yet not getting it

               We thus call it “intangible.”

               The author never met Jake Plumer.

Chapter 15:

               Muddy water, when stilled, slowly becomes clear;

               Something settled, when agitated, slowly comes to life.

Like ten chapters earlier; This phrase stands on its own; it did then, it does now.

Chapter 16:

Using common sense is to be accommodating.

Common sense of any given time period, in general, turns out to be proven wrong in the next period.   Those who employ common sense rarely if ever improve living standards or human knowledge.   So yes, when we engage in common sense we do so to accommodate the surrounding contemporary culture.

Chapter 17:

With the most excellent rulers, their subjects only know that they are there,

               The next best are the rulers they love and praise,

               Next the rulers they hold in awe,

               And the worst are the rulers they disparage.

Written as well as any modern day Libertarian Atheist would write it.    Note: The third and fourth level are the stories of the Jewish Bible and the Qur’an’s God.

Chapter 18:

It is when wisdom and erudition arise

That great duplicity appears.

This seems to have been written under the influence of ancient Chinese honey wines.   It would not be surprising that the authors wrote both day and night, and some nights the hawthorn may have come into play.

Chapter 19:

               Cut off sagacity and get rid of wisdom.

This was, in my current judgment, written about two days after recovering from the honey consumed when writing Chapter 18.

Chapter 20:

               The author was on a rampage in chapter 20:

Cut off learning and there will be nothing to more to worry about.

                             

How much difference is there really between a polite “yes” and an emphatic “no!” ?

                              Those who people fear

                              Cannot but also fear other.

So indefinite! Does this humbuggery ever come to an end!

As with Chapters 5 and 15, Chapter 20 is self-evident in modern time.  And yes it comes to an end.   If anyone read this far and tells me, I’ll add my commentary on the other 61 chapters of the Dao De Jing.  Else I’ll finish a glass of modern day honey and call it a night.   Cheers.

A Mid-201x Helical View of our Solar System

The achievements in positional measurements of celestial bodies in Mesopotamia and other regional powers of the Bronze Age were lost in social collapse brought on by climate change (or attack by “sea people” – really there is a fun online Crash Course, by John and Hank Green on the subject).   The layer model in the Iron Age replaced the knowledge of cosmology lost by the ancients.

The layers: The “underworld” held up the Earth; the ‘firmament’ (the air) held up the Moon; the Moon to Mercury; Mercury to Venus; Venus to the Sun; Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; and a final layer for all the stars (top of heaven).   It was not always in this order, sometimes the firmament was above the sun, the moon and the starts – with water above the firmament and water below, as depicted in the following picture:

While the layers changed depending on who explained the concept there was a basic idea of a static universe;  if represented by the seven-layer dip, hell would be the refried beans, we live in the guacamole, and heaven is a mixture of green onions and chilies.  Iron Age ideas set humans back ~2700 years.  But we must remember the Bronze Age collapse was a dark age for the Mediterranean, a sudden decrease of technology and literacy.  Thus, it isn’t hard to understand why the Bronze Age measurements in positions, motions, and magnitudes of stars degenerated into a seven layer dip by the dawn of the Common Era.

That 2700 year extended dark age of cosmology ended between the mid-fifteen or sixteen-hundreds depending on who you ask and the human mind has been kicking ass building instrumentation to expand our view of the universe since.  Here is a 2015 helical model of our solar system https://youtu.be/mvgaxQGPg7I . . . this would blow the socks off, and most likely cause a few strokes in our Iron Age ancestors.  The first notable stand out is the lack of an “underworld”; there is nothing under Earth; there isn’t even a concept of “under Earth,” it is a sphere.  I hope the next time you hear the term underworld you roll your eyes – at least metaphorically act out an Iron Age meme.

On the other hand -- The seven layers of heaven (the dip) looks exactly like we would expect it to look if created by the minds of iron-age humans who were fighting to make their first attempt at cosmology, psychology, and philosophy; a first attempt at politics and control of the environment, in the wake of a sudden cataclysm in the region. 

Thinking a few months into the future, I was wondering, who would make a fitting running mate for Donald Trump?   Huckabee?  Christie?  Carson?   Maybe any of the three, but there is a far better match for Trump – Kanye West!    Just line them them up:

Trump	West
Nobody builds walls better than me.	Kanye West has a giant mural on a wall in Melbourne of Kanye West making out with himself.
. . people would say I’m the super genius of all time.  The super genius of all time.	I think I do myself a disservice by comparing myself to Steve Jobs and Walt Disney and human beings that we’ve seen before.
My whole life is about winning.	I feel like I’m too busy writing history to read it.
I feel a lot of people listen to what I have to say.	I liberate minds with my music.
“I’m the No. 1 developer in New York.  I’m the biggest in Atlantic City.	I am Warhol.  I am the No. 1 most impact full artist of our generation.  I am Shakespeare in the flesh.
I have an attention span that’s as long as it has to be.	I would never want a book’s autograph.  I am a proud non-reader of books.
I actually don’t have a bad hairline.  .  . there is no problem (with size of hands or anything else)	I don’t know what’s better gettin’ laid or gettin’ paid.
People love me.	If I was just a fan of music, I would think that I was the number one artist in the world.
I think I was born with the drive for success because I have a certain gene.	I really want a Male Heir
I’ve got the hottest brand in the world.	Man, I’m the No. 1 living and breathing rock star.
I was a great student.  I was good at everything.	I still think I am the greatest.
I win at golf.  I’m a club champion many times at different clubs.	West left Nike for a more lucrative deal at Adidas.
I had tremendous success in show business.	. . . I have decided in 2020 to run for president.
Nobody Reads the Bible more than me. . . I love evangelicals.	I am God’s vessel

Donald can’t go wrong with Kanye, they are quite the pair.