September 4, 2013
The Law of Complexity/Consciousness is the tendency in matter to become more complex over time and at the same time to become more conscious. The law was first formulated by 20th century Jesuit priest and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who held that at all times and everywhere, matter is endeavoring to complexify upon itself, as observed in the evolutionary history of the Earth.
Matter complexified from inanimate matter, to plant life, to animal-life, to human-life. Or, from the geosphere, to the biosphere, to the noosphere (of which humans represented, because of their possession of a consciousness which reflects upon themselves). As evolution rises through the geosphere, biosphere, and noosphere, matter continues to rise in a continual increase of both complexity and consciousness.
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September 3, 2013
Left-libertarianism is a school of political thought that stresses equally both individual freedom and social justice. There are three overlapping subgroups within left-libertarianism:
1) Anti-authoritarian, anti-propertarian varieties of left-wing politics, and in particular of the socialist movement. 2) The Steiner–Vallentyne school, a political philosophy in the liberal tradition which embraces egalitarian views concerning natural resources, holding that it is not legitimate for someone to claim private ownership of such resources to the detriment of others. 3) Left-wing market anarchism, which stresses the socially transformative potential of non-aggression and free markets.
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September 2, 2013
‘Childhood’s End‘ is a 1953 science fiction novel by the British author Arthur C. Clarke. The story follows the peaceful alien invasion of Earth by the mysterious Overlords, whose arrival ends all war, helps form a world government, and turns the planet into a near-utopia.
Many questions are asked about the origins and mission of the aliens, but they avoid answering, preferring to remain in their spacecraft, governing through indirect rule. Decades later, the Overlords show themselves, and their impact on human culture leads to a final utopic Golden Age, but at the cost of humanity’s identity and eventually the planet itself.
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September 1, 2013
The Wheel of Time is a series of epic fantasy novels written by American author James Oliver Rigney, Jr., under the pen name Robert Jordan. Originally planned as a six-book series, the series now spans fourteen volumes, in addition to a prequel novel and a companion book. Jordan began writing the first volume, ‘The Eye of the World,’ in 1984 and it was published in January 1990.
The author died in 2007 while working on what was planned to be the final volume in the series, although he had prepared extensive notes so another author could complete the book according to his wishes.
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August 25, 2013
Shylock [shahy-lok] is a fictional Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice’ who lends money to his Christian rival, Antonio, setting the security at a pound of Antonio’s flesh. When a bankrupt Antonio defaults on the loan, Shylock demands the pound of flesh as revenge for Antonio having previously insulted and spat on him.
Meanwhile, Shylock’s daughter, Jessica, elopes with Antonio’s friend Lorenzo and becomes a Christian, further fuelling his rage. She also takes money and jewels from Shylock. During Shakespeare’s day, money lending was a fairly common occupation among Jews because usury, charging interest on a loan, was a sin for Christians at the time.
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August 23, 2013
The Illuminati [ih-loo-muh-nah-tee] (‘enlightened’) was a secret society founded by university professor Adam Weishaupt in 1776, in Upper Bavaria, Germany. The movement consisted of advocates of freethought, secularism, liberalism, republicanism and gender equality, recruited in the German Masonic Lodges (Freemasonry is a fraternal organization that traces its origins to the loose organization of medieval Stonemasonry), who sought to teach rationalism through mystery schools (Western esotericism, which places emphasis on spiritual ‘knowledge’ or Gnosis and the rejection of blind faith).
In 1785, the order was infiltrated, broken up and suppressed by the government agents of Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria, in his preemptive campaign to neutralize the threat of secret societies ever becoming hotbeds of conspiracies to overthrow the Bavarian monarchy and its state religion, Roman Catholicism.
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August 22, 2013
Otto Rahn (1904 – 1939) was a German medievalist and First Lieutenant of the SS. Speculation still surrounds Rahn and his research. From an early age, he became interested in the legends of Parsifal, the Holy Grail, Lohengrin, and the Nibelungenlied. While attending the University of Giessen he was inspired by his professor, the Baron von Gall, to study the Albigensian (Catharism) movement, and the massacre that occurred at Montségur. Rahn is quoted as saying that ‘It was a subject that completely captivated me.’
In 1931 he travelled to the Pyrenees region of southern France where he conducted most of his research. Aided by the French mystic and historian Antonin Gadal, Rahn argued that there was a direct link between Wolfram Von Eschenbach’s Parzival and the Cathar Grail mystery. He believed that the Cathars held the answer to this sacred mystery and that the keys to their secrets lay somewhere beneath the mountain pog where the fortress of Montségur remains, the last Cathar fortress to fall during the Albigensian Crusade.
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August 19, 2013
‘More popular than Jesus‘ was a controversial remark made by musician John Lennon of the Beatles in 1966: Lennon said that Christianity was in decline and that the Beatles had become more popular than Jesus Christ.
When the quote appeared in the American teen magazine ‘Datebook,’ angry reactions flared up from Christian communities. Lennon had originally made the remark in March 1966 during interviews with Maureen Cleave on the lifestyles of the four individual Beatles. When Lennon’s words were first published, in the ‘London Evening Standard’ in the United Kingdom, they had provoked no public reaction.
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August 9, 2013
‘Meditations‘ (‘thoughts/writings addressed to himself’) is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161–180 CE, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy (the Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment).
It is not clear that he ever intended the writings to be published, so the title is but one of several commonly assigned to the collection. These writings take the form of quotations varying in length from one sentence to long paragraphs.
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August 5, 2013
A megachurch is a church having 2,000 or more congregants in average weekend attendance. The Hartford Institute’s database lists more than 1,300 such Protestant churches in the United States. According to that data, approximately 50 churches on the list have attendance ranging from 10,000 to 47,000. While 3,000 individual Catholic parishes (churches) have 2,000 or more attendants for an average Sunday Mass, these churches are not seen as part of the megachurch movement.
Globally, these large congregations are a significant development in Protestant Christianity. In the United States, the number of megachurches has more than quadrupled in the past two decades. The phenomenon has since spread worldwide. In 2007, five of the ten largest Protestant churches were in South Korea. The largest megachurch in the United States is Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas with more than 40,000 members every weekend and the current largest megachurch in the world is South Korea’s Yoido Full Gospel Church, with more than 830,000 members as of 2007.
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August 4, 2013
Televangelism [tel-i-van-juh-liz-uhm] is the use of television to communicate Christianity. The word is a portmanteau of television and evangelism and was coined by ‘Time’ magazine. Televangelists are Christian ministers who devote a large portion of their ministry to television broadcasting. The term is also used derisively by critics as an insinuation of aggrandizement by such ministers.
Televangelism began as a peculiarly American phenomenon, resulting from a largely deregulated media where access to television networks and cable TV is open to virtually anyone who can afford it, combined with a large Christian population that is able to provide the necessary funding. However, the increasing globalization of broadcasting has enabled some American televangelists to reach a wider audience through international broadcast networks, including some that are specifically Christian in nature, such as Trinity Broadcasting Network and The God Channel.
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July 25, 2013
YOLO is an acronym for ‘you only live once.’ Similar to ‘carpe diem’ (‘seize the day’) or ‘memento mori’ (‘remember that you will die’), it implies that one should enjoy life, even if that entails taking risks. The expression’ is commonly attributed to Golden Age film star Mae West, but variations of the phrase have been in use for over 100 years, including as far back as (the German equivalent of) ‘one lives but once in the world’ by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in his 1774 play ‘Clavigo’ and as the title of a waltz, ‘Man lebt nur einmal!’ (‘You Only Live Once!’) by Johann Strauss II in 1855.
The acronym is in youth culture and music, and was popularized by the 2011 song ‘The Motto’ by Canadian rapper Drake (who later claimed to want royalties due to the proliferation of merchandise bearing the phrase). Actor Zac Efron has a tattoo with the acronym. The expression has been criticized for its use in conjunction with reckless behavior, most notably in a Twitter post by aspiring rapper Ervin McKinness just prior to his death: ‘Drunk af going 120 drifting corners #FuckIt YOLO.’
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