The Christmas Truce

One of my favorite Christmas stories is the story of the 'Christmas Truce' in Ypres, Belgium during World War I.  Here's part of the Wikipedia entry on the subject:

The truce began on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1914, when German troops began decorating the area around their trenches in the region of Ypres, Belgium, for Christmas. They began by placing candles on trees, then continued the celebration by singing Christmas carols, most notably Stille Nacht (Silent Night). The British troops in the trenches across from them responded by singing English carols.

The two sides continued by shouting Christmas greetings to each other. Soon thereafter, there were calls for visits across the "No Man's Land" where small gifts were exchanged — whisky, jam, cigars, chocolate, and the like. The soldiers exchanged gifts, sometimes addresses, and drank together. The artillery in the region fell silent that night. The truce also allowed a breathing spell where recently-fallen soldiers could be brought back behind their lines by burial parties. Proper burials took place as soldiers from both sides mourned the dead together and paid their respects.

The truce spread to other areas of the lines, and there are many stories of football matches between the opposing forces.

In many sectors, the truce lasted through Christmas night, but in some areas, it continued until New Year's Day.

If you don't trust Wikipedia, you can check the Snopes entry for confirmation that it's a true story.  The Wikipedia entry also lists some other truces that occurred around the same time.

I'm reminded of an old Herbert Hoover quote, "Older men declare war.  But it is the youth who must fight and die."  A leader's power base rests solely on his or her followers devotion.  If you really think about it, wars are actually battles between leaders, yet the followers are the ones who do the dirty work.  Oftentimes, the followers are convinced they are fighting for a noble cause, other times they fight because their leader has promised them new land and wealth, and, of course, some fight to protect what they already have.  I'm not saying that the followers of one maniacal leader are any less of a threat because they are followers, I'm just saying that without a leader to guide them, the followers probably wouldn't even know who the enemy is...if there was an enemy at all!

I think the Christmas truce displays a good example of what I mean.  Many of the British and German troops fighting each other in Belgium in 1914 were probably scared teens just out of school and young fathers who'd have rather been at home with their wives and kids.  I imagine for many of them, fighting a bloody war was one of the last things they'd have want to been doing on Christmas eve...or any other time for that matter.  I guess you could say the Spirit of the season came over them, and the two opposing sides ceased fire and celebrated together.  I think these men realized that they weren't really enemies.  The King and the Kaiser may have been enemies, but the soldiers on the field realized they didn't really have a beef with each other.  The Germans were doing what the Kaiser wanted them to do, and the British were doing what the British government wanted them to do.

Once the commanders found out that their soldiers weren't fighting anymore, they ordered them to begin fighting again.  But if you think about it, if all the soldiers continued to refuse to fight, the war would have been over.  If they had refused to fight in the first place, then World War I would have pretty much been limited to a bar fight among cousins from a dysfunctional family (Kaiser Wilhem, King George, and Tsar Nicholas were cousins).  Looking back, I think the German and British soldiers would have been better off arresting their leaders and putting them in prison.  They would have probably prevented the continued bloodshed and heartaches the people of the time were faced with.

But I suppose most people are just inclined to be followers.  And it seems that throughout history, even when there is a coup, there is always someone else there to step in and lead the followers.  History thus far suggests that an unfortunate consequence of that is war.

I'm also reminded of what George Orwell said about his inspiration to write his novel Animal Farm:

"I saw a little boy, perhaps ten years old, driving a huge carthorse along a narrow path, whipping it whenever it tried to turn. It struck me that if only such animals became aware of their strength we should have no power over them, and that men exploit animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the proletariat."

Ah...if only all the followers realized they didn't need to fight their leader's battles.  Then their leaders would be nothing but eccentric loners.

I think that Colonel Parker from M*A*S*H may have been on to something when he said, "Sometimes I think it should be a rule of war that you have to see somebody up close and get to know him before you can shoot him."  I imagine that might help prevent some needless deaths.

Nevertheless, my rantings on followers fighting the battles of the leaders aside, the Christmas truce is an awesome story and displays the Spirit of the season magnificently well.  If only all people would continue in that spirit year round!

Music of the Christmas Season

One of my favorite parts of the Christmas season is the music.  The cold air and decorations do their part, but the music is what really puts me in the mood.  In fact, the music itself can conjure up thoughts of winter weather and halls decked with boughs of holly even if you're in area where you don't see a lot of winter weather.

My favorite Christmas songs consist mostly of the religious themed ones.  I'm not much into the whole Santa Claus and reindeer thing, although I do like some of the secular songs.

Here are some of my favorites.  They are in no particular order, but I am saving my favorite for last.

Christmas Eve Sarajevo (Medley of God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman and Carol of the Bells)
Artist: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Ok, so this is actually a medley of the older Christmas carols God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman and Carol of the Bells (both of which are favorites of mine), but the Trans-Siberian Orchestra named their medley of them and there is a story behind the name.  Here is part of the Wikipedia entry on it:

We heard about this cello player born in Sarajevo many years ago (Vedran Smailović) who left when he was fairly young to go on to become a well-respected musician, playing with various symphonies throughout Europe. Many decades later, he returned to Sarajevo as an elderly man—at the height of the Bosnian War, only to find his city in complete ruins.

I think what most broke this man's heart was that the destruction was not done by some outside invader or natural disaster—it was done by his own people. At that time, Serbs were shelling Sarajevo every night. Rather than head for the bomb shelters like his family and neighbors, this man went to the town square, climbed onto a pile of rubble that had once been the fountain, took out his cello, and played Mozart and Beethoven as the city was bombed.

He came every night and began playing Christmas carols from that same spot. It was just such a powerful image—a white-haired man silhouetted against the cannon fire, playing timeless melodies to both sides of the conflict amid the rubble and devastation of the city he loves. Some time later, a reporter traced him down to ask why he did this insanely stupid thing. The old man said that it was his way of proving that despite all evidence to the contrary, the spirit of humanity was still alive in that place.

The song basically wrapped itself around him. We used some of the oldest Christmas melodies we could find, like "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and "Carol of the Bells" (which is from Ukraine, near that region). The orchestra represents one side, the rock band the other, and single cello represents that single individual, that spark of hope.

Here is the music video:





Christmas Canon
Artist: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

This is actually Pachelbel's Canon with Christmas lyrics.  The orchestra not only does a great job, but the lyrics and children's choir complement it well.





O Come, O Come Emmanuel
Artist: Various

This one has a very old sound to it, and it probably dates back to the middle ages.  It's translated from a Catholic Latin text called "Veni, veni, Emmanuel."  The lyrics are based on text from the from seventh chapter of the book of Isaiah.  It kind of reminds me of an old Gregorian chant type of sound.  Not only do I like the lyrical message, I like the historical sound of the song. Here's Enya's version of it:






O Come All Ye Faithful
Artist: Various

This song is another one that is centuries old, and is attributed to John Francis Wade.  It was originally titled "Adeste Fideles" in Latin and was translated into English by Frederick Oakeley.





Joy to the World
Artist: Various (Written by Isaac Watts)

Technically, this isn't even a song about the birth of Christ.  The song is about the second coming of Christ, but for some reason, people started singing it as a Christmas song.  Nonetheless, it is an awesome song and I think is best sung by a large choir.





Silent Night, Holy Night
Artist: Various (Written by Josef Mohr and Franz Xaver Gruber)

This is another good one that has been sung by many people.




Most people classify Christmas songs as religious or secular.  Well, I complicate things a little more by adding a third category that includes songs that aren't overly religious or overly secular.  I just think of them as songs about people celebrating Christmas, as opposed to songs specifically about the Christmas story or about Santa Claus and shopping.



A Holly Jolly Christmas
Artist: Burl Ives, Quinto Sisters

It would be hard to imagine December coming and going without hearing Burl Ives crooning his famous rendition of "A Holly Jolly Christmas".  I classify this as a song about people celebrating Christmas.   Ironically, this song was written by a Jewish songwriter named Johnny Marks.






All I Want for Christmas is You
Artist: Vince Vance and the Valiants

I classify this song as secular.  Although I'm not a particularly big fan of a lot of the secular Christmas songs, this one is an exception.  I just love the singer's voice and the song's beat.  I remember playing this song at a place I worked a few years back, and a Jehovah's Witness (who don't celebrate Christmas) even admitted to liking it and started dancing to it!  It's very upbeat and helps get you in the mood.



As I said earlier, I would save my favorite for last.  So here it is.


O Holy Night
Artist: Various

My favorite Christmas song is O Holy Night.  I've heard many beautiful versions of this song and it's hard to narrow it to a specific artist's version, but if I had to pick one, I think I would go with Jim Nabor's version of the song.  Yes, the same Jim Nabors that played Gomer Pyle.  Don't let the goofy Gomer act fool you, Nabors actually has an awesome operatic singing voice.  In fact, I'd say he has one of the best singing voices that I've heard.


This was certainly not an exhaustive list of my favorites.  I have many other favorites, including It's Beginning to Look a Like a Lot Christmas, Silver Bells, Sleigh Ride, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, The Little Drummer Boy and many more.

I think Christmas music is what gets me more in the mood for the season than anything else!

The Christmas Story

It seems that every year around Christmas, you can find someone pointing out the pagan origins of some of the Christmas rituals and decorations, as well as the pagan connections between the date suggested to be the day of Christ's birth.

Well, this post isn't about all of that.  Instead, I thought I'd clarify a few common misconceptions about the Christmas story as told in the Bible.

Before I get into that though, I want to make a few points about the Gospels themselves.

Each of the four Gospels are written from a different perspective with a specific audience in mind.  Matthew wrote to a Jewish audience, and presented Jesus as the messiah the Jews had been waiting for.  This is why Matthew gives the genealogy of Joseph, Jesus' adoptive father.  Joseph was a direct descendant of King David through Solomon's royal line, giving him legal claim to the throne of David (which, of course, during this period of time, the Romans had control of Palestine).  An adopted child had all the rights of a biological child, thus, Jesus had legal claim to the throne of David through Joseph.  So Matthew gives us the perspective of Jesus being King of the Jews.

Mark's Gospel may have been written to a Roman audience.  Mark portrays Jesus as a servant.

Luke, a gentile, wrote to a Greek audience, and more specifically, to someone named Theophilus (Luke 1:3).  Luke portrayed Jesus as a man, the perfect man.  Greeks were known as thinking men, so this was an appropriate perspective for a Greek audience.  Luke gives us the genealogy of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Mary was actually a descendant of King David too, although not through Solomon's royal line.  But as the biological mother of Jesus, this was an important genealogy from the perspective of Jesus being human.

The book of John, which was the last of the Gospels written, was probably written to a Christian audience in general.  John emphasized Jesus' divinity.

It's been suggested that the prophet Ezekiel saw a vision that predicted these four records of Jesus.  In chapter one of the book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel mentions seeing a vision of four living creatures.  Here is what he had to say about their faces:

Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a man, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle.  -Ezekiel 1:10

These four living creatures are also mentioned in the book of Revelation.  The lion symbolizes Kingship.  The Ox (a.k.a. 'beast of burden') was used for pulling carts and ploughs, making it a symbol of servitude.  The face of a man symbolizes..well...a man, and the eagle symbolizes divinity.  In the book of Revelation, the four living creatures are named in the same order that the four Gospels were chosen for inclusion in the Bible.

Huh...I guess maybe the Council of Nicaea did pick the right books to include in the Bible.

Matthew and Luke are the only two Gospel writers that mention the birth of Jesus.  Neither of them said a whole lot about it though.  Neither of them give us a date of his birth, indicating they only thought it was significant that he was born, and not when he was born.  One of the reasons they probably chose to mention his birth was because of the perspective they were writing from.  Matthew needed to convince the Jews that Jesus was the messiah they were waiting for, and Luke wanted people to know that Jesus was a man in flesh and blood.

Luke tells us that an angel informed shepherds that were out with their flocks at night that the messiah had been born.  The shepherds then went to visit Him (Hmm...imagine that, an angel announcing the birth of the messiah to lowly shepherds.  Interesting that the angel didn't bother mentioning it to the 'authorities' and the big government.  I'm still wondering if it is just a coincidence that most alien sightings today are reported by country folk.  And come to think of it, I don't think I've ever heard someone report an alien saying, "Take me to your leader.").

So as for the date of Jesus' birth, it was probably in the spring time.  It wasn't winter, because the shepherds wouldn't have been out with their flocks at night during the winter.  It's possible that it was summertime or fall, but the springtime is probably more likely just because it seems more appropriate.  Spring was (and still is) considered to be a time of new birth, and at one point was considered to be the beginning of the new year (am I the only one that finds it odd we use a calendar that starts the new year in the dead of winter and begins new days in the middle of the night??).  So it seems fitting that the messiah would have been born during a time of new birth.  At this point, I don't see much need in changing the date it's celebrated though.  The Gospel writers didn't bother to include a date, so I guess December 25th is as good as any date.

In a lot of Nativity scenes, you'll see figures of Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus along with figures of animals and three wise men.  The problem is, the wise men didn't visit Jesus in a stable as a newborn.  Nor is there any indication there was only three wise men.  The wise men and the shepherds didn't arrive on the same night.  The wise men traveled from the East, and it may have been several days, weeks, or months after the birth when they visited.  By that time, Jesus and his parents were living in a house.  In fact, Matthew 2:10 even states the wise men visited Jesus in a house.  Matthew doesn't say anything about a stable.  We know that the wise men didn't arrive on the night of his birth, because Matthew 2:7 states that Herod asked the wise men when the star they had been following first appeared.  Matthew doesn't explicitly tell us what the wise men told him, but in Matthew 2:16, Herod decreed that all children two years old and younger were to be killed, and he based his decision on the timeframe the wise men had told him.  So going by that, the wise men may have arrived as late as two years after Jesus' birth (Although it probably wasn't quite that long, Herod probably just stated two years and younger in attempt to make sure all his bases were covered.).  It may also be important to note that Matthew says the wise men visited the "child," not the "baby."

The tale of the three wise men, known as Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, came several centuries later.  It crept into Christian tradition, and there's even a famous Christmas carol about them.  The Christmas carol further confuses the tale by describing them as being "three kings." But they were not kings.  I'm not aware of any translation of the Bible that describes them as "kings."

I'm not sure why people got the idea that there were only three wise men.  Maybe it's because only three gifts were mentioned.  But naming only three gifts doesn't indicate that only three people came and each gave an individual gift.  I could say that I received money, clothes, and gift cards at Christmas.  But I received those gifts from more than three people.  Additionally, I also received a combination of those gifts from some individuals!  So going by how many different gifts were named is not an indication of how many wise men there were.

More than likely, there were many wise men that came.  They might not have all been traveling together either.  If there were only a few of them, they might not have been granted an audience with King Herod.  The king probably had more to do than meet with a few eccentric astrologers from the East.  But if an entire entourage came, he might have to clear his schedule for that.  Also consider that if there had only been three of them, the king might not have been concerned with them coming into town looking for who they claimed was a newborn king.  Matthew also indicates that the people of Jerusalem were also disturbed by the arrival of the wise men; again, three visiting astrologers probably wouldn't have gotten the whole city into a frenzy.  I don't know how many there were, but I think there were probably more than three.

The story of the manger comes solely from Luke's record.  It's thought that Luke, who was not one of the Twelve, probably consulted the mother Mary as a source for his writings.  Some of the stories he writes about seem as though they may have been told from Mary's perspective, particularly the story of Jesus' birth and the events that led up to it (Luke begins his record by telling the story of the birth of John the Baptist first).  Luke actually skips over the part where Mary and Joseph take Jesus to Egypt to escape King Herod's wrath.  Matthew included it in his record because the prophet Hosea said that God would call his son out of Egypt (Hosea 11:1, Matthew 2:15).  Since Matthew was writing to a Jewish audience, it was necessary to point out the fulfillment of Jewish prophecies.  Luke wasn't writing to a Jewish audience, so he didn't even bother to mention that part of the story.

Neither Matthew or Luke say a whole lot about the birth of Jesus.  They don't dwell on the topic.  Luke mentions an incident at the Temple when Jesus was twelve years old, but both records mainly focus on Jesus as an adult.

What's interesting to me is that some of the Christmas traditions have become so ingrained in the public consciousness, many people don't even notice that some of the traditions aren't a part of the Biblical record.  Even some people that have read the records all the way through don't seem to notice that the Bible never mentions wise men named Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar visiting Jesus on the night of his birth.

So yes, I suppose it is true that many of the common Christmas traditions are pagan in origin.  A lot of them seem to be adapted from Norse/Scandinavian traditions.  I can't say that I'm surprised though.  The Romans were known for adapting some of the customs of the people they conquered.  It's not mere coincidence that Roman and Greek pantheons were so similar.  The Romans had their own pantheon, but they also adapted aspects of the Greek pantheon into their own.  When Christianity came to Rome, the Romans adapted aspects of it too.  Over the years, Roman Catholics did as their pagan Roman ancestors did.  It took hundreds of years to convert the Scandinavians from their pagan beliefs to Catholic beliefs.  Various methods of forcing them to convert or demonizing their gods were tried.  But they also tried more subtle methods.  Sometimes the Catholics would also blend aspects of the Scandinavian traditions with Catholic beliefs, or in some cases, essentially just tell the Scandinavians the reign of their gods was a thing of the past.  In other words, the Catholics didn't always try to convince the Scandinavians their traditions weren't true, they just tried to convince them they were from an era of the past.  With that in mind, I'm not surprised that ancient Scandinavian traditions have continued into the present day.  Even those cold, snowy Scandinavian winters seem to be the traditional image of what the Christmas season is 'supposed' to look like.

Nevertheless, I love the Christmas season.  I love the cool air, the decorations, the music, and the joy.  So Merry Christmas!

2012: A Potential Conspiracy?

It seems to me that there are three main camps when it comes to opinions on what might or might not happen during the year 2012.  One camp is expecting the end of the world as we know it.  Another camp is expecting a great awakening.  A third camp is not expecting anything significant to happen.

The reasons why people think something significant will happen vary.  The reasons why others think nothing significant will happen are usually relegated to reasons including the claim that the Mayans didn't really predict the end of the world at the end of the long count calendar, the often cited prophecies that never played out as predicted, and/or the idea that something like that can't be predicted.

But when you think about it, predicting such an event could lead to it occurring.  Even if the alignment of the stars and the sun's solar maximum resulted in a relatively mundane non-event, someone - or a group of people - could potentially take the prophecy into their own hands.  There are plenty of nuclear weapons in the world, if one psycho leader with his finger on the button decides to start launching some nukes, we could witness an end of the world scenario as a result of that.

Consider 9/11/01.  Think about how the events that occurred on that day changed things.  Sometimes you hear people mention how something was different before 9/11.  Some of the most notable changes were restrictions on flights, the Patriot Act, and wire tapping.  I can recall a change I was faced with at the time.  When 9/11 occurred, I was a merchandiser for Pepsi-cola, and two of the stores I was responsible for on my route were the commissaries at Fort Bragg.  On 9/10, I was able to just drive right on base and go to the stores.  Much of Fort Bragg had been open like that for a long time.  After 9/11, I found myself waiting in LONG lines at gates trying to get on the base.  Suddenly, my work day got a lot longer because of it.  To make matters worse, civilians could only get on the base at certain gates.  So I had to take a different route than what I was used to get on the base.  I imagine many other people have stories as to how the events of 9/11 affected their lives at the time and may still affect them today.

In addition to 9/11, there were also the 7/7/05 attacks in London and the Madrid bombings in 2004.  The Madrid bombings occurred three days before the general elections there, and the attacks may have altered how people voted in those elections.  As you can see, events such as these can bring about change.  It should also be noted that all of these events were brought about by men with agendas.

So what if an event like these occurred in 2012?  What if multiple events such as these occurred at the same time in 2012?  If something like this did occur during 2012, the timing might not  be a coincidence.  The conspirators may have planned it specifically to occur during that time because of the hype about all the predictions.

I hope there are no more attacks like the 9/11 attacks (actually, I hope we can all just learn to get along and there be no more attacks or fighting at all, but that might be wishful thinking), but I wondered, if a 9/11 type of event did occur in 2012, which camp of people would get to say "I told you so?"  If a 9/11 type of event is all that occurred, I imagine many people in the end of the world crowd and the great awakening crowd would point to it as the event predicted to occur. Depending on the event's aftermath, they may start saying "I told you so."  However, if that is all that occurs, the skeptical crowd will just point out the fact it was an event that could have occurred anytime.  I doubt they would attach any significance to it occurring during the year 2012.  It might not be clear who was right.

So I guess the question I've been leading up to here is, what would have to happen (or not happen) for one of the camp's to be able to say, "I told you so" and clearly have been right?  What scale would the event have to occur on?  What type of event would have to occur?  Would it matter if it was man-made, or would it have to be a natural disaster?  Would it have be some sort of unprecedented spiritual awakening?  Or would it have to be a message from extraterrestrials?  Will any of the camps be able to clearly say "I told you so" and be right?

I'm not really a part of any of the three main camps.  I just sort of have a "wait and see" attitude.  Regardless of what does or doesn't happen, I guess I  have no choice but to wait and see before I will know the answers to the questions I asked above.

2012: The Movie

I saw the movie 2012 over the weekend and was mildly disappointed by it.  The effects were good and it had some intense moments, but overall, I wasn't impressed.  I think I may have set my expectations too high.  It's already a topic of interest to me, and Roland Emmerich also made one of my favorite movies ever, Stargate.  In addition to that, I had low expectations for Emmerich's movie 10,000 BC, but I was actually quite impressed with it after seeing it.

I think I was expecting a more profound message from 2012.  I thought the ending was rather disappointing.  Essentially, you have (spoiler warning!) a bunch of elitists snobs building arks to save themselves.  They could care less about saving anyone besides themselves.  They even kept the whole project a secret.  Even towards the end when they let the other people waiting get on, the people waiting were still people that had originally paid to get on!  The only non-elitists to make it was John Cusack's group of people who snuck on board.  I thought it was a crappy ending to have the most selfish people in the world be the survivors of the disaster.  And to think, they would be the people to start civilization all over again.  What a disaster that would be.  They'd all probably be at each others throats trying to decide who got what.  And would actually do the labor involved in building a new civilization?  The whole idea of an end of the world scenario is coupled with the idea of a new beginning.  There's not much point in having an end of the world scenario if things are just going to go back to being how they were before.

Another thing I didn't think seemed right was how quickly the earth recovered from the disasters.  If what I've heard scientists say is true about the so-called 'super volcano' known as Yellowstone National Park, then an eruption would not only cause massive destruction to North America, but the ash cloud could be in the air for years.  This would result in something like a nuclear winter which would cause plant life to die and, as a result, animal and human life would begin to die off too.  It's possible people could still survive it, but there wouldn't be many.  So the idea that everything was fine after 27 days seemed to be a bit of a stretch to me.

One other thing I thought about was that the disasters may also cause the world's nuclear arsenal to detonate, magnifying the disasters that much more.  That would cause a nuclear winter even if the eruption of Yellowstone didn't.  It would create a situation quite unpleasant for any surviving humans.

I guess Emmerich was trying to go for a somewhat happy ending, but I think he fell short on this one.

Atoms and Gravity

Even today, it's not totally clear 'how' gravity works.  We've observed it working and observed the laws it seems to follow, yet the processes occurring to make it work aren't entirely clear.

Maurice Cotterell has written an essay called How Gravity Works that attempts to explain it as well as explain the structure of atoms, the nature of dark matter, why spiral galaxies are spiraled, and why the earth's core is hot.

If you're not familiar with Cotterell, he is what I suppose many people would call a 'fringe' scientist.  He's a credentialed electrical engineer, but he's famous for writing books with some rather far-fetched (even for me!) theories.  To sum up the material included in his books, he essentially combines research on solar science, archaeological finds, and a lot of imagination to declare a hypothesis that King Tut, Lord Pacal (of Mayan fame), Jesus Christ, and King Arthur are reincarnations of the same 'sun god' (or 'sun king') who leaves behind 'clues' to the path of enlightenment.  As ridiculous as that may or may not sound to you, some of his research is rather interesting, even if his hypothesis sounds like something someone tripping on LSD would declare.

His books and wild theories aside, his scientific essay on how gravity works leaves out some of his more imaginative, fantasy-like conclusions.  I thought his essay was rather intriguing and actually made sense.  If you're curious about how gravity works and how it relates to the structure of atoms and how hot the core of the earth is, I recommend you go to his website and read it.  There is a 2 page summary of it, however, I recommend you actually read the whole essay if you really want to get the gist of it.  The full essay is only 15 pages and many of those pages are diagrams, so it shouldn't take you too long to read through the whole thing.

Read the essay here.

A Case for an Open Mind

I think some people are closed minded out of fear.  They fear being 'led astray' by conflicting viewpoints.  With others, it's an arrogance.  They think they are right, and that is that.  A lot of closed minded people are probably a combination of both.

However, I don't think people should fear being 'led astray'.  Having an open mind and listening to different perspectives isn't necessarily going to lead you astray.  You can still choose to believe what you always believed.  But the value in hearing different perspectives is it gives you a bigger knowledge base to go off of, even if you don't agree with all of it.  It makes you more informed, and better able to explain why you believe what you believe, and why you don't believe what you don't believe.

And consider this, by learning new information, you may ultimately come across information that supports what you believe anyways.  You may find out that you were right all along...but now you'll know why you were right!  Alternatively, you might find out why what you thought was wrong is wrong.  Learning new things won't necessarily lead you astray at all.

But perhaps the best reason for an open mind is it gives you the opportunity to connect dots that you may not have even known were there.  I can think of several things I've learned over the years, where taken as individual statements, they may be difficult to believe.  However, if you connect the dots, you begin to see a bigger picture you didn't even know was there.  I could probably mention a few things out of context here, and people reading this would probably think they were far-fetched.  However, if you connect them together, suddenly they seem less far-fetched.  It starts to make sense.  This is why an open mind can be a good thing, even if you dismiss something you hear initially.  At first, you might hear something that sounds far-fetched and not give it much more thought.  Later down the road, you might hear something else that sounds kind of crazy, but it stays in the back of your mind.  After a while, you hear something else that makes you think, "Hmm...that sounds similar to something I heard a while back.  Perhaps the two things are connected.  If so, that may mean that [insert topic here] I heard someone mention before may be connected too."  Sometimes, seemingly unrelated topics may be connected without you even knowing it.  But if you've had an open mind and learned a lot of perspectives about different topics, you may find yourself making connections between things you didn't even know were connected.

Ultimately, having an open mind won't necessarily lead you astray.  If it did, it's possible you wouldn't even realize you were led astray because you may feel more enlightened because of it.  A willingness to consider other perspectives makes you less arrogant (or at least seem less arrogant).  Ultimately, I think you find yourself feeling more informed and more enlightened.  Having an open mind doesn't prevent you from thinking on your own and drawing your own conclusions.  It's possible that you could be led astray by having an open mind, because there are a lot of deceivers and false information out there.  But if truth seeking is your goal and you analyze things first with an open mind and without jumping to conclusions, you have a good chance of finding the truth eventually.  Of course, it's good to continue to have an open mind once you've found the 'truth', you know...just in case that 'truth' turns out to not be true afterall. J

Hey, at the very least, you'll being able to converse with a lot of different kinds of people at dinner parties.

The Infinite Small?

Consider this; the universe is infinite.  It goes on forever.  It just goes on and on and on in all directions. You could say it was "large," but that is a gross understatement if you consider that it goes on forever.  Technically, I don't even think "large" is the correct term to use to describe it.  Essentially, the universe is sizeless.  But for lack of a better term, we'll refer to the universe as the "infinite large."

Now consider time.  Consider how we measure time.  Years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds.  If you think about it, you can never pinpoint a moment in time but so specifically.  You can pinpoint a moment down to a second, but you can split a second into an infinite amount of fractions of itself.  You can go to a tenth of second, hundredth of a second, thousandths, millionths, billionths, and so on.

With that in mind, let's now consider the atom.  The atom is a basic unit of matter that can be broken down into protons, neutrons, and electrons.  Protons and neutrons can be further broken down into quarks.  Better observation equipment and microscopes have enabled scientists to find these tiny particles.  But consider this; what is the smallest of the small?  Scientists didn't always know about quarks.  Could there be something smaller than quarks?  And could there be something smaller than whatever that may be?  If so, how small is the smallest of the small?  Or could it be that there is an "infinite small?"  Could the particles that make up an atom be broken down into infinitely smaller particles?  I mean, could you ever really get to the point of saying there's 'nothing else here'?  There's seemingly 'something' everywhere.  Whether it's air, atoms, 'dark matter', photons, or neutrinos; it seems that you can find 'something' everywhere.  How could you ever really break a particle down small enough to get to the point where you could say there is 'nothing else here'?  If you could break something down to the point of saying there is 'nothing else here', then the next question you could ask is, "How is it that there is anything anywhere at all (Because if something isn't made of something, then theoretically, it must be nothing!)?"

To measure something, you need a starting point and an ending point.  You can't measure the universe because it is infinite.  You can only measure things within the universe.  But if you consider that the universe is the "infinite large," could there not also be an "infinite small?"  It's difficult to even comprehend the vastness of infinity.  But it may be even more difficult to comprehend the minuteness of it.

Balls of Light

I did a crop circle post a while back and mentioned that balls of light had been seen around crop circles - and even caught on video.  It's curious to me...what could they be?  Why are they there?  Are all the stories lies and all the video clips faked?

It's kind of become almost a cliche for a crop circle researcher or enthusiast to start the conversation about it with a little disclaimer about most crop circles (usually 90 or 95%) being hoaxes.  That's probably pretty accurate, especially when you consider that the majority of them appear in England.  But as I mentioned in my previous posting on the topic, some crop circles display some mysterious properties.  Why are EM fields detected around some of them?  Why do some them have evidence of microwave radiation?

I don't know that these properties are necessarily evidence of being something other than man-made.  However, if they are mad-made, they are obviously using more than just boards and rope.  Another question would be, why are they making these designs?  How do they come up with and decide what designs to use?  And what tools are they using to make them that leave microwave radiation?

And what's the deal with these little balls of light people report seeing?  Should we be trying to figure out what the crop circle means, or trying to figure out what the balls of light are?  Or both?

Here's a crop circle documentary that describes some of the more mysterious aspects of the phenomena and has some film clips of the balls of light.  It's 50 minutes long.



Whatever you think they are, keep in mind that just because something can be hoaxed, doesn't mean it's always hoaxed.

The Irrational Rationalizers

There comes a point when 'rational' thinking can become irrational. I say this because some people are so obsessed with being as 'rational' as possible, they end up becoming irrational in the process. It's not like a measuring stick where the bottom is irrational and the top is rational and you can point to how rational you are on the stick. I think it's more like a hill, where the bottom of hill is irrationalism, and the top of the hill is the height of rationalism.

It's been my observation that the hardened skeptic (in regards to paranormal topics) is so concerned with finding a 'rational' explanation for paranormal topics, they don't stop at the top of the hill of rationalism. Instead, they keep going on down the other side of the hill. Sometimes, they may try so hard to get to top of the hill, they end up tumbling down the other side of the hill!

Michael Prescott recently wrote about an example of what I would call skeptics tumbling down the hill of rationalism. It's in reference to a skeptical analysis of an episode of the psychic John Edward's show Crossing Over.

Here is the relevant piece of the program the skeptical report analyzed:

John: Why is Niagara Falls significant?

Lady 1: We was just there.

John: You were just at Niagara Falls, ok.

Lady 1: Me and my daughter.

John: Did you find a feather there?

Lady 1: Yes, and my daughter…

John: Did you tell your daughter that was from daddy?

Lady 1: Yes.

John: Ok, this is a validation that he was there for you, ok? 'Cause he's showing me the feather. Lucky for you that's my mother's symbol when she communicates with me. I find feathers. So it was a very easy symbol for me to get. But I need to validate for you that is was definitely, definitely him there for her.

Lady 1: Thank you. 

Here is what Prescott wrote about it:

So Edward told the woman that he was getting "Niagara Falls," and in fact the woman had just been there. He then asked if she had found a feather there, and the woman said yes. He then asked if she'd told her daughter that the feather was "from daddy" (deceased). The woman confirmed this, too.

Sounds pretty good to me.

The skeptical report says this about it:

But what of the feather? Isn't that a fantastic piece of evidence?

Not really. According to the 35th Annual Niagara Falls Christmas Bird Count on Saturday, December 29th, 2001, a total of 101 species of birds were found, and a total of 49,744 birds in Niagara Falls, NY.

There are also quite a few photos on the web from Niagara Falls with birds in them:

[Links to bird photos are given.]

Tons of birds on these ones.

I think we can safely say that it would not be uncommon to find a feather at Niagara Falls.

OK, then: What about Niagara Falls itself?

What does John Edward actually say about Niagara Falls? "Did you tell your daughter that the feather she found at Niagara Falls was from her Daddy?"

No. Previously in the reading, we have learned that Catherine has lost her husband. First, John Edward asks: "Why is Niagara Falls significant?" He doesn't say anything about the nature of the significance. He asks Catherine!

From there, she tells John Edward that she was there with her daughter. Since birds are commonplace there, it would be likely if the daughter found a feather – it is fun for kids to find feathers.

Immediately after, Catherine – tearfully – begins to tell John Edward that "her daughter" – and then John Edward breaks in and asks about the father.

It takes three steps, and after each, John Edward asks a crucial question. It doesn't take a genius to see what is happening here.

Prescott has this to say about the skeptical analysis:

According to this argument, Edward's references to a) Niagara Falls, b) finding a feather there, and c) the mom telling the daughter that the feather was a gift from her departed father were all lucky guesses or obvious logical inferences. Money quote: "Since birds are commonplace there, it would be likely if the daughter found a feather – it is fun for kids to find feathers."

Now, really. I mean, come on.

I have no doubt that there are many birds at Niagara Falls, and it was hardly necessary for SkepticReport to cite bird counts and bird photos to establish this uncontroversial point. (I'd guess that these citations were added to make the article look more "scientific.")

As a matter of fact, there are lots of birds everywhere, except maybe Death Valley. I've lived in several different parts of the country, in widely differing climate zones, and have never found any shortage of birds, even in urban areas.

Even so, I have rarely noticed any feathers on the ground, and to the best of my recollection I have never seen a kid pick up a feather. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's not the sort of thing you see every day. ("Hey, look, there's another kid picking up a feather. Third time today.")

Moreover, I have never heard anyone tell a child that a feather was a gift from a deceased parent, or anything of the kind. Actually, I don't think I've ever heard been part of a conversation about picking up bird feathers in any context.

The whole "explanation" is an obvious example of rationalizing after the fact. If Edward had said that the woman's husband was run over by a dump truck in Newark, maybe SkepticReport would cite statistics and photos proving that there are many dump trucks in Newark. When you think of Newark, aren't dump trucks the first thing that come to mind? And since people sometimes get run over by dump trucks, it was easy for Edward to guess that the husband had died this way. Why, when you think about it, it's just common sense!

SkepticReport also points out a minor and debatable discrepancy between the show's transcript and the way it's written up in Edward's book Crossing Over.

Read the rest of Michael Prescott's post here.

The skeptic's report on the subject was so ridiculous, it was funny. I actually laughed out loud at the report. This is the kind of 'rationalization' that you can frequently find in skeptical reports on paranormal topics.

It's occurred to me recently that some devout, dogmatic religious believers are more rational than some of the self-described 'rational skeptics'. The reason I say that is because oftentimes, a dogmatic religious believer will tell you that they believe what they believe because of faith. They don't deny their dogmas.  However, the 'rational skeptic' seems oblivious to the fact that their skepticism is result of their own dogmatic beliefs. The problem is, they don't realize that a so called 'non-belief' is an indication of a belief in something else. Essentially, non-belief can be a type of belief in itself.

For instance, let's look at a conversation between a Christian and an Atheist, who we'll call Tom and Dick.

Tom: I believe Jesus is the Son of God because I read it in the Bible

Dick: I don't believe that, I think the Bible is just a bunch of fairy tales.

Tom believes Jesus is the Son of God because he believes the Bible is a credible source. Dick doesn't believe Jesus is the Son of God because he believes the Bible is a bunch of fairy tales. Dick's non-belief isn't just a 'non-belief', it's a belief in something else. In a way, you could say that 'non-belief' is a non-existent. There may be things that you don't believe in, but there is a reason that you don't believe the things you don't believe, and that reason is the belief in something else. Otherwise, why wouldn't you believe it? You question something because you already believe something else to be true.

This is the problem with atheism. Atheists have deluded themselves into thinking they are smarter and more rational than everyone else because they don't believe in things they can't see, hear, or measure. They are apparently oblivious to the fact that they do believe in something. Perhaps they've deluded themselves into thinking that because they don't have a system of rituals or an organized set of beliefs, they are totally open minded and not deceived by anyone. But they do believe something. Their belief is that the physical reality that you can see and hear is all that there is, and anything that doesn't fit into that paradigm must not be true. Sometimes, if you try to tell atheists that their lack of a belief in God or the supernatural is in itself a belief in a physical, materialistic paradigm, they'll typically dispute that and laugh about it and just classify such a statement as something like, 'just another big dumb [insert name of religion] believer trying to cling to their fantasies'. They've become so dogmatic into their own atheistic beliefs, they don't even realize that they are the ones clinging to fantasies of 'what you can see is all that there is'.

One reason I criticize the scientific establishment is because they have seemingly deluded much of world (at least in Western nations) into thinking that they are the highest authority of truth. They are not. They have convinced many people that you shouldn't believe in something unless it gets a thumbs up from scientists. They've convinced some people that if a scientist can't explain "how" something works, then it must not be real. This just isn't the way it should be. You have to understand that the scientific establishment has its own pre-conceived notions and dogmas too. As such, scientific scrutiny should not be considered the be-all and end-all of discussion.

The truth is, I don't think anyone can be completely open minded about everything. I think anyone who would tell you they are 100% open minded about everything is either lying to you or lying to themselves. I would say that a 100% open mind is a blank mind. You have to at least have some sort of foundation to start from. As a result, most research is based on 'proving' what someone already believes to be true, or disproving something they already believe is not true. The key point to understand here is that when attempting to disprove something, a person isn't just trying to disprove it because they are a non-believer, but because they already believe something else to be true. So again, it's based on a belief, not non-belief.

When you read the example I listed earlier from Michael Prescott's blog, I think it's quite obvious that the skeptic is attempting to explain away something he or she clearly does not believe in. Because of that, the skeptic's report has about as much value as a devout Muslim's analysis of a Christian doctrine. If the Muslim already clearly believes the Christian doctrine is wrong, then the Muslim's report is obviously going to be biased. The skeptic's report of the psychic phenomena is not much better. Getting different viewpoints on a subject is what open mindedness is, however, we must not forget that skeptical analysis and scientific scrutiny is in itself an analysis based on particular viewpoint and belief. And sometimes a skeptical analysis needs its own skeptical analysis. J

Some very dogmatic religious people are closed minded because they fear being led astray by conflicting viewpoints. Skeptics are closed minded because they don't seem to even realize that they themselves have their own system of beliefs they cling to. Essentially, they don't even realize they are closed minded!

I guess my overall point here is that people need to learn to analyze things for themselves. I know not everyone has an analytical mind, but people don't need to let someone else do all their thinking. And when you climb the hill of rationalism, you don't want to just keep walking straight. If you do, you end up walking back down the other side towards irrationalism. Instead, the goal should be to walk towards the top, then once you're near the top, begin circling around the top of the mountain. That way, you can hear all the viewpoints and analyze them yourself.

Paranormal Hotspot: Mount Shasta

Photo by Bill Gracey.

On a whim, you decide you want to take a vacation and go on a multi-faceted paranormal investigation.  You want to investigate bigfoot, ghosts, aliens, UFOs, lost civilizations, mysterious ancient legends, and some sort of new agey beliefs too. But you just don't have the time and resources to visit the Pacific Northwest, the Myrtles Plantation, Roswell, Rendlesham Forest, Akrotiri, Teotihuacan, and Stonehenge.  So what are you to do?  Go to Mount Shasta of course!

The area around Mt. Shasta, CA has been inhabited for thousands of years.  The peak the city is named after has long been viewed as a sacred place to Native American tribes in the area.  It was thought that the mountain was the center of creation, and the Great Spirit created it by pushing ice and snow through a hole from heaven and then using the mountain to step onto the earth.  It was also thought that the Great Spirit, known as Skell, dwelled on the mountain after creation.  It even has a story of a great flood attached to it.

New Age groups have regarded the mountain as a sacred location as well.  It's been claimed that beneath the mountain is a very ancient city called Telos, which is allegedly where people from the ancient lost continent of Lemuria (a.k.a. Mu) settled after Lemuria was destroyed.  Allegedly, they continue to live beneath the mountain in a utopian like civilization.  Sometimes it's claimed they are physical people, sometimes it's claimed they dwell on a different plane of existence, perhaps as 4th or 5th dimensional entities (4th dimensional denoting a higher awareness of spirituality/consciousness, 5th dimensional meaning a non-physical intelligent entity).  The story of Telos actually comes from a fictional novel called A Dweller on Two Planets that was written in 1800s by Frederick Spencer Oliver.  It was thought that the author must have 'channeled' the story because he was only 17 and the depth of the topics covered seem to be beyond what a 17 year old of the time would have been capable of writing.  Decades later in the 1930s, the secret society known as the Rosicrucians would popularize the belief that advanced Lemurians lived beneath Mount Shasta.

Native American legends and New Age beliefs aside, there are many reports of strange phenomena occurring at Mount Shasta.

-Bigfoot has been sighted there. Link
-Ghosts have been sighted there. Link
-UFOs have been sighted there. Link Link 2 Link 3 (Update 11/16/12: Original Link 2 no longer worked so I replaced it with a new link I found and added a third link)

In addition to claims that Mount Shasta is an entrance to the hollow earth, it's also been claimed that there is an underground military base there.  Even Batsquatch has been sighted there!  Interestingly, Batsquatch is a creature allegedly sighted around Mount St. Helens, a stratovolcano.  Mt. Shasta is a stratovolcano also.

There's a lot stories regarding paranormal phenomena on Mt. Shasta, however it's hard to find a lot of good, credible research regarding those stories.  Some of the stories are probably fictional or fabricated, some of them may be misidentifications, others may be exaggerated.  However, despite some of the stories being questionable, I think there is enough evidence to suggest that Mt. Shasta is indeed a mysterious place.  Whether it's ghosts, legends, UFOs, or cryptozoology, a paranormal researcher can probably find something of interest to study at Mt. Shasta.  It seems to be quite the 'paranormal hotspot'.

"How" doesn't answer "Why"

I was thinking about consciousness and 'self' today while I was out walking, and it occurred to me that when it comes to neuroscience, scientists may be attempting to answer the question to "why" the brain works the way it does with the answer to "how" it works.

I tend to think our mind consists of at least two levels of 'self'.  The conscious and subconscious, which I tend to think are the 'animal mind' and 'soul mind' respectively.  I say "at least" two levels of self because I'm not totally convinced the subconscious is the soul mind.  The subconscious itself may be part of the physical/animal mind, but the point is, I believe our highest 'self' transcends the physical body and brain.

I think the brain is more of a control panel for our higher self.  This is, of course, not the scientific view, which suggests that everything occurs in the brain itself.  But I think the observed neural activity in the brain is not merely the result of the brain's physical functioning, but the result of that 'neural activity' interfacing with the brain.

Scientists have taught us many things about our limitations.  They've taught us that our eyes can only see an itty bitty little bit of the light spectrum.  There are certain things we can't hear.  They've even taught us that this varies animal to animal.  Dogs don't see as many colors as we do, but they can hear and smell things better than we do.  But despite the limitations we have, scientists seem to ignore these limitations in their experiments.  They only care to study what they can observe.  If they can't observe it, then it must not be.  How ironic?

To get to the point I want to make in this post though, when it comes to the brain, I think scientists may be limiting their answer to "why" the brain works with "how" it works because they cannot observe "why" it works.  To use an analogy, if Person 1 is using a touchscreen cell phone and started moving an object around on the screen with his finger and then asked Person 2 why they object was moving, Person 2 would probably look at Person 1 stupid and answer, "Because your're moving it around."  And yes, that is WHY the object is moving around...because someone is moving it.

But let's say Person 1 who is moving the object around on the screen is invisible.  A Person 3 comes along and asks Person 2 how the object is able to move.  To investigate, Person 2 may get a screwdriver and take the back off of the phone.  After some investigation, Person 2 concludes that the circuit board is what enables the object to move on the screen.  Not only that, it appears that the circuit board is what makes the whole phone function!  But that is HOW it works.  That doesn't answer WHY it's doing what it's doing.

The answer to WHY the circuit board is doing what it is doing is because the invisible Person 1 is instructing it on what to do.  But because Person 2 and Person 3 don't see Person 1, they assume that the circuit board must hold all the answers, including the answer to why.  As a result, the answer to 'why' gets lumped together with the answer to 'how', or they just continue to look at circuit board for many years trying to find an anomaly that may explain - or can be interpreted to explain - 'why'.

If Person 2 and Person 3 limit themselves to only considering what they can observe, then they may never understand that the intelligence - the why - behind the circuit board's operation is the invisible Person 1.

"We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning." -Werner Heisenberg, theoretical physicist


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P.S. Just to add another point to my post, lumping "how" and "why" together seems to be common in science.  For instance, I googled the question of why the sun is hot.  Here is the first answer to come up:

The sun is hot because the atoms deep inside the sun are undergoing nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion releases a lot of energy. This energy excites all the other atoms in the sun, and causes them to move about. This is what heat is. So the nuclear reactions inside the sun cause the sun to be hot.

That answer came from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Physics Department.

But why are the atoms deep inside the sun undergoing nuclear fusion?  Why does nuclear fusion release a lot of energy?  Why does nuclear fusion even occur?  What is it that makes the laws of physics what they are?  Why is that the way it 'is'?

I think the answer given to why the sun is hot would be like someone asking a hunter why he shot a deer, and then the hunter answering because he "pulled a trigger on the gun, which ignited a reaction in the chamber, which propelled a bullet toward the deer, which blasted through the deer's heart, cutting off its blood circulation, which caused it to fall over dead."  Imagine getting that answer instead of just getting an answer like, "To eat it."  So in this case we have 'what' happened; the hunter pulled the trigger igniting a reaction that propelled the bullet towards the deer.  As to 'how' the deer died, it was the bullet going through its heart and cutting off its circulation.  But as to 'why' it all happened, it was because the hunter wanted to eat it.

Maybe this is the key difference in religious studies and scientific studies.  Religion wants to know why, but science wants to know how.  Perhaps we could have an even greater understanding of things if we recognize that each question needs to be answered separately.