Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Yet Another New Age Psycho Medical Device

the following is a classic example of New Age nonsense, which has a modicum of truth,
but not nearly enough to be worth buying the device. The "institute" says "For over 22 years, Gregg Braden has searched high mountain villages, remote monasteries and forgotten texts
to uncover their timeless secrets." yeah, typical New Age nonsense, remote places, old texts and
timeless secrets. bullshit.

Here's the facts. Heart transplant recipient often, and kidney recipients sometimes, report changes
severe changes in their likes and dislikes, concepts of what is beautiful, strange new activities 
out of previous character (one took up motorcycling out of the blue) and so forth. When the donors
can be identified and their personalities and activities detailed, the changes in the recipient are a
match to the donor.

that the heart might indeed keep some kind of neurological record and become part of a feedback
loop to the brain and back, is possible. The ancient Egyptians had the notion of several souls, the ka 
being what we recognize as the soul, the entire conscious after death person and etheric body, and 
the ba was the other main one. This was located in the heart. My guess is, that these people noticed
some things perhaps some had paranormal sight, perhaps some did horrible experiments.

So a kind of consciousness might reside, the personality of the original person stamped on it, in 
the heart, but is not the person him or herself, who is now elsewhere.

But that doesn't prove that this gps for the heart (a) has the right idea about how it should
be operating (b) is supplying any information that is not noise generated by the device itself,
aside from the usual heartbeat and maybe some of the electrical signal doctors look at to
tell what is going on physically.

The goal of course is the kind of unhealthy altered states of consciousness typical of the New
Age.

So whatever stats or legends this guy has got, that doesn't establish the worth of the heart gps.



"Heartmath Institute
  • Watch this page
The Institute of HeartMath is managed by a nonprofit research and education organization which promotes a form of energy medicine predicated on the pseudoscientific claim that the human heart has its own memory and emotions, and emits "energy". This energy is supposed to be measured and displayed by electronic devices which the institute sells.[1]
The devices show waveform representing heart activity and various kinds of electromagnetic noise; the claimed concepts around, and explanation for, what they display is no more than fiction. In December 2014 the UK National Health Servicein Lanarkshire halted referrals for treatment using Heartmath which had been provided by a regional homeopathichospital, saying that no systematic review or meta-analyses could be found.[2]
Steve Novella has written that the "evidence" for Heartmath is no more than fabrication constructed around electromagnetic noise registered by the http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/energy-medicine-noise-based-pseudoscience/devices used: "a tale woven from intertwining threads of pre-scientific superstition and some modern jargon and concepts".[1]

ReferencesEdit

  1. Novella S (12 December 2012) .  "Energy Medicine - Noise Based Pseudoscience"    http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/energy-medicine-noise-based-pseudoscience/      Science-Based Medicine. Retrieved December 2014.
  2.  "NHS Lanarkshire to end referrals to Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital" http://www.nightingale-collaboration.org/news/169-nhs-lanarkshire-to-end-referrals-to-glasgow-homeopathic-hospital.html   9 December 2014. Retrieved December 2014."  http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartmath_Institute

Sunday, January 4, 2015

How To do It

The New Age is both spiritual and political. In the former category,
only the Christian orthodox view has the big picture, and can hit
effectively at the core of it, but there is enough hostility between
New Age concepts and much in other religions whether semi true
or false, that these can and do fight some of the New Age tentacles.

The spiritually inclined New Agers often dislike globalism and
the New World Order, but this is only true of the moderately
spiritual, the hard core neo theosophist sort are another matter.
Basically the New World Order aka globalism is the political
arm of the New Age Movement, and the New Age Movement
is the spiritual arm of the New World Order, pushing a sense of
unity as a preceding state to make political and economic unity
easier to impose.

In the political category, its multifaceted quality means that you will
even find New Agers of one category fighting New Agers of
another category, regarding some of this.

For example, Agenda 21 and its synonymn, sustainable growth,
smart growth, etc., is inherently hostile to those whether Christian,
Christian but New Age compromised, and non Christian and New
Age, who want to live in touch with nature, small family farm, etc.
The best recent attack was launched by an out of the closet lesbian
(and I suspect neo pagan of some sort) Democrat with a real estate
assessment background. The entire moral and political and religious
spectrum is to be found in the category of dead against Agenda 21,
Among supporters of Agenda 21, you mostly find the left, of course,
and centrists.

Agenda 21 works along the lines of think globally, act locally.
(another angle is "each one teach one," put in highly effective motion
by Red China under Mao, in terms of agricultural and medical
improvements outside the cities. Basically, it means that if you have
some useful information on something, you can help someone by
teaching them that skill, who doesn't know it, even if you aren't a
certified accredited degreed expert professional in that subject.
Varying degrees of medical and agrarian expertise do more good
with what little they have, with people who will hear them because
of extended family or village origin or whatever reasons, than someone
who doesn't get into the field until they are at the top of the category
they are working in, a full medical doctor for instance. Even minor
surgery is something that a non doctor can handle, one can be good
on broken bones, another know how to stitch wounds, another can
handle an appendectomy and nothing else, no one is a heart or brain
surgeon or cancer specialist. And these skills for superficial invasive
or non invasive treatment can be taught to others.)

This is the same approach we need to take.

If you are temptable, too open minded, too suggestible, then you
need to stay away from some people. But if you can associate with
anyone and not be affected by them, then you can network with
these people and co-opt their (non paranormal) energy in this anti
New Age direction that they oppose, even if they continue to work
for some other New Age direction.

In some cases, a particular kind of sin is more a temptation than
others. If you have susceptibility to influence A but not B then avoid
people in category A and work with people in category B.

This is also an opportunity to give a good witness, both of words and
deeds, for Jesus Christ.

In some matters they have the right idea, whether it is a big one world
operation like the UN or EU or something else . Of course they
will be using it to promote their agenda. For instance, trying to stop
human trafficking. (And some of their bigwigs and foot soldiers may
be involved in this themselves, as clients. Scandals have erupted, and
should be publicized when they do.) Women's rights is an umbrella
term that includes stopping spousal abuse, forced arranged marriages,
child marriage, and getting girls educated, which is good, but also
includes abortion, which is bad. Contraception is a mixed bag of
tricks, though all chemical means are supposed to suppress ovulation,
they also keep the womb wall thin and keep the conceptus (fertilized
egg) from implanting. barrier and spermicidal contraception doesn't
do this. The herbal contraceptives, with the exception of pomegranate,
are actually abortifacient outright, or do this sort of thing. One plant
I forget which, was allegedly able to render you sterile for 6 months,
a brew of the seeds used by Native Americans. How it did so is
another matter. Chemical contraception for men would obviously
simply suppress sperm formation or render them too weak to swim
well, not harm an egg once fertilized, so is not an issue, except in
terms of possible other effects on the men. (Yes, men's health
matters, even if you had nothing but bad from men in your life, they
are believe it or not human beings like us women, and some of them
are actually okay people. Its just that the good ones are taken.)

The current interest in some globalist circles of getting people into
eating bugs is not a bad idea at all, gross as it sounds. Just be sure
they were not exposed to pesticides (much) or fed on GMOs (much.)

Fluoride used to be a right wing crazy issue, so was ignored. They
though it was a communist conspiracy to destroy American health.
Actually it is a big corporation type capitalist conspiracy to get paid
to dump their industrial and nuclear non radioactive by product waste
on the public, probably not intending harm so much as not giving a
hoot if it did or not.

Harvard or John's Hopkins, some respectable place like that, has
recently released a study showing fluoride is all the bad stuff the
Birchers etc. said it was.

GMOs (genetically modified organisms) used to be a sort of leftist
worry, but it is going mainstream and conservative as everyone wakes
up to the threat. (rats raised on it didn't grow well, and the third
generation was sterile. how's that for zero population growth?) Noted
by researchers is that many of the super rich use organic and non GMO
food and probably non fluoride water. Any filtration system that
uses three stage with osmosis filtration, will take a lot of fluoride out
of the water, but there is always some there anyway, even in spring
water, if you want no fluoride drink distilled.

Do you get the picture? What I am saying is that a lot of stuff usually
labelled left or right is in fact neither, but legitimate issues either as
something to avoid or something to promote in themselves.

Signing petitions is one thing. Sending money is another. Be careful
what organizations you support.

There was a time PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals)
was the only group sneaking in and video documenting horrific abuse
of animals in farm, pre slaughter transport, and other situations. Now
there are others. So at one point I supported them, maybe even sent
them money. But there is a MAJOR problem with them. Their long
term agenda is to eliminate ALL human animal interaction, even pets.

They are the no pets nightmare on steroids, and probably come to
think of it, would work to promote no pets rules where they don't
already exist, and to prevent no pets rules being removed. Whether
they just kill all animals that come into their hands, or actually get
some of them homes, is an open question in my mind.

They are aggressive vegans, which is very bad for the rest of us, since
statistically meat eaters or at least dairy and egg eaters are in better
psychological condition. This is probably because taurine and b12
are extremely difficult to get in a vegan diet. Mixing grains (rice,
wheat, oats, spelt, etc.) with legumes (beans, peas, peanuts - not real
nuts but legumes - and maybe alfalfa, also a legume family plant)
will let you produce taurine, I am not sure about the b12.

And these two things are important neurologically, and taurine is
in eyes, brain and heart.

Vegetarianism intermittently is good for you, as a normal life
style, only for those with exactly the right diet (and supplements),
There may be people who are more genetically able to handle a
vegetarian diet than others. That would require an expensive and
complicated decade of research on thousands of people and taking
note of isolated unusual individuals that are better or worse on
a vegan diet or on a meat diet or a mix, and their ancestors if possible
and other relatives. I don't propose to do it.

That all creatures were once vegan, or perhaps also ate the occasional
fish or at least eggs and milk and cheese, is indicated by Genesis
chapter 1. Scoffers should consider, that with the curse on the land
against Adam, involving growth of "thorns and thistles" one of those
words is dardir, a fast growing plant, there was possibly some mutation
going on. viruses in the wild will snip genes and transport them from
one kind of creature to unrelated kinds, aka lateral inheritance, which
is what the mad scientists got the idea for GMO from, but forced in
the laboratory is not the same thing. So we can assume that a lot
changed after The Fall.

Ironically, some sabertoothed creatures may have been more vegetarian
and peaceful than they look. Take a look at a walrus. Yep, the last
example of a sabertooth variety of anything. A sabertoothed seal. What
does it use the fangs for? digging up clams. (At this point someone will
probably scream that it isn't a seal, that genetically and anatomically it
is a totally different thing. Whatever. Seal, seal lion, big blubbery thing
with flippers that lives in the water and land and is a mammal and doesn't
walk on land but galumphs.)

Meanwhile, the most dangerous and violent animals, that will attack
at the drop of a hat, are herbivores: the hippopotamus and rhino. And, if
the herbivorous nature of the apatosaurus/brontosaurus types is correct,
the Mokele mbembe of the Congo in Africa, and something similar in
South America. The reason for the violence is territorialism, so extreme
that unlike most territorial animals, it even chases things not remotely
resembling themselves. Such as humans. (in the case of hippo attacks
on boats, I suspect it is scent from rival hippos upstream or downstream,
brought with the boat, that triggers the attack. In the case of rhinos, they
can't see very well - one tried to mate with a Land Rover truck once - and
attack on general principles in case something might be dangerous.)

Technological issues are in play. Again, the dreams of elites and of
power are not limited to those of their (sometimes extended family style
connected) members. Those who show similar ideals and are skilled,
and who are willing to cooperate, will probably be accepted in stages
into the inner circle. (And I would imagine there is more than one group
considering itself "the inner circle." Such circles even if in competition,
would be connected to some extent, and would probably pull together
against an attack against the lot of them.)

Kurzweil is an interesting case. I don't know who is with him, or what
his educational background, ergo fraternity or other social affiliations
are. Obviously he is a genius. Seems he lost his father, never got over it,
and has been trying to figure out how to be immortal ever since. I think
there might a resurrect his father agenda also. In other words, someone
with a classifiable mental problem, the social skills to stay out of the nut
ward, and the technological skills to work on making some of his dreams
semi come true. Which might be a nightmare for the rest of us.

Transhumanism's draw is nice things like prosthetics for the disabled,
moving to eye and ear and finally brain implants to deal with blindness
and deafness and other stuff.

The ultimate goal, is to merge the human with the machine. If everyone
gets this, instead of only elites, it will be a situation where elites have
more control over the masses than is possible now. The Internet of
Everything is a move in this direction, of creating the mass mind, which
doesn't look like this, yet, but what direction would it go in? or be
driven in by those who want this from the start?

Science fiction is the speculation of minds who dream wildly, but in a
techno context. Kids growing up on this crap sometimes went into
physics and astronomics and so forth, and I read somewhere that a lot of
scientists who made space travel and communications and other things
like robotics work, grew up on and were inspired by science fiction.

The hive mind is a concept that existed in some science fiction movies,
and in the old days, even now, it was presented as part of the bad guys'
scene, used against us or even used to drag us into it with of course the
aliens or whatever being the superego/cortex/whatever analogy you like,
of the resulting hive mind.

Science fiction nowdays is increasingly depicting telepathy or outright
mind mergers and hivemind as some sort of next step evolution desirable
thing.

Which brings me to evolution. If it is false (it is) it is nothing to hang
your hat on. But there is another matter. One doesn't have to be into
evolution, to be trying to either get back to the Garden of Eden on his
or her own terms, instead of through Jesus Christ, or trying to improve
on God's creation (us), becoming gods even (the line of talk of the
transhumanists). Can you spell Frankenstein? People like this used
to be called utopians, and this goes back to before Darwin. Pagan
philosophy included some evolutionism. Reincarnationist ideas like
hinduism posit evolution through many incarnations, including animal
ones. Darwin and some others made this "scientific" and theosophists
jumped on the bandwagon (if they didn't start it sub rosa) incorporating
it in their world view. Hitler got on that bandwagon, and we all know
where that ended. (except it didn't end, the Nazi survival is an interesting
and ominous story in itself. The European Union was founded at a
meeting including people with a Nazi past, and is the same as an idea
for post war unification of Europe, that some Nazis had as a plan B
when their destruction was becoming evident. Basically, the SS and
suchlike hit the road, leaving the Wehrmacht and the German people
to take the heat. In other words, when the going gets tough, the tough
get going - out the door, down the street and out of town. Where they
landed includes USA, Argentina, the Middle East, and the occasional
African context, to name a few.)

The Internet of Everything is a step in the direction of the hive mind.
At first it is harmless, useful even but eventually with brain chips to
order your stuff around from miles away you can have your brain
hacked.

And of course the worshippers of the hive mind idea, compatible with
New Age "unity" notions, would like this also.


Saturday, January 3, 2015

Textual Criticism argument

context, an argument about the pericope de adultera, or woman
taken in adultery, and its absence from some NT texts. The whole
subject of textual criticism gets into play.

"Internal evidence from the text
1. The style and vocabulary of the pericope differ markedly from the rest of John. 14 out of 82 vocabulary words in
the section are unjohannine. Also, the use of ‘hos’ as a temporal conjunction rather than John’s usual ‘oun.’"

And that might be because John wrote it out himself, because he was not educated, but could do basic reading and writing.

The argument someone used against Revelation, is that the style and grammar are different the grammar poorer than John's Gospel and Epistles. But in the former case John was alone, writing on his own, while in the latter case he was not, and could have had brush up the quality help from scribes. If anything that is a testimony to the legitimacy of Revelation, and might be an argument for the pericope, if a scribe argued about including it and he just grabbed the paper and wrote it in himself.
PRE FIFTH CENTURY WRITERS QUOTED IT:

"Ambrose at Milan (374) quotes it at least nine times; as well as Augustine in North Africa (396) about twice
as often. It is quoted besides by Pacian, in the north of Spain (370)..."

"Jerome included the passage in the latin Vulgate, and noted that (ca. 420), “in the Gospel according to John in many
manuscripts, both Greek and Latin, is found the story of the adulterous woman who was accused before the Lord.”
Jerome, “The Dialogue against the Pelagians” (2.17).
Augustine (ca. 430) was of the opinion that certain manuscripts were lacking the passage because it was deliberately
removed. “certain persons of little faith, or rather enemies of the true faith, fearing, I suppose, lest their wives should
be given impunity in sinning, removed from their manuscripts the Lord’s act of forgiveness toward the adulteress, as
if He who had said ‘sin no more’ had granted permission to sin.” Augustine, “Adulterous Marriages (2.7)" https://austinbiblechurch.com/sites/default/files/documents/Pericope%20de%20Adultera.pdf



"Christine, you wrote: Jerome and Augustine were fifth century, but had access to copies made in the fourth century and Jerome would have had access to by seeking out copies from even earlier.

You you know this how? By omniscience?"

no by common sense. If we have copies from over a thousand years ago, how can any sane person think that in their time there weren't many copies around from 200 years ago or earlier? 

papyrus "In dry climates, papyrus is stable and rot resistant when stored properly. Stored in humid conditions, the material can be destroyed by mold. In Europe, if this writing material lasted more than 200 years it was exceptional." http://arthistorygroup.blogspot.com/2012/06/papyrus-parchment-vellum-paper.html

So you have a window of 150 (in a wet climate) to 250 or more (if in a dry climate) years for papyrus, depending on climate. Parchment was much more durable, vellum being finer and thinner was more on a par with papyrus. Jerome and Augustine were early 400s, combine these two bits of information what does that tell you?

Jerome was doing a Bible translation from Old Latin to then modern Latin and stated he examined not only Latin but Greek MSS.


Codex C is Ephraemi Rescriptus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_uncials looking at this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Ephraemi_Rescriptus

I find two interesting things: "The Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53–8:11) is omitted; though the pericope is located on the lost two leaves (John 7:3–8:34), by counting the lines it can be proved that it was not in the book – there is not room for it (as in Codex Alexandrinus).[7] The text of Mark 16:9–20 was included to the codex, though it was located on the lost leaves; by counting the lines it can be proved that it was in the work.[8] "

This is confusing and incoherent, what lost leaves that there isn't room for? lost from these codices that are missing leaves in which case how do you know they were on them? or a coverup that they were on them because they are lying around separate? or what? 

This document also is a hybrid of all text types: The Greek text of the codex is a representative of the Alexandrian text-type, with the Byzantine readings in the Gospels, but with numerous Alexandrian readings. It is a weak Byzantine witness in Matthew, a weak Alexandrian in Mark, and a strong Alexandrian in John. In Luke its textual character is unclear.[13] Westcott-Hort classified it as mixed;[14] Hermann von Soden classified it as in the Alexandrian text-type.[15]
According to Kurt Aland it agrees with the Byzantine text-type 87 times in the Gospels, 13 times in the Acts, 29 times in Paul, and 16 times in the Catholic epistles. It agrees with the Nestle-Aland text 66 times (Gospels), 38 (Acts), 104 (Paul), and 41 (Cath.). It has 50 independent or distinctive readings in the Gospels, 11 in Acts, 17 in Paul, and 14 in the Catholic epistles. Aland placed the text of the codex in Category II.[1] According to the Claremont Profile Method its text is mixed in Luke 1, Luke 10, and Luke 20.[15]
In Apocalypse Codex Ephraemi is a witness of the same form of the text as Codex Alexandrinus.[16] 

And you will notice two experts don't agree on its classification. Maybe the classification boundaries aren't as exact as they make out?

and since most text differences don't make any difference in meaning, maybe they are all just scribal variants from an original?

For instance, someone says or writes that Bob came to town driving a brown truck, someone else might say Bob came to town in a vehicle, another a brown vehicle, another a truck, another (technically correct) an automobile (the term includes all internal combustion vehicles) and someone might say he rode rather than he drove which implies someone else drove, but can include him riding in a vehicle because he is driving it.

Then someone else gets into textual variants of the transmission of this information - ignoring the issue of the importance of the information itself. And to those who are like most of us (and myself on a bad day) not sharp enough, these variations would appear to be contradictions enough to raise questions about whether Bob exists, whether he ever came to town or not, and if so what in, a horse drawn cart (which is includable in vehicle) or an internal combustion device? 

And if Bob's biography is testimony to some event in that town, then we can question whether the event occurred or even if the town existed. 

And that is exactly the effect of all this textual criticism on the average mind especially those who exploit this to fight Christianity itself. 

So this thing is testimony to every text type in the book, leaves out the pericope and supports the 616 reading in the Apocalypse, which means it is one of those MSS that Irenaeus said had a scribal error in it on that point, so why not on others as well?



Their competence IS on the line because they ignore issues about the Bible that put it outside of normal books of ancient times, i.e., motives to tweak the text and accusations back in those days that it was done, SO IS ANY ANCIENT TEXT THE PRODUCT OF AN ORTHODOX OR OF A HERETIC SCRIBE? and motives within the orthodox camp to eliminate the pericope because of fear it made too light of adultery.




They totally ignore the fact, that Irenaeus was taught by Polycarp who was taught by John the Apostle himself, and that Irenaeus also was the recipient of the tradition of bishops from Peter and Paul, and therefore his opinion outweighs any early papyrus. 

All the early support to 616 that the fragment referred to below does, is prove that such scribal errors, as Irenaeus refers to, in fact happened, as he said they did. 

"Of some interest is the early support given by this manuscript to the number of the beast (Rev. 13:18) being 616 (here given in alpha-numeric form as XIV [with bar], the other early witness C has it written in full: ecakosiai deka ec).[37] Manuscripts bearing this reading were known to Irenaeus. He affirmed that 666 stood ‘in all the most approved and ancient copies’ (e0n pa=si toi=v spoudai/oiv kai\ a0rxai/oiv a0ntigra/foiv, Against Heresies V.30.1), and argued that 616 arose as a scribal error. The reading of P115 does not actually add much to the available evidence, except to confirm one side of Irenaeus’ account, and to add some early weight to the 616 reading."http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Tyndale/staff/Head/NTOxyPap.htm

they then go on to point out that the two numbers are effectively the same if you transliterate Greek into Latin, ignoring that the proper approach would be to take a word or name and spell it in Greek and use the Greek number value of letter.s

Letters were used for numbers until the Arabic numbering system was developed. Thus in English if this was still done, 25 ice cream cones would be "KE ice cream cones" the eleventh (number 20) and fifth letters (number 5) of the alphabet being numbers. (after the tenth letter you count by tens starting with 20, after the letter meaning 100 you go by hundreds starting with 200.) But the alphabets weren't identical in order or content all the time, which would make a difference. The original code was in Greek, all efforts to decode must use Greek letters and their number value.