Eighty Years (or so) To The Big Zero

UPDATE: I got an A for this class and an A for my paper. Pretty decent, me thinks.

I’ve been taking a Christian Spirituality and Prayer course for my BA in Technology. It was the only class offered and the last class of this type (humanities) I needed before I could focus on the core classes in my field.

Many of you know, or may have guessed, I’m not a big fan of religion (of any stripe). During the class I was able to keep a balance between questioning and not being antagonistic. Eventually the instructor subtly sped up the lectures so that practically no one could ask questions. But that didn’t matter since I was one of three people raising their hands requesting clarity.

As a side note, on the first day of class I almost dropped it. The instructor is a preacher and several students in the class were already rocking their heads back and forth and I could hear quiet Amens whispered now and again.

But … I decided to approach it from a different perspective… research for my book on Father Joseph. I needed the phraseology, the history of church doctrine, and quotable highlights from what preachers say and have said throughout history. In that context I stayed in the class and got a lot out of it.

My position didn’t change and to be honest was only validated as the history of Christianity unfolded before us. There were many “dark times” as explained by the preacher professor. And from what I heard, know from the past, and have seen there aren’t very many light times.

Anywho…. it was a good class and I learned much. Last Thursday 12Feb09 I gave the following presentation to my class and instructor. It was well received by some and crimestop took over for others. It was very interesting to watch many nod in approval as I read scripture and toed the party line, then immediately physically roll back in their chair and shake their head as I offered a different perspective on what was really happening. (Or what possibly may have been happening if you take the religiosity out of the equation, also known as what was really happening. What can I say, I’m biased. 8^)

After I gave the presentation the instructor had us take a break. When we came back, one more person gave their presentation were unexpectedly (and what didn’t happen before my presentation) people started asking questions and clarifications about the person and events in the paper and the instructor had to break in and give the answers because the student only had pat answers. When that was over he suddenly let us go 50 minutes early with more than half the class still left to give presentations. 8^)

Enjoy if you want. http://www.steagus.net/moses/

Comments as always are welcome.
Sterling

Thinking out loud

Satan. - Nope.
Religion. - Close but still nope.
Greed. - That’s even closer but it’s a sympton not the cause.
Money. - Well not entirely.
Profit. - Ding! Ding! Ding!

I have ranted before on this blog about corporations and social ills caused by the intentional divisions of people through wealth, status, race, religion and the like. They are all tools for social manipulation.

Never have I seen this laid out so clearly than in the movie I just watched:

Zeitgeist: Addendum.
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/dloads.htm

UPDATE: (If you don’t have a bittorrent client*, here is the google video version of the film in its entirety.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912
But make sure you have juice on your notebook and time as it’s 2 hours long but worth every minute.)

Yes, it is from the same people who created the first Zeitgeist movie that was broken into three parts: Religion, 911 stuff, and Money System. All good stuff if perhaps a little reaching on the 911 events, but still worth watching for the content of the Religion and Money parts.

But Addendum is trained like a razor light - a laser if you will - on the root causes of the world we live in today. And better yet it proposes a solution. A solution already seen by Gene Roddenberry and so many other writers and creative thinkers in the world who have millions upon millons of fans who thirst for a better world but are stuck.

I encourage everyone to go to the above link and download this movie. It’s free. Or if you have some coin it’s $5 dollars. Yeah, $5 bucks for a two hour movie. A one hour movie from the history channel is $30 dollars and doesn’t contain half the revelations as laid out in the above.

The main thrust of this movie is that all these social problems we have: crime, energy, medicine, education, the list goes on, can be solved today, with current technology.

The road block is “What’s the profit in it?” Unless there is profit there is no progress. What a sad and disturbing way to live.

We need a global sense of altruism. We need a radical change in our group think. One that embraces the potential enhancements of our lives and our species rather than our bank accounts. One that replaces superstitions and dogma with reason and education.

Not everything in this movie is straight forward and getting through the first half may be hard for some, since it’s about the financial system and how our governments create money out of nothing, but once you understand that and see the rest you may never be the same.

Crazy talk, I know. But sometimes the crazy people are the only sane ones left in a society. (Ask Galileo, Ghandi, Socrates, Martin Luther King, and countless others who dared to question the established status quo.)
Steagus

*(utorrent (http://www.utorrent.com/) is a small bittorrent client that does not have spyware or malware or viruses. It’s also FREE. I was able to download the torrent version of the above movie in just over an hour and watched it later.)

The Credit Trap, Thinking out loud