Appeal To Authority Is A Fallacy

A pyramid in Java?

One of the main things wrong with our current society is that our educational system is completely defunct.  Academia exists solely and completely to protect us from knowledge, rather than to expand it.  Piles of stogy professors lie around like so much dry kindling who have spent their lives and careers building fairy tales on which their tenure and grants depend, and they are completely unwilling to entertain any fact that challenges their cushy positions.

Take, for instance, the submerged cities off of India, Japan and Cuba.  Those stuffy professors all sit around humphing and harumphing in agreement that the last Ice Age ended about 20,000 years ago causing the oceans to rise several hundred feet.  However, discover a couple of very advanced societies lying at the bottom of the ocean that date to about that period and suddenly they are indignant and even terrified.

The problem is that humans are not supposed to have been more advanced than bone chewers and root diggers at that time.  The professors have developed elaborate fairy tales of how civilization evolved and no fact, not even those literally etched in stone, are allowed to upset their harumphing.

In 2000, a group of ocean surveyors discovered a massive city built with advanced techniques.  This alone wouldn't be so bad, but it sits more than 100 feet below the waves, meaning it must be around 20,000 years old.

Gobekli Tepi in Turkey is provably 12,000 years old using all the tools that those stultifying professors swear by, yet they refuse to accept the plain evidence that ancient Man had the ability to create fine stone carvings on massive stones that were mined and hauled dozens of miles to their current location.  On top of that, the whole complex was purposefully buried 2,000 years after it was created.

Now, right here in West Java, a geologist has declared that a hill called Gunung Padang is not only man-made, but that it dates to between 9,000 and 20,000 years ago.  Had the findings fit with the harumphing fairy tales, then a geologist's data would have been defended with the strongest of arguments.  But since it virtually destroys all the underpinnings of the fairy tales, then academia is screaming that a geologist can't possibly know what he's doing...that's archeology work!  Of course, no one mentions that the hill was discovered to be artificial in 1916, and that not a single 'archeologist' bothered to study it.

Then there's Schock and West pointing out that the weathering around the Sphinx enclosure can only be from water and that it's been 10,000 years since that was possible in Gaza.

Then there's Bauval pointing out that the three great pyramids and the Sphinx and the Nile combine to make an exact model of the night sky...as it was 10,000 years ago.

The submerged city near Cuba?  Archologies along the Bimini Road?  Ancient maps of Antarctica, not only ice-free, but some showing it as it looked during the last Ice Age, which was (wait for it) 20,000 years ago.  There's Nazca Lines, Nabta Playa and Paracas Skulls.  The list is huge and growing almost daily.

Of course, there's the work of Michael Cremo, who has thoroughly documented "ooparts".  There's Graham Hancock who has done the same with ancient civilizations.  There's Richard Hoagland who has done the same with ruins throughout the Solar System.  Joseph Farrell who has documented evidence pointing to human civilizations going back millions of years, and the development of our religious and financial systems.

Despite the work of capable and professional researchers, the ever-growing pile of facts and figures, and the massive collection of physical artifacts, the academics refuse to budge.

The harumphers' jobs are in danger.  Had they been in the field advancing knowledge and teaching the latest understandings, they have sat on their diplomas and collected their grant money and done nothing.  They are in a position to either admit that they have been useless eaters defending dead paradigms, or scream like hell and jump up and down claiming it's all junk science and hocus-pocus.

There's healthy skepticism that promotes further study, and then there's denial of facts and recalcitrance from a position of fear and ignorance.

It's high time we stop buying "higher" education from such ostriches and put an end to the need for blessing from "authority" before we can accept what our eyes tell us.  There is no reason why someone who has spent decades studying something is any less an authority on the topic than someone with a stack of sheep skins (sheep being the operative term).

Humanity is far older than the fairy tales admit and the evidence is growing faster than we can catalog it.  We need to reclaim our true heritage and leave the naysayers and humbuggers behind.

Trimurti And Me

Remember being a kid and playing out in the back 40 building roads and dams and other major engineering projects?  If you had a long Saturday afternoon, these projects could get rather elaborate.  I once dammed off an entire stream and made a decent swimming hole with an island in the middle, complete with port for my toy sailboat.  It was a very LONG afternoon, you see.

If you watch kids doing this kind of thing, there is an inevitable point when they seem to reach a maximum point of development and then smash the whole thing to bits and start over.  The smashing up usually involves lots of explosion noises and probably conversations between imaginary world leaders as they plot the systematic destruction of the 'world'.

It seems humanity is like that.  We have plugged into our brains at some level the desire to destroy everything we've built up and start over.  Hell, even computers come with elaborate ctr+alt+del codes to reset the system and start over.  Every gaming system has a reset button.  Nations have thermonuclear devices.  Holy books have end-of-world scenarios and signs to look for that clue the faithful into the coming reset.

The reason I mention kids first is that the urge to destroy shows up very young, even before religious or social programming.  If you stack up a bunch of blocks in front of a baby, it will eventually knock them down and even make a game of it, laughing and giggling every time the 'world' crashes down.

It's hardwired into us, this desire to destroy.  It is the yang to our creative yin.  It is the evil that offsets the good.  In order to take part in the creative process, there seems to be a built-in reset button that drives us to destroy.

We humans are both Brahma and Shiva balanced on the lap of Vishnu waiting to totter off in one direction or the other.

It's like a Kubrick film, with phallic probes from a tanker aircraft seeking union with the receiving craft, and ending with an atomic explosion of a climax complete with Slim Pickens riding the Big One all the way in coital eruptions of "Yeehaw!"

We are a strange breed.  I am not familiar with any other creature on Earth that burns with the desire to destroy all it has created to begin the whole process again.  Beavers never tear down their dens.  Rabbits never cave in their warrens.  Birds may abandon a nest, but they don't rip it to shreds before doing so.  It seems to be a characteristic unique to human beings.

Perhaps in the millennia that humanity has been asking the question, "Why are we here?", the answer all along has been, "Learn how to create without destroying."  But with something so seemingly intractable from the human psyche, are we even capable of reaching that ultimate enlightenment?

But what do I know?  I believe that 'global warming' is a cover story for weather wars.

Permission To Be Free

The SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the US) struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, which said that marriage is defined as being between one man and one woman only.  Well, that got a lot of people jumping up and down on both sides of the issue.  Naturally, we here and the Far Side have a slightly different take on things.

Here's the problem: when people turn to government to define something as intensely personal as who you can call 'spouse', then you get what you get.  Either you have the Defense of Marriage Act, which said that same-sex couples can't be married, or you don't have it, which means government can define marriage any way it wants to.  In other words, when you accept that government can 'license' marriage and say who gets insurance and pension benefits, then believe me, the issue will become a political one with the scum class (politicians) falling all over themselves to define marriage whichever way gets them the most money and votes.

As proof, just look at old Bill Clinton (don't you miss him about now?).  He signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law back in the 90s, because it was politically expedient at the time.  Yesterday, when SCOTUS cut it down, old Billy was jumping up and down praising the court's decision.  Excuse me?  Doesn't that sound like playing both hands of a two-handed poker game?

As it stands now, folks can marry their cattle or pet dog or whatever the government will issue a 'license' for.  It's the government's decision, since the people allow it the power to decide. The court's decision is a victory for the Mormans, at any rate, since they can now have multiple wives.  After all, marriage is not limited to one man/one woman, right?  Not that it's really all that shocking.  I know lots of folks here with multiple wives (at the same time).

Here's where everything is bass-ackwards.  My spouse and I should be the ones who determine the definition of marriage, and we shouldn't need a license from government, we should just tell them who we married, if we damn well feel like it.  Marriage is, at most, a religious issue, but at minimum a ritual between two (or more) people who declare themselves married in front of their friends and family.  The government should be giving the benefits to whomever I tell them to, not telling me.

Even more to the point, government shouldn't be handing out benefits to anyone.  I should be making my own retirement and insurance decisions for my family and leaving whatever is left to whomever I decide is my family when I shed this mortal coil.

If you are Muslim in Indonesia, you just show up to a mosque, get the imam to mumble a few words and sign the register.  POOF, you're married.  You can do that up to four times (simultaneously), but then no one really keeps track, so you can have a dozen wives if you want.

Of course, if you are a member of any of the other three 'official' religions (those recognized by the Constitution - Christian, Hindu and Buddhist), you need a license and have to jump through a bunch of bureaucratic hoops to register your marriage.  Oh yeah, and mixed-faith marriages are not allowed, so God help you if your intended spouse is a tree-worshipper.  Nothing like equal rights, eh?  Whether the law discriminates on the basis of gender or faith of the couple, it's all the same in the end.

The point is, government has no right being involved in anyone's personal life under any circumstances.  Since when did the government become an intermediary with God?  After all, don't we say, "Whatever God has joined together, let no man put assunder"?  Apparently, God requires licenses to join people together.

Frankly, I don't give a damn who you or anyone else calls "spouse".  If you're happy, then good on ya.  If that means the third baboon from the left at the local zoo, fine.  Just don't invite me to afternoon tea because I don't think your baboon can make a decent cucumber sandwich.

I also happen to think that one wife is more than enough trouble.  Why would any sane man need more than that?  But if you want (and can afford) seven wives, then get busy, boy.  You've got a lot of work to support that many credit cards.

The problem here is not just defining marriage.  It is that people turn to government to do it.  The way it's supposed to work is that people tell government what they want, and the government's job is to protect those decisions.  How people come to those decisions is called the democratic process, which is itself a function of culture.

Once people turn to government to define what they believe, well...all bets are off.  You end up with the peculiar flavor of fascism that is currently sweeping the US and Europe.  These kinds of issues are for each community to define.  If I don't like the way my community defines something, then I can move somewhere more amenable.

More precisely, families should determine who will be allowed into their fold, not government.  After all, under the Defense of Marriage Act, how would the government deal with an hermaphrodite marrying my son?  Technically, the hermaphrodite is neither male nor female, and both at the same time.  Does that fit under the one man/one woman definition?  It should be my decision to bless the marriage or not, but certainly not the government's decision in any case.  In fact, marrying an hermaphrodite would make one a polygamist, homosexual and traditionalist all at the same time.  Hmmm...interesting.

What entertains me the most is that a lot of the folks getting steamed over the 'traditional' marriage issue are the same ones getting all lathered up about government snooping and curtailing liberty.  If you are one of them, then perhaps you need to do some intense meditation on what you consider liberty and freedom.  Allowing government to define who I can marry is both snooping (entering my bedroom) and curtailing liberty (telling how I can pursue Happiness).

Come to think of it, SCOTUS needs to get its proverbial shit together, as well, since on the one hand, they take away liberty with decisions about warrantless searches and no right to remain silent, and on the other hand get all worked up about people being free to marry whomever they want.  That's more of less defining freedom as having the choice between two brands of mustard when you only like mayonnaise.

When it comes to liberty and freedom, I don't have to like your choices, but I have to support your right to make them so that you will support mine.  In any case, the government doesn't belong anywhere in the equation, except as arbiter in disputes.

The next time you think, "There oughtta be a law," remember that someone else is thinking the same thing about your liberty.