I was invited to be on the Murnaghan programme on Sky News this morning – which I always find a great deal more intelligent than the Andrew Marr alternative on the BBC. I declined because I did not want to get up and get a 7.30am train from Ramsgate on a Sunday morning. I had a meeting until 11.30pm last night planning a conference on human rights in Balochistan [I still tend to say Baluchistan], and I have a newly crowned tooth that seems not to want to settle down. But I am still worried by my own lack of energy, which is uncharacteristic. Is this old age?
I also have some serious work to do on my Burnes book, and next week I shall be staying in London to be in the British Library reading room for every second of its opening hours. So there may be a bit of a posting hiatus. I have in mind a short post on an important subject on which I suspect that 99% of my readership – including the regular dissident commenters – will strongly disagree with me.
This is a peculiarly introspective post, perhaps because my tooth is hurting, but I seem to have this curmudgeonly spirit which wishes to react to the huge popularity of this blog by posting something genuinely held but unpopular; a genuine view but one I don’t normally trumpet. The base thought seems to be “You wouldn’t like me if you really knew me”.
Similarly when I wrote Murder in Samarkand I was being hailed as a hero by quite a lot of people for my refusal to go along with the whole neo-con disaster of illegal wars, extraordinary rendition and severe attacks on civil liberties, sacrificing my fast track diplomatic career as a result. My reaction to putative hero worship was to publish in Murder in Samarkand not just the political facts, but an exposure of my own worst and most unpleasant behaviour in my private life.
I am in a very poor position to judge, but I believe the result rather by accident turned out artistically compelling, if you don’t want to read the book you can get a good idea of that by clicking on David Tennant in the top right of this blog and listening to him playing me in David Hare’s radio adaptation.
Anyway, that’s enough musing. You won’t like my next post, whenever it comes. Promise.
Scouse Billy, I do not know the meaning of Nullius in Verba, so please explain.
The Sun was libellous and you might wish to check carefully what you said about Lorraine Day and her husband.
She says,
“Q. Dr. Day, do you have a vendetta against the Jews?
A. No. I have no vendetta against the Jews. However, the self-proclaimed leaders of the Jews, the ones who most rank and file Jews accept as their leaders and spokespersons, do indeed have a vendetta against the “Gentiles” – the non-Jewish population of the U.S. and the world. In the “holiest” book of Judaism – the Talmud – it says, “Even the BEST of the Gentiles should ALL be killed.” How’s that for “hate-speech”? Who is prosecuting the Jews for hatred of Gentiles? No one! The Jews consider themselves to be victims – and are exempt from prosecution for “hate.”
I have many Jewish friends, and I even have blood relatives who are Jewish. A blood relative of mine is married to a Jewish spouse, and their children are half Jewish. Those half-Jewish children are my blood relatives. And I love them as much as the rest of my non-Jewish family.
Nothing can be considered a “vendetta” against anyone if it is the TRUTH!”
here: http://www.goodnewsaboutgod.com/studies/dr_day/vendetta_jew.htm
I am no snitch but you never know…
Scouse Billy, I think you would happily attack me and beat me up.
Nullius in Verba is the motto of The Royal Society – feel free to google it.
Dovetail that with alternative medicine and energy. Same politics; same bedfellows.
Scouse Billy, you refuse to explain. What emotion is behind that?
Clark, I will leave you with that projection of yours – I don’t believe in violence.
Have you not come across the Thrive Movement?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEV5AFFcZ-s
Pretty much where I am coming from if anyone is interested.
Day wrote: “The Jews consider themselves to be victims”.
That is a racist generalisation.
Billy, I don’t advocate active violence. But why make such a big distinction between ideas and physical actions? Are our thoughts and feelings more personal to us than our bodies?
Your communication seems hostile and highly competitive.
Sorry, typo: “Aren’t our thoughts and feelings more personal to us than our bodies?”
Scouse Billy – “I am not asking anyone who disagrees with me to apologise or be humiliated – I take the position of Voltaire”
…Jon…he’s right. Maybe it would be better for people not to mention things to be discussed if it raises the risk of them being hurt or offended…
Scouse Billy, read the following page. It even says “Jews” in the URL:
{www.goodnewsaboutgod.com/studies/political/jews/whats_happening.htm}
[Mod/Clark: I broke this URL to prevent the link raising the page in the search engine rankings.]
Chris Jones, politics is personal. That’s why I defended your position on immigration. I knew what had happened in Wales.
Dear Clark, POW means point to view.
>Sunflower, do you accept dualism, that mind and matter are separate?
It comes down to how you define matter, even if you use the definition that matter has mass and volume you get into some problem since it seems the body does loose weight at the time of death -which would indicate that something is leaving the body and it has mass.
Afaik, as far as I know, dualism states that the mind (soul) is separate from matter. If the definition of dualism equates mind with soul then, no I do not accept that dualism.
Mind to me is a subtle material energy, as is intelligence and ahankara (false ego) The soul, on the other hand is of spiritual energy. I accept dualism between material and spiritual energy.
>This was what Descartes proposed. Do you also believe that all is one?
I do believe all is one qualitatively, on the spiritual platform, but not quantitatively. The soul is one with God in quality, it is eternal, full of knowledge and full of bliss but not with the same magnitude as God. The soul is an eternal individual servant of God and their relationship is based on mutual love.
The material energy is a manifestation of God for those souls that have a desire to imitate God by being lords, thus we are awarded a material body and mind in order to live out our desires to be god. I think I’m giving too much information here 🙂
>No, it is not about “use of words”, it is about re-transmitting potentially fatal lies, and not having enough
>respect for other readers to fact-check before re-transmitting.
You must be aware of the fact that conventional medicine is a for-profit mega business? They do not care for anything else than profit, that should not be a secret to you. That business is thriving on fatal lies. (I’m talking high level here, not individual nurses)
I’m not arguing what cure is the best for you friend, I’m just pointing out that there are flaws with conventional medicine as with alternative medicine, and there are good areas as well.
>Sunflower, there is a huge difference that you haven’t recognised. Religions are belief systems.
>The endeavour of science is a disbelief system.
In this context it doesn’t matter much, science deals with what it can measure and confirm. Here is a nice poem I found by James Ph. Kotsybar:
A scientist trusts in what has been proved
through repeated experimentation.
Assertions of faith will leave him unmoved
until they have achieved validation.
Religious beliefs often leave him cold
and skeptical of professed prophecies
based mostly on hearsay and tales twice-told,
not carefully tested hypotheses.
This doesn’t make him an atheist, though.
He’s more like an investigative sleuth
who seldom proclaims things he doesn’t know,
since he’s a stalwart apostle of truth.
He’ll all too gladly apply his method,
should God allow Himself to be tested.
Sunflower:
Evidence, please.
Sunflower:
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of science, which works by repeated hypothesiis and disproof. That’s why I call it the disbelief system.
Sunflower:
Define “they” please. My GP? Suhayl Saadi?
Sunflower:
Define “they” please. David Halpin?
Sunflower, I thought point of view was “POV”
I thought “POW” meant “Prisoner of War”. Or something from a Batman comic.
Sunflower, I see this confusion so often:
Mind is information. It is pattern and structure. The information is embodied, or if you prefer, encoded in matter and energy, yes. But to say that Mind is energy is like saying a house is bricks, wood and glass. It makes no distinction between a house and a pile of building materials. Or like saying that a piece of music is vibrations. The structure is critical.
@Scouse Billy – you are still pressing on, even after Clark says he feels like hurting himself, and even though I’ve suggested you take your foot off the accelerator? I’m really saddened you’re not exercising more concern for another member of this community.
@Clark, yes, your friend may be reading this, but you can’t take responsibility for it. Again, internalising that things are out of your own control is the prescription. Relevant, and for some much-needed lightness: http://xkcd.com/386/
No one to go to bed with, Jon. I’m Clarky no-mates.
Jon wrote “even though I’ve suggested you take your foot off the accelerator?”
Not Scouse Billy. The oil will never run out, and CO2 in the atmosphere does nothing to the climate. Never mind “them” the corrupt scientists who study, and woosy things like that. They should just get on YouTube, all the answers are there.
Burn it! Burn it! Burn it!
“Sunflower, I thought point of view was “POV” I thought “POW” meant “Prisoner of War”. Or something from a Batman comic.”
You are right, my bad.
“Define “they” please.”
Clark, that would be the owners of the quite few mega-large pharmaceutical companies.
Clark, as unhappy as I am with Billy, here I’m not taking a pop at him when I say the best solution would be for each of you to choose ending the conversation. It is accomplishing nothing but unrest.
I’m sorry you’re unhappy at the moment – hang in there. And forgive the impertinent advice: maybe send a text to your friend, as I suggested before?
Sunflower, I wrote an e-mail, an essay really, about how corporations come to be so uncaring. I’ll see if I can find it and post it to my webspace.
Scouse Billy is going much further than that, though. “Chemo causes cancer. The doctors know, but patients don’t” – he quotes Lorraine Day, the Jew hater, and he supports her conspiracy theory. That isn’t what’s happening.
Block me and lock me out if you choose, Jon. Wouldn’t surprise me.
Here is an article regarding the possibility that the human body looses weight at death. Remember, I didn’t state it was a proven fact, I said “it seems”. From my perspective, it would be very logical although it doesn’t change my understanding of the human body as consisting of gross and subtle material energy, powered by a soul.
http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/column.php?id=204863