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Primitive Religion or Belief in "Science" ? Part 1
Here in New Zealand we still have our share of Bible Belt Revivalism. Brian Tamaki of Destiny Church made this abundantly clear 2 weeks ago when he declared that Leviticus states that the earth convulses because of human iniquity, specifically Gay Marriages in the blasphemously named city of Christchurch. Rest easy, there are deliberately no scripture and verse quotations in the article.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11756828
This revivalist movement began in the early 1800's in the new territories opening up under the Great Lakes and into the heart land of the U.S.A. Conditions were primitive but believers had two technological advantages, a printed Bible and the ability to read it by whale oil lamp light. The Universal Church in Rome had been resisting common lay people attempting this activity for over 1500 years, because as they well knew once you start reading the Bible all hell breaks loose in trying to understand it.
Case in point, the Bible, according to many mainstream believers, is about God, his Son Jesus and the Good News of the Gospel, and an impending Armageddon as the culmination of the outworking of a grand Divine Plan of the ages, removing sin and iniquity from believers and erasing 1/3 of the Angels in Heaven whom upon witnessing human free will and apple tasting, decided to exercise theirs along with their ring master Lucifer Morning Star. So the obvious question;
If God is the one to wreak retribution for sin and inequity at some future battle field of Armageddon why do we have the residual primitive belief that the Earth itself, acting as some sort of minor Deity, will fulfill this role at sporadic intervals of its own choosing in proportion to the iniquities being performed upon its surface as the populace spreads over its surface ?
One wonders why the Himalayas, Southern Alps, Swiss Alps and all the other Tectonic features of the planet that occurred before man even appeared on the Planet were so motivated? What sort of prehumen iniquity existed to perturb the planet to action in prehistory? The scale and reach of this activity surely diminishes the relative importance of human behaviour today to the level of influence of paramecium.
Predecessors of Brian Tamaki wrestled with similar issues of interpretation.
Joseph Smith who established the Mormon Church ostensibly while avoiding bankruptcy correlated the Bible with Ancient Egyptian scrolls.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith_Papyri
His immediate interpretation was to ascribe the Biblical account of Abraham sacrificing Isaac at Gods behest, the prostrate Son about to be exsanguinated, halted only at the last minute as a test of Abraham's faith. The missing piece of the scroll he purchased to interpret would have displayed the Jackal Head of Anubis, which Smith drew in as a normal human head, that of Abraham. The scene is in fact a Resurrection Myth, and you do have to wonder that given the story of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt, just how much of the imagery written down reflected their exposure to Egyptian myths and legends.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Disappointment
Miller had similarly considered Daniel and came up with a formula based on an extrapolation of a calculation of weeks of years, using a year for a day as a Godly perspective to predict the return of Jesus, the entire point of the Good News as understood at that time. His calculation of 1844 is known as "The Great Disappointment"
At the time if you were an adherent to the belief in the "Advent" or return of Christ as a real entity you would have shunned non believers as "Deniers or Skeptics".
Needless to say when 1844 came and went there were a few outpourings of grief and anger, but a re-read and a reinterpretation of the data and 1874 quickly became the replacement date. The Bible can be quite accommodating to revisionist belief and progressive understanding by its readers, dependent on interpretation. This Second Advent would be abstract with Christ merely "Present" so that no radical changes need occur to confirm the dates appropriateness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_G._White
Ellen White quickly rehashed this failure of 1874 into what is now the 7th Day Adventist Movement, and we have Corn Flakes for Breakfast as probably its major contribution to western society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Taze_Russell
Not to be defeated, Charles Russell using adjusted measurements in the Great Pyramids internal tunnels and corridors along with Daniel predicted 1914 as the beginning of Armageddon, when Jesus would be present and the 1/3 of these pesky rebellious Angels and Mr Morning Star would be cast down to the Earth. The revulsion the planet reacted with was ?... silence basically but we humans were about to be very busy engaging in the Great War, providing plenty of iniquity and sin for the planet to react to. Russell said that if he didn't speak out about this then the stones themselves would speak, much in the same way Brain Tamaki interprets Leviticus today.
Again if you didn't believe the 1914 date, you would have been a denier, a skeptic, and apostate. The famous human rights lawyer and believer Hayden Covington had this to say in an open court trail; Society lawyer Hayden G. Covington told the court that although the Society had for decades published a "false prophecy ... a false statement" about the date of Christ's Second Coming, members of the religion had been required to accept it and any who had rejected it would have been expelled. He explained: "You must understand we must have unity, we cannot have disunity with a lot of people going every way." Today we call this a consensus.
Another similar belief structure was the basis for the Women's Christian Temperance Union, with major links to the Feminist lore here in New Zealand.
https://sites.google.com/site/nzchinatravels/wctu-and-the-ibsa
Covington represented Mohammed Ali and many other 60's rights cases, but his reputation was built over the Minersville School County vs the Gobitas children over saluting the flag during WW2. This precedent in the Supreme Court also opened the way for overturning Proposition 8 in California recently to allow Gay Marriage.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/26/politics/scotus-prop-8/
Given the San Andreas fault runs along the California coast we should be hearing a cacophony from revivalist preachers in the US. They have been vocal and active in opposing Gay Marriage and factions are still attempting to shut this down all over the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Andreas_Fault
Most people living today accept the Science of Tectonic Plate movements, without a moment’s consideration of the belief in the Levitical adjunct of the land convulsing at human iniquity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics
Brian Tamaki also runs a "Promise Keepers" programme, based on the Feminist Theory of Power and Control in Domestic Violence. They believe the "Science" of male aggression just as they believe in Leviticus convulsing with earth quakes.
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/8560/editorial-irrelevance-is-tamakis-destiny
However Ellen Pense, the originator of Domestic Violence theory as Male perpetrated Power and Control, realized upon reflection that she made a terrible mistake of self confirmation bias in her life long work.
Although I relentlessly took every opportunity to point out to men in the groups that they were so motivated and merely in denial, the fact that few men ever articulated such a desire went unnoticed by me and many of my coworkers. Eventually, we realized that we were finding what we had already predetermined to find."[19]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duluth_model
One of the basic human rights is "To exchange reason for belief", in other words you have a right to believe what you want. The contradictory nature of science and belief can be ignored. This works in both directions, when the belief is contrary to the science or like Ellen Pense when the science in contrary to belief.
Cult Religions, like Brian Tamaki's are the epitome of exchanging Reason for Belief.
A topic for another Day is understanding how many scientific beliefs are also Cults, such as Ellen Pense's Domestic Violence thesis, or Human Induced Climate Change.
https://carm.org/signs-practices-of-a-cult
Primitive Religion or Belief in "Science" ? - continued -- Part 2
We last looked at Brian Tamaki's, a 150 year late to the party Revivalist do it yourself Theologian, attempts to link human behaviour with Earthquakes as a reconciliation and harmonization of scripture interpretation. His far more illustrious predecessors such as Joseph Smith, William Miller, Ellen White, Charles Russell and Francis Willard's Women's Christian Temperance Union all wrestled with the problems associated with actually reading the Bible and trying to make sense of the contradictory and theologically conflicting messages. We live with the consequences of these conflicts still to this day and surprisingly some of the fall out of their Theology greatly affects and influences modern society in ways they could have never imagined.
For Example, defeating Proposition 8 in California based on the precedent of the Flag Saluting issue during World War 2 by Russell's adherents, looking for Gods Kingdom to rule rather than Human Governments, has been a landmark rights case in the US Supreme Court.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-08-06-engardio05_ST_N.htm
Agglomerating followers of a belief under these conditions, when your followers are also capable of reading and exercising a form of do it your self interpretation, creates a management issue of maintaining the group identity of common belief and so;
- A structure to manage and disseminate "group agreed beliefs" emerges.
- The demand to exchange Reason for Belief becomes the major identifier of acquiescence for the common Beliefs and Group identity.
- A "Consensus of Belief" emerges.
- Those who question are shunned or labelled as heretics, skeptics and apostates and expelled.
- To enhance the group cohesiveness often the portrayal of jealous persecution is concocted because the group enjoys some form of divine favour because of its superior divine inspired emergent belief structure.
All these behaviours are attributes of what we term "Cult Religion". The culture of the religion is more important that the religious beliefs themselves and Reason has mostly been exchanged for these Beliefs.
Following along the WCTU's Temperance arguments also lead us to a reverse of this situation, Ellen Pense who concocted the conceptual Thesis of Male Privilege presented it to the world of Counselling as a departure from Relationship Counselling, a well understood and accepted scientific proposition of reason. Pense in effect abandoned Reason for her own Belief and created a form of a "Cult Science" out of her thesis, in much the same way the Bible Belt Revivalists created their own sectarian Cults from attempting to interpret scripture. Pense to her credit recognised her biases just before her death and admitted such, something rarely seen in Cult Religion.
http://www.theduluthmodel.org/
Its proponents counter that the Duluth model is effective and makes best use of scarce resources.[18] However, Ellen Pence herself has written,
"By determining that the need or desire for power was the motivating force behind battering, we created a conceptual framework that, in fact, did not fit the lived experience of many of the men and women we were working with. The DAIP staff [...] remained undaunted by the difference in our theory and the actual experiences of those we were working with [...] It was the cases themselves that created the chink in each of our theoretical suits of armor. Speaking for myself, I found that many of the men I interviewed did not seem to articulate a desire for power over their partner. Although I relentlessly took every opportunity to point out to men in the groups that they were so motivated and merely in denial, the fact that few men ever articulated such a desire went unnoticed by me and many of my coworkers. Eventually, we realized that we were finding what we had already predetermined to find."[19]
In New Zealand the original incarnation of her "Duluth Programme" manifested as the Christchurch Women's Refuge Programme.
After Pense's recanting of her "beliefs" the organisation was good enough to rename itself to "Aviva" in some feeble attempt to remain relevant in the face of the disestablishment of the Raison D'etre for its impetus. However the incalculable damage to our Justice, Social and Health programmes continues unabated due the the Cult status her bogus thesis enjoys and the continued Group Think of these organisations.
http://www.avivafamilies.org.nz/
Similarly the "Cult of Climate Change of Doom" has emerged courtesy of the "Ideological Politicization of Science". You can read "Cult Science" instead if you wish.
The issue is the politicization of the concept of "feedbacks" and Computer Models to justify the Thesis of Human induced Climate Change or as it used to be called, Global Warming. The A in AGW for Anthroprogenic, "Man Made" is often omitted.
Anthroprogenic Warming is supposedly caused by Man Made extra CO2 from burning Fossil fuels released into the atmosphere. This slight CO2 heating effect causes more water vapour ( and by implication Clouds ) in the atmosphere from Ocean evaporation as a form of Temperature Feedback system. This Feedback is deemed catastrophic and unstable because of a guess made about 1980. Scientific theories are often made by guesses, there is nothing wrong with that but these guesses are then either supported or rejected by making experimental observations. We can't experiment with another planet but we can observe the temperatures directly and confirm or deny the theory as guessed at by James Hansen.
The Green Line, in the chart below, was a supposed aggressive reduction to CO2 emissions that never occurred, the reality is that 30% of all CO2 ever emitted happened since the about year 1990 thanks to China and India's economic growth. Simply by doing nothing the Earths average temperatures haven't even come close to the minimum predictions of Hansen's Climate Doom.
The IPCC has an Anthroprogenic only view of Feedbacks. The IPCC has never been tasked with the investigation of real world feedbacks, or the other possible multitude of cause and effects in global temperature, its only reason for existence is to investigate possible Human Induced Factors.
Unlike Ellen Pense the IPCC and the adherents to the Cult of AGW do not look likely to reflect on the failure of the Thesis any time soon.
The IPCC views Feedbacks in the AGW Theory like this.
The observations and the likely real world operation of feedbacks.
These feedbacks and other items are covered mercifully briefly in the 12 minute overview below.
Either the 3 x positive amplification leading to an unstable tipping point exists as predicted or the observations of a negative 0.5 dampening feedback equate to Reason and Observed Science.
The argument is about the effect of Clouds, the 3 x camp says extra water vapour and hence clouds forced by the slight CO2 increase hold the heat thus warming the atmosphere and the -0.5 group say extra clouds cause more albedo reflectivity, white reflects heat and clouds are of course white, thus less heat will enter the atmosphere. We have 30 years of data in and the results are shown below.
The Red Line below is an average of some 30 Climate Models assuming a 3 x Amplification, and below it the real world, Empirical, measurements taken by Satellite and Balloon RadioSond that basically equate to the -0.5 Feedback.
Of note is that the 3 x believers will shrilly exclaim that the reducing Arctic Ice cover, a so called Bell Weather indicator of AGW, reduces reflective albedo thus heating the planet, but they will not admit to this very same reason when considering the increasing reflective albedo from increasing cloud cover . Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and it's called "Group Think", or "Cult Science". Arctic Ice has only been measured for some 30-40 years, so we really still don't know what normal is or the effects the longer term cycles of Atlantic and Pacific Ocean current oscillations cause to the Ice Sheet coverage.
Another test to prove or disprove the 3x amplification theory is to look at a monitoring station where Water Vapour and Clouds do not mask the effect of increased CO2 concentrations, and this is actually quite easy to find. Somewhere very dry, thus little atmospheric water vapour and consequentially the Greenhouse effect basically dependent on Atmospheric CO2.
We began by looking at Brian Tamaki and discussing the perils of reading the Bible and trying to interpret it. The Universal Church discouraged this for some 1500 years because of the known issues of conflicting theology and interpretation and loosing group cohesiveness in the interpretations of belief. The Universal Church uses Priests to disseminate the controlled Theological message for its followers, it was a very early system for power and control in their organisation. This lead to a Consensus of Belief and the subsequent labelling contrary thinkers as Dissenters, Heretics, Skeptics and Deniers. It's also where the Protests and splits occurred as many Priests, such as Martin Luther, themselves started to read and interpret the Bible for themselves. Brian Tamaki is in effect a dissident priest shepherding his fellow "Cult of Believers", though about 400 years late in his theological reasoning.
Today the Catholic Church have waded yet again in to the exchange of Reason for Belief over the AGW issue. By definition they are also a Cult now preaching both Cult Religion and Cult Science. The last high profile time the Universal, Catholic, Church waded in on science was over Galileo's Sun Centric view of the Solar system. It took until 1992 for them to admit their mistake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair
In 1992, it was reported that the Catholic Church had turned towards vindicating Galileo:[78]
Thanks to his intuition as a brilliant physicist and by relying on different arguments, Galileo, who practically invented the experimental method, understood why only the sun could function as the centre of the world, as it was then known, that is to say, as a planetary system. The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the Earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world's structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture....
— Pope John Paul II, L'Osservatore Romano N. 44 (1264) – November 4, 1992
That was a 350 year period of rejection, persecution and denial of the Scientific method. Now that very same organisation wants to do the reverse and adopt a Cult Science as a Belief. Brian Tamaki isn't to far off the mark of harmonising Religion and Science if we adopt the Catholic Church's viewpoint. Just don't be Gay, expect Earthquakes and wait for God's judgement....failing that the Earth will itself become a ball of fire and consume all life in a form of Climageddon.
No need of scriptural interpretation and the theology of a vengeful God, his Son, or his Holy Spirit, wreaking retribution on non believers. Just as with that Primitive Religion of the Earth Convulsing with Earthquakes, at Gay behaviour, that Tamaki rediscovered by reading his Bible, the Earth will act all on its own independently against the Carbon Footprints of humanity negating any actions by God in his Diving plan by instigating Armageddon any time soon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_is_dead
Frederich Nietzsche famously said "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” Believing in the Cult of Anthroprogenic Global Warming Alarmism may actually be the final nail in the coffin of Beliefs in irrelevant Deities such as the God of the Bible, whilst reviving the competing Primitive Bible concept of the Earth itself reacting to human transgressions.
Maybe Brian Tamaki has resurrected the Primitive Earth Deity without realising his Theological blunder......AGW Believers certainly seem to be eager adherents of an Earth Deity delivering a cultists Climageddon. He also seems to have anticipated the Catholic Church's blanket acceptance and revival of this Primitive Religious concept, perhaps Pope Francis has also abandoned the concept of Armageddon and accepted Nietzsche's observations? Tamaki may well be the most progressive regressivist theologian on the planet, without understanding any of the implications of his nativity.
Recovering from Cult Ideology takes time
It’s not just followers of Brian Tamaki that are left in a theological turmoil by his extraordinary ranting and ignorant correlations of nonsense he repeatedly "reads" in his Bible.
“I can’t see humans existing within 10 years. We can do nothing to stop the planet becoming too hot to grow food and support life. It is already happening and we have less than a decade left.”
— Guy McPherson (Prof of Biology, U AZ, retired). Reported by the New Zealand Herald. His website is “Nature Bats Last – Our Days Are Numbered“."
Bevan Dockery recently posted the results of 38 years of monitoring CO2 and Temperature. You can read it here and decide for yourself if Professor Guy McPherson is a Cultist Believer in Doomsday Anthroprogenic Global Climate Warming, or if he has groundless basis for his fears.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/12/16/climate-change-debate-latest-results/
Or Antony Watts and Willis Eschenbach's recent paper presented to the American Geophysical Union.
....again LinkedIn editor is such a disappointing vehicle, copy and paste to view....
Or Lord Moncktons uncovering of the faulty Modeling Calculations from the get go of AGW.
As Cultist predictions fail the Cult goes back to the drawing board and adjusts things to buy more time as Hansen himself recently did.
Cults do things like this, predicting certain doom and end events known as Eschatology, for example;
They make bold prediction of certainties, provide evidence of a Consensus of Believers, and they adjust the details if nothing happens. The 1914 date above can now stretch to 2034 if they interpret certain scriptures the way that suits them and their Cult beliefs...
I fear then Left leaning Ideology of Climate Change of Doom will simply do what the followers of William Miller's Great Disappointment of 1844 did, cook up a new date and wait and hope.......
From the Economists Article
More on Cult Beliefs
I recently wrote about Brian Tamaki's inept ability to misunderstand and misinterpret scripture to such an extent he nullified the entire point of Christian belief, replacing it with a Primitive form of Religion, defined as Phenomenology, based on belief in major events such as Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Sun Rises, Moon Rises, Stars in the Heavens, Fire, Thunder, Lightning, the list is endless really. Personifying, anthropomorphism of, these events such as "Thor the God of Thunder" is the next logical step.
And so the recent Economist article passed my screen and I chuckled at the same line of reasoning about Martin Luther's challenge to the Catholic Church, instigating the Rebellion of Protest, called Protestantism.
LinkedIn is having issues including links for some obscure reason I have given up trying to rectify, so just copy and paste into your browser.
It’s a great article really, brief but incisive, deliberately and purposefully incendiary.
It pokes fun at the 4 mainstays of Management Science,
- Increasing "Competition" rather than Consolidation
- The Failure of "Entrepreneurship"
- The "Increasing" Speed of Business
- The "Inevitability" of Globalism
Organisations such as the Singularity University, recently hosting a conference here in Christchurch will probably pay it no heed, just as their denial of Chaos theory and Catastrophe Curves whilst preaching Disruption and Exponential growth dominate their Management Consulting ethos, and they are Management Consultants in disguise make no mistake about that.
There is nothing like teaching and cajoling a little Iconoclastic analysis to Business School students to hone their thinking and avoid dependency on the large Consulting Organisations that Governments so regularly run to, to minimize the risk of appearing overly bureaucratic and irrelevant whilst justifying the latest Consulting Fad to improve services.
The Economist is a Right Wing publication, and at first read you could be forgiven for assuming this was a concessionary Leftist article, attacking right wing Business School thinking but it's not, it's a tilt at the Cult of Management Consulting Beliefs of the last 50 years that need a fresh approach, a rethinking and a broom to sweep away the cobwebs. Long live the revolution.....Nail those complaints to the Doors of your local Big 5 Consulting Company.
VR and Disruptive Technology
If you're are going to fly a modern Jet Fighter, assail remote Fortress Castles or slay Dragons or be a Superhero wearing a 2 Kg nerd head brick in front of your eyes, take note;
The technology is way behind where it was predicted to be in the late 1960's. You didn't need a computer because you could transfer the code/engrams to your brain directly and the glasses interface was a natural small RF/Bluetooth type device that didn't impact on your appearance of freedom to move in the real world.
Plus the music then was way cooler as well......
Whole documentaries have been made about the optimistic future that never happened....
Even Will Ferrell got in on the act...
Just remember that in 40 years time, all the predictions about technology and disruption will be just as quaint as what you have just been watching, and comedians like Will will be taking the p*** out of the press headlines we are continually being swamped with about exponential and disruptive technology today.
Happy holidays and if you get bored, Joe and UFO by Gerry Anderson are there for a nostalgic trip as a distraction....and the music was still way cooler.....
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