27 April 2013. Compassionate? Hmm…

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One of the Cabinet wrote to me:

You’re a very compassionate person.

I replied:

As for compassion, I’m no more “compassionate” than most… I’ve simply been hurt by the self-righteous, and I know how it feels. Indeed, some things in my life opened my eyes as to the ignorance and nastiness of the right. After all… why defend ignorance? I may be a believer, but I don’t defend obscurantism, nor do I say that evil is good to suck up to priests…

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I do my best to be “straight” with all concerned… in that way, I can stay “honest to God”. I’d say that you need two things in life:

• You “gotta wanna”… you have to make a conscious effort to do your very best in whatever you do. That means EVERYTHING…
• You “gotta give a shit”… you have to CARE, and care deeply about what’s important in life. That doesn’t mean money or position…

That’s what you gotta do. If you do these two things, everything else falls into place. One of my sergeants once said to me, “I’m not in the shit business. I don’t give it and I don’t take it”. That is, don’t rag on other people… life’s tough enough. As for authority figures who refuse to live according to their callings and teachings… that doesn’t apply to them. If someone’s laying down a hard moral line and they refuse to live up to it themselves… they’re fair game. It’s not rocket science. Our Lord Christ didn’t die and rise from the tomb to lead us to a McMansion in the right exurban cul-de-sac, after all. Reflect on that, and act accordingly.

BMD

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27 April 2013. Look At This… Orthodox Quislings to Kiss the Pope’s Arse at “Orientale Lumen” Conference

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Look at this:

Washington DC:  Metropolitan Tikhon invited to speak at Orientale Lumen Conference June 17-20

His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon was invited to speak at the Orientale Lumen XVII Conference at Washington Retreat House in the US capital 17-20 June 2013. The annual gathering is sponsored jointly by the Society of St John Chrysostom, the Orientale Lumen Foundation, and Eastern Christian Publications. The conference theme… Vision of a Reunited Church… will be developed by a number of speakers moderated by the Rev Ron Roberson, CSP, of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Amongst the other Orthodox speakers are Fr Thomas FitzGerald, Hellenic College/Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology; and Mother Vassa Larina of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, University of Vienna (Universität Wien) in Austria. Several prominent Roman Catholic speakers will also address participants. Detailed information on registration fees, schedule, and accommodations may be found online. Videos of past conferences may be viewed at www.oltv.tv.

http://oca.org/news/headline-news/news-elsewhere-california-dc-michigan-new-jersey-pennsylvania

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Vassa Larina is a traitor… full stop. She thinks more of pleasing her Uniate mentor, Bob Taft, rather than staying true to Christ’s Church. Her claim that we who disagree with her practise an “Orthodoxy of Fear” isn’t only untrue… it’s a derisive notion of the worst-possible sort. Of course, the fact that her father is George Larin, one of the most powerful First Family clerics in the ROCOR doesn’t hurt. I think of the late Fr Mikhail Shuvar’s fidelity unto death and compare it to Vassa Larina’s perfidy unto treachery… sickening, isn’t it? What would the pre-reconciliation George Larin have said if his daughter sucked up to a papist Uniate stooge then? I know what the answer to that is… he would’ve condemned her publicly and cut ties with her. This is one of the most nauseating “Paris is well worth a mass” moments that I’ve seen. As for Tikhon Mollard and Thomas FitzGerald, neither one is doing anything contrary to previous shenanigans. They’re simply bad seed. They’re both quasi-papists (Mollard may be a crypto-Uniate in his heart-of-hearts… Dahulich certainly is).

If we were doing this in a True Orthodox manner, we’d send low-ranking non-official observers to this shindig, not Archpriests, not Archimandrites, not Bishops… they’d have strict orders to stay out of all discussions… their only purpose would be to report to the hierarchy on what went on. They’d not participate in any group photos or make any statements for the Church. They’d be polite and generous… but aloof. After all, the papists are outside the Church, and we can’t give them the impression that they’re not. They’re schismatics, at best. That is, one should be kind and civil, but not encourage any papist nonsense.

For shame… Vassa Larina, Tikhon Mollard, and Thomas FitzGerald showed their willingness to sell out (cheaply) the Lord Christ for a mess of pottage. Hmm… Fathausen and Moriak did likewise, didn’t they? I wonder if El Gordo and his protector Potapov are going to show up for this Dixie Fry… it’s in the District, after all. Perspirin’ minds wanna know…

BMD 

Controversially, Physicist Argues Time Is Real

The Persistence of Memory

Salvador Dalí

1931

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Is time real, or is it the ultimate illusion? Most physicists would say the latter, but Lee Smolin challenges this orthodoxy in his new book, Time Reborn (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, April 2013), which he discussed here Wednesday (24 April) at the Rubin Museum of Art. In a conversation with Duke University neuroscientist Warren Meck, theoretical physicist Smolin, who works at Canada‘s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, argued for the controversial idea that time is real, saying, “Time is paramount, and the experience we all have of reality being in the present moment isn’t an illusion, but the deepest clue we have to the fundamental nature of reality”. [Album: The World’s Most Beautiful Equations]

Smolin said that he hadn’t come to this concept lightly. He started out thinking, as most physicists do, that time is subjective and illusory. According to Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, time is just another dimension in space, traversable in either direction, and our human perception of moments passing steadily and sequentially is all in our heads. Over time, though, Smolin became convinced not only that time was real, but that this notion could be the key to understanding the laws of nature, noting, “If laws are outside of time, then they’re inexplicable. If law just simply is, there’s no explanation. If we want to understand law… then, law must evolve, law must change, law must be subject to time. Law then emerges from time and is subject to time rather than the reverse”.

Smolin admitted there are objections to this idea, especially what he calls “the meta-law dilemma“, If physical laws are subject to time, and evolve over time, then, there must be some larger law that guides their evolution. However, wouldn’t this law, then, have to be beyond time, to determine how the other laws change with time? Other physicists have cited this objection in reaction to Smolin’s work. Columbia University physicist Peter Woit wrote on his blog Not Even Wrong, “The problem I see with the argument for laws that evolve in time is one that you yourself identify in the book… what you call the ‘meta-laws dilemma’. You speculate a bit in the book on ways to resolve this, but I don’t see a convincing answer to the criticism that whatever explanation you come up with for what determines how laws evolve, I’m free to characterise that as just another law”.

Smolin admitted this is currently a sticking point, but maintained that there are possible solutions. At the Rubin event, he stated, “I believe you can resolve the meta-law dilemma. I think the direction of 21st-century cosmology will depend on the right way to resolve the meta-law dilemma”. Smolin and Meck discussed the consequences of his idea, including what it means for our understanding of human consciousness and free will. One implication of the idea that time is an illusion is the notion that the future is just as decided as the past. Smolin observed, “If I think the future’s already written, then, the things that are most valuable about being human are illusions along with time. We still aspire to make choices in life. That’s a precious part of our humanity. If the real metaphysical picture is that there are just atoms moving in the void, then nothing’s ever new, and nothing’s ever surprising… it’s just the rearrangement of atoms. There’s a loss of responsibility as well as a loss of human dignity“.

26 April 2013

Clara Moskowitz

Live Science

http://www.livescience.com/29081-time-real-illusion-smolin.html

Editor’s Note:

Note this:

Smolin admitted there are objections to this idea, especially what he calls “the meta-law dilemma”, If physical laws are subject to time, and evolve over time, then, there must be some larger law that guides their evolution. However, wouldn’t this law, then, have to be beyond time, to determine how the other laws change with time?

This is why there’s no contradiction at all between evolution and theology. Indeed, if we take the implications of this to its logical conclusion, it means that evolution isn’t merely a hypothesis… it’s FACT. Without evolution, there’s no need for “some larger law that guides evolution”. That is, “wouldn’t this law, then, have to be beyond time, to determine how the other laws change with time?” The world isn’t 10,000-years-old and dinos didn’t live at the same time as humans did. Evolution is the greatest memorial of God’s presence amongst us… not its refutation.

Besides that, if time isn’t real, NOTHING’S real, EVERYTHING’S illusory. Note well that such anarchy is at the heart of so-called libertarianism, the regnant philosophy of the American Right. If one is a committed Leftist, one can’t believe in the submission that time is relative, for if one posits such, one argues that there are no objective laws. If you argue thusly, the Spencerian Law of the Jungle rules and “the race goes to the swiftest”. Interestingly, this means that the members of the Religious Right who’re taking Libertarians as their allies are taking an adder and placing it on their breasts without any consideration of the consequence or of the damages it causes to others. To be a believer or to be a Libertarian are diametrically-opposite stances… you can’t combine them without doing violence to one or the other.

Time is real; nature’s laws are objective, and God’s in his heaven. This divinely-ordained objectivity and verity are the sure foundations of social justice and social equity. Interestingly, does that mean that a Leftist MUST be a believer? Now, that’s an interesting meditation, no? I do believe that the corollary’s true… to be on the Right implies Radical Unbelief. Radical Economic Freedom implies an almost-complete absence of outside regulation (that’s why one must be wary of arguments using “freedom” as a basis)… which Marxism denies, by the way (for central to its credo is the idea that objective laws exist outside of and independently of human thought).

That’s why we can have nothing to do with those who argue for deregulation and an anarchic social order based on wealth and power. It flies against EVERYTHING that being a believer means. Look at the rightwing Russian Orthodox clique in Washington DC… they hobnob with libertarians who’ve nothing in common with anything held dear by believers. What are they? Are they libertarians? Are they believers? I’d say that the evidence shows that they’re the former… and we have some housecleaning to do, nicht wahr?

Kaufft nicht bei Potapov und Paffhausen.  

BMD  

Venezuela and Cuba to Set Up Joint Commission to Boost Cooperation

Venezuela just beat back an American attempt to impose an oligarchs‘ junta (Capriles‘ father was a sycophant “organisation man” for Kraft Foods) on them… the good guys don’t always lose… sometimes, right wins over might…

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Venezuela and Cuba will set up a joint commission to boost their cooperation in carrying out various projects. According to local news media, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Moros will sign an agreement to that end during his present visit to Havana. Maduro said, “We’ll assess our cooperation with the aim of boosting our ties in public health, culture, and education, as well as in joint economic projects”. Cuba and Venezuela have been close politically and economically since Hugo Chávez Frias’ accession to power in 1999. Both countries launched the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América, ALBA) in 2004. The two countries’ annual trade turnover exceeds 8 billion USD (251 billion Roubles. 6.14 billion Euros. 5.17 billion UK Pounds).

27 April 2013

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_04_27/Venezuela-Cuba-to-set-up-joint-commission-to-boost-cooperation/