Talking to animals is good life prescription
November 29, 2009 by Bill
Doctors like to write prescriptions. And if the doctor, or any member of the family, owns a percentage in a local pharmacy, the more written, the merrier.
The good news is that every now and then a prescription makes sense, as in common sense. My doctor wrote to me after a visit: “You need a dog, a Shi Tzu puppy to warm your heart and keep you joyful.” My wife took the prescription and put it on our refrigerator door. I knew that little puppy would appear when it’s meant to be in the cosmic, karmic, rhythm of events. And he did.
The love of my life was our little Shih Tzu, Shiva. During the years, I have written a number of columns about that special little dog. You may remember them. Just before we moved to Palm Springs, Shiva died. He was 9 years old. I cried for two days. Now, perhaps you will understand the doctor’s prescription.
Once, on my KPSL radio show, my subject was the relationship between animals and humans, the psychic connection brought about by love. Judging by the response, it turned out to be one of the most popular shows I have ever done. The stories that poured in were heartwarming and overwhelming.
An internationally known sculptor told me about his bulldog, named Bayete. In Europe, dogs are allowed to be with their owners everywhere. Bayete dined with his owner in all the fine restaurants, and even enjoyed opera from time to time, if the music met his standard for excellence. Another friend of mine, the former Dean of the Medical School at the University of Alabama, told me about his dog, a boxer, coming back after death to tell the family goodbye. Even his neighbors witnessed this event and gave confirmation.
That giant scholar, Albert Schweitzer, often wrote about talking to all of the animals around his African hospital. He said that if all animals do not live on after death in other dimensions, then humans will not either.
The Trinity
November 22, 2009 by Bill
My friend Michael Murphy has a radio show in Colorado Springs. He read this essay on “the trinity” on his show. He passed it on to me to share with you. Due to the length, I have reduced it considerably.
“God never heard of the Trinity. He found out about it in the year 325 of the Common Era. That was the year Emperor Constantine murdered his son, Crispus, and then knocked off his wife, Fausta, for complaining about it. He then ordered all the Christian Bishops to convene at Nicaea. The Bishops and their followers were constantly plotting against one another. Murder was common. Constantine paid all of their expenses to come to Nicaea with the hope that they would quit fighting and murdering one another over the pecking order of their gods. Once assembled, they tried to figure out god. Some said Jesus was god. Others said no. Many of the Bishops grabbed their crosiers and stormed out mad. Constantine made the rest stay until they figured out how many gods the Christians could worship. After brutal infighting, they voted that all three were gods in one god, similar to Siamese triplets. God, Jesus and the holy spirit were all one God. Even though the word ‘trinity’ is nowhere in the bible, this is how God found out about the ‘trinity’ – at a convention convened by a husband who murdered his wife, a father who murdered his son.”
Robert Ingersoll often included this absurdity in his essays and lectures:
“They tell us that the Father is God, and Son, God, and the Holy Ghost, God and that these three together make one God, according to a celestial multiplication table where one is three, and three times one is one, and according to heavenly subtraction, if we take two from three, three are left. The addition is equally peculiar – if we add two to one we have but one. Each one is equal to himself and the other two. Nothing ever was, nothing ever can be more perfectly idiotic and absurd than the dogma of the Trinity.”
Our founding fathers did not mince words on this issue. Thomas Jefferson put it this way:
“It is too late in the day for men of intelligence to pretend they believe that three are one, and one is three…and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one. This constitutes the power and profits of the priests. Sweep away their fictitious religion.”
John Adams used these words, in a letter to Jefferson:
“Tom, you and I would never fall victim to the lie that two and two equals five, or that three equals one, and one equals three. The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is a convenient cover for absurdity.”
The Trinity: Gobble-De-Gook Clergy Math 101.
Language and religion
November 15, 2009 by Bill
The vast majority of people never consider the fact that they are a prisoner of their particular language, as well as their own limited vocabulary. Your “world view” (how you perceive the world around you) is shaped completely by your language. Your religious philosophy is shaped by your language. Your view of “reality” and the world is “linear.”
The Hopi and Zuni view is “cyclic.” The Hopi language does not have a past or future, masculine or feminine. Life is “present,” “neuter.” “Time” is important in our language, whereas Hopi is a “timeless” language. Their entire life is shaped by their language and it can never be the same as a world view shaped by the English language. Your vision of the world is predetermined by your language, as well as the limits of your own individual vocabulary. To understand this is vital to an understanding of any religion. How an individual thinks about the world, religiously, gods, spirits, etc., is totally dependent upon his/her language. Society is founded on language. Without language, there is no society. Meanings, (“truth”) is valid ONLY within a given community, a given language. What I have said so far is this: WE ARE LANGUAGE.
Another consideration: words are only symbols, and even within our own language those word symbols will not be translated into everyone’s brain with the same meanings. How you interpret a word symbol will depend on your religious background, educational background, ethnic, social, economic, family, as well as multiple other considerations. The word “God” in itself means nothing. It is only a symbol of 3 letters on paper, or else a certain sound from the throat. Now, what enters your brain when you read, or hear, that symbol depends totally upon your own individual background, as well as your own limited vocabulary. Read more
