5/31/22

Validity of Bible and Quran comparatively

  When I need to get an epub file 'validated' that can be a rigorous process going over the code involved. Philosophers like to be very careful with the use of language and what it means. many have pointed out that some philosophical problems are actually language meaning problems, rather than things-in-themselves. Comparing the 'validity' of the Biblos (little books) with the Quran would require defining validity and agreement on a truth theory I suppose, first, before comparing historical data. If you look at my free e-book that is a commentary on Berkhof's Introduction to the New Testament, you would see some of the meticulous work Berkhof did and examining the gospel books. One can do that for the Quran too, and learn what references in it compare with those of the Bible.

https://www.lulu.com/en/ie/shop/garrison-clifford-gibson/a-commentary-on-berkhofs-intro-to-the-new-testament/ebook/product-21420051.html?page=1&pageSize=4

In the past I read quite a lot of history including that of the ancient world. There is quite a lot of material, and virtual none of it is 'fables'. People can have mass hysteria or insanity; actually the validity of truth isn't necessarily determined by majority vote, although these days that may be a popular view (that it is). Mass ignorance is common in political propaganda. Popular sentiment shouldn't determine the verdict at trials- facts should play a primary role. In philosophical concerns one need interpret facts or data and understand where and how that data fits into other relevant matter. It is important not to leap to conclusions in logic as well as history. If atheism is a popular belief today, it does not follow that a majority vote validates it.

Of the 256 possible forms of syllogism just 24 are valid. People talk past point, overlook relevant data and often assume that some material is comprehensive, exhaustive and universal when it is not. As is known- "If an invalid argument has all true premises, then the conclusion must be false." Alternatively, if an valid argument has false premises its conclusion is false. The distribution of terms assumed to be universal that are not is a problem with arguments relying upon contemporary physics concerning Christianity.

Consider the history of Abraham and his son Isaac, whom God ordered Abraham to sacrifice. It is challenging to formulate in a strictly logical paradigm, There is much historical, archaeological, scriptural and analytical evidence needed for even comprehending the circumstance. So much that generally just the faithful take the time. Human knowledge and lifetime is limited. People specialize and want to put blinders on to filter out what they consider is unimportant data. They make summary dismissals of material they regard as unimportant, and quickly decide truth or falsity for convenience concerning faith in the Lord.

At the last second God allowed Abraham to substitute a sheep that became caught in the brush as the sacrifice. That incident was a paradigm for the appearance and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ 2000 years later. There are many things that are known and worth looking in to. Of course as you say; one must determine what one believes for-himself. In a social dialectical reason context, that paradigm is interesting for the case of criminal trials.

5/30/22

God is not embedded in the Higgs Field like Humans

 Jesus said that no one had seen the Father except for the Son. One may accept the numerous witnesses of Jesus and his works as evidence of God, if one accept eyewitness accounts as evidence. Moses at the end of his life was given to see the glory of God that passed before, just fractionally. There has been much work done on researching the Bible and its history. Louis Berkhoff did some excellent work on that. I went over the book and made a commentary of it. Free to download...

 https://www.lulu.com/en/ie/shop/garrison-clifford-gibson/a-commentary-on-berkhofs-intro-to-the-new-testament/ebook/product-21420051.html?page=1&pageSize=4 

 God is Spirit and not embedded in the Higgs field. Contingent beings made to exist in the Higgs field as steady state mass cannot obtain evidence of anything besides energy-mass of the universe I believe.

It is worthwhile considering the nature of ideas and how they fit philosophically into language and meaning. Ideas about what exists, and how it does exist, including a Creator have always been a part of philosophy. The neo-Platonist Plotinus is a good example. His 'Enneads'- 54 tractates are worth reading. St. Augustine was a Plotinian before he converted to Christianity. 

https://archive.org/details/plotinustheennea033190mbp

Government negligence bungles security for school kids forced to attend school

 Federal and state governments should be sued for failing to protect school kids required by law to attend school until the eighth grade. If those students could afford expensive, secure private schools whom were shot at Uvalde they would still be alive. Forcing school kids to congregate in unsafe places with unlocked doors and no security is irresponsible. Would the government put even 40 billion dollars into upgrading elementary school security or blame Barney Fife's slow response instead.

If kids are forced by government to go to school, the school should at least be a secure environment. If governments prefer to be negligent and incompetent that’s usual enough, yet they should pay a steep price for it.

5/29/22

Democrats 'Assault Weapons' Ban has faulty logic

 Democrats seeking to ban assault weapons in a kind of knee jerk response to the Uvalde massacre simply have badly flawed logic or knowledge of firearms. There are innumerable weapons with a high cyclic rate of fire if fully automatic, yet if semi-auto most weapons are about the same speed- being that of how quickly one can pull the trigger, shoot and repeat until the magazine is empty. Thus an ordinary nine-millimeter semi-automatic pistol would have been as effective; if not more, at shooting people confined in a room quickly.

Rifles like the AR-15 legally purchased by the Uvalde shooter are not weapons of war as President Biden described them. They are semi-automatic rifles that shoot a fairly small caliber bullet one at a time. 

An AR-15 is a civilian version of the M-16 that I trained on in the Army decades ago. It is not the state of the art Army rifle. What they are good for is shooting accurately from 50 to 300 yards. A pistol generally can't do that. Buying an AR-15 for short range shooting is more of a hindrance than a help for lunatics witrh a grievance. One can shoot a deer with an AR-15, yet not brown bear such as was sighted at the golf course in town today, so the radio station reported. If one wants to shoot a brown bear-and one should not for they have a right to exist too, one should use the older Army rifle that fired 7.62 rounds- the M-1 Garand.

Using AR-15s makes potential shooters easier to spot, and the weapons are more troublesome to use than pistols. One can use larger magazines on pistols too, and match 'assault weapons'. Actual assault weapons that fire on full auto like Kalashnikov AK-47s or 74s that fire 7.62 and 5.56 caliber bullets respectively when actually manufactured for military application are matched by a nume of smaller, high cyclic rate of fire weaponsthat are much smaller and easy to conceal. The Glock G-18 for instance, has a switch to go from semi to full automatic fire of 9mm rounds from a 30 round magazine. It would be far more effective for homicidal lunatics at close range, rather than the hard to hide under a raincaost semi-automatic 'assault weapon'. There are zillions of fully automatic short range weapons that are concealable. 

5/28/22

East-West Philosophical Mix

Nakamura's fine work "Ways of Thinking of Eastern People' describes much of Eastern philosophy including Taoism and several versions of Buddhism. India and the Sky religions of the early Aryan immigrants perhaps is responsible for the caste system, and India is sort of East and west simultaneously. Siddhartha influenced people everywhere, as did Asian religious thought like that of Zoroastrianism. Nietzsche seemed fascinated with Zarathustra, and believed a strange metaphysic concerning reality. 

Schopenhauer's 'Fourfold Roots of Reason' seems like the best, succinct continuation of Kant's 'Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics' that is itself a summary of the 'Critique of Pure Reason', yet Schopenhauer also wrote about metaphysics and a strange view of the world derived from Zoroastrianism and other eclectic sources that seemed fundamentally to be extrapolations of his views about the state of human beings elevated into a transcendent account for the world; very weird yet supporting his miysogynist ideas based on reincarnation.

It may be that Marco Polo brought some ideas to China, yet after 1400 or so there was so much sharing of ideas interculturally that etiologies become more challenging I would think. Karl Marx was quite influential; as a counter to imperialism it's a good revolutionary, practical device. It does crimp individual freedom to think and express ideas, an unfortunate necessity to a certain extent in a very overpopulated nation. 

American and european atheism to a substantial degree attack philosophical thought and revert to pure materialism; definitely a denier of spirit viewpoint. Anti-spiritual exclusivity in my opinion has influenced China recently, to join with Marxist-Feurbach's doctrine. A Metaverse may be entirely made in spirit- bootstrapped in a Berklian paradigm of ideaism. It's necessary to continue to think rather than being living the unexamined life concerning physics.

5/27/22

Pres Biden Can't Resist Escalating War with MLRS to Ukraine

 President Biden probably can't resist escalating the Ukrainian war problem by sending oodles of Multiple Launch Rocket System units to that country so Ukraine can target Russia better. On the principle of increasing force is always right; a foundational principle of the New Democrat Party evolved since 2000, one knows the old guy will automatically increase his grip on the game of chicken with Russia.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/26/politics/us-long-range-rockets-ukraine-mlrs/index.html

Russia has 98,000 MLRS of its own left over I suppose from cold war 1.0 years and lots of artillery. I would guess they have more than the rest of the world combined since those tools were a basic part of the Soviet military theory in defense against the west. Escalating the war will help use up the inventory. When those stocks are low maybe negotiations happen, or alternatively, nuclear war occurs. It is said that Russia has only 5,800 ballistic nukes and just 1,800 ready to launch, so there isn't anything to worry about concerning the N.B.A. leftiwing championship cities being nuked at all (Boston and San Francisco). It isn't like Russia will be willing to drop its inventory down 2 or 3 missiles and leave itself defenseless.

Uvalde Massacre Puts Hard Questions to Democrats

Democrats need to ask themselves hard questions after the Uvalde classroom massacre; does locking doors do anything to increase security? The school door was unlocked that let the perp slip in to the building. Another hard question is; is a security guard worth as much as a school teacher?

Probably there need be only one security guard for every dozen school marms in an elementary school. Schools are their only little universe with important officials administrating in place, yet the real world exists too. There are sicarros over the border and probably on the U.S. side too that should prompt a little security.  Maybe school teacher new hires should be trained in firearms and gun safety as part of basic orientation. There is no reason why the marms should be creme puffs. They should be weapons ready in event of a school invasion.

Maybe when the U.S.A. had fewer than 330 million people and no one listened to N.P.R. or played alien shooter games or got ninendo twit disease from over-use, when the rivers were good to drink from directly and auto exhaust didn't choke bicyclists, schools were safe with unlocked doors and Audrey Hepburn in the classroom (she might have had a gun anyway). Today though basic security measures need be taken in very soft targets a priori. Some schools need security work and desperately cry out for new vinyl siding. In addition to healthy school lunches, security measures should reach even poor rural schools. Do Democrats have the ability to make school buildings safer places to be, free of propaganda as well as adverse bullets?

5/25/22

School Shootings Should Be Pre-empted with National Basic Income

 Politicians like to talk about banning guns or putting new restrictions on gun access as a way to stop school shootings, yet that is just a theory, and one that would probably make it easier for an authoritarian Democratic party to take over the nation. Millionaires and billionaires too I guess meeting at Davos have asked that nations tax them more, and of course the President isn't interested in that, instead he wants to oppress Americans attacking the Second amendment. He should ask Congress to raise taxes on the rich to a more progressive rate and use it to fund a national basic income for all Americans at about $10,000. With an adult allowance kids leaving school would not feel so pressured or excluded from the economy, and would be less likely to decide to commit some heinous, unthinkable act like shooting little kids as a sort of revenge on a society they feel they are excluded from- except as targets of their peers.

Salvador Ramos had a strong lisp and speech issues that brought abuse from other teenagers. So many social adjustment issues could be solved with a national basic income so everyone has at least some practical opportunities early in life, and life-long, to better themselves. Ten thousand dollars can be used to lever college funding, home building starts etc. Being just broke and feeling like an oddball perhaps even weith social labels can make one feel existentially hopeless. Such individuals may wrench society in a number of ways besides guns, even if they need wait later in life for the built up resentment to boil over in some form involving physics and death.

5/24/22

Trade Land for Peace in Ukraine to End War

Former U.S. Sect. of State Henry Kissinger may in a sense be said to have laid the foundation for the present world order, along with President Reagan. Democrats are trying to destroy world peace with their uncomprehending policies that clash with good historical sense. The war in Ukraine would be a protracted war, like that of Vietnam and Syria, that were Democrat led engagements. One should not be less conservative in spending the lives of foreigners in war than one is of one’s own citizens I would think, unless the foreigners are enemies directly attacking one’s nation. Democrats should care about extending a war with finance that would enable thousands more Ukrainians and Russians to perish, even if it means that stopping the war would end much good domestic political rhetoric and public posturing.

Sect. Kissinger may have been the designer of the U.S. change to open good relations with China. He also was heavily involved in Middle Eastern policy to end conflict although permanent improvement in diplomatic relations required much sacrifice all around from Anwar Sadat to Donald Trump giving up golfing perhaps to get some Arab nations to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel. Henry Kissinger is concerned about the present China policy and bellicose statements concerning it perhaps (by President Biden), yet he has also expressed what I regard as a practical policy to end the Ukraine war; land for peace.

https://www.newsweek.com/henry-kissinger-ukraine-should-give-territory-russia-reach-peace-1709488

President Ford managing a land for peace deal wherein the Sinai was returned to Egypt. President Clinton helped Palestine get a homeland with land conceded by Israel at the Oslo Accord. President Biden isn’t likely to win a Nobel for negotiating an end to the Ukrainian-Russia war yet he is well-positioned to do so. Basically Russia would keep its present Eastern Ukraine holdings through war and would recognize West Ukraine as an independent state.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/president-ford-statement-on-the-interim-egyptian-israeli-troop-disengagement-agreement-september-1975

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_the_Sinai_Peninsula

Americans are fairly daft at history concerning Eastern Europe and especially Russia though, so motivating the administration to grow a brain would be challenging. Thousands of lives could be saved if adult supervision could bring the administration to support Dr. Kissinger’s approach to ending a conflict that George Soros said could be the start of World War Three. World War III would be bad for business and the environment.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/23/kissinger-says-taiwan-cannot-be-at-the-core-of-us-china-negotiations.html

Sect Kissinger wrote a master’s thesis on Metternich and his role acting for the Hapsburg Empire. He understands the balance between nations and even empires. Democrats today are more of the Hillbilly, possession is 9/10ths of the law/Hatsfields-McCoys school of political thought. Republicans periodically need to clean up their wars, or bring them to an end as did President Nixon and Sect. Kissinger in Vietnam that was a Democrat led engagement. One should not be less conservative in spending the lives of foreigners in war than one is of one’s own citizens I would think, unless the foreigners are enemies directly attacking one’s nation. Democrats should care about extending a war with finance that would enable thousands more Ukrainians and Russians to perish, even if it means that stopping the war would end much good domestic political rhetoric and public posturing.

5/23/22

Kissinger says U.S. Should Get along with China

 Former Sect. of State Henry Kissinger; 99 years old, spoke at an economic forum on the need to get along with China. If the Biden administration had its oars in the water on international affairs it would understand that mentioning the U.S. would go to war if China invades Taiwan is a diplomatic faux pas. There are other ways to let China know what the administration thinks about Taiwanese independence and U.S. support for that without using a bludgeon, in a manner of speaking.

 The Democratic President and his party leadership are used to forcing whatever they want into being, since the U.S. is regarded as the most powerful nation on Earth militarily and financially and party leadership realizes that force can get what they want done sometimes. Yet nuclear war with either Russia or China shouldn't be an option; and it is for Democrats as an escalation from conventional war implicitly. Having peaceful and mutually prosperous relations with China is advantageous for the world and the world environment. Intelligent leadership needs to find a way to return international affairs to order as soon as possible including ending sanctions on Russia directly if they sign on on halting the Ukraine venture in place and sign off on a permanent peace.

The Hillbilly approach to international relations with feuding and nuclear brinksmanship simply is rotten politics, especially sionce the Biuden administration didn't even bother to get a global warming remedy stand-alone bill sent to Congress breaking all sorts of campaign promises to policy that voters believed existed in the process. Presidents can make pompous and bellicose speeches ad nauseum until they are out of office, yet it is better if they can leave national affairs better than before they were in office rather than worse.


Imperfect Character is Universal

The question of why anything exists rather than nothing was a question that Plotinus considered in The Enneads. Why would The One order anyt...