In response to Conspiracy Theorists' concept of a literal and personal God granting them authority over government.

In an ongoing discussion/debate on another website, I felt compelled to leave the following comment. (This was partially in response to a comment by James Madison, and primarily in response to a comment by Uber Highwayman)

Oh man... this is getting out of hand.

For the record, I'm a devout atheist. And I find it a bit sad when people cannot differentiate from the natural laws, such as laid down by the Roman empire, and which our legal system is based on... and the so called "God's law", which in all actuality has very little to do with morality, even less to do with civil issues and is even in reality contradictory to true freedom in the natural sense.

Christianity teaches absolute obedience to authority, without question and without skepticism of contradictory evidence and falsehoods etc. This very same mindset lends itself to abuses by governments who use it to rally the people behind God's cause... "One nation, Under God", "In God We Trust" etc... if you don't believe in God, you're not a patriot. And that is used to group people into one mindset... one of obedience and "patriotism" under a moniker which in itself is divisive within its own people. Those very statements and mottoes serve to divide the people between believers and non-believers instead of acknowledging us as we were meant to be, individuals with inherent natural rights. Rights not granted by any particular God... but natural rights that transcend any particular religion's God's word on which rights you do and don't have.

The idea of "Divine Law" is the very same belief that allows the theocracies in the middle east to publicly execute people found "guilty" of homosexuality, sex before marriage, and any number of other things that might offend the particular deity of some of its people... when no rational "crime" has been committed. In the natural world, an adult has the right to sleep with another adult, in or out of wedlock, should they so choose. You don't have to personally approve of it, but they have the right as human beings to do so... and unless that robs you of your property or does you personal injury, you have no right to deprive them of their life, liberty or property for merely offending your personal moral beliefs.

E Pluribus Unum. Out of Many, (come) One. A celebration of the diversity of our culture, the diversity of our beliefs, the diversity of our ethnic roots... and through that a celebration of our unity as Americans. Stronger as a result of that diversity, not in spite of it.

The fact that our founding fathers were wise enough to understand that strength and celebrate it... and take measures to ensure the freedom of the people to believe as they wished, as human beings with inherent natural rights... that is something that we should take heed of.

God isn't going to grant you any benefit in a battle. You have to do that for yourself. The mere fact that you imply that your idea of a God somehow grants you some authority greater than that of another man who might believe in a different God, inherently impedes upon that man's freedom.

And to believe in a God that forbids you to believe in anything he does not approve of, regardless of rational merit... a God who commands you to kill people of different beliefs or sexual orientations, in spite of no rational crime being committed... a God who names himself a Jealous God that commands you to obey and never to question, in spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary... that God is the epitome of our modern government. A Genocidal egomaniac responsible for mass genocide of people who committed no crime other than believing in a different God, or no God, or in believing they had the very same natural rights that you do... to live, govern themselves and choose their own paths as individuals or as a society.

I dislike entertaining ridiculous conspiracy theories, so I'm loathe to start debunking the ridiculous nature of many of Madison's claims... much less the fact that he presumes to use the name of one of the founding fathers as though he in any way resembles such a great man.

But I feel it is important to remove the idea of "natural law" from that of some divinely derived authority. Am I to have no inherent liberties as an atheist? Am I somehow not a patriot or exempt from the same freedoms afforded to the faithful?

No. The founding fathers understood this and wisely exempted religion from any official place in government. A man or woman are free to hold their own beliefs and free to have them serve as a moral compass... but those beliefs fall short when they infringe upon the natural liberties of all men, regardless of their beliefs in much the same way that even if the government believes it has a legal right to deprive you of your property, you have a natural right not to be extorted, threatened at gunpoint and made a slave of a relatively small group of people who claim that authority over you, regardless of their justifications. And no God is going to come down and change that for you. You must stand upon the same principles our founding fathers did in their various backgrounds and beliefs and come together in an understanding of the fundamental principles of liberty and freedom that predated your Abrahamic God by millennia and strive to return man to his natural state.

As Einstein said:

The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.

But I am convinced that such behavior on the part of representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task... --Albert Einstein

In losing focus on the fundamental reality of the matter at hand, you place power back in the hands of the authority figures who in the same manner as religion, demand obedience without question. Authority over you and subservience by you in the face of violations of your natural right to true freedom in the face of contradictory or fallacious evidence to the contrary of their claims.

Cogito, percipio.

I've been having other related religious discussions on another forum as well in the past few days and seem to be reaching another point of frustration at which I feel compelled to speak out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law

On the willful ignorance of conspiracy theorists.

Earlier today I posted a comment on an article about shots being fired on Ed and Elaine Brown's property.

In the next 7 hours after I posted that comment, which is still "awaiting moderation", 11 other comments have been approved by the site moderator(s).

(It has since been approved. I tip my hat to the moderators for this.)

I would like to share the comment here so that you can read it and then read the rest of the comments on that article to put it in perspective to illustrate how conspiracy theorists like to pick and choose what information they choose to acknowledge in their quest to confirm their own (often mistaken, misinformed or simply uninformed) personal bias about the issue.

I have seen this same type of response on a number of different forums, in relation to a number of different current issues. People seem desperate to confirm their own stance and will intentionally ignore any information to the contrary, even if it is credible and backed up by actual evidence.

http://phreadom.blogspot.com/2007/07/importance-of-ed-and-elaine-brown-and.html

Read the facts.

This isn’t really an issue of legality. The laws are on the books and they are “legal”. Period.

The issue here isn’t one of legality, it’s a matter of principle. The laws themselves stand in violation of the principles of the founding fathers, the constitution and of Freedom and Liberty in general.

That is what the Browns are standing up against. The 16th Amendment was properly ratified. The US Tax Code does plainly state a requirement to file and pay taxes etc.

All these claims I keep hearing are based on the spread of ignorance and misinformation. I’ve done the research and read the issues and the court cases myself.

Again, the issue here isn’t the legality of the current laws… they stand as a part of the system. The problem is with their origins in corruption and their violation of the natural laws of the land, the laws meant to be protected by the Constitution.

You people need to do some actual studying and get a better understanding of the principles involved. Your spread of misinformation and ignorance does not help Ed and Elaine Brown, it simply makes it so much easier for the media to write you off as the ignorant conspiracy nuts you’re being when they show the proof that refutes your ignorant claims. You need to research and strike at the root… expose the underlying principles, the deeper issues at stake… the very core of Freedom and Liberty in the US and the violations of the natural law principles of the US Constitution.

Cogito!

Phreadom - July 29th, 2007 at 9:08 pm

Acknowledging what I wrote would not require a lack of support for Ed and Elaine Brown, but simply a rethinking of the actual issues and a greater understanding of the actual facts and issues involved.

After further browsing of that website, I found an even better example of this phenomenon. An article about a video of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center claiming to be proof of demolitions use to bring down the towers.

The article states:

There are 2 explosions at 7:52 about 30 floors below the impact. If you pay close attention, you will see two flashes and hear 1 boom, possibly 2. Pay close attention.

The video presented with that claim can be found here: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=5474006551011489413

And another video linked just below the video, for the context of proving that demolitions were used to bring down the towers can be found here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1951610169657809939

The second video is linked with the words "9/11 Revisited - Were Explosives Used?".

On actually watching the video, the first problem with their claim is clear almost immediately upon seeing the aforementioned spot in the video at 7:52.

I posted the problems as comments on the article (awaiting moderation), and will summarize them below.

Did you think to factor in the speed of sound? Or that if the "boom" you speak of, which is only the tiniest audible click or pop in the video, would have followed with over a full second gap between the flash in the video and the audible click or pop we hear? (Which would have still placed it around a half second after the second flash at best.)

As stated in the intro of the video, given the 500 yard (457.2 meters) distance from the towers, a full 1.32 seconds would have elapsed between the tiny flashes and the sound reaching the camera, given the speed of sound at 344 meters per second.

This is clearly not the case. The “pop”, which is hardly a “boom”, coincides precisely with the timing of the first small flash and could be nothing more than noise in the room or a bump on the camera and certainly does not belong to the almost single pixel sized “flashes” on the video unless the video was doctored to synchronize the audio and video.

Or how about the fact that most of the conspiracy videos state that the "detonations" went off either before the planes ever hit, or as the towers collapsed?

Not only are there a number of disparate claims of the same event happening specifically at very different times, but many of them are easily debunked when you factor in actual science.

I'm not denying government complicity in 9/11, and I do in fact think they were involved in, at the very least, allowing it to happen... but this kind of misinformation or wild speculation only serves to discredit the investigations into the events.

Below are two screenshots from the video showing the intro statement that tells the distance from the towers and a shot of one of the supposed "explosions" that accompany the so called "boom(s)".




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound

I'm no fan of the George W. Bush administration and I do think that based on a variety of information that they were involved to some extent in 9/11 through a combination of previously knowledge and intentional inaction at the least, if not more, based on things like the highly improbable collapse of WTC7 given its very minor damage and architectural stability etc. However, even given my stance on those issues, I like to maintain a more fact based, skeptical approach to this issue.

As I stated before, I think that giving into to wild speculation and conspiracy theorist type hysteria, we only serve to distract attention from the real issues involved and the actual credible information that's available.

(Again, I'd like to note that my comments were eventually approved after this article was written. I appreciate that move on the moderators' part. I still think this issue remains for a countless number of other forums, websites etc, so I'll keep this article here in that regard.)

The benefits of skeptical thinking and a little research.

I was perusing one of my favorite news aggregators yesterday and ran across an article that piqued my interest. Not more than a few sentences in I was left aggravated and a bit disgusted that such an article made it into the "headline news" again, having been debunked for several years now.

Original article: NASA hides the true color of Mars.

So I went digging in my old archived bookmarks and thankfully immediately ran across the link I was looking for.

And the thorough debunking of it, 3 and a half years ago: NASA Is Not Altering Mars Colors.

The main point here is that almost anyone with a cursory knowledge of astronomy or even basic science could probably come up with the idea that there are different colors involved in the light of a different planet with a different atmosphere than ours and that color correction has probably been applied to images that hit the press versus images that the scientists are using internally.

Beyond that somewhat obvious first skepticism, some actual research could have further explained the issue before running off on a conspiracy theory. Furthermore, the fact that the article not only has persisted on the internet for several years after being debunked, but then again made the news, simply saddens me.

As an aside, the ending comment in the first article also mentions a mysterious formation that might be involved as a reason for the color correction cover-up, which also should fail under the same basic critical assessment as the color correction. A rather thorough debunking of that phenomenon can be found in the thread Martian crater with golf ball in it (?) found on the Bad Astronomy and Universe Today Forum.

Or to take the risk of hearing it right from the proverbial horse's mouth (which I'm sure the conspiracy theorists would object to), Revealing Mars' True Colors: Part One, directly from NASA's Mars Rover website.

Think people.

Zeitgeist

I just watched a documentary of sorts called "Zeitgeist".

This movie was fascinating in its scope and revelations. I knew a fair portion of this information, but even I was floored by the scope of the information they presented and the cohesive manner in which they presented it.

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

Have a look for yourself. Its assertions and information are simply staggering

I'm including two quotes from the website linked above. First we have the "about" page from http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/statement.htm:

Thank you for your interest in Zeitgeist.
Zeitgeist was created as a not for profit expression to inspire people to start looking at the world from a more critical perspective and to understand that very often things are not what the population at large think they are. The information in Zeitgeist was established over a year long period of research and the current Source page on this site lists the sources used / referenced.
Soon, an interactive transcript will be online with detailed footnotes and links.

It's important to point out that there is a tendency to simply disbelieve things that are counter to our understanding, without the necessary research performed.
For example, some information contained in Part 1 and Part 3, specifically, is not obtained by simple keyword searches on the Internet. You have to dig deeper. For instance, very often people who look up "Horus" or "The Federal Reserve" on the Internet draw their conclusions from very general or biased sources. Online encyclopedias or text book Encyclopedias often do not contain the information contained in Zeitgeist. However, if one takes the time to read the sources provided, they will find that what is being presented is based on documented evidence.

That being said, it is my hope that people will not take what is said in the film as the truth, but find out for themselves, for truth is not told, it is realized.

Thank you

And the sources as referenced in the above quote, from http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/sources.htm:

Basic Sources:

Part 1:
Massey, Gerald - The Historic Jesus and the Mythical Christ, The Book Tree
Acharya S - The Christ Conspiracy, Adventures Unlimited Press
Massey, Gerald - Ancient Egypt: Light of the World, Kessinger Publishing
Churchward, Albert -The Origin and Evolution of Religion, The Book Tree
Acharya S - Suns of God, Adventures Unlimited Press
Murdock, D.M. - Who was Jesus?, Steller House Publishing
Allegro, John - The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth, Prometheus Books
Maxwell, Tice, Snow - That Old Time Religion, The Book Tree
King James Version, The Holy Bible, Holman
Leedom, Tim C - The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You To Read, TS Books
Paine, Thomas - The Age of Reason
Remsburg, John E. - The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidence of His Existence, Prometheus Books
Massey, Gerald - Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Mysteries of Amenta, Kessinger Publishing
Irvin, Jan & Rutajit, Andrew - Astrotheology and Shamanism, The Book Tree
Doherty, Earl - The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ?, Age of Reason Pub.
Campbell, Joseph - Creative Mythology: The Masks of God, Penguin
Doane, T.W. - Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions, Health Research
Maxwell, Jordan: The Light of World (Film Series) IRES
The Naked Truth (Film) IRES

Part 2:
Griffin, David Ray - 911 The Myth and the Reality
Ruppert, Michael -The Truth and Lies of 9-11
Avery, Dylan - Loose Change 2nd Edition
Berger, Michael - Improbable Collapse
Avatar, LLC - 911 Mysteries
Hilder, Anthony J.- Illuminazi 911
Mugford, Duistin - September 11th Revisited
Hufschmid, Eric - Painful Deceptions
Zwickerm, Barrie - 911 The Great Conspiracy
Duffy, John - 911 Press For Truth
Jones, Alex - Martial Law 9/11
Jones, Alex - TerrorStorm
Hilder, Anthony J.-The Greatest Lie Ever Sold
vonKleist, Dave - 911 In Plane Site
Humphrey, George - 911 The Great Illusion

** Important Reference Books **
Ruppert, Michael - Crossing the Rubicon, New Society Publishers
Tarpley, Webster - 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Progressive Press
Griffin, David Ray - The New Pearl Harbor, Interlink
Griffin, David Ray - Debunking 9/11 Debunking, Olive Branch Press
Griffin, David Ray -The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions, Olive Branch Press
Marrs, Jim - The Terror Conspiracy: Deception, 9/11 and the Loss of Liberty, Disinformation Company


Part 3:
Perloff, James - The Shadows of Power, Western Islands
Marrs, Jim - Rule by Secrecy, Harper Paperbacks
Dye, Thomas R. - The Irony of Democracy, Wadsworth Publishing
Greider, William - Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country, Simon & Schuster
F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, Duell/Sloan/Pearce
Allen, Fredrick Lewis - "Morgan The Great"/ Life Magazine - 4/25/1949
Simpson, Colin - The Lusitania, Little Brown
Pool, James - Who Financed Hitler: the Secret Funding... ,Pocket Books
Epperson, Ralph A. -The Unseen Hand
Sutton, Anthony C. - Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, G S G & Associates Pub
Sutton, Anthony C. - The Federal Reserve Conspiracy, G S G & Associates Pub
Allen, Gary - The Rockefeller File, 76 Pr
Lundberg, Ferdinand - America's Sixty Families, Citidell Press
Mcfadden, Louis - On the Federal Reserve, Congressional Record 1934
Allen, Gary - The Bankers , Conspiratorial Origins of the Federal Reserve, American Opinion
Larson, Martin - The Federal Reserve
House, Edward Mandell -The Intimate Papers Of Colonel House, Kessinger Publishing
Sutton, Anthony C. - Wall Street and FDR, Arlington House
Russo, Aaron - America: Freedom To Fascism (film)
Iserbyt, Charlotte Thompson - The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, 3d Research Co
Stinnett, Robert - Day Of Deceit, Free Press
Security and Prosperity Partnership Of North America, spp.gov
Jaikaran, Jacques S. - Debt Virus, Glenbridge Publishing
Griffin, G. Edward, The Creature from Jekyll Island, American Media
Grace Commision Report - 1984 - Reagan Admin

I've been studying a bit on the Federal Reserve, Personal Income Tax and issues surrounding 9/11 etc lately as a part of my regular forum debates, as well as my long standing study of Christianity and religion, but I found a lot of information that was new to me, and found many new correlations between that information etc.

While there is still some information in the latter parts of the movie that I'd question or would disagree with, for the most part the information is valid and compelling. Some of the things I would question would be the validity of the 16th Amendment, or the "squibs" on the WTC towers etc. Some of these things have been debunked or explained already, so I was a little disappointed to see them included, but overall I was impressed.

I think the fast pace of the delivery for such a large amount of information lended itself to a bit of cherry picking or taking things out of context etc, but I can somewhat forgive that, given the format of delivery.

I would love to see a much more expanded version of this documentary that could dwell more on the points. I would also love to see an in-depth critique of the film as a whole, addressing all the various claims etc.

With that said, check it out for yourselves! An impressive presentation!

Cogito!