Moral Absolutes

I just wanted to add that just because I post something, doesn't mean I endorse everything in what is quoted material. For example the editorial from the Arab News.
I think by using the term 'pure evil', they were just trying to make a strong point. I think that humans, being what they are not capable of absolute evil.
Okay, lets say 100% evil. Even some of the evillest people in history may have had at least some tiny spark of good in their lives. Even Hitler was kind to Blondi, his German Shepard.
Now don't get me wrong. I am no apologist for Hitler. In fact from a Buddhist point of view his mind-stream will probably spend countless aeons, in some deep, dark hell-realm. After it pays the karmic debt for causing the deaths of millions, at some point which only the Buddha can know, his shade will be released. So you could say in his case 99.999999......
% etc evil.

But if you ascribe pure evil to a human, you are de facto turning them into a god of some sort.
At any rate by posting an editorial from the Arab News, I was attempting to point out, that even in Saudi Arabia, with its Wahabi sect, which are very much into drawing lines of moral absolutes, even there, there is digust and horror at Islamic terrorism. And furthermore it is interesting to see what papers in the Arab world are saying about the latest bombings.

In other news I have added most of the article on Tara (Buddhism) over at Wikipedia.Also the article on Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was just 2 lines, so I wrote and added a bio for him there. This can be checked out at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Jewel Offerings-- -dedicating the merit to M.S.R.O. 

to further emphasize a point--- also found at the democratic underground. 

'it's also important for me to go on with my life"

it's also important for me to go on with my life, -G.W. Bush.

--- this found among many places at:COX NEWS SERVICE Arizona Star: Bush on Saturday defended his decision not to meet with the grieving mom of a soldier killed in Iraq.
"But whether it be here or in Washington or anywhere else, there's somebody who has got something to say to the president, that's part of the job," Bush said on the ranch. "And I think it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say. But, I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life."

So instead of taking 20 minutes off from clearing brush, or shortening a 2 hour bike ride, or from attending a Republican fund raiser, to share even tea and sympathy with Cindy Sheehan, 'Dubya' believes ' it's also important for me to go on with my life".

Meanwhile we get to behold the true nature of right-wing activism in the form of some lunk with a pickup truck with a pipe attached by chains , plowing through the crosses marking those slain in Iraq during the night.

I guess this is the way the right chooses to honor the fallen. And the way the right-wing media has villified and smeared Mrs. Sheehan, just shows there are no depths of depravity they won't plumb, in order to score some political points.

For a more uncensored take on this check out: http://www.democraticunderground.com/

Jerry Garcia---- Ten Years After

Gosh can it really be ten years since Jerry Garcia left us.
Hard to believe. Another case of you don't now what you got
til its gone.
His music lives on though. From reading one of his biographies and also one of the histories of the Grateful Dead what I took away from all that info was that Garcia really, really loved music, loved playing music, and loved delving into America's musical past and folklore, and extracted what he could and used it in a contemporary way.

Before his Grateful Dead years he spent a lot of time playing bluegrass music, studying it, playing with jug bands, collecting and sharing tapes, listening to old recordings, and learning all sorts of licks and styles.
And not only bluegrass music , but all sorts of folk, western, country, and old timey type music. The guy loved to jam with other musicians and loved to push the envelope of where a song could go.
You can hear this in lyrics from something like say 'Cumberland Blues':

Gotta get down to the Cumberland mine
That's where I mainly spend my time

Make good money, five dollars a day
If I made any more I might move away

In this little blog post there is no way I can do justice to his influence. I still enjoy American Beauty and Workingmans Dead. Just the first 3 notes from St. Stephen's always opens me up to a different dimension. Still trippy after all these years I guess. But after all Garcia was also called Captain Trips too.
As more Dicks Picks come out, along with other live concerts, and Dvds of concerts, everyone will be able to listen and encounter as much of Jerry Garcia as they want. So it is a shame he left us at 53 years, but didn't he ramble in his time?

He believed in sharing his tapes and the Dead believed in free taping of their concerts. Always a certain generosity of spirit about his music and sharing his music with the rest of us beings.I'll leave this off with a little lyric from Brokedown Palace:

'Fare you well, fare you well, I love you more than words can tell, listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul.'

Can still hear in my head the steel guitar lick right after that.
Check it out :"Grateful Dead: Truckin' Up To Buffalo" on DVD complete concert at Buffalo's Rich Stadium on July 4, 1989 with the picture taken from the master 1" video tape, shot with six cameras, and featuring an outstanding new 5.1 and stereo mix produced from the master multi-track tapes, this nearly three hour concert features such staples as "Touch of Grey," "Morning Dew," "All Along The Watchtower," "Deal," "Terrapin Station," and "U.S. Blues."

Intelligent Decline

"As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns,the ones we don't know we don't know." - -Donald Rumsfeld

Okay now, 'Intelligent design' is just theological speculation. As one blogger has pointed out once you start teaching 'Intelligent design ' in the classroom, then you need to also make fair time for:

• The blood of the monster Tiamat's husband, Kinqu,slain by Marduk created life on earth (the earth itself being created by the remains of Tiamat).
• The earth, sky, and all life on the planet came from the egg of the god Pangu and the god himself.
• Esaugetuh Emissee created mankind from clay on a hill
• The universe is governed by Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, with Brahma being the creator
• Odin and his brothers used Ymir's body to create the universe."
• The ejection of fuel from a damaged engine on the spacecraft Terminus created the universe .

One could go on and on. For example in Buddhist Cosmology you have myriad worlds and world systems. In something akin to the Big bang there are periods when whole universes are created, evolve and then there is dissolution, decay, and whole universes disappear into emptiness.

But to be so sloppy about what is science and what is religious cosmology is quite moronic. Even in science or astronomical cosmology , it doesn't deny there could be a creator God, but it is something outside the perview of science.

'Intelligent design', is taken seriously by scarcely any scientific experts. It proposes that the natural world is too complex to have been created by entirely natural processes, so there must be a designer of some kind. As to how the designer acts, or how scientists could study those actions, it has no answers. Intelligent design explains nothing and predicts nothing; it isn't even a theory.

You can't ask high school physics teachers to teach 'Intelligient design ' because there is no science involved. Be clear if you want to ask for a Christian Fundamentalist cosmology class to be taught in schools, be up front about what you are asking for. It really shows that it is just a intellectually dishonest way of trying to get Christian Cosmology taught in schools. The voices of unreason do get loud at time. I hope all the science departments in the country get a bit het up about this.