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Another in my series of Dunkirk Little ships
Buying a pleasure boat is rarely the outcome of logical thought. More often it is a sudden impulse; certainly it is a love affair, indulged in even by men of otherwise strong character and sound judgment. No wonder we attribute the feminine gender to boats.
Malcolm Campbell, world land-speed record holder in 1924, was knighted in the year he commissioned his new boat Blue Bird. He added the world water-speed record to his others just six years later. The name Blue Bird, was taken from Maeterlink's play L 'Oiseau Bleu, and given to all his record-breaking cars and boats and the three successive yachts he owned. Bluebird of Chelsea (her present name) was Malcolm Campbell's second yacht. He sold her after only three years when he felt uncomfortable about her petrol engines, which he considered dangerous. A gypsy had once warned him that "his death would come from the water". Bluebird had three more owners before the war and, like others of her kind, was requisitioned by the Admiralty. She made two false starts in getting to Dunkirk. The first time she developed engine trouble. Then, when she got as far as Sheerness, there were too many volunteers and she was left behind.
Finally, she set out, commanded by a yachtsman, Lt. Col. Barnard, with a crew of naval ratings. At 4ft 3ins her draft was too great to let her work comfortably off the beaches, so she must have ferried troops from the harbour. She suffered no major damage, but it was recorded that her fuel tanks were accidentally refilled with water. Bluebird's twin screws were fouled by debris and her engines stopped. She may have picked up one of the many army greatcoats discarded by soldiers to make it easier for them to swim to the rescuing ships.
Bluebird was finally towed back to England. After Dunkirk, for the rest of the war from 1942 onwards, she was used by No. 1 Water Transport Co., RASC based in Gourock, near Holy Loch. She was used for the movement of troops, food and equipment around various Coastal Artillery sites guarding the entrance to the River Clyde. She was also used for advanced navigation exercises based at Rothesay on the Isle of Butte. In 1943 she was used by the Orkney and Shetlands section RASC for the movement of personnel and equipment throughout the islands. She apparently finished the war being used for target towing and radar decoy work between Weymouth and Gosport, still in service with the RASC. Then, in 1984, she made another conquest. A new admirer took up with her, aware of the illustrious past and dormant beauty, but apparently blind to the enormity of what he was taking on!
Martin Summers, a dealer in impressionist paintings living in Chelsea, took his daughter along the embankment to Cadogan Pier where she asked him why they could not have a boat. Though no sailor himself, the idea appealed to him and he discussed it with his friend, Scott Beadle, an art director and experienced mariner. This was just the kind of assignment Scott enjoys and it was not long before he found the very thing. An advertisement in 'Yachting Monthly' described 'a beautiful yacht originally built for Sir Malcolm Campbell, lying in the South of France' and she appeared to be going cheap. Martin Summers became enthusiastic and within a few days, he and Scott Beadle were on their way to Grau du Roi in the Camargue to see the lady. What they found made their hearts sink. She was clearly in a very poor state and Scott, from his knowledge of boats, realised that the cost of restoring her would be prohibitive. But before they could abandon their idea, fate intervened. While they were aboard, their hire car had been broken into and all their money and possessions taken. They appealed for help to Bluebird's owner who consoled them so well that their optimism returned. In the middle of the night they went back to have another look at their dream. By the light of their headlamps, the ship looked far more romantic. They found a hatch open and climbed aboard and as the battery of their car began to run out, the depressing aspect of rotting wood faded and they saw a vision of what might be. By now they had talked themselves into it.
Back in London, they appointed a surveyor who explained that the ship had been well built and its hull was sound, but that restoring her would not only be expensive, but would require skills which are no longer common. Martin Summers decided to buy Bluebird and found a delivery skipper, 'Ginge' Sargeant who, with only one engine working, started out for England. She leaked, she listed, but she limped home. Martin and Scott flew out several times to check on her progress. Finally, there only remained the English Channel which she had crossed so gallantly in 1940. As on that memorable occasion, she needed to be towed home again this time, when her second engine stopped.
New plans were drawn up based on the original ones from a 1931 copy of 'Motorboat'. The entire wheelhouse was rebuilt and a new transom was constructed. The large sliding sun-roof was improved to keep the water out and the after-deck was carefully redesigned to provide a large and elegant dining area with a folding table and varnished lockers which double as seats. A new clinker built dinghy of traditional design was added and swung from derricks at the stern. The hull was carefully shored up to preserve its elegant shape while the deck and beams were removed. New planks were fitted to the hull, the ribs were doubled up and strengthened and an entirely new teak deck was laid.
Scott Beadle took charge of the machinery and Graham Parker of the electrics. Her two Perkins diesels were entirely overhauled and a 10KVA 240-volt generator was added to supply the domestic equipment and charge her over-size batteries. The latest radio and navigation equipment was installed in the mahogany panelled wheelhouse, alongside the old brass compass and wooden wheel. Every handhold and window catch, every light fitting, hatch and porthole is in period and in impeccable taste. The floor throughout is covered in Persian rugs. When Bluebird was first built, it took Thornycrofts 55 days. Her restoration in 1984 took a whole year and cost fifty times as much but then, when men of vision fall in love, they rarely count the cost!
Bluebird of Chelsea, as she was named when they relaunched her on 19th April 1986, like any wise and well- loved mistress, has repaid Martin Summers amply for his generosity and care. Lying at Cadogan Pier, in the heart of London and only a few hundred yards from his beautiful Chelsea home, Bluebird has opened a new dimension in his life. The world looks quite different from a small boat than from land or from an ocean liner. Strangely, she spent much of her time at Cadogan Pier in Malcolm Campbell's day. Martin Summers has cruised many of the Dutch and French canals, has taken her to Paris 6 times and to the lochs of Scotland plus many trips along the North coast of France - more than 30,000nm in total.
Bluebird has given Martin Summers access to more than just the world of cruising. Through her, he has become one of a very exclusive circle far removed from his world of modern art. The Association of Dunkirk Little Ships is quite different from any ordinary yacht club. It is the ship which qualifies you for membership. Only owners of authentic Dunkirk Little Ships can join. But that is the only qualification. Wealth, connections and social class are considered totally irrelevant.
Among the members are cockle fishermen, Thames firemen, ship-wrights and garage mechanics. There is a spirit among members of the Association which makes it quite unique. They treat their ships with a kind of reverence and all of the owners make great sacrifices for them, in time and money. They all share the belief that the Little Ships of Dunkirk should never be allowed to die and yet few would wish them to become museum pieces like vintage cars or sought-after rarities to be auctioned at Sotheby's.
This vessel is one featured individually on a series of stamps called 'Little Ships of Dunkirk'. These were issued in Palau in 2015 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Op. Dynamo. Seen here returning to Dunkirk in 2015 (75th anniversary)
Thanks to the adls website
MY THANKS TO ALL WHO VISIT AND COMMENT IT IS APPRECIATED
"If we were logical, the future would be bleak, indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope, and we can work."
- Jacques Cousteau
“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.”
In Frank Herbert ... "Dune"
[The Group is walking towards Joker’s gathering]
Robin: So where do you think he is?
Kite Man: The most logical place I can think of is the Psychiatric Ward.
Batgirl: What makes you say that?
Eraser: When they were building this place, they kinda cheaped out there. The walls are collapsible which would make it the largest room in the building.
Batman: Which is why he’s calling it the chapel. That makes since actually.
Robin: What do you mean?
Batman: I found a tablet in Riddler’s “office”. He has files on everyone in Arkham...including Joker and someone named Harley Quinn.
Kite Man: Harley Quinn? That sounds a lot like Harleen Quinzel, Joker’s psychiatrist.
Batman: It looks like someone disabled the cameras as well.
Batgirl: That’s...interesting. Should we turn them back on?
Batman: No. The less proof of us the better.
Batgirl: Oh...okay.
[Batman keeps looking at the tablet as they walk towards the Ward.]
Kite Man: Alright guys, this is it...Joker should be behind-
[Batman kicks the door open]
Kite Man: What is with you guys and kicking open doors?
Joker: Olliver! Play the music!
Olliver Simmones: Y-You got it boss.
[Olliver presses a button on his phone and music begins to blare]
Joker: Dun, du, dun dun, *ahhahahaha* I love weddings!
Robin: Wedding?
Joker: Here comes the bride!
[Harley Quinn comes out of a nearby door]
Joker: O darling! I love that bow tie of yours!
Harley Quinn: Thank yah puddin’! I like yours too!
Joker: Quiet Harley! I’m trying to talk to our guests! You are all so dressed...but at the same time under dressed. Bah! It doesn’t matter! Batman get up here! You’re my best man.
Batman: You’re insane.
Joker: Now, now, now Batsie! Another slip of the tongue and our hostage...excuse me, guest gets it.
[Movinci throws his hammer between his hands]
Batman: Fine.
Robin: We can take him, don’t do it.
[Batman turns and looks at Robin, then he walks next to Joker]
Joker: Now...how do we get married?
Harley Quinn: We need a pastor dear.
Joker: Right, a pastor! You!
[He points at Robin]
Joker: You’re the pastor! And you!
[He points at Batgirl]
Joker: You’re my doll’s best woman!
Robin: Um...
[Batman nods and Dick walks over with Babs]
Joker: And you two! Who are you and why are you here?
Olliver Simmones: And why are you wearing my suit?
Kite Man: Wait this is your suit?
Olliver Simmones Lee: Yeah.
Kite Man: Dude this is amazing!
Olliver Simmones: I know right! It’s so fucking cool!
Joker: I said, who are you?
Kite Man: I’m Kite Man.
Joker: Who?
Kite Man: Legendary outlaw!
Joker: *Hahahahahahaha* Oh that’s a good one!
Kite Man: C'mon man…
Joker: Why are you two here?
Kite Man: We’re here to stop you!
[Eraser points his gun at Movinci]
Joker: Stop me? Playing hero are we?
Kite Man: No. We just want to kill you.
Joker: I think you mean you.
Kite Man: What?
Joker: Leonard, now's your time!
[Leonard points his gun at Kite Man and shoots him in the stomach]
Olliver: No! You said that there would be no killing!
Robin: Charles…
[Leonard kneels next to Kite Man]
Kite Man: (Coughing and sputtering blood) Lenny...why? We were…*coughs* we were friends…
Eraser: Sorry Charles, but you just never knew when to shut your mouth.
Kite Man: Fuck… you…
Eraser: You too buddy.
[Eraser pats his shoulder and points his gun at Batman]
Olliver: I...I gotta save him.
[Olliver slides next to Kite Man and presses a button on his suit]
With a scan of the kidnapper’s transmat safely within the sonic, Samuel, Vale and myself make our way back to the Tardis. Given the vast complexities of isolating a transmat beam and successfully reversing it without some fault arising due to the transmat not being properly calibrated, it’s far more sensible to track the signal rather than reverse it. Not to mention the fact that the only logical conclusion that can be made for a transmat being used in this era means time travel is also at play. Especially now given that the Daleks are gone and Cybermen are in such a sad state that it'll take them millennia to master teleportation again.
I do hope this transmit was constructed after the 41st century. Almost all transmats after that period have a unique microcode embedded in the signal it uses to transport goods or people. How else are you supposed to stop the potential of transmats interfering with one another? Gosh that would be terrible. Then again, it’s not like that hasn’t happened before. Infact, I’m pretty sure some cargo pirates made a living off of that fault in older transmats. Hopefully, whoever these time travelling abductors are, they’re from a point in time after the 41st century. If not this goes from simply tracking back a signal to trying to find a needle in haystack.
Probably best not to mention that possibility to either Vale or Samuel. At least, not until I’m certain. Given how I’ve only just finished regenerating it’s possible my mind is still in a bit of a puddle…….cuddle……muddle!
Clearly more so than I thought. Once I’ve helped get the boy safely home I’ll need to spend some time in the zero room to properly recover from the regeneration, and more importantly to get my head in order. As we all turn the corner and lay eyes upon the familiar shape of that old police telephone box, I suddenly realise something.
The Doctor: Do either of you have my key?
Vale: Your key? For what?
The Doctor: For my antimatter disrupter.
Vale: You need an antimatter disrupter? Why?
The Doctor: I was being sarcastic, nobody needs a key for an antimatter disruptor, I’m asking if either of you have my key for the Tardis.
Samuel: Your time machine needs a key to start it?
The Doctor: No! But I need the key to unlock the door! It’s a time machine after all, you can’t be too cautious. Do either of you have it?
Samuel: I don’t think so…
Vale: I didn’t see any key when we were inside it last. Speaking of which, if you need a key to open the doors how come we were able to get into it last time with a key?
The Doctor: It’ll have been the help the pilot protocol. Since I’d only just regenerated the Tardis will have taken me to the nearest thing in range with a medical bay, thus why it also disabled the locks to let you both in.
Samuel: Then how come it doesn’t want to let us in now? It’s not exactly like we did anything to help you recover.
The Doctor: No you didn’t, but the Tardis will have detected that my regeneration is all but complete thus it reinstated the security protocols.
Samuel: So what? We’re locked outside of your ship? Then how are we going to get back Jerro!?
The Doctor: Oh that's simple. Like this.
I click my fingers together and the sound faintly echoes through the corridor as both Vale and Samuel wait for something to happen. For a good few seconds, nothing does. Clearly the old girl is starting to feel her age. But then, before I have a chance to consider clicking my fingers again, the door unlocks and opens to reveal the console room. They appear caught off guard to learn that I can unlock the Tardis with a snap of my fingers and to an extent, I was when I first learned I could do it as well. Thank you, River.
Vale: Did you just….?
Samuel: I think he did…..
As I place my hand on the Tardis door I can feel her humming as the engines begin to come alive once again. We may have aged, old girl, but moments like these never get old. Even after nearly five thousand years travelling with her. Before I have a chance to enjoy the moment, she swings open both doors and to my shock she’s changed the console room……again.
The Doctor: Oh look at you, old girl. You’ve redecorated. Aren’t you beautiful?
Given my vague post-regenerative state when both Vale and Samuel found me in the Tardis, I can’t help but wonder if this change in desktop theme is by accident or by her design. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time for either. Part of me also can’t help but wonder if I was still connected to the telepathic circuits whilst unconscious. Maybe she realised the struggle that was going on within me. Maybe she changed the console room to try and help me forget what my previous incarnation did.
A kind gesture.
But we can never truly escape our past.
Samuel: It’s…..different….
Vale: How? How has it done that?
The Doctor: It’s nothing, trust me. All that’s happened is a small change of the desktop theme. Ah! There it is!
They both seem baffled by what I could possibly mean as I point in their general direction as they both step into the Tardis.
The Doctor: I was worried she might have removed of it when I wasn’t looking.
Samuel: You were worried she’d get rid……of a coat rack? Wait, she?
The Doctor: Trust me, we’ve been having this back and forth for centuries. She think it’s stupid to have a coat rack in the main console room when I haven’t worn a long coat, hat or scarf for quite a few bodies in a row.
Vale: What are you talking about? She? Bodies?
The Doctor: ‘She’ is called the Tardis. You’re standing inside her and she’s going to help me get your friend back.
Samuel: And the bodies part?
The Doctor: Well when you say like that, you make me sound like I’m some sort of murderous freak.
Vale:…..Are you?
The Doctor: Not to my knowledge.
Samuel: That’s…..not exactly reassuring.
The Doctor: Fine, long story short I’m an alien with the ability to regenerate where my body completely transforms and I in effect become an entirely different man, or sometimes woman. Had a few of those in the past, boy were they exciting. But yeah, any questions?
Neither of them say a thing, instead choosing to look at me as if I were some sort of bizarre mythical creature to them. Maybe I am, perhaps that’s the legacy of the Time Lords. Little more than mythical beings that become the stories told to children. The only difference is that unlike most of those stories, the Time Lords were real. Well…I suppose the Lochness monster is also real even though it was actually a Skarasen being used by the Zygons, but who am I to judge how history chooses to romanticise historical events?
Well….I should probably be the one to judge it actually….last of the Time Lords and all…..it really is my responsibility to uphold the doctrine. Then again, I’ve flouted it almost from the moment I left Gallifrey. Not to mention the Time Lords themselves abandoned that principle long ago when they decided to fight the Time War, though it’s not like they had any choice in the matter really.
Samuel: Ummmm…..ok……….
The Doctor: Now, let’s see if we can find the people who abducted your friend.
I’m momentarily caught off guard by the absence of the sonic screwdriver port. Clearly she's decide to reorganise the console again.I do wish she'd let me know before she did it. Fortunately, the Tardis realises my momentary pause and quickly directs me to the port’s new position. Directly under the monitor, good choice old girl. As I plug the screwdriver into the console, and the Tardis begins to track the signal and lock onto the abductor’s timeline I turn back to look at both Samuel and Vale. They both seem rather overwhelmed by the new console room. Come to think of it, is it bigger than the last one?
The Doctor: So what do you think?
Vale. Is it bigger than last time?
Looks like I'm not the only one who thinks so.
Samuel: It’s certainly more well lit.
Vale: Cleaner too.
The Doctor: I aim to please.
Even if most of the improvements have absolutely nothing to do with me.
The Doctor: So the……oh…..
The Tardis lets out a faint ding to indicate that it has locked onto the transmat's signal. After a brief moment it manages to identify the ship which took young Jerro and pinpoints a suitable time point along the abductor's timeline for us to intercept them. I briefly check the co-ordinates to see just where they're going. Given how these kidnappers have access to time travel it's also possible they have technology to interfere with other species' time machines.
Valorem.
Curious, I wasn’t aware they had ever developed time travel. No matter, that’s where the people who abducted Jerro went, so that’s where we going.
Samuel: Doctor?
The Doctor: Found him. Locking on to his signal!
I quickly type in the co-ordinates for Valorem and the time date their ship jumped to before racing over to engine release lever.
The Doctor: You may want to hang on to something. The first ride is always the bumpiest.
Before either of them can ask just what I mean, I pull the lever down triggering the dematerialisation circuit as the engines roar to life as they begin to draw power from the Eye of Harmony. The console room jerks sharply as we depart the human colony ship and pass into the time vortex.
Next stop: Valorem.
American postcard by Classico, San Francisco, no. 105-117. Photo: Paramount Pictures, 1991.
Friday morning 27 February, American actor Leonard Nimoy has died at his home in Los Angeles. The sonorous, gaunt-faced actor won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television juggernaut Star Trek (1966–1969). Nimoy was 83.
Born in Boston in 1931, Leonard Simon Nimoy was the second son of Max and Dora Nimoy, Ukrainian immigrants and Orthodox Jews. His father worked as a barber. From the age of 8, Leonard acted in local productions, winning parts at a community college, where he performed through his high school years. In 1949, after taking a summer course at Boston College, he travelled to Hollywood, though it wasn’t until 1951 that he landed small parts in two film comedies, Queen for a Day (Arthur Lubin, 1951) and Rhubarb (Arthur Lubin, 1951). He continued to be cast in little-known films, although he did presciently play an alien invader in the Republic serial Zombies of the Stratosphere (Fred C. Brannon, 1952), and in 1961 he had a minor role on an episode of The Twilight Zone. His first starring role came with Kid Monk Baroni (Harold D. Schuster, 1952), in which he played a disfigured Italian street-gang leader who becomes a boxer. Nimoy served in the Army for two years, rising to sergeant and spending 18 months at Fort McPherson in Georgia, where he presided over shows for the Army’s Special Services branch. He also directed and starred as Stanley in the Atlanta Theater Guild’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire before receiving his final discharge in November 1955. He then returned to California, where he worked as a soda jerk, movie usher and cabdriver while studying acting at the Pasadena Playhouse. He achieved wide visibility in the late 1950s and early 1960s on television shows like Wagon Train, Rawhide and Perry Mason. Her also starred in The Balcony (Joseph Strick, 1963), a cinematic adaptation of Jean Genet's play co-starring Shelley Winters, Peter Falk and Lee Grant.Then came Star Trek.
Leonard Nimoy was teaching Method acting at his own studio when he was cast in the original Star Trek television series. Star Trek, which had its premiere on NBC on 8 Sept. 1966, made him a star. Nimoy relished playing outsiders, and he developed what he later admitted was a mystical identification with Spock, the lone alien on the starship’s bridge. Spock was a cerebral, unflappable, pointy-eared Vulcan with a signature salute and blessing: “Live long and prosper”. Though the series was cancelled after three seasons because of low ratings, a cult like following — the conference-holding, costume-wearing Trekkies, or Trekkers (the designation Mr. Nimoy preferred) — coalesced soon after Star Trek went into syndication. Yet Nimoy also acknowledged ambivalence about being tethered to the character, expressing it most plainly in the titles of two autobiographies: I Am Not Spock, published in 1977, and “I Am Spock,” published in 1995. He tried to break out of him image with the Western Catlow (Sam Wanamaker, 1971) based on a 1963 novel by Louis L'Amour. It stars Yul Brynner as a renegade outlaw determined to pull off a Confederate gold heist. Nimoy mentioned this film in both of his autobiographies because it gave him a chance to break away from his role as Spock on Star Trek. He mentioned that the time he made the film was one of the happiest of his life, even though his part was rather brief. Another interesting film was the Science Fiction thriller Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman, 1978) starring Donald Sutherland. It is a remake of the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which is based on the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. The plot involves a San Francisco health inspector and his colleague who discover humans are being replaced by duplicate aliens who appear to be perfect copies of the persons replaced, but devoid of any human emotion. A box office success, Invasion of the Body Snatchers was very well received by critics, and is considered by some to be among the greatest film remakes.
Leonard Nimoy's stardom would endure. The fans’ devotion only deepened when Star Trek was spun off into an animated show, various new series and an uneven parade of films starring much of the original television cast, including — besides Mr. Nimoy — William Shatner (as Capt. James T. Kirk), DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy), George Takei (the helmsman, Sulu), James Doohan (the chief engineer, Scott), Nichelle Nichols (the chief communications officer, Uhura) and Walter Koenig (the navigator, Chekov). The first film was Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Robert Wise, 1979). When the director J. J. Abrams revived the Star Trek film franchise in 2009, with an all-new cast — including Zachary Quinto as Spock — he included a cameo part for Mr. Nimoy, as an older version of the same character. Mr. Nimoy also appeared in the 2013 follow-up, Star Trek Into Darkness. His zeal to entertain and enlighten reached beyond “Star Trek” and crossed genres. He had a starring role in the dramatic television series Mission: Impossible and frequently performed onstage, notably as Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof.” His poetry was voluminous, and he published books of his photography. He also directed films, including two from the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), which he helped write, and television shows. Nimoy was also the executive producer and a writer of the movie Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. He then directed the hugely successful comedy Three Men and a Baby (1987), a far cry from his science-fiction work, and appeared in made-for-television movies. He received an Emmy nomination for A Woman Called Golda (Alan Gibson, 1982), in which he portrayed the husband of Golda Meir, the prime minister of Israel, who was played by Ingrid Bergman. It was the fourth Emmy nomination of his career — the other three were for his Star Trek work — although he never won. Leonard Nimoy’s marriage to the actress Sandi Zober ended in divorce. His second wife, Susan Bay Nimoy, confirmed his death, saying the cause was end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Besides his wife, he is survived by his children, Adam and Julie Nimoy; a stepson, Aaron Bay Schuck; and six grandchildren; one great-grandchild, and an older brother, Melvin.
Sources: Daniel E. Slotnik and Peter Keepnews (New York Times), Wikipedia and IMDb.
Artist's impression of ESA's Earth Return Orbiter and Mars sample container over Earth.
Bringing samples from Mars is the logical next step for robotic exploration and it will require multiple missions that will be more challenging and more advanced than any robotic missions before. Accomplishments in robotic exploration in recent years have increased confidence in success – multiple launches will be necessary to deliver samples from Mars.
ESA is working with NASA to explore mission concepts for an international Mars Sample Return campaign between 2020 and 2030.
Three launches will be necessary to accomplish landing, collecting, storing and finding samples and delivering them to Earth.
NASA’s Mars 2020 mission will explore the surface and rigorously document and store a set of samples in canisters in strategic areas to be retrieved later for flight to Earth.
Two subsequent missions are foreseen to achieve this next step.
A NASA launch will send the Sample Retrieval Lander mission to land a platform near the Mars 2020 site. From here, a small ESA rover – the Sample Fetch Rover – will head out to retrieve the cached samples.
Once it has collected them in what can be likened to an interplanetary treasure hunt, it will return to the lander platform and load them into a single large canister on the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV). This vehicle will perform the first liftoff from Mars and carry the container into Mars orbit.
ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter will be the next mission, timed to capture the basketball-size sample container orbiting Mars. The samples will be sealed in a biocontainment system to prevent contaminating Earth with unsterilised material before being moved into an Earth entry capsule.
The spacecraft will then return to Earth, where it will release the entry capsule for the samples to end up in a specialised handling facility.
ESA and NASA are exploring the concepts for these missions, with ESA assessing the Sample Fetch Rover and Earth Return Orbiter. These will provide input to ESA’s 2019 council at ministerial level, where approval will be sought for the missions.
Credits: ESA/ATG Medialab
In recent years there has been a relentless and vociferous campaign by militant atheists intent on attacking and ridiculing religion. Numerous books have been written on the subject and, it seems, at every opportunity the secular establishment and media seeks out atheists or secular humanists to give what amounts to a jaundiced attack on religion.
For the most part, the opinions they express are the same old, worn out slogans we have heard over and over again, and can only be described as ideological propaganda.
We are all familiar with the atheist slogans such as: 'religion is irrational nonsense'.
Or that: 'believing in God is no different from believing in Santa or fairies.'
Or that: 'there is no evidence for God'.
Or that: 'religion is just a crutch for weak-minded people'
Or that: 'religion is outdated, superstitious nonsense',
Or that: 'religion is just for ignorant, unintelligent, backward people who know nothing about science'
Or that: belief in God is 'just a lazy way of filling gaps in knowledge'.
Or that: believing in God is 'like believing the Earth is flat'.
Or that: Christians 'believe in an old man in the sky with a beard'
Or that: Christians 'believe in a sky fairy'.
Or that: Christianity/the Bible was 'invented by ignorant, bronze age, goat herders'.
Or that: Belief in a God 'is just a delusion'.
Or that: Christians have 'an imaginary, invisable friend'.
Etc. etc.
As we will show later, such slogans are either ignorant nonsense, or devised as deliberate, ideological propaganda.
If you remember, several years ago, atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, decided to ramp up their anti-religious propaganda effort with slogans on buses. It originated in Britain, but spread to several other countries.
It was known as the Atheist Bus Campaign.
The Atheist Bus Campaign, set out to convince you that a loving creator God does not exist, that you have no prospect of eternal life and that all you can look forward to is eternal oblivion.
Atheists have no evidence to back up that assertion. In fact logic, natural law and the basic principles of the scientific method rule out their naturalistic alternative to a creator as impossible.
They invent all sort of bizarre scenarios to replace a supernatural first cause (God), they even try to present their fantastical, naturalistic replacements for God as 'scientific'. Please don't be taken in by it.
Their naturalistic replacements for God are illogical, they all violate natural laws and the basic principles of science.
Atheism is rightly referred to as the no-hope philosophy.
Their ultimate goal and pinnacle of their short life is - eternal oblivion.
And, quite perversely, they want to convince you that is all you can look forward to.
Please don't be dragged down with them into that depressing pit of hopelessness.
The Good News is that they are entirely wrong, and furthermore, it is not just an opinion. It can be satisfactorily demonstrated by logic, natural law, and the basic principle of the scientific method ......
Read on .... and you will understand, why atheists can never replace God, however much they try.
Their Atheist Bus Campaign is deceitful because atheists have no logical or scientific grounds for claiming "There's Probably No God", in fact, the evidence of applied logic and natural law, is completely the contrary. The atheist claim that there's probably no God is just an unsubstantiated opinion based only on their own ideological beliefs.
You may wonder why they inserted the word 'probably'? Obviously, they knew that if they were challenged to present evidence for the truth of their advertisement and had to defend it in court, they would be unable to do so. Science and logic can be used to prove they have no alternative to a supernatural first cause, and they know it.
For atheists to propose that believing there is no God, is somehow a reason to stop worrying and the recipe for an enjoyable life, is perverse in the extreme.
For most sane people it would be the opposite - a road to depression, hopelessness, and a feeling that this short existence is worthless. It will all end in oblivion, and you might as well never have lived.
Thankfully, atheists are demonstrably wrong, there is every reason for hope - as we will show - a loving Creator definitely does exist. Your life is not a few short, stressful and worthless years leading to eternal oblivion. You are a unique, valuable, person, specially created out of supreme love, every human life is of infinite value right from the moment of conception. Humans really are special and not just intelligent apes, or a mere collection of atoms, as atheists would have you believe You can live forever in eternal bliss - that is the gift of life the loving Creator of the universe offers you, and it is all offered for free.
Please don't be fooled ... people who think for themselves (the REAL freethinkers), are able to see right through the atheist hype and propaganda. Ignore the relentless bombardment of atheist propaganda, such as the atheist bus campaign. Seek out and learn the real truth and the truth will set you free.
Please read on and you will understand ......
Because there is a law of cause and effect, the universe can't and won't create itself from nothing.
Consider this ....
A creator God (or supernatural first cause) has been made redundant and the final gap (pertaining to the so-called God of the gaps) has now been filled ... who says so?
Atheists, along with the secularist pundits in the popular media.
Why do they say that?
Because they believe that the greatest brain in atheism - Stephen Hawking, has finally discovered the secret of the origin of the universe and a naturalistic replacement for God.
The atheist replacement for God is summed up in a single sentence written by Hawking:
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing"
That is it .... problem solved - apparently!
The secularists in the popular media loved it, as far as they were concerned the problem certainly was solved. Hawking had finally dealt the fatal blow to all religion, especially Christianity. No need to question it, if a revered scientist of his calibre, is so sure of how the universe came into being, it must be correct.
The new atheists loved it, they wasted no time in proclaiming the ultimate triumph of 'science' over religious mythology and superstition.
So just how credible is the atheist claim that God has been made redundant?
And just how 'scientific' is Hawking's replacement for God?
Shall we analyse it?
"Because there is a law of gravity ....
So,
1) If the law of gravity existed, how is that nothing?
AND -
2) Where did the law of gravity come from?
AND -
3) How can a law of gravity exist before that which gravity relates to ... i.e. matter?
"the universe can and will create itself from nothing"
4) How can something create itself, without pre-existing its own creation?
(A) could possibly create (B), but how could (A) create (A)? Of course it can't.
5) What about the 'nothing' that is not really nothing, as most people understand 'nothing', but a bizarre 'nothing' in which a law of gravity exists. A nothing which is actually a 'something' where a law of gravity is presumably some sort of eternally, existent entity?
AND -
6) Is Hawking implying that the self-creation of the universe is made possible by the pre-existence of the law of gravity?
Of course, natural laws are not creative agents, they simply describe basic properties and operation of material things. They can't create anything, or cause the creation of anything. Something which is a property of something, cannot create that which it is a property of.
So, even if we ignore the law of cause and effect which definitively rules out a natural, first cause of the universe, the atheist notion of the universe arising of its own volition from nothing is still impossible, and can be regarded as illogical and unscientific nonsense. Hawking's naturalistic replacement for God, presented in his single sentence, and so loved by the new, atheist cabal, is obviously just contradictory and confused nonsense.
The truth, which atheists don't want to hear, is that atheism is intellectually and scientifically indefensible. That is why they always duck out of explaining how the concept of an uncaused, inadequate, natural first cause is possible.
The best they ever come up with, is something like "we don't really know what laws existed at the start of the universe".
However, the atheist claim that - we don't really know... is completely spurious.
We certainly do know that the Law of Cause and Effect is universal, there is no way round it.
The only reason atheists don't want to accept it, is ideological.
And ... isn't it strange, that the only laws atheists dispute are precisely those that interfere with their beliefs. For example, atheists seem pretty sure that one law existed .... the law of gravity (even prior to that which gravity is a property of … matter).
Why are they so sure that the law of gravity existed?
Because their naturalistic substitute for God, summed up in the sentence by Stephen Hawking, apparently requires that the law of gravity existed before anything else …..
Here it is again ...
‘Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing’ Stephen Hawking.
So, atheists DO KNOW for sure that the law of gravity existed, but they don’t really know what other laws existed at the start of the universe. They especially doubt that the Law of Cause and Effect existed.
AMAZING!
Well, how about this for a refutation of Hawking’s replacement for God, also summed up in a single sentence?
Because there is a Law of Cause and Effect, the universe can’t and won’t create itself from nothing!
That is something Stephen Hawking conveniently forgot.
Apparently, he accepts that the law of gravity existed, because he thinks it suits his argument, but he ignores the existence of other laws that positively destroy his argument.
So, now you know the truth about the best substitute for God that atheists have ever come up with.
IMPRESSED? I think not!
Why is it ATHEISTS that try to dispute the universality of natural laws?
According to their claims, atheists are supposed to be the champions of science. Yet we find in practice that it is actually theists who end up defending natural laws and the scientific method against those atheists who try to refute any laws and scientific principles that interfere with their naturalistic beliefs.
Whatever happened to the alleged conflict between science and religion?
That is revealed as purely, atheist propaganda. There is obviously much more conflict between atheism and science.
Why is the law of cause and effect so important?
Because it tells us that all natural entities, events and processes are contingent.
They are all subject to preceding causes. It tells us that natural entities and events are not autonomous, they cannot operate independently of causes.
That is such an important principle, it is actually the basis of the scientific method. Science is about looking for adequate causes of ALL natural events. According to science, a natural event without a cause, is a scientific impossibility.
Once you suggest such a notion, you are abandoning science and you violate the basic principle of the scientific method.
What about the first cause of the universe and everything?
How does that fit in?
Well, the first cause was obviously a unique thing, not only unique, but radically different to all NATURAL entities and occurrences. The first cause HAD to be an autonomous entity, it HAD to be eternally self-existent, self-reliant, NON-CONTINGENT ... i.e. it was completely independent of causes and the limitations that causes impose.
The first cause, by virtue of being the very first, could not have had any preceding cause, and obviously didn't require any cause for its existence. When we talk about the first cause, we mean the very first cause, i.e. FIRST means FIRST, not second or third.
The first cause also had to be capable of creating everything that followed it. It is responsible for every subsequent cause and effect that is, or has ever been. That means that nothing, nor the sum total of everything that followed the first cause, can ever be greater, in any respect, than the first cause.
So the idea that the first cause could be a natural entity or event is just ludicrous.
We know that the first cause is radically different to any natural entity, it is NOT contingent and that is why it is called a SUPERNATURAL entity, the Supernatural, First Cause (or Creator God). All natural events and entities ARE contingent without exception, so the first cause simply CANNOT be a natural thing.
That is the verdict of science, logic and reason. Atheists dispute the verdict of science and insist that the first cause was a 'natural' event which was somehow able to defy natural laws that govern all natural events.
Consequently, atheism can be regarded as anti-science. Which means .... the real enemy of atheism is science, not religion. And the real enemy of science is atheism, not religion.
An idea which seems to be popular with atheists at present, is a continuously, reciprocating universe, one which ends by running out of energy potential and then rewinds itself in an never ending cycle ..... this is an attempt to evade the fact that an uncaused, natural, first cause is impossible. They claim that, in this way a first cause, is not necessary. And that matter/energy is some sort of eternally existent entity.
So is it a valid solution?
Firstly .....
Matter/energy cannot be eternally existent in a cycle with no beginning).
Why?
Because all natural things are contingent, they have to comply with the law of cause and effect, so they cannot exist independently of causes. The nearest you could get to eternally existent matter/energy would be a very, long chain of causes and effects, but a long chain is not eternally existent, it has to have a beginning at some point. At the beginning there would still have to be a non-contingent first cause. So a long chain of causes and effects simply pushes the first cause further back in time, it can't eliminate it.
Secondly ....
It is pretty obvious that the idea of the universe simply rewinding itself in a never ending cycle, which had no beginning, is complete, unscientific nonsense. How such a proposal can be presented as serious science, beggars belief.
It seems atheists will try anything to justify their naturalist ideology. They apparently have no compunction about completely disregarding natural laws.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics rules out such atheist, pie-in-the-sky, origins mythology.
There is no such thing as a free lunch, the idea of a rewinding universe is tantamount to applying the discredited notion of perpetual motion - on a grand scale, to the universe.
Contingent things don't just rewind of their own accord.
The Second Law (not to mention common sense) rules it out.
Where does the renewed power or renewed energy potential come from?
If you wind up a clock, it doesn't rewind itself after it has stopped.
The universe had a beginning and it will have an end. That is what science tells us, it cannot rewind itself.
Such ridiculous, atheist musings are just a desperate attempt to wriggle out of the inevitable conclusion of logic, and the Law of Cause and Effect which are the real enemies of atheist ideology.
Once again atheism is hoisted on its own petard by natural law and science, not by religion.
A variation of the cyclical universe is the argument proposed by some that the universe just is?
Presumably they mean that the universe is some sort of eternally-existent entity with no beginning - and therefore not in need of a cause? Once again an eternally self-existent universe is not possible for the same reason outlined above.
In addition ....
The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us the universe certainly had a beginning and will have an end. The energy potential of the universe is decreasing from an original peak at the beginning of the universe. Even the most rabid atheists seem to accept that. Which is why most of them believe in a beginning event, such as a big bang explosion.
So the question is how did it (the universe) begin to exist, not whether it began to exist?
Which takes us back to the question of the nature of the very first cause.
It can only be one of two options,
an uncaused, natural first cause
OR
an uncaused, supernatural first cause.
An uncaused, NATURAL first cause is impossible.
Thus the only possible option is a supernatural first cause, i.e. God.
Atheists can’t refute the Law of Cause and Effect which is so devastating to their naturalist agenda, so they regularly invent bizarre scenarios which ignore natural laws, and hope people won’t notice. If anyone does they just brush it off with remarks like “we just don’t know ” what laws existed prior to the beginning of the universe.
Sorry, the atheist apologists may not know …. but all sensible people do know, we certainly know what is impossible ….
And we certainly know that you cannot blithely step outside the constraints of natural laws and scientific principles, as atheists do, and remain credible.
We know that natural laws describe the inherent properties of matter/energy. Which means wherever matter/energy exist, the inherent properties of matter/energy also exist - and so do the natural laws that describe those properties. if the universe began, as some propose, with a cosmic egg. or a previous universe, those things are still natural entities with natural properties, and as such would be subject to natural laws. So the idea that there were natural events leading up to the origin of the universe that were not subject to natural laws is ridiculous.
The atheist claim; that we just don't know, is not valid, and should be treated as the silliness it really is.
The existence of the law of cause and effect is essential to the scientific method, but fatal to the atheist ideology.
SO ....
Is the law of cause and effect really universal?
Causation is necessary for the existence of the universe, but ALSO for the existence of any natural entities or events that may have preceded the creation of the universe.
In other words, causation is necessary for all matter/energy and all natural entities and occurrences, whether within the universe or elsewhere.
ALL natural entities are contingent wherever they may be, whether in some sort of cosmic egg, a big bang, a previous universe or whatever.
Contingency is an inherent character of all natural entities, so it is impossible for any natural entity to be non-contingent.
Which means you simply CANNOT have a natural entity which is UNCAUSED, anywhere.
If, for example, matter/energy was not contingent at the start of the universe, or before the universe began, how and why would it be contingent now?
Why would nature have changed its basic character to an inferior one?
If matter/energy once had such awesome, autonomous power - if it was, at some time, self-sufficient, not reliant on causes for its operation and existence, and not restricted by the limitations causes impose, it would effectively mean it was once an infinite, necessary, self-existent entity, similar to God.
Now if matter once had the autonomous, non-contingent powers of a god, why would it change itself to a subordinate character and role, when it became part of the universe?
Why would it change to a role where it is limited by the strictures of natural laws. And where it cannot operate without a preceding, adequate cause?
To claim matter/energy was, at one time, not contingent, not subject to causes (which is what atheists have to claim) – is to actually imbue it with the autonomous power of a god.
That is why atheism is really just a revamped version of pagan naturalism.
By denying the basic, contingent character of matter/nature, atheism effectively deifies nature, and credits it with godlike powers, which science clearly tells us it doesn’t possess.
Thus, if anyone dismisses causality, they effectively deify matter/nature.
Which means they have chosen the first of the 2 following choices …
1. Atheism ... the unscientific, illogical belief in a natural, uncaused god (of matter or nature) which violates natural laws - which science recognises restrict its autonomy?
2. Theism ... the logical belief in an uncaused, supernatural God, which created matter and the laws that govern matter. And therefore does not violate any laws, is not contingent, and thus has completely unrestricted autonomy and infinite powers?
Which one would you choose?
Which one do scientists who respect natural laws and the scientific method choose?
The great, scientific luminaries and founders of modern science, such as Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Louis Pasteur etc., in fact, nearly all of the really great scientists and founders of modern science, had no doubts or problem understanding that choice, and they readily chose the second (theism), as the only logical option.
So, by choosing the second - a supernatural first cause – rather than meaning you are anti-science or anti-reason or some sort of uneducated, superstitious, religious nut (as atheists frequently claim) actually puts you in the greatest of scientific company.
To put it another way, who would you rather trust in science, such scientific giants as: Newton, Pasteur, Faraday, Von Braun, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Mendel, Marconi, Kelvin, Babbage, Pascal, Herschel, Peacock etc. who believed in a supernatural, first cause?
OR,
the likes of: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Lawrence Krauss, Stephen Hawking, Daniel Dennett etc. who believe in an uncaused, natural, first cause?
No contest!
We can see that atheists are anti-science, because they treat natural law and the whole principle of the scientific method with utter contempt, and all the while, they masquerade as the champions of science to the public.
The question of purpose ....
A further nail in the coffin of bogus, atheist science is the existence of order.
Atheists assume that the universe is purposeless, but they cannot explain the existence of order.
The development of order requires an organizational element.
To do useful work, or to counter the effects of entropy, energy needs to be directed or guided.
Raw energy alone actually tends to increase the effects of entropy, it doesn't increase order.
The organizational principle in living systems is provided by the informational element encoded in DNA.
Atheists have yet to explain how that first, genetic information arose of its own volition in the so-called Primordial Soup?
Natural laws pertinent to all natural entities, they guide the behaviour of energy and matter, but also serve to limit it, because natural laws are based only on the inherent properties of matter and energy.
So ... natural laws describe inherent properties of matter/energy, and natural processes operate only within the confines of natural laws which are based on their own properties. They can never exceed the parameters of those laws.
The much acclaimed, Dawkinsian principle that randomness can develop into order by means of a sieving process, such as shaken pebbles being sorted by falling through a hole of a particular size is erroneous, because it completely ignores the regulatory influence of natural laws on the outcome, which are not at all random.
If we can predict the outcome in advance, as we can with Dawkins' example, it cannot be called random. We CAN predict the outcome because we know that the pebbles will behave according to the regulatory influence of natural laws, such as the law of gravity. If there was no law of gravity, then Dawkins' pebbles, when shaken, would not fall through the hole, they would not be sorted, they would act completely unpredictably, possibly floating about in the air in all directions. In that case, the randomness would not result in any order. That is true randomness.
Dawkins' randomness, allegedly developing into order, is not random at all, the outcome is predictable and controlled by natural laws and the inherent properties of matter. He is starting with 2 organizational principles, natural laws and the inherent, ordered structure and properties of matter, and he calls that randomness!
Bogus science indeed!
This tells us that order is already there at the beginning of the universe, in the form of natural laws and the ordered composition and structure of matter .... it doesn't just develop from random events.
A major problem for atheists is to explain where natural laws came from?
In a purposeless universe there should be no regulatory principles at all.
Firstly, we would not expect anything to exist, we would expect eternal nothingness.
Secondly, even if we overlook that impossible hurdle, and assume by some amazing fluke and contrary to logic, something was able to create itself from nothing ….. we would expect the ‘something’ would have no ordered structure, and no laws based on that ordered structure. We would expect it to behave randomly and chaotically.
This is an absolutely fundamental question to which atheists have no answer. The basic properties of matter/energy, and the universe, scream …. ‘purpose’.
Atheists say the exact opposite.
Furthermore, if we consider the accepted, atheist belief; that matter is inherently predisposed to produce life and the genetic information for life, whenever environmental conditions are conducive (so-called abiogenesis), where does that predisposition for life come from? Once again, atheists are hoisted on their own petard, and the atheist idea of a random, purposeless, universe is left completely in tatters.
It is the atheist ideology that is anti-science, not necessarily individual scientists.
There may be sincere, atheist scientists who respect the scientific method and natural laws, but they are wedded to an ideology that - when push comes to shove, does not respect natural laws.
It is evident that whenever natural laws interfere with atheist naturalist beliefs, the beliefs take precedence over the rigorous, scientific method. It is then that natural laws are disregarded by atheists in favour of unscientific fantasies which are conducive to their ideology.
Of course, in much day-to-day practical science and technology, the question of violating laws doesn't even arise, and we cannot deny that in the course of such work, atheists will respect the scientific method of experiment and observation within the framework of the Law of Cause and Effect and other established laws of science.
Bizarrely, It is a different matter entirely, when it comes to hypotheses about origins. It then becomes an 'anything goes' situation. The main criteria then seems to be that it doesn’t matter whether your hypothesis violates natural laws (all sorts of excuses can be made as to why natural laws need not apply), all that matters is that it is entirely naturalistic, and can be made to sound plausible to the public.
However, the same atheist scientists would not entertain anything in general, day-to-day science, that is not completely in accordance with the scientific method, they make an exception ONLY with anything to do with origins, whether it be the origin of the universe, or the origin of life, or the origin of species.
Atheism is not simply passive non-belief, you can only be a ‘genuine’ atheist if you proactively believe in the following illogical and unscientific propositions:
1. A natural, first cause of the universe that was ‘uncaused’.
2. A natural, first cause of the universe that was patently not adequate for the effect, (a cause which was able to produce an effect far greater than itself and superior to its own abilities).
3. That the universe created ITSELF from nothing.
4. That natural laws simply arose of their own accord, without any reason, purpose or cause.
5. That energy potential at the start of everything material was able to wind itself up from absolute zero, of its own accord, without any reason, purpose or cause.
6. That the effect of entropy (Second Law of Thermodynamics) was somehow suspended or didn’t operate to permit the development of order in the universe.
7. That life spontaneously generated itself, of its own volition, from sterile matter, contrary to: the Law of Biogenesis, the laws of probability, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Information Theory and common sense.
8. That the complete human genome was created by means of a long chain of copying mistakes of the original, genetic information in the first living cell, (mutations of mutations of mutations, etc. etc.).
9. That the complex DNA code was produced by chemical processes.
10. That the very first, genetic information, encoded in the DNA of the first living cell, created itself by some unknown means.
11. That matter is somehow inherently predisposed to develop into living cells, whenever conditions are conducive to life. But such a predisposition for life just arose of its own accord, with no purpose and with no apparent cause.
12. That an ordered structure of atoms, guiding laws of physics, order in the cosmos, order in the living cell and complex information, are what we would expect to occur naturally in a purposeless universe.
The claim of atheists to be the champions of science and reason is clearly bogus.
They think they can get away with it by pretending to have no beliefs.
However, when seriously challenged to justify their dogmatic rejection of a Supernatural First Cause, they indirectly espouse the unscientific beliefs outlined above, in their futile attempts to refute the evidence for a supernatural first cause.
Of course, whenever possible, they avoid declaring those beliefs explicitly, but you don’t need to be very astute to realize that relying on those beliefs is the unavoidable conclusion of their arguments.
That is why atheism is intellectually bankrupt and is doomed to the dustbin of history. And that is why we are seeing such a rise in militant, evangelizing, atheist zealots, such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens.
Their crusading, bravado masks their desperation that the public is so hard to convince. What Dawkins et al need to face is that they are in no position to attack what they consider are the bizarre beliefs of others, when their own beliefs (which they fail to publicly acknowledge) are much more bizarre.
What about Christianity and pagan gods?
Atheists frequently try to dismiss and ridicule the idea of a Creator by comparing it to the numerous, pagan gods that people have worshipped throughout history.
Do they have a good point?
Certainly not, this is just a red herring ….
Other gods, cannot be the first cause or Creator.
Idols of wood or stone, or the Sun, Moon, planets, Mother Nature, Mother Earth etc. are all material, contingent things, they cannot be the first cause.
They are rejected as false gods by the Bible and by logic and natural laws.
They are considered gods by people who worship things which are 'created' rather than the Creator, which the Bible condemns.
In fact, they are much more similar to the atheist belief in the powers of a naturalistic entity to create the universe, than they are to the one, Creator God of Christianity.
For example, the pagan belief in the creative powers of Ra (the Sun god) is similar to the atheist belief that raw energy from the Sun acting on sterile chemicals was able to create life.
So atheist mythology credits the Sun (Ra) with the godlike power of creating life on Earth. And thus, atheism is just a revamped version of paganism.
Just like paganism, atheism rejects worship of a Supernatural, First Cause, and rather chooses to worship created, natural entities, imbuing them with the same godlike powers, that theists attribute to the Creator.
There is nothing new under the Sun ... We can see that atheism is just the age old deception of ancient paganism, revisited.
The Creator is a Supernatural, First Cause, which is not a contingent entity, nothing like the pagan gods, but rather a self-existent, necessary entity. As the very first cause of everything in the universe, it cannot be contingent (it cannot rely on anything outside itself for its existence, i.e. it is self-existent) and therefore it cannot be a material entity.
The first cause is necessary because, not being contingent, it necessarily exists.
If anything exists that is not contingent, it has to have within itself everything necessary for its own existence. If it is also responsible for the existence of anything outside itself (which as the first cause of the universe, we know it is) it is also necessary for the existence of those things, and has to be entirely adequate for the purpose of bringing them into being and maintaining their continued existence. It is not subject to natural laws, which only apply to natural events and effects, because, as the first cause, it is the initiator and creator of everything material, including the laws which govern material events, and of time itself.
The atheist view of a natural first cause is not even rational, to propose that all the qualities I have mentioned above could apply to a material entity is clearly ridiculous. But apparently, atheism has no regard for natural laws or logic. Atheists get round it by simply dressing up their irrational beliefs to make them appear ‘scientific’.
This combined with rants and erroneous and derisory slogans about religious myths and superstition makes it all seem perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, those with little knowledge, or who can’t be bothered to think for themselves are taken in by it.
Atheists repeatedly claim that they have refuted the law of cause and effect by asking : So what caused God then?
How true is that?
The ... what caused God? argument is a rather silly argument which atheists regularly trot out. All it demonstrates is that they don't understand basic logic.
The question to always ask them is; what part of FIRST don't you understand?
If something is the very FIRST, it means there is nothing that precedes it. First means first, not second or third.
That means that the first cause cannot be a contingent entity, because a contingent entity depends on something preceding it for its existence. In which case, if something precedes it, it couldn't be FIRST.
All natural entities, events and effects are contingent ... that is why the Law of Cause and Effect states that ... every NATURAL effect requires an adequate cause.
That means that the first cause cannot be a natural entity. An UNCAUSED, NATURAL event or entity is ruled out as not possible by the Law of Cause and Effect.
Therefore the very FIRST CAUSE of the universe, which we know cannot be caused, by virtue of it being FIRST (not second or third) CANNOT be a natural entity or event.
Thus we deduce that the first cause ... cannot be contingent, cannot be a natural entity, and cannot be subject to the Law of Cause and Effect.
So the first cause has to be non-material, i.e. supernatural.
The first cause also has to have the creative potential to create every other cause and effect that follows it.
In other words, the first cause cannot be inferior in any respect to the properties, powers or qualities of anything that exists...
The effect cannot be greater than the cause....
So we can thus deduce that the first cause is: UNCAUSED, SUPERNATURAL, self-existent, and capable of creating everything we see in the existing universe.
If there is life in the universe, the first cause must have the ability to create life,
If there is intelligence in the universe, the first cause must have the ability to create intelligence.
If there is information in the universe, the first cause must have the ability to create information.
If there is consciousness in the universe, the first cause must have the ability to create consciousness. And so on and on. If it exists, the first cause is responsible for it, and must have the ability to create it.
That is the Creator God … and His existence is supported by impeccable logic and adherence to the demands of natural law.
Atheists often say: you can’t fill gaps in knowledge with a supernatural first cause.
But we are not talking about filling gaps, we are talking about a fundamental issue ... the origin of everything in the material realm.
The first cause is not a gap, it is the beginning - and many of the greatest scientists in the history of science had no problem whatsoever with the logic that - a natural, first cause was impossible, and the only possible option was a supernatural creator.
Why do atheists have such a problem with it?
Atheists also seem to think that to explain the origin of the universe without a God, simply involves explaining what triggered it, as though its formation from that point on, just happens automatically.
This has been compared by some as similar to lighting the blue touch paper of a firework. They think that if they can propose such a naturalistic trigger, then God is made redundant.
That may sound plausible to some members of the public, who take such pronouncements at face value, and are somewhat in awe of anything that is claimed to be 'scientific'.
But it is obvious to anyone who thinks seriously about it, that a mere trigger is not necessarily an adequate cause.
A trigger presupposes that there is some sort of a mechanism/blueprint/plan already existing which is ready to spring into action if it is provided with an appropriate trigger. So a trigger is not a sole cause, or a first cause, it is merely one contributing cause.
Natural things do only what they are programmed to do, i.e. they obey natural laws and the demands of their own pre-ordered composition and structure. Lighting blue touch paper would do absolutely nothing, unless there is a carefully designed and manufactured firework already attached to it.
What about the idea proposed by some atheists that space must have always existed, and therefore the first cause was not the only eternally, uncaused self-existent power?
This implies that the first cause was limited by a self-existent rival (space,) which was also uncaused, and therefore the first cause could not be infinite and could not even be a proper first cause, because there was something it didn’t cause i.e. ‘space’.
There seems to be some confusion here about what ‘space’ actually is.
Space is part of the created universe, it is what lies between and around material objects in the cosmos, if there were no material objects in the cosmos, there would be no space. The confusion lies in the failure to distinguish between empty space and nothing. Nothing is the absence of everything, whereas space is a medium in which cosmic bodies exist. ‘Empty’ space is just the space between objects. So space is not an uncaused, eternally self-existent entity, it is dependent on material objects existing within it, for its own existence.
What about nothing? Is that an uncaused eternally self-existent thing? Firstly, it is not a thing, it is the absence of all things. So has nothing always existed? Well, yes it essentially would have always existed, but only if the first cause didn’t exist. If there is a first cause is that is eternally self-existent, then there is no such thing as absolute nothing, because nothing is the absence of everything. If a first cause exists (which it had to), then any proposed eternal ‘nothing’ has always contained something, and therefore can never have been ‘nothing’.
What about the idea that the first cause created everything material from nothing? Obviously, the ‘nothing’ that is meant here is … nothing material, i.e. the absence of any material entities.
The uncaused, first cause cannot be material, because all material things are contingent, so the first cause brought material things into being, when nothing material had previously existed. That is what is meant by creation from nothing.
Continued in next comment.
1. It’s OK to kill people.
2. Dying doesn’t really matter much either.
3. If you’re 14, have hair covering your eyes and live in a small village, man up, because you’re going to have to save the world.
4. Medicine became obsolete in the year 2004, when doctors noticed that hiding behind a wall caused human health to regenerate to 100%.
5. Eating stuff found on the floor is good for you – your parents were wrong.
6. Sometime in the future, Earth will be menaced by hordes of alien spacecraft that fly in predictable patterns and can be killed in one hit. The logical course of action will be to despatch one brave hero in an untested plane/tank/spaceship to take them all on without help.
7. Winners don’t use drugs.
8. Buildings may have crates full of goodies on their roofs, so always check, even if it means riding a motorbike up the fire escape.
9. Enemies, rather than approach you directly, behave like Michael Flatley (of Riverdance fame) on a conveyor belt.
10. Keycards are only manufactured in primary colors.
11. Tanks will go faster if you turn the turret backwards and keep firing.
12. Anything in the world can be made from food, wood and gold.
13. Most guards forget you unsuccessfully tried to strangle them after walking around for 20 seconds.
14. It’s surprising just how useful martial arts are on the modern battlefield.
15. When you get shot, you don’t feel any pain, nor does it affect your aim. However, it does cause your vision to turn red for a couple of seconds.
16. If a crown princess is abducted by political dissidents or terrorists it is advisable to avoid using Special Forces and instead hire the services of an Italian plumber or a dizzy egg.
17. Firearms are most simply reloaded by pointing them at the wall and pulling the trigger.
18. Crates only contain one single item, much smaller than the crate itself. The item will usually be in the dead centre of the crate with no supporting packing material.
19. If you’re stuck in life and don’t know what to do, simply attempt to use every single item in your possession on your obstacle. If none of them work, go back the way you came. You’ve clearly missed something.
20. You can jump twice your own height, but water will kill you instantly.
21. Wrexham can win the Champions League if you have about 483 full days to spare, 80% of which are spent waiting for CM04 to load (non-UK folk may not get this one).
22. Jumping on turtles’ heads is socially acceptable. Unless it’s being used as a euphemism for needing the toilet.
23. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t gain experience and knowledge by education and hard work. You get it from wandering around the countryside killing wildlife.
24. Princesses float farther than plumbers.
25. Despite what logic dictates, the ideal shape for a war robot is not squat, armored, with a low centre of gravity, but a bipedal humanoid. Ideally with hands to hold a gun, rather than built in weaponry.
26. Large men are slow but strong; women are fast but weak.
27. When you look down, you can’t see your feet.
28. Explosives don’t work on doors unless they’re a bit shinier than the other doors.
29. If working on high scaffolding, beware of gorillas throwing barrels off the top floor.
30. No girls.
31. Always be sure to smash any crates you come across, they will always contain good things.
32. Despite the fact that modern weapons systems are effective over hundreds of miles, in the future all space/air/sea combat will be conducted within about 50 yards of the enemy.
33. Contrary to the strict regulations you might think pilots have to adhere to, you can actually fly any aircraft upside down beneath the Golden Gate Bridge without getting in trouble.
34. War is the best fun ever.
35. It doesn’t matter where you shoot someone, even if it’s in the foot, as long as you do it enough times there will eventually be an immediate transition between alive and dead.
36. There is no practical difference between walking into a weapon and picking it up.
37. In medieval times, women regularly fought in wars, wearing armor that afforded them equal protection to suits of plate mail worn by men, despite only covering about 3 inches of skin.
38. Most martial arts will teach you how to throw fireballs at about green belt level.
39. Roman and medieval generals had a zoomable and rotatable 3D view of the battlefield, and controlled their soldiers by clicking giant arrows.
40. Everyone speaks English, including Nazis, aliens and the living dead.
41. When your life ends you will be given 10 seconds to decide whether you fancy going again (in some circumstances this may cost you some change).
42. As long as you are wearing at least one ring you will never die.
43. Pulling out a weapon makes you see a + sign wherever you look.
44. Running from side to side or backwards is just as easy and quick as running forwards.
45. Never trust a giant monkey wearing a tie.
46. Graveyard zombies are predatory homosexuals, who’ll strip you down to your Y-fronts.
47. Bus-loads of people will turn up to a mostly empty field to see a man in a hippo costume stand next to a mail box.
48. Fat people are always evil. If not from the beginning, they will betray you eventually.
49. You can only use a pair of skis once and the only shop selling them at resorts is invariably on the other side of a busy motorway with no visible means of a pedestrian thoroughfare.
50. Not only is it perfectly normal for animals to talk, but their default attitude is “sassy”.
51. Modern tank warfare will be replaced in the future by building a very large number of tanks on the battlefield itself, then attacking the enemy’s strongest point head-on with hundreds of them at once.
52. You know when you have won a fight when your opponent stands still, waiting for you to decapitate him.
53. Prostitutes will judge you on the fanciness of your car and give you 25% bonus health post-sex. This is only in the pre-AIDS ’80s. In 2008, you will be tsk-ed at by an Eastern European, which makes you feel sick and guilty, even though you’ve been stabbing people all day.
54. Karate and driving can both be learned in minutes simply by repeating sequential dance routines as requested by cartoon animals.
55. Wearing a pair of white gloves to work every day may seem an unwise choice if your chosen career is plumbing, but, in reality, you will never have to dirty your pristine mitts by fishing a swollen, fetid tampon from a shit-clogged outflow pipe.
56. The bodies of your murdered victims will fade and disappear if you wait for a few seconds.
57. Explosives are not stored, as you might expect, in secure containers in controlled environments, but in barrels that are littered around combat zones at random. Highly-trained evil soldiers are quite happy to engage in sustained fire-fights while standing next to them.
58. Doing athletics really hurts your wrist after a while.
59. You can’t ever trip, even when running backwards as fast as you can while firing a shotgun.
60. World War II infantry jargon included such phrases as “lol”, “n00b” and “OMG HaXXoR!!11!” Modern counter-terrorist SWAT teams use the same phrases.
61. People wink out of existence when you’re not there to see them.
62. On the whole, you can withstand a lot more bullets/punches/magic compared to the other guy.
63. Always shut the door behind you, especially if it looks like it might snow later on.
64. You don’t need scintillating conversation get on in life. Two-word commands will do fine.
65. Many, if not all, problems can be solved with a Holy Hand Grenade.
66. Being on the goodies’ side doesn’t automatically make you winners of The War.
67. You can up your bank balance $1,000 at a time by chanting ‘FUND’.
68. Kick enough puppies and you’ll eventually gain the strength, wisdom and dexterity to take on ninjas.
69. Food can heal most serious injuries instantly.
70. Even cyborgs/ninjas/special agents able to smash whole cities with their fists and defeat the mightiest opponent in close combat are stumped when confronted with a locked door or box, and have to go find the key.
71. Music spontaneously plays whenever you do anything exciting.
72. Modern military training teaches that the best way to defeat an enemy is to stand stock still in plain view of the enemy and fire wildly. Making sinister noises to reveal your location is good, too.
73. If you notice a discolored section on a brick wall, try running up really close and pressing on it, for it may give way and lead you to a secret cache of weapons and armor.
74. Bullet holes will gradually disappear, foiling your attempts to draw a c--k and balls on the ground with a machine gun.
75. When you’ve run out of food and stuff, just leave the house and then go back in again.
76. When you kill people, sometimes they turn into food or money. Or some bullets.
77. You can travel anywhere instantly, as long as you’ve been there before.
78. When crawling along air-conditioning ducts, if you go forward and back a few times you may or may not see a pair of tits.
79. First aid kits can be applied to your injuries in under a second, and will instantly fix your injuries and make you healthier.
80. Flashlights only last for one minute, but thankfully recharge themselves over time.
81. If you’re in a castle looking for a lost loved one, they’re in another one.
82. If you’re good enough at trading/bartering – every single shop in the world will reduce their prices specially for you
83. You can lead a fulfilling and adventurous life, and keep several friends, without ever opening your mouth.
84. You can shoot open a padlock, but locks on wooden doors only ever leave a dent.
85. It is possible to carry an infinite amount of items, including a full sunday roast spread, for no adequately explored reason, without impeding either your speed or clothing.
86. “Sho-ryu-ken!” is the best opening line to start a punch-up in a pub.
87. Conversation is easy! Just think of two or three possible responses, and pick the one you think will lead to the greatest reward.
88. Firing a rocket launcher straight into the floor is an excellent idea, and will get you cool stuff, provided you jump into the air as you do it.
89. Women who are experienced mercenaries and can carry multiple heavy weapons do not look like Bulgarian discus throwers, but are lithe, slim, and have very large breasts.
90. The world is packed with unexplored ruins, most of which are packed to the rafters with treasure. Despite this, no one has yet bothered to explore them.
91. The owners of theme parks/zoos/hospitals are able to pick up visitors to their attractions with a giant grapple, and drown them in lakes without penalty.
92. Being shot in the face is only a minor inconvenience, but going into an area you are not supposed to will result in instant death.
93. Nazis/Alien Invaders/Evil Megacorps are always leaving medical supplies around for their opponents to heal themselves with. Their own soldiers are under strict instruction not to touch them. Ever.
94. The popular third dimension was introduced in the ’80s, before which you’d simply shrink and move more slowly to convey distance.
95. You can probably fit another rocket launcher in your rucksack if you carefully rearrange those four ammo clips and that coke can.
96. If someone you don’t like is in a swimming pool, simply remove the steps to get out. Then they will be stuck and drown through exhaustion.
97. Frogs die in water.
98. You can gaze at a woman’s tits for hours on end without either of you becoming embarrassed. However, attempts to mount her from every side like a determined St. Bernard will always result in you bouncing off her textured hide.
99. If you win a really big fight, don’t relax until you’ve made sure there isn’t a much more powerful robot version of your late opponent lurking in a corner.
100. “Ninja” is the most common occupation on the planet, just above “Secret Agent” and “Alien in Disguise”.
101. Comprehensive military training can be acquired simply by climbing a rope, crouching and firing down a range a few times
from gamesradar
What you see are the basic elements of a sawmill complex arranged in a logical working order but with very little detailing done. On the right are a group of trees that i have since painted as freshly cut Ponderosa Pine with brownish red trunks and Douglas Fir with gray trunks. The trees have had their branches removed and are waiting in a spot where I plan to build a small mill pond for floating the logs. Then the logs are pulled up on a cardboard simulated log conveyor into the sawmill building for cutting into planks. I plan to build a reasonably realistic log conveyor and outside lumber sorting rack but will leave the saws to my viewers' imagination. Sawdust can be loaded into hopper cars for shipment to a paper mill if there is enough of it or it can be burned in the conical sawdust burner that I scratchbuilt years ago and modified this week. Finished lumber is bundled up, banded, and stored in the yellow storage building that is about to under another overhaul. Eventually i plan to separate this industrial area from the residential neighborhood by a photo mural background.
This sawmill started off as a Pola factory kit imported by Atlas over 40 years ago. The wall were originally brick with an opening on both ends for freight cars, and it had a brick out building with a tall brick smoke chimney. If you are on older modeler, you probably built one.
After sitting about 15 years in its original form, in order to Americanize the building, I replaced the walls with corrugated sheet metal from Campbell Scale Models and kept the same windows and some of the internal supports. I also replaced the plastic simulated sheet metal roof with more aluminum roofing glued to sheet plastic. Unfortunately, the sheet styrene I first used with the roof sections was too thin to offer good support, and to make matter worse, I glued it with Walther's Goo. I HATE that cursed stuff! It stinks, it's messy, and it does not hold. OK, the upper roof held together, but the lower roofs sagged many scale feet and looked horrible.
The sad, beat up, old factory sat in a storage box for three years after my new layout was up and running, and other old buildings had been refurbished. I needed an American style sawmill rather than the two European style sawmills that Pola offered in the 1960's and imported by Atlas and later by Model Power. Walthers produced a sawmill first in HO, then N scale that was part of a sawmill-lumber yard-paper mill complex featured in a fabulous ad in the January 1997 Model Railroader and reviewed in the August 1997 issue.
I did not copy but drew my inspiration from the Walthers sawmill kit which is just about the same size as my old Pola factory. With nothing to lose, I ripped off the old lower roof sections and pulled off the real aluminum roofing material. Next I cut some sub-roof sections from thicker (0.040") sheet styrene from Evergreen Scale Models and bonded the Campbell roofing with J B Weld epoxy instead of that nasty Goo. The same sheet also forms the new concrete floor of the sawmill. To reinforce the building I made vertical supports of ESM styrene strips 0.040" thick and 1/4." I use the same strip stock for making internal alignment keys to position removable buildings from their bases, shore up poor building wall joints from the inside, and as a horizontal tab to keep custom made roof sections from slipping off their walls.
The yellow building that I use for lumber storage is also a Pola kit. They marketed the kit as a European style sawmill. I cut the central tower off because it bore no resemblance to any sawmill I've seen, but the rest of the building looked like an American lumber yard building. I gave it an aluminum roof many years ago that held up very well; however, I need to open up the second story and figure out a logical way for my N scale workers to get lumber up there.
And you thought model railroading was just about running trains!
''It's so logical and so simple. Fat is the backup fuel system. The role it plays in the body is that when there's no carbohydrate around, fat will become the primary energy fuel.'' - Robert Atkins
It seems logical to put an eagle on an American classic car. It's a Cord and front wheel drive, but not a Honda and there's no flapping.
And if you have the complete set of these, you may want to sit down with your insurance agent and make sure you have sufficient coverage. (Seriously. There are only three full sets of 30 ornaments each, and the last set auctioned for about a million dollars.)
Reflecting in those puddle after the rain we should examined in the light of the Ageless Wisdom teachings, we are reminded of the great occult maxim "As Above So Below" The mural shows the right eye, the left eye and the middle eye. This tower is the symbol for not only all three schools, but also the meaning and purpose of life itself. Vertical rods/constructs are considered archetypal symbols of the phallus. As the dual serpents address the concept of gender, the staff serves as an emissary of transference between body and mind, physically and spiritually. The rod could also be viewed as a conduit between the mundane and ethereal.. The puddle is male, the tower is female and the horizontal line is the child, the source of both the other building, for we all begin life as a child. The upper side, the feminine pathway, explores the human nature of emotions and feeling, both positive and negative, sexual energy and birthing, death, certain psychic energy, and everything that is not logical.As guided from within, outwards. “As above, so below” and vice versa, Solar Systems are born, die and come to birth anew in cycles of activity and rest, as does wo-man. There is a constant flaming out and dying down of activity in every department of nature, corresponding to the alternations of ebb and flow, day and night, summer and winter, life and death. In the beginning of a Day of Manifestation it is taught that a certain Great Being (designated in the Western World by the name of God, but by other names in other parts of the earth) limits Himself to a certain portion of space, in which He elects to create a Solar System for the evolution of added self-consciousness. He includes in His own Being hosts of glorious Hierarchies of, to us, immeasurable spiritual power and splendor. They are the fruitage of past manifestations of this same Being and also other Intelligences, in descending degrees of development down to such as have not reached a stage of consciousness as high as our present humanity, and therefore these latter will not be able to finish their evolution in this System. In God — this great collective Being — there are contained lesser beings of every grade of intelligence and stage of consciousness, from omniscience to an unconsciousness deeper than that of the deepest trance condition. During the period of manifestation with which we are concerned, these various grades of beings are working to acquire more experience than they possessed at the beginning of this period of existence. Those who, in previous manifestations, have attained to the highest degree of development, work on those who have not yet evolved any consciousness. They induce in them a stage of self-consciousness from which they can take up further work themselves. Those who had started their evolution in a former Day of Manifestation, but had not progressed far at the close, now take up their task again, just as we take up our daily work in the morning where we left off the previous night. All the different Beings, however, do not take up their evolution at the early stages of a new manifestation. Some must wait until those who precede them have made the conditions which are necessary for their further development. There are no instantaneous processes in nature. All is an exceedingly slow unfolding, a development which, though so exceedingly slow, is yet absolutely certain to attain ultimate perfection. Just as there are progressive stages in the human life — childhood, youth, manhood or womanhood, and old age — so in the macrocosm there are different stages corresponding to these various periods of the microcosmic life. A child cannot take up the duties of fatherhood or motherhood. Its undeveloped mental and physical condition render it incapable of doing such work. The same is true of the less evolved beings in the beginning of manifestation. They must wait until the higher evolved have made the proper conditions for them. The lower the grade of the intelligence of the evolving being, the more it is dependent upon outside help. At the Beginning, then, the highest Beings — those who are the farthest evolved — work upon those who have the greatest degree of unconsciousness. Later, they turn them over to some of the less evolved entities, who are then able to carry the work a little further. At last self-consciousness is awakened. The evolving life has become Woman-Man. The right eye is controlled by the left brain; it’s male knowledge. Although the right eye “sees” directly to the right brain, this is not what the Egyptians were communicating. It is not the “seeing” but rather the interrupting of the “seeing” information that was important here. It is the left brain that makes this interruption of what is seen; it controls the right side of the body, and vice versa. In the same manner, the Left Eye of Horus, controlled by the right brain, is female knowledge.What happens on one level of reality also happens on every other level; the microcosm and macrocosm behave alike. A revolution occurred during the 20th century in our understanding of the nature of the physical universe. This change is extremely important to religion, for it eliminates a basic conflict between science and religious belief. Prior to this change, our scientific beliefs were based on an approach that was initiated in the 17th century: "We live in a mechanical universe, and we are simply complex machines." This scientific notion that man was purely a mechanical system contradicts what is probably the core of religious belief, namely the idea that mind-like or spirit-like factors can make a difference in human behavior. The religious outlook assumes that a human being, acting on basis of conscious choices, is NOT equivalent to a mechanical system, whose every action is completely determined by direct interaction between tiny neighboring bits of matter. 20th century science, however, has shown that the earlier mechanical concept of reality to be incompatible with empirical facts. To cope with this failure of earlier ideas, physicist made a breakthrough change. Physical theory was converted from a theory about the physical world itself into a theory of WHAT ONE COULD KNOW about the physical world. Human experience was introduced into the theory and made fundamental. This was to be later known as the Copenhagen interpretation. It had drawbacks.For example, while it brought human knowledge into physical theory, it also renounced the possibility of understanding the underlying physical reality. It set our limits of understanding. It was the eminent mathematician John von Neumann and Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner to reincorporate physical reality. They did this by casting the new physics into a theory of the interaction between our conscious thoughts and our physical brains. This was known as von Neumann-Wigner formation of quantum theory, and rationally incorporated conscious thoughts into the basic dynamics. Physics was not yet ready to tackle the problem of interaction between our thoughts and our brain. It was some time before this was scientifically feasible for this kind of proof. Now however, there is a huge and rapidly growing field of experimental data on this question of the connection between minds and brains.
This shift in science is important significance to religion. It removes the basic contradiction between the older scientific claim that human beings are essentially mechanical robots, while religion maintains than man is not ruled by matter alone. The new physics now dynamically entangles our conscious thoughts with the quantum representation of the physical world. There is a plethora of competing theories arising from many disciplines to account for the psychophysical expressions of consciousness in function and structure. The only comprehensive theory must be one that is based in nondualism, and accounts for such self-organizing mindbody manifestations as spontaneous healing or self-recovery, or even the placebo effect. The mind-matter connection is intimately linked to any speculations we can make about alleged mind-over-matter phenomena. In fact all psi phenomena, including such nonlocality demonstrations as the “simple connections” of telepathy, ESP, or synchronicity in general are related to this problem of an underlying or connecting field through which information exchange is instantaneous and unimpeded.The leading contender for such a field, vacuum fluctuation or quantum foam, was proposed by David Bohm. Turbulent motion in this highly excited, subquantal field leads to the emergence from virtuality into actuality of quantum entities which just as quickly dissolve back into the subquantal sea. This same ocean of virtual or metaphysical “stuff” has the property of containing, storing, and transmitting information about the nature of matter and even thought. The observables of nonlocality and psi cry out for some form of interconnection between phenomenon separated in space and/or time. The concept most generally used in physics to account for spatial and temporal interconnection is that of a field. Fields themselves cannot be observed, and so can be considered meta- or beyond physical. Yet the influences propagating through them are observable, eventually. Mind, memory, and consciousness may be such phenomena. Is there one massive holographic field that actually exists in nature in the sense of Bohm’s holomovement? And if so, how does this relate to our consciousness and our relationship to the cosmos. And what is the mechanism by which this universal force interfaces within our organism? When we recognize that we really are that, that nature lies within our deepest structure and function, we come to understand that we are not separate from the whole of creation. We recognize that “I AM THAT I AM.” Everything including ourselves, is deeply connected in one holy movement. The quantum vacuum, the energy-field that characterizes the ground state of the universe, possibly furnishes the indicated ‘fifth field,’ the hidden variables of chaotic yet deterministic micromotion that bootstraps all energy/matter into existence. This plenum could transmit as-yet-unknown effects. This quantum foam, which Wheeler called superspace, consists of a pure massless charge-flux.
We argue, along with Laszlo that, “The conclusion to be derived from the considerations presented here is that the four-demnsional manifold Einstein described as spacetime is likely to be more than a geometrical abstraction. As the energetically superdense quantum vacuum, it may be a physically real field, limiting the velocity of light and other matter-particles and transmittingg a variety of effects, including, but not limited to, gravitation and electromangetism. We may well ask, then, whether the field would also transmit the kind of effects associated with psi.”
Waves of this purely informational (scalar) force could create a potential gradient where quantal motion triggers scalar waves in the vacuum, and these propagate by alternately compressing and rarefying its virtual-particle gas. Scalars are neither ‘light’ nor ‘matter’, but longitudinally propoagating fluctuations below the energy-threshold of particle pair-creation.This produces a self-generating cosmological feedback cycle which translates into interference patterns created by the motion of charged particles modifying the local topology of the vacuum. The modified vacuum field modifies in turn the motion of the particles, (Laszlo, 1993, 1994).Fourier show that any three-dimensional pattern can be analyzed into a set of regular, periodic oscillations that differ only in frequency, amplitude, and phase. Specific waveforms can be exact representations of spatiotemporal objects--thus we have a “Holographic Universe.” Analysis shows that the signals transmitted through the vacuum field are precisely of the psi variety, because information in that field is holographic, and because the propagation of the holographic interference patterns is quasi-instantaneous. Therefore, this virttual field might provide a metaphysical foundation for a broad range of psi phenomena and psychophysical interaction, including self-organization and healing. The quantum vaccum is a highly anomlous universal energy realm of pure potential. It is both the source and destination of all matter in the universe, and thus of any form of consciousness which may emerge through its autopoeitic process. The human brain, with its pronounced and constant state of chaos, could receive and amplify such signals, expressed both consciously and unconsciously in our biophsyical self and our ephemeral thoughts and intuitions.The von-Neumann-Wigner formulation provides the basic logical principles that govern the interaction between thoughts and the brain. It provides prima facie evidence that human thoughts are linked to nature by nonlocal connections. What a person chooses to do in one region seems immediately to effect what is true elsewhere in the universe. This nonlocal aspect can be understood by conceiving the universe to be not a collection of tiny bits of matter, but rather a growing compendium of "bits of information." This profound shift about the nature of reality has not yet sunk in culturally. It will happen by the promotion of understanding of the radical shifts wrought by quantum theory. Most quantum physicists are interested more in applications of quantum theory than in its deep implications. Most now agree that a conception of physical reality is informational in character, not material. Our conscious thoughts ought eventually to be understood within science and that when properly understood, our thoughts will be seen to DO something; they will be efficacious. From what most quantum physicists now understand, certain ontological claims can now be made. 1. The "physical world," as understood in quantum theory, is a store of information, and this information is NOT imbedded in hordes of tiny particles (as they were in classical theory). The information is stored in a mathematically described structure that specifies propensities for certain events to occur. This events (paradigms) include the acquision of information by human agents.2. Conscious events should eventually be understood in science, and these events should be efficacious. They should have a real effect on our actions. The von Neumann-Wigner formulation of quantum theory achieves these ends. It has never been seriously broached in science, not because it was considered unimportant, but because it was deemed too difficult. Pertinent data seemed insufficient and restrictive. This has changed because science has changed.The six sided star in the structural support of the tower incorporates the Duality, Male and Female (Unity), the Blade (upward pointing triangle) and Chalice. The blade represents the Physical, and the Chalice represents the Spiritual realm. It is sometimes referenced as the fire and water triangle as well. Moloch, Chiun and Remphan are all names for the star god, Saturn, whose symbol is a six pointed star formed by two triangles. Saturn was the supreme god of the Chaldeans. The hexagram is referred to the talisman of Saturn. The hexagram was brought to the Jewish people by Solomon when he turned to witchcraft and idolatry after his marriage to Pharaoh’s daughter. It became known as the Seal of Solomon in Egyptian magic and witchcraft. The six pointed star was adopted as the family crest or shield by the Rothschild family during the 19th century,he helped to finance Eiffel. Heavily associated with alchemy, Leo, the Lion, the Double Lion, Routi, refers directly to the Sun as being a source of knowledge. Leo, is one of the constellations of the Zodiac. The Zodiac, is a direct reference to the Sun. The Sun’s position at midday during the time of the Egyptians coincided with the midsummer solstice. Leo was a constellation of the summer.
The theme of Illumination, Knowledge, or Secrets being kept “under the Lion’s Paw” is a recurring motif.There are lions on the first floor belly. The spiral effect the descending forces of the tower, that indicates an expansion of knowledge, and the undulating dance of cosmic forces. Such dualities include:
Asleep/Awake Illness/Health Separation/Unity Male/Female
Left/Right Binding/Loosing Wax/Wane Water/Fire Sun/Moon
Yin/Yang Light/Dark Good/Evil Upper/Lower. If you take it a step further, you notice the dual intertwined snakes form a double helix DNA strand; Serpent DNA specifically. If the serpent is a biological anthropomorphism of DNA, then we can attribute the Ouroboros to cycles of DNA change.Let us examine this slide which I feel holds many secrets. First you have the sun and moon in opposite positions which proves the world has been put on a purposeful pole shift done at the hands of man.
In the East where the sun is supposed to rise you now have the moon or crescent where there is a Brother with a sword with an eagle or falcon upon it where he is shielding his eyes from the light because it is either too bright or he cannot see because he is blinded by the darkness.
In the West where the sun is supposed to set, you now have the sun with a brother who can see clearly what is going on as he holds the staff and serpent.
In the middle is the LORD OR LORDS and KING OF KINGS who represent the union of both and has risen above the Abyss on the wings of destiny. The Phoenix or Rex Mundi who represents not only the union of East and West, but also AS ABOVE SO BELOW.
So what does it mean?
The microcosm is oneself, and the macrocosm is the universe. The macrocosm is as the microcosm, and vice versa; within each lies the other, and through understanding one you can understand the other. The primary idea behind this is that the “above” refers to what is visible in the sky. The below, refers to Earth. This creates an equality as it explains how the Earth is a microcosm of the configuration of the planets in the solar system. It draws the connection that the Earth is affected by planetary orbits. This concept also affects various levels of reality: physical, emotional, and mental What happens on any level happens on every other.
The concept has not only been a practice, but an attempt to replicate and do a better job then YHWH himself. This is why alchemy and astrology play such an important role in the Illuminati.
In Alchemy, there is a process which Mercury and Lead can supposedly turned to Gold. The Gold isn’t the main goal. It’s to understand the process of how mercury or lead changes into gold. Man wants to replicate and modify what is on the Earth into their standards.
The same goes for Astrology. The elite not only observe all of the astrological signs, but use them to construct the architecture of this tower.
There will come a time when it will have been in vain that Egyptians have honored the Godhead with heartfelt piety and service; and all our holy worship will be fruitless and ineffectual. The Elohim will return from earth to heaven; Egypt will be forsaken, and the land which was once the home of religion will be left desolate, bereft of the presence of its deities.
They will no longer love this world around us, this incomparable work of YHWH, this glorious structure which HE has built, this sum of good made up of many diverse forms, this instrument whereby the will of YHWH operates in that which he has made, ungrudgingly favoring man’s welfare.
Darkness will be preferred to light, and death will be thought more profitable than life; no one will raise his eyes to heaven; the pious will be deemed insane, the impious wise; the madman will be thought a brave man, and the wicked will be esteemed as good.
As for the soul, and the belief that it is immortal by nature, or may hope to attain to immortality, as I have taught you; all this they will mock, and even persuade themselves that it is false. No word of reverence or piety, no utterance worthy of heaven, will be heard or believed.
And so the Elohiym will depart from mankind – a grievous thing and only evil angels will remain, who will mingle with men, and drive the poor wretches into all manner of reckless crime, into wars, and robberies, and frauds, and all things hostile to the nature of the soul.
Then will the earth tremble, and the sea bear no ships; heaven will not support the stars in their orbits, all voices of the Elohiym will be forced into silence; the fruits of the Earth will rot; the soil will turn barren, and the very air will sicken with sullen stagnation; all things will be disordered and awry, all good will disappear.
But when all this has befallen, then YHWH the Creator of all things will look on that which has come to pass, and will stop the disorder by the counterforce of his will, which is the good. HE will call back to the right path those who have gone astray; he will cleanse the world of evil, washing it away with floods, burning it out with the fiercest fire, and expelling it with war and pestilence.The double tetrahedron visible in the structural's forms of the tower can be referred to as the interdimensional vehicle for travel, the Merkaba. It also incorporates the Duality, Male and Female, the Blade (upward pointing triangle) and Chalice. The blade represents the Physical, and the Chalice represents the Spiritual realm. The Star of Solomon can also represent Jerusalem.The Square and Compass is the Blade and Chalice, God and Goddess in the act of Creation, and within the Star we find the Heavenly Luminaries or the Eyes or Spirits of God (the Planets). The symbols on the star represent the astrological portion of the symbol, Jupiter, Venus, the Moon, Mercury, Mars and Saturn, with the Sun being at the center. Zoroaster’ teachings mentioned earlier in the thread as Thoth or Hermes, would be responsible for the seven petal flower depicted at the center.
As I activate the Endgame contingency programme in the Batcomputer, both Alfred and I hear the familiar noise of the clock entrance beginning to open at the top of the staircase. Without saying a thing, I quickly place my cowl over my head and grab a beatarang from my belt. Alfred races to grab one of his own contingencies hidden beneath Jason’s memorial. A high calibre shotgun. Can’t say that I approve, nor can I be certain that Jason wouldn’t be offended by Alfred’s choice of hiding place, but not everyone can rely on carrying an arsenal with them around their waist. Sometimes we just have to make do.
After ten seconds, the noise culminates in a loud bang that echoes throughout the cave indicating the closure of the door by whoever it is that just entered. Given how little I know of what Ra’s has planned or how he intends to implement his plan, it’s only logical to assume that he’d send forces here to cripple the equipment which would provide me an opportunity to oppose him. But given how they’d no doubt be aware of their fallen comrades and that I’m well versed in their own methods of infiltration, you’d imagine the smarter course of action would be a more direct form of assault. After all, that’s what would catch me most by surprised. Especially given how dependent I am on my own training under Ra’s. Given how that’s well over a decade old at this point, it’s also likely to be severely outdated at this point. So if anything, a direct assault here would be to their advantage.
Thankfully, it’s the opposite of an assault.
TD: Bruce!? Alfred!?
AP: Master Timothy!?
BW: Tim, is that you?
Why’d he take the house entrance? The cave’s security systems would have granted him access through the vehicle entrance, for all I know the League’s agents may be watching the house at this very moment and Tim may well have compromised the cave in the process.
As Tim races down the stairs towards the Batcomputer’s platform, I turn back to activate the house’s proximity sensors. In my rush to treat Talia and ensure the safety of our allies I unintentionally let my guard down. We’re fortunate this time at least that it was only Tim. Had it been the League’s agents, both Alfred and I would have been caught unprepared, and if there’s anything I’ve learnt from ten years in Gotham. It’s that those who are unprepared, are all but guaranteed failure.
TD: It’s me, you won’t believe what’s happened.
BW: You were confronted by one of the League’s agents and managed to best him in single combat.
My knowledge on what has transpired during Tim’s time at the Gotham county fair appears to catch him off guard for a moment. But he’s quick to figure how I know about his confrontation with the assailant.
TD:…..Jim?
AP: Indeed.
Alfred makes it up to the Batcomputer just as Tim reaches the platform having raced down the cave staircase.
TD: Do you have any word on how Steph’s holding up?
BW: She’s in surgery. Jim’s there now but I’ve sent someone to relieve him. He’s needed at the GCPD to help organise the evacuation.
TD: Evacuation? Has it started?
AP: To the best of our knowledge, no.
BW: But we can’t afford to take that risk. I’ve dispatched the Batwing to Bludhaven to pick up Dick and Barbra. Whatever Ra’s has planned will be big, we’ll need everyone we can muster.
Another long drawn out pause from both Tim and Alfred. Usually that’s a sign that they’re attempting to weigh up the odds of our success and/or whether we’ll need help. It’s rare for either of them engage in such a consideration….well, it’s uncommon for Tim. Alfred goes through this with almost every case that goes beyond a single night. But for Tim to be considering such things indicates only one thing. He’s about to ask….
TD: Are you gonna ask them for help?
Just as I thought. Ultimately, I will no doubt need to request their help. But I currently have more pressing matters to attend to before I even think about making the call.
BW:…..No. Not until I’m certain we need them.
AP: Bruce you cannot be serious, This is too big for just us. You need to call them.
TG: He’s right, beloved. You’re capable of many things but you’re not Superman.
AP: No matter how much you try otherwise.
To this day, I’m still not sure where Alfred’s belief that I believe myself just as capable of everything as Clark is stems from. No doubt it’ll be due to how willing I am to accompany the others in the League on missions that are well above simple Gotham street crime, but at the end of the day we’re a team. We stand together, we fall together. Whether we like it or not.
As I debate with myself over making the call to them, Talia finally manages to make it up to our platform still clutching her recently stitched wound.
I can’t help but notice the momentarily puzzled expression on Tim’s face having never laid eyes on Talia before. It’s interesting to observe, as you can see the thoughts run through his mind. His first is shock at another individual in the cave and fears of a possible compromise. Then he processes the information and realises that the lack of panicked response from both Alfred and myself imply some amount of trust in this individual, thus causing him to lower his immediate concern.
BW:…..I know. But right now I don’t have the time to waste. Talia, you know your father’s ways. What’s his strategy?
TD: You’re Talia?
A smirk comes over Talia’s face as she realises how little Tim knows of her, much to my own concern. No doubt she’s already considering if I’m embarrassed by having her in the cave or by my actions prior to becoming Batman. The reality of it is actually disappointing. The only reason I’ve not shared more information on Talia or even shown Tim a picture of her is simply because he was never really concerned with learning more about her.
TG: Yes. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Drake. I’ve admired your skills from afar for quite some time.
TD: Oh?
BW: Talia’s the cult leader you’ve been tracking for the last week.
TD: Wait. What? That was you?
TG: I needed to get his attention some way, it’s not like I could just walk up to you and say hello now could I? Especially not with you all being watched.
AP: We’re being watched?
TG: The house is. Down here, we’re safe.
I can’t help but feel sceptical of that last claim. Especially if they were able to spot Tim entering the cave through the clock’s entrance.
AP: How can you be so sure?
BW: This cave is Kryptonian proof. If it can keep Kryptonians out, it can keep Ra’s Al-Ghul’s men out.
That claim may be an exaggeration. It’s lead lined and sound proof to ensure Clark can’t see or listen in on us, but it won’t keep him out. Not unless I line the walls with Kryptonite and thankfully, for the moment at least, a justified reason to attempt such a method hasn’t yet arrived.
AP: Let’s hope so.
BW: Talia. We need to know. What’s your father’s next likely move?
TG: Usually, in preparation for a full out assault. My father will dispatch the elite guard to target key assets that could provide a problem in fulfilling the objective.
TD: Nice to know I’m so important.
AP: I think it’s safe to assume that they’ll have targeted Master Grayson and Miss Gordon.
BW: Try and see if you can get them on any of our other channels.
Alfred walks up to the Batcomputer to access the overwatch loophole installed in all Wayne Tech equipment. I can’t imagine many people would approve of the ethics behind such methods, but in times like these, we can’t afford to consider such trivial matters.
TD: So what happens if this elite guard don’t report in?
TG: Usually, after 24 hours since dispatching the elite guard, my father commences his assault.
BW: So we’ve still got time.
Possibly the best news of the night. Aside from Tim being unharmed of course, more or less. I can't help but notice cuts on both his hands, no doubt caused by the assailant he encountered.
Time is the most versatile weapon of all. Less than 24 hours isn’t ideal, nor is it much, but it gives me a window of opportunity. To prepare counter measures against them, especially having just witnessed their combat techniques.
AP: Master Bruce, I’ve made contact with Master Grayson, sir! He and Miss Gordon are on their way in the batwing!
TD: Thank goodness!
That’s two assets accounted for. But what about the one carrying our silver bullet?
BW: Anything from Jason?
AP: Nothing sir. I’ll keep trying.
Damn it Jason, where are you?
BW: We don’t have time, Alfred. Tell Dick and Barbra to meet us at Wayne Tower. We’ve got to initiate Endgame.
TD: Bruce you can’t be serious!?
BW: We have no choice. West won’t authorise an evacuation without a clear threat. It has to be done. Take Alfred and Talia. Head to the Wayne Tower bunker. We need to be ready.
TD: What about you?
BW: I need to do this. Alone.
After all, it’s my house. It’s only right that I’m the only one that’s forced to carry the burden of what I must do.
TG: No. I’m staying with you.
BW: Talia, it won’t be safe.
TG: It wasn’t safe when we ran from my father either. But that didn’t stop me. Nor will it stop me now. You’re not doing this alone.
For a brief moment or two, I consider trying to talk her out of it. But I know it’s ultimately futile. Her mind is made up, and when it’s made up, there’s no convincing her otherwise. Much to my own discomfort.
BW: Alright. Tim, take Alfred to the bunker. Lucius will be there waiting for you.
I can tell from the expression on his face that Tim wants to say something in the hopes of convincing me against what I’m about to do, but fortunately I notice Alfred shaking his head in the corner of my eye. Signalling to Tim that it’s a losing battle. My mind is made. With that, Tim escorts Alfred down to the Batmobile loading bay as Talia walks up to me slowly, clearly unaware with what’s about to transpire.
TG: Are you alright, beloved?
BW: I don’t know. I really don’t want to do this. But I have no choice. It’s what they would have wanted me to do if they were in my position.
TG: Who’s they, Bruce?
BW: My parents.
With that I turn to face the staircase leading up to the clock entrance that leads from the cave to the house.
BW: Come on. We don’t have much time to waste.
TG: You’re nervous.
BW: Yes. I am.
TG: Why?
BW: Because it's something I never wanted to do. You’re about to find out why.
As Talia and I begin to climb the stairs out of the cave, I can’t help but feel a rush of emotions for what may well be my last time in this cave. Part of me wishes that my final time in the cave would be one of joy, and happiness. Reminiscing on my years in Gotham. I always thought I’d die down here, fighting the war I committed myself to back in Crime Alley all those years ago. But instead, I have to walk a different path.
I’m just sorry that it had to be this path. Hopefully Mother and Father will one day forgive me for what I must do.
END OF VOLUME 4 PROLOGUE